“Lulu! Are you okay?!” Mathros called out, having watched the bunny girl crash into one of the five massive tree trunks surrounding the area.

  “I’m… fine…”

  “!”

  A cold breeze swept away the cloud of dust surrounding her. Lulu walked out of it, brushing the blood from her nose with one hand, and dapping her perfume bottle at herself with the other hand.

  “What is the plan here? We have recovered our Systems now.” Carmella stood up from behind the lizardman, rubbing her wrists and holding the rope that was tying her a second ago.

  “How did you-?”

  “Oh honey, you think this is the first rope I've dealt with? Maybe I would have kept them if it was him…” Returning Mathros’ puzzled look with a soft snicker and a side eye, Carmella turned back to her old patron, still charging up his powers. “Where is the strongest out of you? I don’t know what he’s planning, but if it’s for his sake, I’ll help.”

  “No one is asking for your help, tramp! You’ll die along with this brute!” Lulu clicked her tongue and dug her feet in the ground, the muscles on her thighs quickly stretching the limit of her furry skin.

  “Little bunny, you have no idea what you’re up against here…” The elegantly dressed lady fixed her hair, then brought two fingers to her red glistening lips. After tracing them, she blew a seductive kiss towards her former patron.

  A red imprint of lips shot out like a bullet from her and aimed straight for Henry.

  “?!”

  “Don’t underestimate him! He’s ranked up-”

  “First, I’ll make you submit again.”

  Suddenly glowing golden, Henry shifted backwards away from the flying lips imprint, then finally raised his arm forward. The air between his fingers stretched and tightened, his burly grip continuously closing into a fist.

  “Urghhh! Stop…him!”

  Even from a distance, Carmella fell to her bare knees, tightly wrapping her arms around her torso as if smothering herself.

  “That’s your punishment for breaking your loyalty.” Henry let out, shifting his eyes around him.

  The bunny girl sprang toward him from one side, while the lizardman summoned his slingshot, which doubled as a pointy cross knuckle, from the other side.

  “Get them.”

  “!!”

  In an instant, the four headless corpses intercepted both Dreamers. Wasting no time, Henry opened his arms wide, a red glow enveloping him now. For some reason, even his tie had changed colors again, matching the outline around him.

  The first time the change happened, Mathros had seen it clearly. The tie had turned from black to golden. Before he knew it, some kind of wallet had dropped from the bulky man, opening its maw wide enough to swallow the four heads laying around his feet. Then, a moment later, that same wallet expanded suddenly, stretching the fabric it was made out of as golden coins overflowed from it.

  It had all happened in a blink of an eye before Carmella had attempted to attack him, and now, Henry was charging up some kind of attack again while letting his dead henchmen deal with his enemies.

  “Seismic Stomp!”

  DOOMPPPHH!!

  “It’s no use! They keep getting back up!” Mathros called out, having shot the two henchmen coming at him with his trusty slingshot.

  The moment he hit the targeted weak spots in his opponents’ legs, rendering them temporarily paralyzed, he followed up with a stab to the heart after they fell down. However, if they could move without heads, damaging their hearts wouldn’t stop them either.

  They rose back up once more, even with the bunny girl’s bone-breaking kicks.

  “Shit, I’ll push them back with wind! Lead them to me!”

  “Do it quick!”

  Following his lead, Lulu hopped over the grinning CEO, the cold winds guiding her as she landed between Mathros and his two henchmen. Before long, the two following her had mindlessly joined the other headless corpses.

  “Watch out! Wind’s Blessing!” The lizardman cried out, extending both arms forward and summoning a tornado of wind around the corpses.

  More and more of the swamp’s air swayed in the opposite direction, following a new, yet natural current. The accumulation swept the four corpses off their feet, joining the swirling winds in their rotation.

  “Agil Footing! Boundless Momentum!”

  Lulu had jumped to the side just in time, picking up speed again towards the main enemy in the middle. Then, she jumped with her feet in front of her, aiming a dropkick at Henry. Except, it wasn’t just a normal dropkick this time around.

  “Seismic Stomp!”

  THUD!

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “?!”

  Barely batting an eye, Henry created a flickering shield of light in front of him, as if made entirely of transparent cold coins.

  CLASHHH!!

  The bunny girl’s strongest attack hit it, only for all the resulting tremors and shockwaves to be fully absorbed, rendering her strength completely void.

  Then, from within the shield, a muscular arm reached out and grabbed onto Lulu’s left foot.

  “There was a guy back at the fort boasting about having a rabbit’s foot…” Henry snorted, an evil grin forming on his lips behind the disappearing shield. “Now I can have one of my own.”

  “Let. Me. Go!!” Lulu made use of her other foot, repeatedly kicking him in the face while being held upside down in front of the man.

  “What a jackpot, you even smell so nice! You know how unusual that is in this swamp?” The bulky man tanked all the kicks, the red aura around his body glowing like a never-ending flame. “Would your foot retain that smell too, I wonder? Or I guess, in your case, it would be more of a toe? I can’t carry your entire foot in my pocket after all.”

  “Shut the hell up, moron! What kind of freak are you?!” Lulu gave up on kicking and tried to free her foot from his grip instead. However, no matter how much she pulled, none of his fingers would even budge.

