Chapter 80. Hurried footsteps

Hurried footsteps were quickly approaching Seth from the opposite direction. Seth started to panic. “Were there more people? How did they get over there so fast? Am I trapped?” Tons of questions like that circled his mind as he hid himself behind an enormous tree.

“Seth!”

The voice quickly called out to him. It was a familiar voice, a voice he’s heard many times every day. He wanted to reply instantly, but quickly kept himself hidden, he was being pursued by those robed individuals and now, Michael magically appeared after they were closely behind him? It was too much of a coincidence. He knew those robed individuals had illusions, if they could create more illusory robes why couldn’t they make Michael too?

“Seth, it’s me, I know you’re around here, where are you?” Michael called out as he hurried around the forested area looking for Seth. “Seth, listen to me, all of this is—”

“There you are.” A calm voice spoke up directly behind Seth.

“Crap!” Seth inwardly exclaimed as the green robed individual instantly placed a palm over his mouth. He couldn’t make a sound as his body was being dragged away.

Michael furrowed his brows as he ran around the area Seth was last seen, “Seth! Listen to me! This whole thing is Boss’ wicked training! They’re not real!” He shouted again, hoping Seth would show himself. However, it was too quiet, the whole entire forest was completely devoid of a single sound. Only his own footsteps could be heard as he blindly ran around.

“Shit, Boss must’ve done something to him!” Michael muttered and quickly ran towards where he last saw those robed individuals in Boss’ portal.

“You didn’t hurt him, did you K2?” A purple robed individual spoke up as Seth was quickly tossed down before him. “Hey there young man, we were looking everywhere for you.” The purple robed individual reached his hand out waiting for Seth to grab on.

Seth warily looked up at the robed individual and quickly got up by himself. He was now completely confused, he thought these five were the same ones who they had fought yesterday, but on closer inspections, their robes were completely different than the ones he had seen yesterday. There was…floral patterns on them.

The purple robed man removed his hood and a kindly looking old man with Blue hair and cyan eyes looked down at him. “Hello there, young man. Sorry if we scared ya, but we don’t have much time to explain to you. I don’t know how you got here, but we need to leave quickly. We’re in its hunting grounds.” The old man spoke up.

“Hunting grounds?” Seth asked.

“This forest is home to a shapeshifting monster. Have you noticed that there is no sound at all within this forest? Where did all the creatures go?” The kindly old man’s words quickly caught Seth’s attention. He realized that what the old man had said was true, there was no sound of any living creature in this forest at all.

“The monster can read your mind and shapeshift into the people you’ve most recently made contact with.” The kindly old man answered. “Did you see or heard anyone you’re familiar with in this forest?” The purple robed man spoke.

“I heard the creature calling out his name, you’re Seth, right?” K2 spoke up and asked. “I’m Kay Two by the way.” The green robed individual removed his hood, he was a blue haired yellow eyed individual. “I’m glad I caught up to you in time, if I was any slower, I’m afraid that creature would’ve taken you back to it’s lair.”

Rustle rustle

The sound of footsteps could be heard quickly approaching from up ahead.

“Shit, quickly put on this robe. It’ll stop the mind reading.” Kay Two quickly tossed Seth a green robe which he quickly put on.

Rustle rustle

“We’ve got to go now!” The kindly old man and Kay Two quickly covered their faces and turned to run. They quickly pulled on Seth’s hand and pulled him along with them.

“Seth!” Michael shouted the moment he caught up.

“Your hood, hurry!” Seth quickly covered his head at Kay Two’s command and quickly ran.

“Seth! Listen to me—” Michael shouted as he saw Seth put on his hood.

“Never! You shapeshifting monster!” Kay Two interrupted and shouted as they ran away. “You can’t fool him no longer! We will come back to kill you and the destroy the portal from whence you came! Be prepared!”

Michael slowed his steps as Seth and the five robed individuals quickly disappeared from view within the forest.

“Shapeshifting monster?” Michael muttered curiously as he looked ahead as his footsteps slowed to a sputter. “Destroy my portal…? Oh no!” Michael quickly realized what Boss had done and chased after them. “I’ve got to find Seth and get him out of here, quickly!”

“Whew, we’ve made it out of there.” Kay Two spoke up as the six of them slowly walked to the perimeter of the forest. A wooden log cabin two stories tall appeared before everyone’s eyes.

“Where are we?” Seth asked as he looked around, they were still in the middle of the forest, yet Kay Two said they’ve made it out.

