Chapter 45
She slipped
Location: inside the cave of the Bulgasari.
Feeling emboldened by the success of their leader’s new armor, the royal guards brush aside their sense of dread and charge at the girl with glowing eyes.
-protocol S-three-
Sir, Eun Woo shouts his order at his men.
The royal guards raise their halberds and swing them in Saiko’s direction despite the distance between them and her.
The gems on the halberds release a brilliant silver glow and then the metallic blades of the halberds shift into a liquid form similar to that of mercury.
Propelled by the momentums of the royal guards’ swings, the liquid metals zoom toward her like whips.
Saiko creates multiple water whips of her own to intercept the incoming metal but Eun Woo moves in the path of the water causing it to break down into oxygen and hydrogen.
The metal whips rush at Saiko and wrap around her arms and legs.
The antlers of the Girins start glowing and act as positive and negative rods causing electricity to crackle and dance between them.
the Girins raise their heads to position the metal whips between their antlers, and channel the electricity through the metal whips to electrocute the dreadful entity and stun her.
Through observation, Saiko can tell that the knights did something; however, she felt none of it.
Her sense of pain has already been overwhelmed by the ritual keeping her in a limbo state between life and death, and even without it the electricity generated by the Girins, although strong, is nothing in comparison to the lightning strike that engraved itself upon her flesh.
Furthermore, electricity follows the path of least resistance and in Saiko’s case, that path is the path that was forcefully engraved by the lightning strike, a path along which most of her sensory neurons were fried by the lightning causing her to lose sensation in it.
Saiko shrugs her shoulders and then grabs the metallic whips.
Argus rushes to her arms forming synthetic muscles and claws transforming them into massive beastly arms.
Saiko’s lips curl up then she tugs on the metal whips pulling the knights off of their Girins and swinging them in the air before hurling them away from her.
Sir Eun Woo quickly rushes with his Girin to help the other guards before they crash into the cave’s wall but before he can, he sees a massive arm made of snow catch the guards and lower them safely to the ground.
Eun Woo turns to look at the girl with glowing eyes with amazement.
He looks down at his frightened Girin and once again inwardly debates whether or not he should take his men and escape.
‘no’
He shakes his head.
‘she is the angel, that’s for sure, how she prevented the guards from getting hurt just now proves it, which means we are in no real danger, I am sure she has some kind of weakness, I just have to find it’
Eun Woo clenches his fist around his halberd and charges with his Girin toward Saiko.
-men, recover and switch to protocol E-nine-
Eun Woo spins his halberd and the gem on his halberd glows a brilliant white light as he gathers oxygen above his halberd.
His golden Girin opens its mouth and rears its head as a bright orange glow ignites within its jaws.
Together the head of the royal guards and his Girin release their attacks.
A torrent of fire is released by the mythical dragon and combines with the air current filled with oxygen made by Eun Woo causing the dragon’s fire to transform into a beam of condensed searing hot flames with a blinding glow.
Saiko pulls back Argus to protect it from the heat.
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Although Argus is heat resistant, she doubts it can withstand that level of heat.
Instead, she summons a wall of ice to block the fire beam, and as though to confirm her suspicion, the ice immediately turns into vapor skipping the water phase from the immense heat but Saiko simply keeps summoning more ice to block the flame.
The other royal guards quickly recover and get back on their Girins and then together with their Girins fire nine more pillars of condensed flames at Saiko but the nine pillars are all blocked by ice just as easily as their leader’s pillar was.
Eventually, the Girins stop their flames as their glands run out of fuel and need to recharge.
Saiko removes the ice wall and then makes a shooing gesture which only angers the royal guards more causing many of them to grit their teeth.
-there has to be something we can do-
One of the royal guards shouts out of frustration.
Eun Woo stops to think of a way to subdue the girl in front of him.
The way he sees it none of the subduing protocols nor the elimination protocols would work on her, her strength is simply inhuman.
‘yes, that’s it inhuman’
An idea flashes in Eun Woo’s head and he turns around to look at his men.
-Bulgasari subjugation plan A-
The eyes of royal guards light up as they realize the orders of their leader.
One by one, they raise their halberds and the gems on their halberds release an emerald green glow.
RUMBLE
RUMBLE
RUMBLE
The ground below Saiko’s feet begins to shake violently before coming to life.
Four massive arms made of stone and dirt rise from the ground and wrap around Saiko to bury her alive.