  “What? You haven’t heard of it? Back in my world, a rabbit’s foot symbolizes good luck!” Henry snickered, bringing the desperate bunny girl closer to his face.

  “Go to hell!” She spit in his eyes, her gaze sharp as a dagger.

  “Well, in your case at least…”

  Simply brushing away the spit with his sleeve, he turned around, allowing the bunny girl to look at her companion.

  “Mathros! Help! What are you-?!”

  Lulu’s pupils quickly constricted.

  Carmella was on the floor, wheezing in pain as she repeatedly tried to use some sort of skill, only for it to fail again.

  And not far from her, the lizardman stood shivering in place, his tornado already dispersed and the four headless henchmen were back to charging at him.

  However, what had caused his shock hadn’t been any of those turn of events, but the newly arrived black dogs that covered all possible entrances and exits around the area, their numbers uncertain.

  The canines were much bigger than any four-legged dog he had ever seen, but that wasn’t quite the most unusual aspect about their appearance. No, it was the countless crimson eyes painting their faces.

  Their black skin repeatedly detached, as if melting away to join the dripping saliva seeping out from between the jagged and pointy fangs.

  “This… is this what you were doing earlier?!” Lulu blurted out, connecting the dots.

  “Hey, you’re pretty smart for a dumb rabbit! You just might be worth the investment!” Henry scoffed sarcastically. He pulled out his wallet, its maw opening up and closing repeatedly in anticipation.

  “Mathros! Move!” The bunny girl shouted.

  However, it wasn’t that the lizardman couldn’t move, it was simply that he had stopped trying because…

  “I can’t… hit them…!”

  “What?! Why not?!”

  “It’s… a Restriction!”

  “?!”

  “Hahaha! Oh man!” Henry burst out laughing, supporting his stomach with his free hand. His wallet had moved on its own, jumping to his shoulder and making its way across to the other arm still holding the bunny girl upside down. “Are you serious? I pulled the closest Nightmare Creatures, enforcing their loyalty, only for them to be based on one of your active fears?! Hahaha! That’s too much! I’m not even wearing my gold tie!”

  It was a completely desperate situation.

  Mathros was locked between the henchmen and the new Specters, along with a Restriction to miss and fail at any attempt he would try. The thought alone made the heat rush to his head, sweat quickly beginning to run down his cheeks.

  Carmella was still on the floor, all her attempts to resist a forced silent punishment for breaking her loyalties were failing. Her body was beginning to convulse in place, her bones beginning to audibly crack.

  Lulu was being held upside down, failing at freeing herself or damaging the enemy at leg’s length. On top of that, she was about to get fed to a weird pocket patch with teeth. The situation was almost a reenactment of her childhood trauma, enforcing a shivering across her body which made even her teeth clatter.

  “Well, in the end, it all worked out. I lost the clingy Carmella, but plenty of fish in the sea, as they say.” Henry chuckled to himself. “There is still that weakling though, where is he at? Didn’t he make a big show of it earlier? Did he really run away and leave you all here to die?”

  “Screw you! You’re dead!”

  “I’ve had enough of you, dumb rabbit. Turn into resources I can use!”

  “Damn you-!”

  “?!”

  Just as the wallet sprang forward to bite on the Lopinor girl, it got swept away in midair.

  “Caaw!”

  “Fala! Finally!” The light suddenly returned to Lulu’s eyes, glimpsing the oversized black bird.

  “Hiss!”

  The clothed crow flew away, dropping the wallet far into the woods. At the same time, Naga announced her presence, wrapping herself around the bulky guy’s entire body and squeezing it tight. Not just that, she summoned more of her clones to join her.

  “What the…?! This thing is actually…!” Henry rushed to take off the serpents putting pressure on his body, enough to restrict his movements and free the bunny girl in the process. “How…?!”

  “Somnu…?!”

  Landing on her feet, Lulu looked around, searching for her remaining party member now that his familiars were here. Her heartbeat was still on the rise as she darted her head around, but all she saw were the countless crow and serpent clones locked in a vicious battle with the black dogs surrounding everyone.

  “I don’t see him either!” Rejoining the fray to support the familiars, Mathros called out after meeting the bunny girl’s shaking eyes.

  “!” As her rabbit ears twitched slightly, she turned her head once more and finally saw him.

  Clenching his two violet sickles tightly, he struggled to move forward, every step heavy and slow like a corpse being commanded from across the veil. Grudgekeeper was covering his body again, the fresh blood stains clear on its fabric as its maw stretched and hovered around its master’s head.

  Even so, Somnu continued to make his way to the trembling Carmella, the white foam beginning to run down her neck.

  “You… what happened to you?!”

  However, looking closer, Lulu finally noticed the source of her unease, and the reason for the sudden shift in the chilling winds. Her heart skipped a beat at the horrific, dreadful sight in front of her.

  Somnu’s eye sockets were replaced with two deep holes, bleeding out like overflowing tears of crimson.

  The scarecrow strained his bloodied lips to stretch into a faint smile despite the agonizing pain invading his own battered, tired nerves.

  “I’m fine…”