“This is our cabin, we’ve been staying here while we try to get rid of the shapeshifting bastard.” Kay Two answered. “It was extremely difficult for us, but now thanks to you we should be able to kill it and destroy the portal it came through.”

“Thanks to me? What did I do?” Seth asked.

“Let’s go inside first.” The voice of the kindly old man stated as he walked indoors. The moment Seth walked in he could see clearly for the first time the face of the five individuals before him. They were all kindly looking old men with various different hair colors of the Orthodox powers. In fact, if he wasn’t mistaken all five of them sort of resembles Gran in appearance.

“I’m Philip Syx.” The Blue haired, yellow eye kindly old man stated. “These here are my fellow companions, Kay Two, Primordius Ayte, Kavalier Won and Pox Five-high.” Philip Syx introduced each individual to Seth.

Kay had blue hair and magenta eyes, Primordius had Green hair, Kavalier had red, and Pox had cyan eyes.

“I can see that you find our names strange, but that’s how we came to befriend each other. Ahaha, I’m P6 for short, he’s K2, P8, K1, and P5.” Philip quickly shortened the names of the five causing Seth to awkwardly nod his head in understanding. He noticed the cyan eyes on P6 and quickly realized that the kindly old man understood his emotional state.

“Anyways, let’s get straight to the point, the reason we’re thanking you is that the shapeshifter before you arrived took the form of our wife.” P6 quickly started talking about the shapeshifter. “But, once it changes form it is stuck on that form until it reads another person’s mind.”

Seth nodded his head in understanding. “So that’s it took the form of someone I know, to get to me.”

The five nodded their head. However, Seth furrowed his brows as he thought of it. “Wait, if the shapeshifter can only change it’s appearance once, why did you five have such a hard time, shouldn’t only one of you be unwilling to kill your wife?” Seth question caused the five to quickly pull out a photo.

“Here’s our wife.” The five handed the photo to Seth who was immediately flabbergasted at sight. Each woman in the photo looked exactly like the other, in fact he couldn’t tell them apart at all! Five women, each looked exactly like Roselyn, the only difference was that their hair was brown!

“Our friendship also stemmed along from the fact that the woman we all married were—”

“The same woman?” Seth interrupted and asked.

“Heavens no, they’re identical quintuplets.” P6 quickly corrected.

“I see.” Seth rubbed the scar running down the right side of his face and nodded, understanding why the five were incapable of killing the shapeshifter. Five similar looking guys who all married identical quintuplets sisters. The shapeshifter instantly took form of their wife which made them hesitant on killing it.

“That’s right, but now thanks to you, it’s going to look like Michael. So, we just need to put on our robes and be able to kill it now.” P6 answered. “You just have to remember that it is a shapeshifting monster, and not your friend.”

Seth nodded his head, “I understand.” He continued to ask. “What about the portal? Where is that?”

K1 pulled out a map and pointed at a location deeper in the forest an X marked the spot of where the portal was. “We believe the portal is in that cave where the creature resides, we’ve been tailing it for the past month and realized that it always go back to this area here.”

“How strong is the monster?” Seth asked.

“Beyond your wildest imagination, us five can barely deal with it, we don’t expect you to fight it at all, just make sure to avoid it and don’t fall for anything it might say to you.”

Seth nodded his head. “I see, when do we begin?”

“Soon, we can’t let the monster realize that we’re willing to kill it now.” P8 interrupted and answered.

“That’ll be the best choice.” Pox added.

“Is there anywhere I can relieve myself?” Seth asked as he looked around the log cabin.

“It’ll have to be outdoors unfortunately.” P6 answered.

“I’ll be right back.” Seth slowly walked out of the cabin.

Two minutes passed by within the cabin.

“He’s taking quite a while to pee, no?” K2 looked towards the other four within the cabin.

“Maybe he has to do his business too?” K1 asked.

“…”

The five individuals within the cabin squinted their eyes as they glanced at each other. Their expressions dark as they realized that Seth had ran away. “Your acting sucks!” P5 exclaimed at them.

“Our acting sucks!? You didn’t even say much!” P8 exclaimed.

“What!? I can say at lot with just a few words!” P5 retorted.

“Shut up, shut up, all of you shut up!” P6 shouted. “Let’s go chase after them!”

“Wait, why do we even have to? We’re just manifestations for training.” K2 asked.

“You’re right! Maybe we should just relax and let them escape?” K1 agreed.

“We’re just bickering to give them time!” P6 shouted. “This is just Boss putting words in our mouth!”

“Yeah!” The other four exclaimed in unison.

“Did we give them enough time?” K2 asked.

