240 Chapter 240: Win Condition (1/2)
”Fuck!”
Lionel Stuart swore when he saw Michael's headless corpse slump down lifelessly. Some distance from him, Angelica was screaming and Glen was yelling, probably for Michael, but no matter how hoarse they shouted themselves, he was never coming back.
Cronus turned to lumber toward them, but Yue Guang deftly put himself between them, his fists raised and clad in Armament Ba Qi. He looked battered and weary, but he was still capable of putting up a fight if necessary.
However, with Michael's death, their chances of winning had been halved. No, probably less than that.
…wait…since when did the win condition entail the defeat of their enemy?
”Shun Yin!” Lionel snapped. The young man raised his head sharply to look at him. Good, he was still lucid. ”Take your friend and girlfriend and get to the computer mainframe. Get to the computer room immediately.”
”But what about you?” he protested.
”We'll hold that guy off.” Lionel gestured to the massive figure of Cronus Wright. ”We'll stop him from pursuing you and your friends.”
”How?” Shun Yin's eyes darted toward Michael's dead body. ”There's no way…”
”The summoner is incapacitated, thanks to Michael, and you three. Not to mention, I drained her of her mana earlier with my Hundred-Colored Flowers technique. She poses no threat to us. Yue Guang and I will just concentrate on Cronus. If she can still move, however, then you are to protect your friends from her. Is that understood?”
Shun Yin's mouth went dry when he glanced at Glen and Angelica. One was in shock over the loss of his cousin, the other was devastated over the death of her own blood-and-flesh brother. Shun Yin understood at that moment why Lionel was instructing him to bring them away.
In their current mental conditions, neither Glen nor Angelica was capable of fighting. They would only get in the way.
”Understood.”
”Good. Hurry! And remember this! Our victory lies not in defeating our enemies, but in denying them the blueprints for the transdimensional device!”
”That's right.”
Shun Yin nodded and watched briefly as Lionel took off to assist Angelica and Glen. The latter was able to snap out of his stupor more easily, and nodding at Shun Yin's brief and quiet explanation, he was more than willing to follow along.
However, the two guys didn't know where the computer mainframe was. That knowledge lay with Angelica, who was still in a daze.
”Hey, Angie! Pull yourself together!” Glen shook her. ”We need to get to the computer mainframe and wipe the data now!”
”Do you remember where it is?” Shun Yin asked gently. ”Can you take us there?”
Angelica blinked for a moment, and then she nodded. Taking a deep breath, she rose to her feet, with Shun Yin helping her out. Her eyes hardened in determination and she glanced past the three men who were locked in combat.
Lionel noticed them, and then he nodded just a fraction of a millimeter. Receiving the hint, Angelica moved out, taking the other two guys toward Cronus.
The massive Assassin spun toward them, detecting the direction they were heading toward. Even if he wasn't facing them, he would still have sensed where they were going anyway. However, before he could lunge at them, Yue Guang barreled into him, knocking him to the side. With a yell, Lionel surrounded the titanic Assassin with a cloud of petals, obscuring his sight and blocking him off from the three high school students.
”Now!” Glen urged, and they hastened their pace, with Angelica leading them toward one of the doors at the far end.
”Oh no, you don't!” Serena shrieked and launched one last greenish-black spell at them, the projectile taking the form of an arm. With her mana sucked out by Lionel, and the grievous injury she received from Michael before his demise, there wasn't much spells she could cast. Without turning around, Glen ordered his White Tiger to take care of it.
With a roar, the Soul Beast pounced on the appendage and destroyed it with a lightning storm. It then turned tail and followed the three, escorting them through the door Angelica took them through.
”Fourth room from the right,” Angelica muttered as she searched through her memories. They then turned around the corner and caught sight of the series of doors down the corridor. Angelica smiled. ”Just as I remembered them.”
The trio charged into the room, barging through the door. As all the Assassins and dark priests were outside, engaging the Federation army in combat, the interior was mostly unguarded. There were several sentries, but given that the elite and most powerful line troops had been committed to the defense of the headquarters, the ones left behind were reserves and untested trainees.
It didn't take much for Shun Yin and the others to dispatch them. As soon as they wiped out the guards, they proceeded straight into the computer mainframe room, the vast machine hissing and whizzing under super coolants and fog to ensure it ran at optimal capacity without overheating.
”This is it?” Glen asked, his voice tinged with awe. Angelica nodded in a somewhat anticlimactic manner before confirming.
”This is it.”
”So we destroy it?” Shun Yin raised his sword and ignited it, but Angelica immediately restrained him with an annoyed look.
”Chill, Shun Yin. It's not so simple.”
”Heh, chill. That's a pretty apt word.” Glen chuckled until he caught Angelica's glare and fell silent. She then turned back to Shun Yin.