Jabbernock gently hovered above the ground as debris surrounded him. Erna and Johnwolph stood beside me as they entered the room. "Wow, doing your job while staring at the window. That's unusual," commented Erna. Raising his arms, the general looked up and finally turned to us. Because of the wind, the only thing we saw was his silhouette and his furious eyes. "Ah, Lady Erna and . . . Johnwolph?"

"What? First time to see an old man?" Johnwolph spat, but the general only laughed at the hunter's glare.

"Well, you do love inviting people to the party do you, Vortecse? This is funny."

"Are we just gonna joke around or what?" I yelled through the noisy storm. At his back, the window tore apart and turned into shattered debris, swirling around the general's body. He rose again until he had full control of the entire roof of the cabin. "Why? Why do you have to ask him that?" Erna frowned.

We started the fight. Johnwolph shot two dynamite arrows, but Jabbernock reflected the explosions against us once the arrows almost reached him. The cabin was fully destroyed. Erna rolled and braced herself for cover, John jumped on top of a branch near the third floor of the cabin and slid down, and I jumped and landed on top of a rock. "Really?! You know he can do that," I yelled to John, but he didn't hear me as he rolled over from the collapsed cabin behind him.

"We will restore the world by rebuilding it again. He and his army will rise again!" The general growled.

"Not this time," I muttered. Reaching the mind of Giuseppe, I told him to activate the signal. Did you find him? He asked. 

Yes, and give them the signal, quickly. The general misses us for a long time, he wants to hug us by crashing our bones to bits. I bashed my shield when flaming wooden planks were spat out from the explosion. 

I'm on it, Giuseppe said. I hoped the rest of the team would be careful. The same goes for us.

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Giuseppe's perspective

If you're about to die, just give me a call, I said inside my head while picking my nose. 

He yelled, Just hurry! Jeez, someone's having a total breakdown. And that was the last time we communicated with each other telepathically. All right, it's time. I turned to Jalve to ask if the teams were in position, but he was sleeping on the ground, drooling all over. It's disgusting. 

"Jalve, wake up. How's the team?" I nudged him on the arm.

"Wha-what?" He bolted up and was now wide awake. "Oh, the team, right." He scanned through the camp from afar. Because of the icy mist, I couldn't even see them except for their silhouettes. "They're good, Mr. Star." He nodded at me.

"Well, here goes nothing." I stood and spread my arms wide. "KAKAAAHHH-KAKAAAHHH-KAKAAAAAHHH!!!!" I jumped, waving my arms as high as I could. 

"What are you doing?" Jalve gasped.

"Giving them the signal, what do you think? KAKAAAHHH!!!" I pointed out.

"That doesn't even sound like a fox," Jalve complained, but I had to get their attention.

"Jalve, check if they got the signal."

He went back to search mode while I kept making this awful sound. After a few minutes, Jalve turned to me. "They're on the move. You can stop making a fool out of yourself now." I leaned forward and held my knees, panting and taking large gulps of air. Despite the weather, sweat trickled down from my forehead to my neck. 

"Are they doing it?" I wiped my forehead with the back of my left hand. 

He replied, "Yup, they're doing it." Even without an enhanced sense of hearing, I could hear the explosions, the yells, the cries, and someone's annoying screech.

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Commander Grayson's perspective

General Jabbernock wanted to kill us so badly because he was in a rage by the time his camp was under attack- by a group of Flash warriors, that's what. Now the only thing we need to do was to keep the general at bay. "Do you think this will prevent us from continuing our plan, commander?!" I did a backflip as Jabbernock struck his fist to the ground, almost hitting my face.

With a quick puff sound from the snowball that hit his face, Jabbernock faced Erna who's carrying snowballs in her left arm and tossing it with her right. Erna threw another snowball at him with so much speed, the general couldn't see anything but snow. She avoided being impaled by the thick branches being thrown off like spears. The general expected to be thrown at the face again, but his attention was now on Johnwolph, who shot arrows at the trees behind the general. 

The trees fell toward Jabbernock after the arrows exploded, but with his magic, he caught it without a single touch, making the trees look like they could float. I threw my shield at him with enough power to strike at his chest. When the general got hit, so is his army. But damaging this general was not going to be easy.

He got up by lifting himself off the ground, spinning my shield on top of his palm, and threw it back at me. I ducked and pointed my long pistol at him. Erna and I exchanged glances. As she kicked a huge stone off the ground nearby, I got my eye on it and the bullets collided with the stone. The grey dust and the explosion caused the general to yell, covering his eyes. I turned back to her before nodding towards the explosions and the battle in the camp. "We have to get out of here! Warn the others and we're good to go." Johnwolph jumped and landed beside me. 

