187 Sika, Sika! Part 2 (1/2)

Nailisi watched helplessly as Saleen pounced on the assassin holding a scimitar.

Meanwhile, Saleen was calm. The serrated blade of the scimitar shone menacingly against the light. Orbs of power still shone brightly in Saleen’s left hand. The assassin held the scimitar firmly in his grip and started swinging it wildly in Saleen’s direction. It was clear by now that his target was Saleen. Even though he had lost his sense of awareness, the assassin was still able to instinctively devise a plan to trick his opponent.

How important was Sika to Saleen? That was a question Saleen himself could not answer. What he did know was that even if he was reduced to a most desolate state and only had powers equivalent to a grade-1 mage, Sika would never forsake him. Even if he only gave her one meal a day, she would be more than satisfied. He knew that the assassin had set a trap for him. However, because instantaneous spells could not help him this time, he could only jump into the trap in hopes that the assassin would be distracted enough to shift his focus away from Sika.

A water shield the size of two human heads immediately formed to defend the spellcaster from the scimitar attack. No sooner had the scimitar come into contact with the shield did the shield shatter. Even a grade-4 Elemental Variation spell could not have withstood the forceful impact of the grade-6 assassin’s attack. The curvature of the knife, although having only made contact with the water shield for less than a second, looked as if it was ready to draw blood anytime it touched Saleen’s flesh.

The death flames behind Daniel continued burning violently, making crackling sounds as they did so. Daniel was in pain. He was wincing and scrunching his face in distress as the fire continued to burn away at his clothes from behind. Unfortunately for him, the fire was also turning his muscles into charcoal. Suddenly, the death flames took on the shape of a green rifle and started aiming for Saleen’s back.

Saleen bent over to dodge the attack, which he was able to do, but just barely. The green rifle whizzed past Saleen’s back and slammed into the assassin’s face. Hard.

The other assassin holding the scimitar started to bring his weapon down towards Saleen’s chest repeatedly. The scimitar seemed to have a mind of its own. Even when the assassin had lost all control, the blade still aimed directly at the center of Saleen’s chest.

With the first swing, the ice plate armor split from the blunt force of the scimitar. With the second swing, the grey robe that Saleen wore was sliced away as well. With the third swing – ding! This time, however, the scimitar had made contact with a very hard object.

It was Saleen’s family badge that had managed to block the assassin’s unusually strong scimitar.

In such a short amount of time, Saleen had been unable to figure out how the assassin’s sword aura worked. All he could do now was prevent himself from being repeatedly knifed in the chest. After many swings of the scimitar, Saleen had been able to conclude that the attack route taken by the blade of the weapon was not going to change significantly even if the battle dragged on for a bit.

The scimitar was far too powerful. As soon as it had clubbed the badge, Saleen felt like he had been struck by a fully constructed puppet using a war hammer. His demon suit had managed to diffuse the intensity of the attack, but he still felt his sternum crack.

The impact of the blade had caused Saleen to bounce upwards. However, he did not just let himself fly through the air. He stretched out his left hand and reached into the assassin’s burning face before pinching the more than three hundred holy prose that were present in the assassin’s brain.

Both Saleen’s and the assassin’s attacks caused them to fall onto the ground at the same time.

Saleen grimaced in pain, feeling as if his bones had broken apart. As Daniel witnessed the scene unfold before him, he became pale in shock. He had managed to fend off his enemies with the help of Saleen. Now, Saleen seemed to be too severely injured to help him defeat the evil spirits. He was all alone.

Although the death flames had struck with everything they had, all they had done was cause a minor inconvenience to the assassins. The gap between their ranks would mean that his attacks spells were almost useless against the assassins.

Saleen and Sika lay sprawled face down on the floor about one meter away from each other. Even with such a short distance, Saleen’s hands were unable to reach out to check her wounds. He could only turn his face to look at Sika and watch helplessly as Sika bled profusely, soaking her leather armor in the process.

”Sika, Sika!” Saleen roared, not caring that by shouting loudly, he had aggravated his injuries. All he had on his mind right now was Sika’s well-being. Or rather, the lack thereof. He stared helplessly at Sika, the sweat beading on his forehead and dribbling down into his eyes.

As Sika’s body twitched, Saleen heard her faintly call his name. Tears started pouring out of Saleen’s eyes as soon as he realized that Sika was alive.

Bang!

The sound of Saleen’s fully constructed puppet being hit in the head by an evil spirit rang clearly in the air. Almost immediately, it started falling towards the ground. Distracted, Saleen shifted his focus towards regaining control of the puppet again. The fully constructed puppet threw an axe in the direction of the evil spirit who was holding onto a flail, sending him flying backwards. The fully constructed puppet slowly got up and rewound the iron chain before gripping the axe once again in its hands.

Saleen tried moving his feet. Nothing. Then his arms. Nothing. He tried his midsection. Nothing. His whole body felt numb and heavy. The only thing he could control was the puppet.

Daniel took out a grey scroll and walked hurriedly over to Saleen’s side before releasing the magic contained within it. The money spent on that scroll would have allowed him to purchase another set of death flames. There were too few scrolls in existence that necromancers could use. Literally none of them could be found in stores. As expected, the powers of a necromancer’s scroll were the greatest out of all magic scrolls. Any scroll that had been created by a necromancer was an invaluable object.

The difference between a scroll made by an elemental mage and a necromancer was that the latter used death flames while writing magic scrolls while the former did not. Therefore, the magic released from the scroll would not only include the power of the necromancer themselves, but the death flames which had been stored inside the scroll.

Crackle, crackle, crackle...

The sounds of the purple flames on the ground being dispersed filled the air. Huge bones started emerging from the ground before converging into one, effectively surrounding Saleen and the others. The bones had formed a squarish wall, with dozens of ferocious jagged skulls moving inside and outside the bone walls, each of them spitting out black mist.

They were constructing a bone cage! Saleen thought in alarm.

Looking up, Saleen saw dozens of ginormous skulls hovering above them threateningly.

Daniel dispersed the death flames and shielded Sika and Saleen with a green flame instead. The skulls that were spitting black mist were unable to get any closer to the trio. Alas, the three of them were still stuck in the bone cage.

Was this the best idea that Daniel could think of? At the moment, yes. The bone cage was too difficult for him to destroy on his own. Even with Saleen’s help, it was possible that they would not be able to make it out. He could only delay the onset of attacks of their enemies in the hopes that Saleen would somehow regain enough strength to help him. After all, he was just a grade-3 mage. Asking him to defeat all of the evil spirits on his own would be a pretty tall order.