257 Chapter 257: Boy meets Girl (2/2)

By now, the ninja dudes were surrounding the poor girl, all of them wielding some sort of weapon. A sword, a staff, a spear, a mace and a dagger. Scattered around them were the sprawled bodies of more cloaked figures, clearly unconscious.

Enhancing the view on my glasses, I studied them and realized that they had been burned to a crisp. That girl must have used some sort of fire spell…in other words, she was a fire mage just like my dad.

”Even though you've defeated four of our brothers, you're currently severely injured as well. There's no way for you to escape!”

I watched them for a moment before burying my face in my palm. Were these guys two-bit actors hired to play out the part of a villain or something? What was with these awfully cheesy lines? Moreover, all these guys ganging up on a single girl? Did they have no shame or something?

”Lilith,” another one of the ninja dudes drawled. ”You should just obediently follow us back to meet Ji Xuan. I promise that we won't cause any trouble for you.”

The girl glared at them for a moment before she swung her crimson sword slightly and tightened her grip on it.

”Stop with the bullshit,” she snapped coldly. ”Go ahead and attack.”

Hey, girl…I'm not sure if it's a good idea to provoke the enemy when they outnumbered you five to one. Not that I expected her to surrender…and admittedly there was nothing she could do. But rather than provoke them, I would have remained calm and waited for them to move rather than inviting them to do so. That was just me, of course.

The ninja dudes merely smirked at her…though how I could tell with them covering the lower parts of their faces with masks, I had no idea. In any case, none of them moved, so the girl took the initiative instead.

Lilith charged forward without any hesitation, her sword igniting with flames. She slashed at the guy with the sword, and even though he managed to parry her strike in time, she detonated her fire spell and caused him to hurtle back. The assassin with the dagger slipped in to stab her in the back, shadows trailing his move and imbuing his attack with darkness, but Lilith elegantly whirled around to deflect the deadly blade before it could plunge into her back.

She traded a few blows with the shadowy assassin, the flames on her sword growing fiercer. She then ducked under a swing and kicked him in the chest, flooring him. The ninja with the staff then rushed in, seeking to exploit a gap in her defenses while she was still occupied with the shadowy assassin, but she sidestepped to avoid his long weapon before ramming her elbow into his face. He went down, along with the flower petals that were spiraling around the length of his staff.

The guy with the mace dove in and smashed the ground with his bulky weapon. Along with his strike, boulders rained down upon Lilith, forcing her to evade. She gritted her teeth and cleaved through the incoming boulders with her sword, cleanly slicing them into two and leaving molten rocks falling onto the ground.

”That's quite the sharp sword,” I murmured to myself, impressed.

”Damn it.” the guy with the sword rose to his feet with a curse. ”Don't underestimate this woman! Don't show any mercy! Brothers! Charge!”

”AAAAAAAAH!”

The five of them bellowed in unison as they charged as one, all of them coming from different directions.

”Ji Xuan's lackeys,” Lilith snarled. ”I'll kill all of you!”

With a determined shout, she kicked off the ground and lunged at one of them, swinging her blazing sword. She managed to force a parry out of the guy with the sword, and then ducked under the heavy mace before spinning around to kick him in the solar plexus. The huge guy grunted and toppled over.

Her sword combusting, Lilith then knocked the guy with the sword aside, but the guy with the staff smashed his weapon into her back. Countless flower petals followed, slicing into her skin and causing her to cry out in pain.

However, the girl endured and spun around to knock him and his staff away, incinerating the petals in one go. The ninja with the staff managed to conjure a wooden wall that protected him from the worst of the flames, but given how his defensive barrier had so easily caught fire, he was forced to withdraw to safety.

Lilith couldn't pursue him, for she was forced to avoid the dagger from the shadow assassin. His blade missed her spine, but sliced into her arm, drawing a thick line of blood. Lilith staggered backward and swung her sword desperately, but he melted into the shadows, completely evading her attacks. The guy with the spear was next, his thrust just barely blocked by her sword but enough to send her crashing heavily into a tree.

”Ugh!”

Coughing out blood, Lilith slumped down, but she managed to rise shakily to her feet. As she did so, leaning on her sword, the ninjas approached her.

”Lilith,” the guy with the sword said mockingly. ”Even if you have been bestowed such great talent from the heavens, you still won't be able to prevail against so many of us.”

Yeah…he was right. That was exactly the reason why I didn't recklessly go solo and tried to take down the other students by myself. I always knew that in reality, it would be difficult for me to win against so many people. Okay, I literally beat ten black belts by myself, but that was because those guys weren't working together, and quite frankly…they were considered cannon fodder and among the bottom or middle ranked in my academy at best. They were nothing compared to the elites and geniuses who had gathered here in the Spiritual Road. Otherwise they would have made it here instead of me.

However, Lilith refused to give up. Taking a deep breath, she raised her sword.

”Single Sword Transformation: Fiery Meteor!”

Her crimson sword erupted like a volcano, with a pillar of fire streaking high up into the heavens.

Watching her cast that spell, I was suddenly reminded of somebody close to me.

…isn't that…one of Dad's spells?