"Come on, speak," Bodrick said. "Tell me where the boss is, or I'll have to torture all 3 of you."
"The boss is not here," Kepli shouted while grunting in pain. Bodrick was still stepping on his ribs which were starting to hurt by now.
Carlos looked at what was going on in surprise. Was Kepli protecting the boss? Was he not in on it as well?
As he thought, he looked toward where the boss was. The curtain had disappeared and beyond it lay nothing. There was no sign of any human there at all.
Let alone a human, there wasn't even any essence on that side of the room.
'Where's the boss?' he thought.
"We need to leave," Ning said softly. "After they kill him, they will come after us."
"Oh, we're coming after you no matter what," the man with the staff spoke as he turned toward Ning.
Ning frowned when he realized that he had been heard. 'Just how good do their senses get?' he thought.
"Since you three are the ones here, you are probably the only ones who know about where the boss is," the man said.
"Hey, speak up," Bodrick shouted at Kepli. "Keep this up, and I'll have Grayfire here smash your head in with his hammer. And I'm sure you know how bad that can get."
Kepli's eyes moved toward the big man with the glowing red hammer. He knew something about Grayfire's hammer that others didn't.
Most people saw his hammer and assumed that it was made using the Essence of Fire. However, it was in fact made using the Essence of a fiery explosion.
As such, each time the man used the hammer, it was an explosion appeared, not just fire. That was probably the reason why the roof had come caving in, but nothing was burning at all.
"I don't know where you heard about it, but the boss isn't here. He never was. It was all a lie," Kepli said.
"Oh, is that so?" Bodrick looked surprised. "Such a shame then. Hey, gray. You wanna do some smashing?"
The bulky man walked forward. "Haha! I love smashing!" he shouted as he arrived in front of Kepli.
Kepli's eyes went wide as she saw the big man prepare his hammer.
"Wait!" he shouted. "I'll tell you. I'll tell you."
"Come on!" Grayfire shouted in disappointment. "I was just about to hit you too."
"Speak quickly," the man with the staff said.
"The boss…" Kepli breathed heavily. "The boss… is me."
All 3 of the other bosses looked confused for a second. "You're joking," one of them said.
"No, I am the boss of the Paradise hunters. I act like my own right-hand man so no one finds out it is me," Kepli said.
"What? That sounds dumb," Bodrick said. "It's dumb, right?"
"It sure is," Grayfire said. "You know what's dumber?"
"What?" Bodrick asked.
"He spoke just now to stop me from killing him, but if he is the boss, we have more reason to kill him," Grayfire said.
"You're right," Bodrick said. "This stupid idiot tried to save himself and instead is going to get killed. Such an idiot ended up making one of the strongest gangs of the empire?"
As he spoke, Bodrick felt like something was wrong. He was right, the man in front of him was stupid… but only if he were the boss.
But if he wasn't… then he was lying to save the boss.
Grayfire prepared to attack once again, but Bodrick put his axe before Grayfire. "Stop, I don't think he's the boss," he said.
"Huh? Then what's wrong with killing him?" Grayfire asked.
"Just wait," Bodrick said. "Oi, Dale! You're the smarter of us 3. What do you think is happening here?"
He waited for Dale to answer, but he heard nothing.
"Dale?" he turned around and saw Dale standing still with his staff in his hand. He seemed to be lost in his own thought for some reason. "Bastard? Are you daydreaming or wha— what the fuck?"
Dale's eyes slowly opened and Bodrick couldn't help but feel creeped out when he saw it. Dale's eyes were completely pitch black from the iris to the whites.
"What the fuck is going on with you dude?" Dale asked.
"What the fuck is that?" Grayfire turned around to see what was going on as well.
Dale didn't speak or do anything at all. All he did was looked at the two men with his pitch-black eyes, while holding his water staff.
Ning managed to slowly make his way out of the rock's hold on him and looked at what was going on in front of him.
'The hell?' he thought too when he saw the situation.
Carlos was at a loss for words as well. He had no idea what was going on at all. Of the 5 people that were staring at Dale in the room, only one of them seemed to have any idea what was happening at all.
"You guys are fucked!" Kepli shouted loudly even though his chest hurt to speak. "The boss is taking direct actions against you all, so you better not hope of leaving him alive today."
He started laughing maniacally, unnerving even Ning and Carlos as they stared at Dale and the others.
Suddenly, Dale's head twitched for a moment and he dashed forward. He moved at an unbelievable speed and arrived in front of Bodrick and Grayfire in an instant.
Bodrick attacked to block the incoming attack, but Dale's body twisted mid-dash and moved toward Grayfire in the last second.
His staff came slamming down on Grayfire who was ready with his own attack. The two attacks slammed against each other, and Grayfire's explosion sent all of them in different directions.
They all got back up quickly, and the two bosses looked at the 3rd boss with weird looks in their eyes.
"You…" Bodrick spoke as he looked towards Dale. "Are you the real boss of the Paradise Hunters?"
