“Now, hold on a moment,” the President said, turning his body slightly as he looked at Feng Liu, “We can’t just have you do your operations inside our country like that. We must have a meeting with your country’s officials.”
Feng Liu shook his head. “There’s no need for that. As high rankers, me and my team can operate at our discretion. If you wish to talk about it, you can do it with me. But from my point of view, you’re getting all the benefits of this operation without having to do anything about it, since we’re dealing with a dangerous person inside your borders for nothing in return besides just letting us do it.”
“Yeah, you’re also asking us to allow you—a foreign power—to execute a military operation inside our territory,” the President rebuked. “Such a thing can’t be done just like that.”
“Why not?” I asked this time, causing the people to turn to look at me. “He’s offering to get rid of your enemies as well. From what the Minister of Defense here said, it sounds to me like her group doesn’t want peace. Better for us to get rid of it.”
“So you agree to work with him? Just like that?” the President asked with a frown.
I turned to look at Feng Liu and his determined expression, and after a moment of consideration, I decided to trust him, especially when at the time, he could’ve just as easily gone after me in my weakened state, or use the information about me being in his country against me, so I returned a nod to the president. “Last time, I nearly died to that girl, and I don’t think that she’s going to sit by idly forever. Eventually, she’s going to get powerful enough to—not only bring down this country—but to force the world to follow whatever she says… Something that I know all too well, as… it was something that I did myself.”
The President and the people around the room all looked with raised eyebrows at what I just said, which allowed the room to be filled with silence for a moment, that was broken when the Minister of Defense shifted on his chair. “I’d say… let's allow this operation to take place.”
“Hold on,” the President quickly replied, lifting his hand in a stopping gesture. “This is an operation of extermination. We can’t allow such a thing to take place; not especially after all the promises I made to get the presidency. How will it look to the people and the world when I promise to make peace with those groups only to go on and kill them like that?”
With a click of his tongue and a sigh, the Minister of Defense shook his head. “Sure but… we know that this group won’t give up on their pursuit for power, and from both our information and what we’ve learned here today, they won’t give up until either we kill all the demons that are living in our country, or until they get here and do it themselves. Eventually, you’re going to have to decide what to do with them.”
The President took a moment to rub a side of his forehead as he seemingly considered what the Minster said. He then glanced at both me and Nicole, before turning his attention to Feng Liu, who was just staring back. Eventually he looked away and shook his head.
“I just cannot approve of such an operation just like that,” he said, “There’s other things that we have to consider, like what are people going to say once this thing gets done, or how are—”
“Mister President,” the Minister of Defense interrupted, tapping the table and bringing the attention to him. “There’s not a lot to consider. Think of the old operations done by the National Army in the past, where they rescued kidnapped people, or brought down one of the leading figures of the Revolutionary Army. The President of that time became known as one of the best things that the country had. I think we shouldn't let this opportunity slip. If we properly present it to the public, we can gain much more than what we might lose—more so now that people believe there’s no safety in the country. And if we manage to get rid of them completely, then we can divert military resources into better things.”
“Don’t bring that President’s existance into this office again,” The President quickly answered, waving his hand in the air in a dismissive way, before turning to look at the Minister. There was a staring contest between the Minister of Defense and the President, while everyone else just quietly watched. But after a moment, the President sighed with a nod. “Fine. Let's do this. Gather the Generals and inform them of what we’re going to do. We’ll need to do this properly.” Having said that, he turned a glare my way. “And the two of you better stay put until we call for you. We’ll try to get this underway as fast as we can, so I don’t want to hear about another incident like the one in China.”
I nodded and Nicole matched my gesture. I refused to say out loud that I might not wait until it was done, since if Eletha did something that could be far too dangerous for the people and the world, then I would be forced to act regardless of what they say here. But still, it gave me time to gather my thoughts and find a way to remove the Holy Gods’ connection from her.
“I’ll get in contact with my team and have them prepared as well,” Feng Liu said, doing that same strange bow from before.
“And I’ll let His Majesty know about this. He’s also interested in aiding with this,” I followed up.
The President signed once more and nodded. “Right. Another thing to deal with…” He turned to look at a man in military uniform to one side. “Please, show our guests the way out.”
The man did one of those stiff military salutes that they usually did, before turning to us. “Please, come this way.”
* * *
A few days later, I was back inside the same Tainted Land that Bo’guth managed. He appeared somewhat hesitant about something when I saw him; like there was something he wanted to say to me, but since he didn’t say it, I didn’t press him on it, and after a quick greeting, I moved straight into the Tainted Land.
Nicole was with me, as she usually was, and joining us this time were both Victoria and David, who I hadn’t seen for a while. Victoria was still just as nervous as she usually was with these sorts of things, but little by little she had gained some confidence to move forward. Now, she wouldn’t hesitate to take down the few Dark Beasts that approached us. I still wondered if this kind of thing was something that she should do, but as long as she herself didn’t quit or express it, then I wasn’t going to force her either—at least, as long as I didn’t think it was necessary.
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David, on the other hand, was just as confident as ever, and he had gotten much faster; kicking, punching, and turning into pieces any enemy that approached. In a way, he was similar to James in their confidence. The only difference was that David wasn’t quite as rude when talking to people.
Something that I found surprising when I met with them was that Reeta was no longer coaching at the Academy. She quit a couple of weeks after Steven’s death. From what David said, it seemed like the boy’s death impacted her more than expected, so she decided to move forward with her life… I thought of her as a good fighting master, so after I was done here, I was planning on paying her a visit.
