Though the second star was safe and the process of death was complete to bring her back in a nick of time to send her soul back to the land of the living where Penelope's body was, had only opened a can of worms as the shield he had placed on him had been dropped where any and every death reaper could see him.

It wasn't the lower reapers but Lucas knew that once he had contacted Basilia, the Grims would have got the information about where he was. Returning back to the land of the living from the place of nowhere which was in between the living and the dead, he now heard the howls of hellhounds coming closer and closer as if they had smelled him and couldn't wait to drag him back to their Grim reapers.

He noticed Damien had returned back to his senses as he had taken every single drop of blood from Penelope's body and Lucas quickly walked towards the girl. Placing a hand on the girl, he replenished the blood that she had lost so that it could get her soul working again.

"Awoooooo!" came the sound of hellhound and Lucas didn't wait too long to play with the hellhounds but the problem was that some of the hellhounds could track his reapers scent from one land to another. It was how lost souls were mostly turned to the land of the dead by the Grims.

If Lucas was going to disappear from here, the hellhounds would soon follow to the Adams' residence. Therefore he started to use his feet to get away from the couple who were still in the forest. Lucas ' feet left no footprint behind but that didn't stop the hellhounds from following him.

"Look who we have here," came a whispered voice and Lucas finally halted his feet from running further. From the dark corners of the forest and the shadows that were part of the trees started to move where the lowly death reapers stepped out from their slumber and hiding.

Another reaper stepped out from the side, the cloaked figure walking towards the first one that was in front of Lucas. Three more reapers appeared, making it a total of five death reapers who pulled out their scythes that looked rusty and old.

"We were hoping you would come here," said one of the death reapers.

Lucas was still in his mortal form and he looked at each and every one of them. They were all low-level death reapers, the kind he wouldn't bother to get involved with but he had been spotted, "What for?" asked Lucas, "Trying to welcome me?"

The death reaper turned to look at one hell hound that appeared next to him and he patted its head. Since when did the death reapers start having hellhound? Asked Lucas to himself.

"We will welcome you if you come with us to the land of the dead. What do you say?" asked the reaper who was rubbing the head of the hellhound before letting it go.

"I am not in the mood to visit the land of the dead now. You see, I visited last week. I will pass," replied Lucas.

One of them got ready with the scythe, coming forward to attack Lucas but the thirteenth Grim reaper took hold of the reaper by its sleeve and boney hands, pulling forward to push down and knocked its head twice with his knee. He then turned the head of the reaper that rotated four times before the reaper had to catch hold of his head to stop its head rotating.

"We cannot let you go. You have the second-highest bounty that is placed in the land of the dead," said another reaper.

"How much is that?" asked Lucas, his voice utterly bored. He wanted to leave Valeria but he would have to deal with these things so that they wouldn't be a problem later.

"That is eighty thousand sickles," answered another death reaper.

The voices of the death reapers would sound almost the same for a soul but Lucas who had been in the Grim world for decades of years, he could spot the difference. They had told him, he had the second-highest bounty in the land of the dead. It made him wonder if the first one was Baltimore. After all, he was the first one to fall down from the position of the Grim of cards. But at the same time, the last time he remembered it, the discussion he had heard from the Hawverts was that they had planned to keep a bounty of ten thousand sickels on Baltimore's head which was not posted as an announcement for the dead people to hunt and bring him back.

Eighty thousand sickles were a high amount in the land of the dead and if the same amount was brought to the living, it would be triple the amount. Higher the bounty on a death reaper or Grim, the most was the demand to be hunted.

"We cannot let our money go when it's right here," said one of the death reapers.

"How did you even know I was here?" asked Lucas.

"You left the signals open for us to pick on. We would like to be the only ones to share the money. It would be difficult if others get involved," the death reaper on the extreme right side commented.

"All the best, gentlemen," Lucas bowed his head and with this action, the death reapers bowed themselves. Before they could stand up, Lucas pulled out his scythe and clashed it at the first reaper out of the five that attacked him.

Everyone came at once and Lucas started to dodge each and every attack and scythe that came close to him. Turning the scythe the other way round, he used it to hit the reapers by sending them off to crash again the tree.

"Church!" called Lucas.

One of the reapers looked confused and asked, "Did you turn religious because you know you are going to be dragged to the land of the dead and punished?"

Hearing this, Lucas had a faint smile on his lips, "I was always religious."

.

Scroll to read the next chapter...