"Ivan, that must be him" said the Doxon Lady who Jelena had identified as Elora.

Ivan remained silent and was merely eyeing Hal with scrutiny,

"Yes, it must be." Artyom said with a nod and a frown.

"The rumors don't do his looks justice." Elora said and licked her lips.

Artyom seemed disgusted by this for a few seconds before he shook his head and said,

"But he's surely not a Doxon"

Ivan turned to him,

"Oh, You really think so?" He asked.

Artyom scoffed,

"Great in numbers as Doxons might be, I believe I can recognize a member when I see one" he said with smug confidence.

"Oh really now? Why don't you take a closer look and tell me who his face reminds you of? It shouldn't take that long, it's a face that constantly haunts us and our development and position in the family" Ivan said with a sigh.

This time, Artyom did indeed take a closer look and so did Elora before the eyes of the two widened.

The resemblance might be minimal but it was surely there.

Even then, they could only deny it.

"No way. The Duchess doesn't have a child" Elora said with a shake of her head.

"That we know of" Ivan corrected her.

Anyway,

Embry was nodding to Hal's words,

"Indeed human. You have spoken well. I was indeed interrupted. What I was going to say was that you can all die fighting each other." Said the Gardener.

"Well, that's a new approach to the usual." Cheslav said quietly and Embry heard,

"Indeed it is. The fog that chased you all here was simply guiding you to the center of the Garden. It was guiding you here." He said.

"Impossible. We were close to the center before the fog chased us away from there and over here" said one of those in the party of the one who had been killed with a spike.

They were the ones most disappointed by the lack of effect of the conjoined attacks.

"Oh? If that's the case, then the fog merely chased you to run around in circles to eventually arrive here. For this is the center" Embry said in a nonchalant voice.

"That's... Not possible. This looks nothing like where we were before" said another one from that same party.

Embry eyed the one who had spoken for a while before then saying in a patient voice,

"Well, that means you were mistaken before and headed in the wrong direction. For this is the center"

"No, my sense of direction has never once failed me" the speaker insisted.

Embry smiled nastily,

"Well, why not enlighten us as to which side of the garden we are in right now?"

"West" the speaker announced confidently.

"Really?" Embry asked still with a nasty smile,

"No, it's East. I mean south or maybe... North?" The more the speaker attempted to pinpoint, the more confused they became.

Embry's nasty smile remained,

"Well, clearly you can no longer identify your bearings for some reason so I will tell you again, we are at the center of the Garden."

"The fog" Hal mumbled, remembering the brief loss of direction he had felt when the fog first rolled over.

Embry continued,

"So, this is where the fruit you all want so desperately is in. Right underneath the hill I am now standing on. I have covered it up so that it will not distract from the proceedings"

"What proceedings?" Boryan asked and by turned to him with a smile,

"Well, for the battle royale, of course" Embry said with a bright smile.

"Battle royale?" Chorused many in the crowd and Embry nodded,

"Oh yes. I would love to kill you all and it would be so much fun to do so but it will be even more fun to watch you all kill one another.

All for a piece of fruit.

It's very amusing to think about.

Group yourselves or fight individually if you wish, it's your choice.

Of course, you can decide not to participate. In which case I will simply kill you all regardless.

At least this way, by which I mean the Royale, I let some of you leave with the fruit" he said.

Elora sneered,

"Like anyone will believe you. After you just said you won't be lenient anymore.

If you won't be lenient, then why not just kill us regardless. What's the point of giving us a chance to survive?

Clearly, you're going to kill the survivors anyway"

"Perhaps..." Embry said with a smile.

Hal's eyes widened and he closed one hand each on Amelia and Karmen's hands beside him before leaping back and pulling them with him.

Not a moment too soon for three spikes rose where they had been standing before and would have skewered them had he not moved away in time.

Others... were not so lucky or attentive and all around, there were at least a hundred victims, male and female all skewered on purple spikes.

Interestingly,

The area Elora was in was completely spike-free despite it being her loose tongue that had caused all this.

Embry looked over at Hal, Amelia, and Karmen,

"Some of you escaped. I must be getting slower." He said with a nasty smile and then two fists made up of what seemed to be the grey fog that had chased them all here, appeared on either side of someone else's and...

*Bam!*

... It smashed and crushed said person's head before they could attempt a defense with Cosmic energy.

Hal and his ladies were glaring at Elora who gulped at the display,

"Oops" she said with a halfhearted and nervous smile.

It seemed to have finally sunk in that this Gardener was not playing around,

That said, there was someone else who could still speak,

"You can't get away with this. Killing this many members of prestigious families will only bring trouble. You might be able to do as you wish with youngsters who are weaker than you as we are but you will not be able to handle it when Semi-saints come knocking"

The speaker's voice was shaky but determined to tell this murderous mad man what was up.

However, there was no fear in Embry's eyes as he said,

"Let them come"

Then to Elora, he said,

"You see miss, I can do whatever I want and It is talk like that that will get you all to die even faster. Speaking of which, if someone doesn't kick start this battle royale with a kill soon, I will get very, very impatient."

As soon as he said this, Purple spikes materialized in mid-air and looked ready to launch at the next set of victims.

"What the hell have we gotten ourselves into?" Someone asked in a low voice.

Yeah, they had all been prepared for perils and even those back home knew there were sure to be victims and those who would not return alive but they saw this as a teaching moment.

That said, there was no way they would expect the outcome of this little outing for the primal fruit.

No way could they have been prepared for the sheer number of casualties.

"Ivan, do we use it now?" Artyom asked.

"This is new territory, Artyom. We planned for traps and chaos, not for a gardener who has never been heard of before today. That seal is our trump card. I would rather not use it now"

"So what do we do?" Artyom asked.

"We wait..." Ivan began but was quickly interrupted by a scream of pain.

"Arrgghhh"

The scream called everyone's direction to a young man with eyes filled with battle lust who had just cut someone down with multiple strikes from his two daggers-connected-with-a-chain cosmic Armament and went on to attempt to slit the throat of a lady who acted quickly to leap back.

Her leap saved her and she sent a cosmic attack to Bray Kruger who cut through it with his daggers and sent a cosmic attack of his own that knocked her back and into a spike in mid-air.

The spike stabbed through the lady's back end out the front.

However, it had been more on her side and while it bled profusely, she was still alive.

Bray did not spare her a second look,

"You can all keep talking and mumbling all you want, but the Kruger family group will be the ones to survive this Battle royale. Come on Brad, let's cut stuff"

The one who must have been Brad frowned,

"If it's survival of the fittest, then we indeed should 'cut stuff' you crazy Battle loving fool. But didn't give me orders, I'm older and wiser than you"

Bray burst out laughing and the chaos began in full swing.

He and his Kruger family group kick-started the battle royale and things were about to get incredibly crazy.

Before going into battle, many had fired their signal flares which were to alert their families that they were in danger.

On a norm, communication devices don't work well in the Garden of Peril and the situation was even worse now.

So the fares were their best option to call for reinforcements.

Alas, Embry saw to it that the flares never showed up above the garden skies.

"Master, what do we do?" Karmen asked as she summoned her Cosmic Armament and eyed the Antonov brothers who seemed to be readying themselves for battle.

Hal reached out to Karmen and Amelia telepathically,

'This is not the center of the garden. That purple freak just wants us to think so. Which means we are running. Let everyone bash each other up while we get the fruit and get the hell out of here'