The five quickly looked back down on the map. Locations of Seth and Michael appeared before their eyes. “They’re getting close to each other, let’s go after them.”

The five of them began stretching their arms and legs as they nonchalantly got up and walked out of the door.

Both K2 and P6 hopped up and down a few times before a gust of wind blasted off as both of them disappeared into the forest.

“Michael! We’ve got to run!” Seth ran up to Michael who was running towards him. “Quickly, there’s no time!” Michael nodded his head and hurried after Seth.

Michael looked over at Seth who was running away furiously. “I’m guessing you figured it out. Do you know where the portal is!?”

Seth nodded his head, “It’s in a cave, but we’ve got to quickly get out of here, I’ve been gone for ten minutes, they should’ve figured it out by now.”

“How did you figure they weren’t real?”

“They all looked exactly like Chief Gran, except with different powers!” Seth exclaimed. He continued to say “All their wives were Roselyn, Quintuplet sisters all looking exactly like Roselyn!? I couldn’t believe it!”

They continued to run further through the forest, their steps gave away no traces that they were secretive in what they were doing. “But I finally realized it when one of them said your name, I never mentioned your name at all!”

A trail of dust clouds roared up into the skies as it quickly approached them from behind.

Crack, boom, boom!

Trees left and right were collapsing under the power K2’s telekinetic powers. They were blatantly informing the two young men in front how close they were.

“There’s the cave!” Seth quickly noticed the cave within the location turned towards it. The two quickly rushed inside only to see an enormous cavern within, a hollow world hundreds of meters below teeming with luscious greenery and flora. The two = noticed a pathway on the side of the cavern and quickly rushed down.

Less than a minute later two silhouettes arrived outside of the cave as they casually strolled in.

“Oooh, I wonder where the portal is?” K2 remarked as he gazed around the enormous cave. “Oh? I see them!” His gaze was directed at the two who were running down below. He quickly noticed a few enormous boulders the of various sizes, the smallest being the height of an average adult.

“Let’s see if they can make it down there safely.” He quickly lifted one of the boulders with his telekinesis and flung it directly at the two silhouettes.

“Dodge!” Michael exclaimed as he noticed the boulder hurling straight at them. The two sped up barely dodging the boulder that lodged itself into the side of the cavern.

“Is Boss trying to kill us!?” Seth exclaimed.

“Maybe, I don’t know!” Michael replied.

“Oh? They dodged it not bad.” K2 remarked as he looked around for another boulder of his liking. “Oooh, that’s a pretty round one.” K2 lifted the boulder and moved it towards the top of the steps. A gentle push triggered it to cascade downwards towards the two.

“Oh shit, oh shit!” The two turned around only to see an enormous round boulder rolling straight at them. They raced down the steps running straight ahead towards a small entrance ahead. “Duck!” The two exclaimed as they got close, they quickly made it inside.

Boom!

The boulder collided with the small entrance, breaking it completely as it lodged itself in.

Within the small entrance was a dark narrow pathway, only a dim light can be seen deeper within. Michael’s eyes went wide as he noticed what that light was as they kept running.

“I see the portal!” Michael exclaimed; it was the exact same portal Boss had up around him when he was watching them.

“Let’s get out of here!” The two quickly picked up speed as they finally found their goal in sight.

Footsteps continued to rush towards the cavern as the three others finally made it to K2 and P6.

“Are we late?” P5 asked.

P6 nodded his head, “Yep, looks like our training here is over.” The four of them looked down the cavern as K2 levitated the boulder blocking the narrow entrance back to where it was.

“Well, this was just a tutorial, let’s see how long they’ll last in the other two.” P8 commented. “I’ll see you guys in the other ones.”

“See you there…”

“See ya…”

The moment Seth and Michael rushed through the portal they were instantly ejected back out to the Festival grounds where the other four portals remained. Or well, two now as Seth’s and Michael’s portal had disappeared.

Michael looked around only to not see Boss anywhere.

“Give Michael back…Give him back…give him back…”

The two quickly heard Julie’s voice coming from within her portal. She was weakly pounding at the five robed individuals before her who was unmoving the entire time. The Seth, Arthur and Shelly within there could only shake their heads as they stood there.

“Julie…” Michael muttered as he looked inside Julie’s portal. “I’m coming.”

Michael’s body slowly disappeared into the portal. Seth looked over to Arthur’s portal and looked inside.

“Dodge! Good! Block. Good~! Dodge and then block. Good~! Keep it up!” The childish green robed individual instructed.

“Yes!” Arthur smiled in reply.

After deliberating for a short moment Seth followed after Michael.