The silver cat blinks her eyes in surprise, then quickly jumps from her spot to the side of one of the arms planning to use it as a platform to jump away from the forming cage but when she does the arm splits open to swallow her.
Saiko’s eyes grow wide in shock as she finds herself jumping toward a dark abyss but thanks to her fast reflexes, she is able to summon an ice wall in time to jump off of and away from the forming earth cage.
She twists her body in the air getting ready to land but sees the ground open up again where she is about to land to swallow her.
‘What is going on?’
She summons an ice pillar to land but more arms made out of stone and dirty rise from the ground to entrap her.
‘Fine, it’s time for a show of force’
Saiko flash freezes the entirety of the Bulgasari’s cave, floor, walls, and ceiling, forcefully pinning down the earth with ice to prevent it from moving.
The royal guards freeze in their place, not by the ice but out of shock from the spectacle they just witnessed.
Eun Woo hears a few audible gulps coming from his men and is about to order them to retreat but then notices that there is a circular area around them that is not frozen.
‘right, the armor is made to protect us, we still have a chance’
-stick close to me, this is the final push, we can win this-
Saiko tilts her head at that weird declaration wondering how he could possibly think they can win.
Can he not see it’s all pointless?
Can he not see that the only reason they are still alive is that she doesn’t want to kill them?
Can he not see that she is going easy on them?
‘well, I guess it doesn’t matter, he said this is the final push so I guess, I can entertain them for one more time’
Saiko makes a come at me gesture and readies herself.
The royal guards rush at Saiko led by Eun Woo, ice disappearing under him with each step he takes.
Once on top of her, Eun Woo raises his halberd and Saiko raises her arm to block it but then.
-Bulgasari plan A-
His shout surprises her and she feels the ground opening up below her to swallow her.
‘again?’
Saiko tries to freeze the ground to hold it in place but realizes she is unable to.
She looks below to see that any ice she summons disappears.
Her whiskers twitch alerting her to the incoming attack from the halberd.
She quickly summons Argus to her arm to block but by this point, it is already too late.
Her arm unsupported by Argus collides with the shaft of the halberd to block it but her muscles which were weakened by the lightning strike immediately give out and she feels the hammer end of the halberd slam into her gut sending her fly.
Eun Woo pauses in his place surprised that his attack landed but then he realizes that he discovered a weakness.
If he can out speed or somehow remove the black liquid, he would be able to overpower her.
Filled with confidence, Eun Woo chases after Saiko with his Girin and his men follow behind me.
The silver cat notices the knight rushing toward her and summons an ice wall to block his path but the knight flies through it like it’s nothing.
She twists her body in mid air and summons Argus to her arm getting ready to collide with the knights.
- E-nine-
The knight shouts and nine pillars of condensed flames are fired at Argus causing it to quickly start boiling.
‘w,wait’
Eun Woo swings his halberd once more.
She raises her arm to block but the boiling Argus is unable to give her arm any support and her muscles immediately give out once more causing the blade of the halberd to chop off her arm.
Saiko’s eyes grow wide as she watches her blood rush out of her.
She quickly summons more of Argus to her leg, transforming it into a large beastly leg, and kicks Eun Woo away from her.
‘what’s happening?’
She quickly reaches toward her arm to grab it but feels a cold metallic whip wrap around her leg and pulls her through the air away from her arm.
She looks up and sees Eun Woo at the end of the whip with his men.
Eun Woo swings Saiko in the air with his whip then hurls her toward the ground.
The halberds of the guards glow emerald green and she notices the ground below her opening up to swallow her.
‘No, no, no, no I will be locked up again’
The loss of blood begins to weigh down on the silver cat’s mind and she finds it harder to think as her body continues to fall toward the abyss opening up to swallow her.
She looks away from the abyss only to see the knights are inches away from her.
‘NO, STAY AWAY’
Saiko closes her eyes and quickly raises her remaining arm to protect herself .
.
.
.
she waits for the knights' next attack but the attack never comes.
THUD
She feels her body hit the ground and expects the ground to close up on her and the darkness of the abyss to swallow her but that never happens.
Instead, she feels the gentle rays of sunlight tickle her skin and hears multiple other thuds as many other smaller and lighter objects hit the ground after her.
It’s then that she realizes what happened.
She realizes that something far worse than being locked up has happened.
She realizes that in her panic she slipped.
she has used it.
Decay.