"An angry maskā¦ Angry?"
Without realizing it, Frey gave one of his signature nicknames to the strange statue with the furious expression.
Standing amid the sea of kneeling corpses, both Snow and Ghost stared at the massive figure that stood between them and the castle beyond.
"Do you know what that thing is?" Snow asked, eyes still fixed on Frey.
"I know his brothers."
Frey's answer was the last thing Snow expected to hear.
"Brothers?"
"On second thought, he looks more like their fatherā¦ I don't remember Smiley or Sad being this big."
Faced with Frey's cryptic nonsenseāimpossible to decipherāSnow gave up on extracting any useful information from him.
"It looks dead to me."
Ghost, ignoring the pair's exchange, offered his own take as he observed the statue.
Angry hadn't moved an inch. The hollows in his furious mask revealed nothing but blackness ... void of light or life.
"Whether it's alive or not doesn't matter. We need to enter that castle."
What Frey sought was inside. He could feel it now more than ever ... the fire in his chest burning brighter, guiding him to this place.
"Then let's move."
At that momentā¦
The trio took their first step into the empty ring that separated the castle from the ocean of corpses.
One stepā¦
Then another.
They moved deeper into the void between the kneeling dead and the silent fortress.
That's when the earth began to shake.
A massive tremor froze them in place as Frey grinned with wild delight.
"I knew itā¦"
As if some hidden mechanism had been triggered ..
Angry lit up with a violet glow, and his metal body began to tremble violently, unleashing a crushing wave of aura.
"Shitā¦"
Snow cursed, drawing Vermithor, as all three prepared for battle.
The statue pulled his giant scythe from the earth, twirling it effortlessly before assuming a battle stance.
"Wait! I know your brothers!"
In an absurd gesture, Frey waved at Angry.
"We're not enemies!"
He pleaded with the massive figure before him, using logic that wouldn't convince a sane humanālet alone a statue with a face carved in rage.
But to everyone's surprise, Angry didn't move.
Still. Silent.
Snow and Ghost stared in disbelief.
"Didā¦ did that actually work?"
Was it even possible to reason with that thing?
Their confusion was written all over their faces.
Frey half-smiledāsurprised at his own unexpected success.
But that smile vanished the moment his Hawk Eyes reflected the gleam of the statue's massive scythe.
He barely reacted in time ...
In a blink, Angry had vanished and reappeared right in front of him.
"When did he get there?!"
Frey barely blocked the swing with his swordsā
and was sent flying, crashing through the earth, leaving a trail of destruction behind him.
"So be it! No choice but to fight!"
Snow launched himself at Angry, unleashing a blazing star-infused aura as he swung his blade with all his might.
The clash of metal echoed for miles as Angry parried the blow effortlessly, dispersing all the explosive aura in an instant.
From beneath the statue's feet, Ghost's shadows emerged...attempting to bind it.
But with a single violent stomp, Angry shattered the groundāand Ghost's shadows along with it.
Then, wielding his scythe at blinding speed, the furious statue unleashed a barrage of devastating strikes on Snow, who struggled to defend as the earth crumbled beneath him.
Ghost, now in his Reaper Form, joined the frayāwielding a scythe of dark, potent aura.
But the moment his weapon clashed with Angry'sā¦
It shattered.
"Too strong!!"
Completely outmatched, Ghost adjusted his stance.
"In that caseā¦ how about this!?"
With his fingers moving like blades, Ghost sliced through space itselfālaunching his strongest spatial cut.
The ground split violently as the strike slammed into the statue's body.
A move that had once cleaved through nightmare creatures with easeā¦
Didn't even leave a scratch.
All it did was force Angry to take a single, reluctant step backward.
"No wayā¦"
At that moment, Ghost finally began to understand just how much he had underestimated the power of the statue.
"Ten Thousand Steps of Shadow: Black Meteor!"
From behind Ghost, a dark beam eruptedācrashing violently into Angry and unleashing a surge of destructive aura that shattered the ground beneath them.
"You damn statues all prefer to do it this way!"
Frey had returned to the battle.
BOOM!!
"You want a fight? Then you'll get one!"
To Frey, every memory of statues was a blur of endless beatings ... brutal training sessions where they had taught him how to fight, day and night.
And from the look of it, Angry was no differentā¦ except for one critical detail.
As the clash went on and their strikes continued, Frey started to notice the deep, vicious wounds spreading across his body.
Angry wasn't playing.
He was truly trying to kill him.
Wielding that massive scythe like it was weightless, Angry completely overpowered him.
Snow joined as well, attacking from behind.
Yet the statue remained calm, effortlessly spinning its scythe to parry every attack, as if toying with them.
A wave of violet aura blasted out, sending them flyingāslamming face-first into the earth.
Still, Angry didn't stop.
He kept advancing, relentlessly tearing them apart as their blood spilled across the dirt.
"This is insaneā¦" Frey cursed under his breath, finally grasping the gravity of the situation.
Angry was far stronger than both Smiley and Sad.
He wasn't even fighting seriouslyā¦ and yet Frey could tellāhis power was at least on par with Maekar.
SLASH!
A sudden blow snapped Frey out of his daze .. blood spraying from his body.
"FREY!!" Snow shouted in horror as he saw Frey's right hand fly through the air, severed cleanly by Angry's scythe.
His hand hit the groundāalong with the Dark Sisterājust as Angry raised his weapon again, this time aiming for Frey's neck.
"Void Step!"
Snow appeared between them at the last second, his body flaring with blinding light as he shoved Angry back.
"Cosmic Formation!"
Unleashing his most powerful attack, Snow's explosive aura clashed with Angry's scythe in a cataclysmic burst.
The collision sent shockwaves tearing through the air.
Snow's nuclear strike hit Angry head-onāblasting the statue backward, carving deep trenches through the ground as he skidded across it, struggling to stay upright.
Snow's strongest move had finally pushed the statue back a few meters.
But that was all it did.
There wasn't even a scratch on its armored body.
Realizing the overwhelming power gap, Snow conjured a massive wall of ice between them and the statue, then fledārushing back to Frey and Ghost, who had already begun retreating.
Frey, barely able to think clearly, clutched his severed armāstill in shock from how close he had come to death.
All three of them knew now ...
Death was the only thing waiting for them in this fight.
And so, they ran.
But Angry chased after them at terrifying speed.
They leapt, dodged, and rolled between the kneeling corpsesānow turning to dust underfootādesperate to escape the statue's reaping scythe.
He was faster. Far faster.
They were certain he'd strike them down at any moment.
But thenā¦ he didn't.
Collapsed between the skeletons, the three of them stared in disbelief as Angry froze in placeāhis scythe just centimeters from Frey's face.
The statue stared at them, glowing with violet light from the slits of its maskā¦
Then slowly lowered his weaponā¦
And began walking backāstep by stepātoward his original position.
Back to where it had all started.
"Whatā¦ just happened?"
Frey asked, breathless, struggling to understand why the statue had suddenly retreated.
Snow and Ghost were just as baffled.
With his golden eyes, Snow was the first to notice something strange.
He looked down at the ground beneath their feetā¦
"We're outside the circleā¦" he said quietly.
But the others heard him clearly.
"You're rightā¦"
They had run without thinking ...and unknowingly stepped outside the circle.
And the moment they didā¦
"He stopped."
Frey finally understood the mechanism behind the statue.
He would never attack unless someone stepped onto the forbidden ground.
In other wordsā¦ that circular space surrounding the castle ...