264 Chapter 264: Spiritual Sain (1/2)
”No, you don't,” I replied irritably. ”What happened to your friends? Your teammates from Vermillion Academy?”
Unlike me, Lilith was able to meet up with her friends and stick together with them. Apparently they had reunited sometime during the three days when she was chasing me, but she had insisted on pursuing me, so they just kept their distance and allowed her to. After I had defeated her, I had seen her going back to her team, and enjoyed a few days of solace.
…until today.
”They've been wiped out.” Lilith looked extremely pale. She glanced behind her, as if watching out for somebody, and then turned back to me with a shake of her head. Tears welled up in her eyes. ”I couldn't save any of them.”
”W…wait, what? What's going on?” I scowled, completely bewildered. ”Start from the beginning. Wiped out by who? Save them from who?”
As if to answer my question, a flock of birds flapped their wings and fled a deeper part of the forest. The both of us turned to watch them, and I could see the trees swaying in the distance.
”Somebody's coming,” I muttered, picking up a dense aura of killing intent. These guys meant business. No wonder Lilith said her friends were wiped out. These guys evidently had no intention of showing any mercy.
”It's them!” Lilith hissed angrily.
”Who is 'them'?” I asked dryly. Pushing up my glasses, I had my lenses sharpen and enhance my vision, and I spotted a group of mages hiding inside the vegetation. They were all wearing black ninja costumes. I tried not to burst out laughing at their ridiculous outfit, even as I recalled who they were. ”Oh, those ninja guys again.”
The same ones who were attacking Lilith when I first met her. Except that this time, they had called a ton of friends to come with them.
”What the hell?! There's at least thirty of them, and they have surrounded us.” my face contorted in confusion. ”I'm pretty sure there's a limit to the number of students from each school who can participate in this.”
”They are not all from the same school,” Lilith informed me in a chilling tone. ”They've infiltrated various schools, most likely for some kind of sinister motive, and now they've decided to gather in their original group.”
”Sinister motive? I hope it's not something as ridiculous as wanting to capture you.”
”No, I'm just a minor target…a tertiary objective. Their leader, Ji Xuan, is just abusing his authority and position to order his subordinates to capture me for his own selfish desires. But they are going along with it because he promised them their own women.”
”Oh, yeah. I've been meaning to ask you who the hell this Ji Xuan is the entire time.” Honestly, I had completely forgotten about him, or couldn't care less because he had absolutely nothing to do with me. Unfortunately, it seemed that I had been dragged into this mess, but I certainly couldn't just leave Lilith alone in this sort of situation. I had seen what kind of people these lackeys of Ji Xuan were. They were horrible bastards with rape on their mind.
”Ji Xuan is…the Spiritual Saint. One of the most promising youngsters who participated in this Spiritual Road training camp.”
The both of us were already running. There were far too many of them for the two of us to fight. Even Ip Man wouldn't be able to defeat thirty Black Belts coming at him all at once. It sucked, but we had to retreat.
Perhaps I could summon my Constellation spirits, but even they would be dragged down by the sheer numbers eventually. I had no choice but to retreat with Lilith. Come to think of it…
”When you asked me for help, I don't suppose you're asking me to fight and defeat all of those guys, are you?”
”Of course not. Even I'm not that unreasonable.”
So she did recognize that she was unreasonable. Good girl. Recognizing one of your flaws was the first step to growing as a character.
”What do you suggest we do then?” I asked while we burst into a clearing. Before Lilith could reply, a bunch of the ninja dudes appeared right in front of us. A splinter group who had gone ahead to cut off our line of retreat and enclose us in a trap.
No choice. It seemed like I had to fight them here and now.
Summoning Gemini, I charged at the nearest guy and knocked him away with a slash. He managed to parry them both, but I unleashed twin waves of black and white mana to blast him aside. Spinning around, I kicked a second ninja who sought to ambush me, my foot catching him in the neck and sending him toppling to the ground.
”Go on ahead!” I instructed Lilith, who had drawn her crimson sword and set parts of the clearing ablaze. ”I'll hold these guys off!”
Their target was Lilith, so I doubted they would waste too much time and energy on me. The best I could do was delay a few of them as long as possible while Lilith attempted her escape.
A third ninja came at me and I parried his short sword with my twin swords, twirling them around and exchanging a few blow with him. This time, my opponent was good. I tried to cast Castor and Pollux again, but he flipped back and cleaved them apart before kicking off the ground and slicing at me. Several wind blades buffeted me, but I spun Castor and Pollux around to cut them apart before they could flay the skin off me.
A fourth ninja tried to attack me from behind, but Lilith countered with a strike before he could stab me in the back. As she knocked him away, another ninja descended upon her, but she merely reversed the grip of her crimson sword and stabbed him in the chest. The guy went down with a grunt.
By now, I had managed to shake off the wind ninja, and threw both Gemini twin swords into the air. Spinning rapidly, they cut through a couple of unsuspecting ninjas, and they both went down, clutching their bleeding necks. The wind guy cast another spell to bombard me with wind blades, but I summoned Scutum Sobiescianum to defend myself. Moving the Constellation shield aside, I summoned Orion and unleashed a hail of azure arrows upon the group and forcibly paving a path.
”Go, go, go!” I yelled at Lilith.
That was the plan, but she was currently engaging a ninja who was bombarding her with a few hundred daggers. Um…they were a bit too small to be daggers, so throwing knives, I guess? Whatever they were, I could see a storm of silver raining upon Lilith, each relatively small blade crackling with electricity.
Taking a deep breath, Lilith conjured an immense inferno that formed a firewall between her and the deadly projectiles. Spinning her sword, she cut down whatever knives that managed to penetrate her fiery barrier, while her defensive spell incinerated the rest.
”Hmph.”
Her assailant was not limited to just throwing countless knives at his opponent, however. Several of the throwing knives abruptly twisted around and altered their trajectories, flying past Lilith's barrier and spinning about to strike her from behind. I jumped forward and shot them down with a couple of arrows, but the wind guy came back for more. instinctively, I dove to the ground and rolled away as massive, almost invisible wind blades, struck into the place where I had been occupying, tearing out great furrows in the earth.
While I was preoccupied with dodging, one of the knives managed to shift direction and sliced deeply into Lilith's arm.
”AAAH!”
She cried out and staggered forward, and a few other knives managed to stab her in her body, but fortunately didn't hit anything vital. Gritting her teeth, Lilith tore the knives out of her body and flung them side, then fell to her knees as the deadly electricity coursed through her. Fortunately, her innate magical resistance protected her from death, but she wasn't able to prevent herself from being paralyzed by those stun-type spells.
”Lilith!”
While Lilith was on her knees, one of the ninjas descended in front of her and pointed his sword at her neck. She gasped, but glared at him defiantly, despite knowing that she had no way of resisting him.