Chapter 377: Surprise attack on Twigs Blue Crossing.

Candy’s lips curved into an evil smug smile. She wished she could kill Job, simply because he was Zyra’s uncle. Surely, his death would cause that wretch pain in some way!

"I bet you are looking for Zyra just so you can save her after all she is your family. You do not even care that she is a murderer!" She looked at him with hatred. "Let’s just kill him. It can’t be a coincidence that Zyra Scorpion is in the Wild lands at the same time as her uncle. He must be running one of her departments."

Job’s face twisted as if he had just swallowed a bitter gourd. "Have you not been listening to me at all, young lady!" he yelled, veins bulging on his forehead. "I am not close to her at all! You lived in Myrtle city, why do you think Samuel Frood raised the Scorpion siblings instead of me? It is because I and her family do not get along. I was not on good terms with their mother Zena, so naturally, I don’t get along with her children as well."

"Then why on earth are you looking for her?" Candy asked, her eyes narrowing. "Your answer should satisfy us or else, we will slay you like we have done your half-life beast."

Job swallowed hard, his throat bobbing up and down. He hesitated on which was a mistake. Between crossing the mayor and this group, which was worse?

The icy cold edge of a blade pressed tighter against his neck. The guard holding it didn’t say a word, but the message was loud and clear: Speak now, or your head leaves your shoulders.

Beside him, Sheila felt a matching blade digging into her own skin. Panic instantly threw her loyalty out the window. At this moment, her life mattered more than the energy stones the mayor was paying them. At the end of the day, you needed to be alive you spend them.

"The Mayor sent us here," she blurted out, her voice cracking. "The Mayor made us look for her!"

Candy arched a brow. "The mayor? As in Mayor Logan who controls Concordia?"

"Yes!" Job squeaked, nodding so fast his chin almost scraped the blade. Since Sheila had spilled, he had no need to hold back. If they survived, and the mayor sought someone to blame, Candy would be it. "Look, if you just let us go, we will abandon the job and leave quietly. Right now! You’ll never see us again."

"Yeah!" Sheila squealed, tears leaking from her eyes. "Whatever the Mayor is paying us is not worth losing our lives over! Take the girl if you find her, take the money in the bags if you want, just let us live!"

Candy smirked, completely ignoring Sheila’s desperate pleading. She turned to Job. "I don’t buy it Mr. Scorpion. There’s no way you and Zyra are estranged, you always said she was the pride of the Ophira Clan. The only reason you did not take them in is because the grand elder intervened. I refuse to believe that she does not care about you at all. We can use you as bait to make her surrender." Then, with the casual tone of someone ordering lunch, Candy pointed a manicured finger at Sheila. "Kill her. She’s useless."

Sheila’s eyes went wide. "Wait, what!?"

Driven by pure survival instinct, Sheila slammed her elbow backward into the guard’s ribs. The man grunted, but instead of slipping, his grip turned to iron. "Stupid bitch," he growled.

He yanked her back and shoved the heavy knife deep into her throat. Sheila choked once, her hands wildly clawing at the air, before collapsing onto the dirt. Blood pool spread quickly around her twitching body. The guard spat on her corpse, wiped his blade on his pants, and muttered, "Fool."

Job felt his soul almost jump out of his body. Out of the big entire Zyra search team they started out with, he was the only one left alive! I should have quite when Ocean and Garret were killed.

As the guards roughly dragged him away by his collar, Job closed his eyes and prayed to every god he had ever heard of. Maybe if they find Zyra_ maybe she’ll feel a tiny bit of family affection and trade herself for me? Please, niece, save your dear old uncle.

A sudden, heavy thrumming of wings disturbed the air above them.

"Is that a transport bird?" a guard asked, squinting up.

"No." another replied, raising his lantern. "Transport birds don’t flap that fast. Or sound that heavy."

The sky was still pitch black, making it impossible to see what was coming, but every soldier in Twig’s Blue Crossing instantly drew their swords or raised their guns, aiming blindly at the clouds.

Then, the sky opened up. It wasn’t water that fell, but a slimy, extremely cold sludge.

"Rain!?" someone asked, in a confused voice.

Suddenly, a massive, double-headed creature appeared. It was a drake, with a second head of a snake! It was the most abominable creature they had ever seen, perhaps.

"What kind of beast is that!" someone whispered.

Before the answer could come, the snake spat a mist from its mouth. Small drops of water fell down. As they touched skin, soldiers fell to the ground like sack of potatoes.

"Take cover! Take cover!" a commander roared, frantically waving his sword until a glob of venom hit his shield, melting the metal in seconds. "Shoot it down!"

"What the fuck is that?" Candy gasped, her icy composure shattering.

She took cover behind Job, using him as a shield against the falling venom, until she reached the nearest trees and shoved him away. Job tumbled into the dirt, gasping for breath. "Untie me! Please! I don’t want to die here!" Hee begged in a soft voice.

Nobody cared. Everyone was running for their lives, screaming as the sky rained poison.

Before the Sanctum troops could even draw their heavyweight weapons, a deafening mechanical roar blasted through the tree line. Heavy, beast-drawn armored trucks crashed right through the wooden palisades of Twig’s Blue Crossing.

"Neutralize all targets!" a fierce female voice bellowed through the comms.

On the roof of the leading truck stood Zyra herself, a rocket launcher resting on her shoulders. "Fire!"

The heavy trucks launched a barrage of explosive missiles directly into the middle of the Sanctum camp. Buildings exploded into splinters, tents caught fire, and Sanctum troops were tossed into the air like rag dolls.

Up above, two half-life beasts_ giant eagles, tried to dive-bomb the armored trucks.

"Not today, mutts!" Bullet shouted from where he was standing at the top of another truck. A volley of rapid bullets coated in Spice’s poison pierced the creatures’ chests. The beasts shrieked, lost control, and crashed hard into the Sanctum armory, triggering a second massive explosion.

Ground troops from Zyra’s team leaped out of the moving trucks, wielding rifles and systematically wiping out any Sanctum soldier that was still standing.