"The first way is impossible with our current abilities, so you mean we must use a sneak attack?"
Adrian nodded in agreement, remembering how the Gray Bishop had only attacked after they rushed into the control room.
But the problem was, even though the bishop wasn't chasing them now, he must be on guard. When the power gap wasn't too big, sneak attacks were hard to succeed without some special trick.
But now Nicola knew the truth about Adrian's ability. With his smarts, she believed he probably already had a plan.
"These are 'Swift' and 'Quick'. With these two arrows, I can increase my speed by three or even four times!" Adrian said, holding two arrows he just made with Battle Qi.
Since Battle Qi only worked on living things, he decided to go in himself again.
His idea was simple - if he could move fast enough that the Gray Bishop couldn't react in time, it wouldn't matter how careful the bishop was.
"That much faster? It could work in theory! But this way only your speed increases - won't your reaction time and other abilities stay the same? Could there be accidents... like your body not being able to handle it?" Nicola frowned.
After all, what if his reactions couldn't keep up? What if he went too far, or couldn't really kill the target? Everything would be wasted! She suggested he try using the word "Strong".
Actually, in her eyes, Adrian's ability might somehow touch at rule level. Too bad he was human, so there must be many limits. But maybe they could find some loophole.
But Adrian said he'd already tried! His ability could only give targets precise meanings. "Strong" was vague - it wasn't clear if it meant stronger body strength or stronger in other ways, so it wouldn't work at all!
Simply put, without finding better words, greatly increasing speed was the best way to deal with Psionic Energy users right now.
Soon, they snuck back near the control room entrance. They didn't dare peek out to look at the enemy, but they could hear the Gray Bishop questioning Karl again about Lantine Oasis and the underground space.
Time was running out - Karl's voice sounded like he couldn't hold on much longer. Adrian checked around while pulling out his dagger and tried to comfort Nicola:
"Don't worry too much. I've actually tried 'Swift' and 'Quick' once or twice before. With some practice and experience, even with both arrows working at once, hitting the target ... should be possible!"
"Should be? Possible?"
Nicola's mouth twitched, but before she could react, Adrian had already stabbed both arrows into himself and rushed out at an incredible speed.
"Coming?"
As expected, the Gray Bishop had been watching the passage entrance. As soon as he noticed someone appear, he gathered a huge amount of Psionic Energy and sent it sweeping toward the target.
But what he saw next was a shadow dodging to the side, easily avoiding the Psionic Energy attack, then using the wall to bounce back and aim at his position with lightning speed.
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"Ah—"
When the cold flash reached his eyes, the Gray Bishop had no time to react. He only felt a chill on his left arm as his painful scream rang out.
Unfortunately, Adrian missed! He had aimed for the neck, but the high speed made him lose accuracy. The bishop was pushed several meters away. Adrian had to slow down, and the dagger was stuck too deep to pull out quickly.
"Damn you, die in the name of Lord Spring!"
Even with one arm gone, the bishop could still use his power. Fighting through the pain, he quickly grabbed his chance and lifted Adrian into the air when he had to stop in the corner. No matter how Adrian struggled, it was useless. It looked like the bishop was about to use all his power to crush him...
"Hey, you got the wrong person - I'm your opponent!"
Seeing this, Nicola couldn't hold back. She rushed out from the corner and shouted at the Gray Bishop, distracting him for a split second.
When the bishop turned his head, Adrian pulled out an "Explode" arrow from his storage ring. He kicked hard against the wall behind him and broke free from the Psionic Energy with all his strength, finally managing to stab the arrow into the bishop's neck.
"Bang!"
No one expected such a huge explosion in this narrow underground space. Nicola was blown away instantly, only stopping when she hit a wall behind her hard.
Adrian had it worse. Even though he escaped at high speed the moment it exploded, he was still badly hurt. He lay not far from Nicola with both legs blown off, but at least he was still alive.
"Not bad, the most important enemy is dead!"
But to Nicola, all this was acceptable loss. Although she knew this Adrian hadn't really wronged her before, seeing him in such bad shape still made her feel better. Plus the Gray Bishop was already blown to pieces, so she felt much happier. She walked up to Adrian on the ground and comforted him:
"You must have subordinates who know healing magic, right? Just let them heal you later!"
"No need for others, I can myself... help me a bit..."
But before Adrian could finish, Nicola suddenly felt something wrong. An unusual "wind" started blowing from somewhere.
To be exact, this wasn't real "wind", but the flow of time.
Time flows forward constantly. Usually, no matter which direction it flows, normal people can't feel it. Only human wind mages at very high levels or Wind Angel who control Time Authority can sense it.
Although Nicola was too injured right now - she might not even beat a rank 4 or 5 human - she could still sense unusual time flow perfectly.
Without doubt, time was being quickly reversed by some power. Everything she saw was playing backwards like a rewinding tape. The Gray Bishop came back to life, Adrian's legs "grew" back, the explosion happened again then disappeared back into the "Explode" arrow...
Although she wasn't strong enough now to stop time from going backwards, she could easily keep herself from being forced to go back with time. But Nicola didn't do this since it was pointless. Instead she chose to go with it and hide herself, wanting to find out who was behind this.
Everything kept rewinding until she was back at the passage entrance, when Adrian was about to rush out. Only then did time's flow and speed return to normal.
"Tell me! What other traps are there on the road to the city's energy center?"
The Gray Bishop was still questioning Karl, but this time he was interrupted.
"Bishop Gilbert, never mind that you carelessly destroyed another area's underground control center, causing trouble for future repairs. The key is that even with Lord Spring's power, you still ended up in such a state - it really hurts our church's reputation. If I hadn't arrived in time, you might have been killed!"
Everyone present heard these words.
Nicola found this voice strangely familiar. She must have missed counting one of the enemy's most important people - this person speaking was probably the overall commander of the Ancient God Religion army invading Lantine Oasis!
"What's happening? Were there other enemies here? Good thing I didn't rush out just now!"
Adrian's memory and thoughts had clearly been "reset" like everyone else's. He looked completely confused about the situation. Only Nicola seemed to remember what had just happened.
"High Priest? You came personally!"
So the Gray Bishop was called Gilbert. Although he wasn't clear about the situation either, when he saw a figure walk out from another passage, he immediately went to greet respectfully and asked: "Did something happen that made you step in?"
No wonder that voice sounded so familiar but Nicola couldn't place it - when she saw who it was, she instantly recognized Selene, the light mage she met when she first crossed over from Earth!
Of course, this was actually another Selene from a parallel world who didn't know Nicola. Because Nicola hadn't seen Selene for so long, she couldn't really remember just from the voice.
So in this world, Selene had joined the Ancient God Religion! From her aura, Nicola could feel she was still a light mage, but what was that time reversal about?