"Let's go to the crimson tents," I said.

"But first, we got company." We followed where Erna was looking. Behind the trees were giants wearing black armor, carrying maces and axes. Suddenly, the general recovered his sight again.

Shouting a battle cry, he shone red before wearing his steaming general knight armor. "Time to go!" Erna yelled.

"Get them!" The general ordered as he ascended to the sky. We took cover and ran as fast as we could except for Johnwolph, who was running crazy fast. We tripped, bumped, punched, kicked, and bashed every Shadow knights in our way.

Thanks to John, we found Joal and Hugo. They came to us quickly, still fired up. "We have to find the others," I said to them.

"Great idea, commander. Joal here already had his fun," Hugo glared at him.

"What? Throwing a boulder to the Twilight Lycans is also a distraction." Joal exhaled.

This was a fun, catastrophic, crazy plan that I made. The Shadow knights kept shooting their energy blasts and arrows while chasing us as we ran closer to the crimson tents. Outside of it, Craully carried Barbatine with his arm around her back while Yrlin caused a snowstorm inside the tent. The Knights were there too. Willow and Flayflay jumped away from the explosion near the cannons. "What happened?" I assisted Craully.

"Remember the guy with the pen?" Craully asked. "He's there."

"It's just a scratch." Barbatine's hidden eyes turned to me. I looked down at his bloodstained coat. "Just hang on. We'll get out of here." More Shadow knights were coming. We went to the forest so they could not spot us that easily. 

"Stop right there." Our legs stopped moving. Guy stood on top of the log, blocking our way. "Commander Gray? I haven't seen you for so long. I-" Abruptly, from behind us, Erna started running and kicked his face. He collapsed so hard we heard a loud thud when he dropped onto the ground. 

"Stop looking and start running!" She said as she went past us.

"You know, loves, it felt great to cause such beautiful destruction!" Flayflay jumped.

"Would you stop talking?" Willow narrowed his eyes after he created gigantic, spiky vines serving as a wall.

"Yrlin, can you get us out?" I asked the running witch. "Yeah. Those knights don't know what's coming." We gathered together before Yrlin opened a white, swirling gate.

Barbatine winced as the white cloth, held by Craully, dabbed at his left side of the stomach. "I gotta say, he got me good." Barbatine managed a smile.

"I know you're fast and creepy and all, but you should be more careful next time." Craully continued dabbing. "Lucky for you, Mr. Sharp tooth, the wound is not that big. Since he used a pen to stab you, anyway."

"A very sharp one," he added. There was no time to waste. In our battleship, Jalve was important for the job, so he went up to the Crow's nest to work. Joal was in charge of driving the ship and Hugo was taking care of the masts. Barbatine and Craully were sitting on top of the wooden planks on the main deck. Willow tried his best to sleep, but Flayflay kept on annoying him every minute with the stories of her old days at Hymnilyria. Yrlin needed to take care of her plants (Which were dead, yet was still brought to the battleship) and Giuseppe would be very busy finding codes in the stars inside the cabin. I came to find Johnwolph, who was standing near the railing, staring at the moon. "You know, I always miss this feeling," he said as I got closer. "Reminds me of the old days where we traveled the world with the King of Ascentilia."

"Those are the good old days," I said, remembering the bad, nauseating days I had before. "So, after all the explosions and lots of destruction on every single heavy weaponry, we slowed the Shadow knights' progress on building an army." 

Erna came by to join, watching the nighttime horizon. "So you got something from the general?" She then asked.

"He let me into his mind on purpose," I replied. I told them about Jabbernock inside a dark castle from the looks of it, the Dark superior hearing the prophecy, the rise of the lord of the underworld, and finding MaXabiere. "The opened doors of death. This is getting out of hand." Johnwolph shook his head.

"There is no way the knights could find the boy. He's probably somewhere else right now," Erna said.

"Straight to Mt. Impyerno," I said. "But Shadow knights are Shadow knights, they'll somehow get to him. And if they do, they'll stop him, including his companions."

Johnwolph crossed his arms. "Shadow knights, typical. They have to be careful with him. They will not know what is coming."

"Let's trust the boy for now. He needs to reach the dragon's location," I said.

"No need to worry," John said. "I have faith in the boy and his friends. He has powerful allies. What a great coincidence." I thought of that too, but the whole concept kept me thinking that if destiny was not a choice, then it was meant to happen. 

"Maybe not," I said.

A/N:

Alright, that was a close one. With the Shadow knights out of the equation for now thanks to Giuseppe's ridiculous but effective signal, time for them to solve the problem with the dragon. In the next chapter, we will be returning to Xabe's point of view as they entered into the Shallow maze.