CORE

Chapter 23 - Ransom

Rolling across the ground, Hero regained his balance, taking a few deep breaths, standing up properly now but he held himself on the wall.

"What a gamble..." Hero remarked, letting out a small chuckle before sighing, his face turning serious once more as he planned on setting those... Trapped civilians free, at least from his first guess, he laid his back on the wall, taking a rest as he had slightly overexerted his speed into that one burst of magic to arrive in the alleyway.

Elsewhere in The Carnival, at the center where the stage was...

The Jester stared there, standing on the edge of the stage cage as the magic bars behind him dissipated, he looked on furiously before looking around the crowd, grinning widely once more as he took one, sharp breath.

"Haha! So be it, if you wish to play that game, then allow me to be your host..." The Jester laughed.

..."Game #2..." The Jester spoke, in a strained, angry tone.

"Hide and Seek," The Jester outstretched his hands, as all the masked civilians turned exactly 180 degrees around, before walking away from the stage cage, the sound of their synchronized marching filling The Carnival as they looked around and about, while The Jester stayed the stage cage, sitting down in a comfortable position as they grew themselves up larger.

"Hopefully you are decent at begging for mercy," The Jester spoke to himself, looking at his hand that had been shattered not even minutes ago.

"Because I won't delay your death anymore,"

"Ah, speaking of..." They then looked over to where they had heard the banging on their Carnival roof from earlier.

"I wonder who's our second visitor?" The Jester smiled from ear to ear as they stood up, their limbs extending as they stretched their way over to the exit of their tent, limp and free like a noodle, yet hungry as a predator.

Somewhere else in the city within The Carnival...

The masked civilians scattered around and about, their walking continuing to fill The Carnival's fabric walls and layers, unharmonous and foreboding, all in search of one, keen individual.

There amidst it all, Hero was on the walls of an alleyway, sticking to them by using his ice magic on his legs and hands, while he looked left and right, relieved to see that the army of 'puppets' was unable to find him, not yet at least.

"...Justice has not arrived yet, from what I could tell that clown put up a magic barrier to prevent him from entering, what a pain..." Hero groaned as he looked up into the sky, his eyes irradiating white magic as he tried to think of a plan to get out of this situation.

"Given their numbers, they will most definitely track me down easily, and yet I can't do anything to them... Their bodies, even their Core are insanely fragile, one wrong move with a simple attack could actually kill them, but if I don't eliminate them, they would for sure group up and try to 'capture' me, at that point, it would just be a big red arrow signal for that clown that I'm here..." Hero said as he rested his head on his hand, thinking as he clicked his tongue with the roof of his mouth.

"This is..." Hero gritted his teeth as his eyes narrowed to the ground below him.

Elsewhere, outside, and at the very top of The Carnival...

Justice flew back, a part of his head bleeding a bright yellow liquid while he was regaining his balance, he dispersed his body into light and bounced off the air molecules in the area, creating hundreds of yellow light lines around The Jester, who had tried to keep up with Justice.