After exploring for a while, we reached the familiar area where the first Unholy Dark Beast usually appeared. We no longer took a long time to reach this place, so we met with it after a few minutes of moving.
David took a step forward with a confident smile. “Let me handle this. I’m sure that you two girls can take this thing down with a blink, but I still need practice.” He turned to look at the nervous Victoria. “How about you help me?”
“Eh!?” she exclaimed with her eyebrows raised. “I-I’m not sure about this… perhaps we should all work together to take it down…”
“Come on. We don’t need all of us to do this—Besides, if things get dire, I'm sure that our heroines here are going to save us. Just think of this as another fighting exercise,” David said, and clenched his fists, creating a small mana wave that was followed by a smile.
Victoria glanced at both me and Nicole, the latter who just returned a wide smile and a thumbs up. Victoria tightened her lips and took a careful step forward with David.
It was right after that step forward that the Unholy Dark Beast roared as it usually did and a horde of smaller Dark Beasts started rushing from where it was; all of them screeching, adding to the loud noises of the cave.
Victoria took a step back, while David simply rushed forward while shouting, his image blurring and lifting a bit of dust from the place he was standing a moment ago. Nicole moved over to Victoria and gave her a pat on the back, pushing her forward slightly. “Come on! Don’t leave him to fight all alone!”
“R-right!” Victoria exclaimed, and with an uncertain jog, she moved to go after David.
It didn’t take long for David to clash with the Dark Beasts, and just like the wild teacher that he had, his powerful movements were sending Beasts flying all over the place, as well as immediately exploding the ones that got hit directly. Victoria stood a short distance away, and after a couple of seconds, channeled a blue lightning from the spear she was holding. It was quickly fired, creating a bright blue light that showed the path that the magic was taking between the Dark Beasts, exploding them almost as soon as they were touched.
“They look good, right?” Nicole commented with a smile. “Ah… to think that I was once that scared of doing this…”
“That wasn’t so long ago,” I said, after which an explosion of fire caused me to look at what was going on. David had created a Fire Tornado with him spinning in the middle of it.
“What do you mean it wasn’t so long ago? That was, like, months ago, almost a year,” she said with a frown and her hands on her hips. “More than enough time to—”
The Unholy Dark Beast roared once more, interrupting Nicole and causing the Fire Tornado to shake slightly. Our attention turned once more to the large skeleton-like Unholy Dark Beast at the back as it leaned back with its maw open. It was charging its own kind of Hellfire Beam.
Victoria was stunned—unmoving—and I feared that perhaps she was going to let that thing hit them, so I shouted. “Move! Get ready to defend yourself!”
The girl jolted slightly, and after scrambling for a moment, she raised her spear with the tip pointing up at the Unholy Dark Beast’s direction. The Hellfire Beam was fired, and when I was about to move to protect them, a large Mana Barrier appeared right in the path of the Hellfire Beam, not too far away from where David was spinning.
The Beam hit the barrier directly, and I still leaned forward, ready to cover for them, but the barrier stood still, not even trembling under the Beam, until eventually, the beam lost its power, leaving just a few bits and pieces of Hellfire in the path that it took in the air. The barrier crumbled soon after, with Victoria kneeling on the ground while heaving.
“Wooo!” Nicole shouted, “Good job!”
It was, indeed, impressive that she could stop a Hellfire Beam with just a Mana Barrier… but judging from the way that she also fell to her knee, it seemed like she wouldn’t be able to withstand such an attack again… We might have to get them out of this situation.
However, as if to prove me wrong, David took control of his Fire Tornado, causing it to get shorter and shorter until it was compressed all around him, before letting it loose, creating a wide explosion of fire that burned every Dark Beast around him, leaving a clearer path to the Unholy Dark Beast.
“Oooohh, nice. I’ll do that next time,” Nicole said, making an ‘o’ shape with her mouth.
David then crouched into a running-start position, where the air started swirling around him, before lightning cracked all over his limbs. After a couple of seconds of mana being gathered, he turned a sharp look at the Unholy Dark Beast that was preparing itself for another Hellfire Beam, and he launched himself, cutting the air while leaving a booming explosion behind.
In an instant, he crashed with the Unholy Dark Beast, where a powerful explosion of blue light followed by lightning striking everywhere around the Beast. The large Beast roared in a pained voice, which was being overpowered by the loud lightning that was tearing its body apart, until eventually, lightning cracked its body into pieces, causing it to crumble into a mess of darkness and hellfire.
Under the few remains of the Unholy Dark Beast stood David, heaving heavily with his head turned up as he tried to regain his breath. There were still a few Dark Beasts roaming around the place, but Nicole quickly flicked her finger in their direction and several fireballs blasted to nothing the ones that remained, leaving us with a fully cleared zone.
We walked over to where Victoria was, and Nicole placed a hand on her back as she leaned over. “You okay?”
Victoria took a deep breath and then nodded her head. “Yes… Just a bit shaken up is all.” She slowly stood back up, giving a forced chuckle with a wry smile. “I still can’t get used to these sorts of things…”
“Oh, it just takes practice. After a few trips around here, and fights with these things, you get used to them and how they move, so eventually you’ll just do it as if it’s not a big deal,” Nicole said with a shrug. “Let's keep going. There’s still plenty more to go before we reach the core.”
“R-right…” