‘An attractive force?’

Red understood the power behind Nikon’s fist now that he was on the receiving end. He thought about trying to outrun him, but after feeling the force of the slowdown, he realized it was a bad idea.

Sword in one hand and Lady Ilse in the other, he turned around and swung the weapon at the fist - which was still far from reaching him. The claymore glowed, and a cyan energy blade cut through the air and clashed against the fist.

Sword Energy Arc!

A wind explosion threw the entire auditorium into further disarray. Nikon grimaced, but the only sign of damage from the blow was a faint white mark in his metallic fist. The punch slowed down momentarily, but it didn’t stop.

Red tried to take this opportunity to create distance, but the attractive force struck him again. Not only that, but this time, it was even stronger.

“He can absorb Spiritual Energy!”

Aurelia’s warning revealed yet another terrifying aspect of this fist. If Red’s attacks weren’t strong enough to break the punch, then all he was doing was strengthening his opponent’s attack.

As he was considering his next move, a spear covered in glowing yellow stone flew at the fist from the other side of the auditorium. With a crash, Nikon’s punch was sent askew and crashed into the ground.

Another earth-shattering explosion ensued.

Red, who was on the ground this time, almost lost his balance. However, he didn’t waste the opportunity Pierre gave him. With another soaring step, he reached the locked iron door and swung his sword at it. The steel tore apart like paper before the claymore, opening the way into the tunnel.

From behind, he sensed Pierre following behind him.

“Go! I’ll keep up!”

Red took heed of his advice and sped forward. A groan came from Lady Ilse, who finally seemed to be coming to after the earlier impact.

“It… It should have worked, so why…?”

He didn’t respond to her, nor he could. From observing Nikon’s fluctuation, he knew that both the paralyzing mist and the poison in the needles had taken effect, but then it was all expelled from his body in the blink of an eye. It wasn’t that Red believed that couldn’t be done, but to neutralize the poison that quickly? It seemed impossible for a Lesser Ring Realm cultivator.

‘Is that part of his demonic powers?’

Before Red could think further, he heard another rumbling. He took a look behind and saw the purple glow of Nikon stretching down the tunnel as he chased them.

Pierre, who was the first in the way, seemed poise to face the brunt of the man’s rage, but he acted as soon as he saw their pursuer. His hands glowed in an earthy yellow light and he slapped them against the walls of the tunnel before continuing to run.

The entire passage trembled, and from the point where Pierre touched the wall, the corridor started to collapse, his spell causing the earth to crumble. Red wondered for a moment if the guard would escape in time, but then his steps suddenly quickened as he caught up to them.

Nikon, however, was completely buried under the collapsing ceiling.

The tunnel wasn’t that long, and soon enough the trio had made it out onto the abandoned building they first entered from. A confused Chalice servant was staring at them as soon as they got out of the house, attracted by the loud noises.

Red was about to set Lady Ilse down, but then sensed something. He looked over at Pierre.

“He’s still coming!”

Although he couldn’t see his face, the guard’s fluctuation showed his surprise. Sure enough, a few second later they heard explosions coming from the abandoned building and the noise attracted the attention of others in the busy street.

“Up above!” Pierre pointed at the rooftops. “We’ll lose him there!”

Red nodded, and with one jump, he hopped onto a balcony. As they were about to set foot on the rooftops, another explosion shook the entire neighborhood.

Nikon burst out from the abandoned house, sending the stunned Chalice servant flying to splatter onto a building on the other side of the street. His skin was glowing with a deeper shade of purple.

‘He’s stronger.’

His fluctuation was also growing more powerful. For a second, Red assumed he had been holding back earlier, but that didn’t align with his raging attitude. This time, they didn’t throw any spells directly at him, either, which left only one conclusion.

“He’s getting stronger every second,” Red said to his companions.

The strengthening in his fluctuation was slight, but it was there.

‘Is this the metallic power of the Infernal Emperor?’

They hoped to make it onto the roof before Nikon could notice them, but the man immediately locked gazes with their positions, as if he knew where they would be. Then he crouched, his wild energy receding into his body for a moment.

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“Watch out!”

Pierre’s warning came a moment later, though Red had already dashed ahead.

There was a sudden, loud thump, as the air in the streets below was displaced. Then Red looked up, spotting Nikon’s purple far above them, soaring into the air as if flying. His momentum came to a stop a second later, and he raised a fist aimed at the trio below.

Then, gravity worked on his body, and he fell down like a meteor towards them.

Red felt the same locking energy from earlier slowing his movements down, but this time, he willed himself to move. The strong winds created from the man’s incoming punch allowed his Gale Drift to drag him forward with unprecedented speed as he sought to get out of the way. Pierre, not afforded such swift movements, crossed his arms in front of his chest as his body was encased within a coffin of glowing rocks.

Then Nikon’s fist came crashing down where they had just stood.

The rooftop caved in like clay. The man’s power carrying his fist straight through the roofs down onto the floor belows, and a moment later, came the explosion. A wave of deep purple Spiritual Energy spread from the point of impact, followed by a shockwave that spread through the entire neighborhood as the wooden building crumbled.

The wave of energy hit Red’s back as he sought to shield a wounded Lady Ilse from the blow. His entire body shook, and he felt blood running up his throat. Pierre’s shield took on some of the impact before shattering, and the guard was sent flying away uncontrollably to the other side of the block.

Red frowned in pain, but the internal injuries weren’t enough to stop him. He soared across rooftops in Pierre’s direction, where he could sense the man was wounded but still conscious. There, he saw the guard on one knee, struggling to get up as blood ran down beneath his mask.

“He’s coming,” Red said. “Can you still run?”

Back where they had just come from, he could sense Nikon’s fluctuation moving as he tried to get out from the debris of the destroyed building. It was growing stronger still.

Pierre nodded and popped a medicinal pill into his mouth. His wounded fluctuation stabilized somewhat, and he started to move again.

“W-Wait!” Lady Ilse spoke up. “We can’t outrun him!”

“Do you suggest us take a stand?” Red asked.

This was something he was seriously considering. However, he wasn’t sure he could defeat Nikon, who was only growing stronger, and fighting here was bound to catch other cultivators’ attentions.

“Put me down,” she said. “I’ll handle him.”

Red stared at her in silence.

Lady Ilse seemed to guess his thoughts. “I know what I’m doing. This time it will work for sure.”

He looked at Pierre, who hesitated for a second but nodded. He seemed to put faith in Lady Ilse’s abilities.

Red then did as she asked and set her on the ground. The woman tried to get up, only to stumble and fall down onto her knees.

“Damn it!”

On the other side of the rooftop, Nikon finally climbed out of the debris and looked in their direction. His metallic body seemed to have grown as his clothes started to burst at the seams. He stared in their direction with hatred.

“Decided to stop running?!”

Nikon started running towards them, the wooden rooftop cracking with his every step.

Red was about to pick up Lady Ilse and start running again, but then he noticed the air around her change. An aura of dark Spiritual Energy started to form around her body and her fluctuation underwent a subtle change, but one that he was familiar with and could never miss.

‘Demonic corruption?’

Before he could make sense of what was going on, Lady Ilse raised her hand and pointed her shadowed finger in Nikon’s direction. Strange words came from under her mask and the Spiritual Energy around her suddenly diminished. No bolt of darkness or other type of spell shot out from her finger, but instead, the energy seemed to simply disappear, leaving Red confused.

A second later, Nikon screamed in agony and fell down to one knee. There were no changes to his body to indicate a wound, but his fluctuation started to grow weaker, as if an unseen force was suppressing it.

“It’s a hex!”

Aurelia's timely explanation reached Red’s ears, the woman sounding no less surprised than he was.

“Let’s… Let’s run while he’s like that,” Lady Ilse said, the dark aura disappearing.

She was struggling to stay awake after casting the mysterious spell. Red didn’t protest, suppressing his questions and suspicions for now as they sought to flee from the slums and left an agonizing Nikon behind.

The entire marketplace was abuzz with tension and fear. People were wondering whether another disaster had struck the city, and both merchants and customers were scrambling to leave the slums before they were caught in the middle of it. This offered the trio enough cover to retreat without notice.

“We’re going into another passage,” Pierre said as he guided them. “We need to make sure we are not being followed before going back to the manor.”

Red nodded. He also noted how Pierre didn’t seem to question Lady Ilse’s earlier actions, though that kind of composure in the face of danger was to be expected of a guard, and it didn’t necessarily indicate that the young man knew about her powers before this.

They hid in another warehouse they had prepared beforehand, and Lady Ilse finally fell unconscious. This left Pierre and Red alone as they kept watch for anyone approaching their location.

“Did you know about her powers?” Red finally took the opportunity to ask.

“…Lady Ilse’s abilities have always been strange. This didn’t surprise me,” Pierre said.

That seemed to indicate he had his suspicions about the matter before.

“Do the others know?”

“No, and I’d like to keep it that way. What matters is that she risked exposing herself to help us. It’s her secret to tell…” Pierre trailed off.

Red didn’t ask anything else.

It took them a few hours before they were sure no one was following them, the length of which Lady Ilse was entirely unconscious for. Guard patrols increased through the streets in response to the accident from earlier, but Pierre deliberately chose their hiding place to avoid them, so they were never found.

The trio then returned to the Fairclough manor through the secret passage, upon which a group of alarmed servants quickly took the unconscious Lady Ilse from Red’s hands and took her to her bedroom. Neither Pierre nor Red lingered in the place for too long, as they both needed to return to their homes before suspicion arose.

“Do you have an alibi?” Red asked the guard before they parted ways.

“I do, though it is not perfect,” Pierre said. “Still, I doubt much will come out of this investigation since the Chalice wants to cover up for their mistakes. Some nobles might have died under their protection, after all…”

‘And one of their guards is a demonic cultivator.’

Red left that part unsaid. Demonic corruption wasn’t necessarily obvious unless you came in contact with it for long enough or it was strong enough to leave a mark behind. Nikon’s abilities were mostly physical, but he left quite a few marks of his corrupted purple energy behind with his punches, so it was likely a strong cultivator could pick up on this abnormality.

‘Unless they find a way to erase the corruption.’

This wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for a cult whose aim was to stay hidden from authorities. In fact, Red still thought Nikon’s actions earlier were quite reckless and possibly harmful to his cult, but demonic cultivators weren’t known for being calm and rational.

‘He was… Very strong.’

With pain still lingering in his chest, Red returned to his manor, ready to reflect on what had just happened. After confirming there was no suspicious activity in the surrounding houses, he stepped foot inside through the upper floor window.

A second later, though, a message arrived to one of his transmitting talismans. It was from Lady Ilse.

“We need to talk.”