Chapter 61: A beautiful misunderstanding
Nick didn’t hesitate for long.
If he stood still, gawking like the rest of the bystanders, it would only invite suspicion — or worse, attention.
And right now, with this kind of heat in the air, he wanted anything but suspicion to fall on his shoulders.
So instead, he straightened his back, loosened his tense shoulders, and walked forward with the casual swagger of someone who absolutely belonged in the middle of whatever gathering this was between the two strongest forces in the War Beast Sanctuary.
He strolled along the side path toward the two groups like a man on a leisurely morning walk — no hesitations, no pauses, and no eye contact either.
Just acting like he was supposed to be there.
Naturally, several heads from both factions and the bystanders turned his way.
A few curious eyes lingered on him longer than he would have liked, with even a few murmurs passing from the lips of some Altered to another, but not one of them stepped forward or tried to stop him.
His act of joining them did break apart their serious atmosphere though, which quickly ushered an intense and loud reaction from both Dido and Beast Slayer, who just as quickly straightened out their people, forcing them back into place.
Nick made it all the way over to the perimeter of what he had coined the ’neutral zone’ between the two gangs, which was just an empty stretch of grass and dust that separated the War Beasts from the Radiant Slayers.
There, he stopped and sat down on a stump from a long felled tree that jutted out of the ground like a marker between the two forces. His expression remained completely neutral, with just the right amount of aloofness to look intentional...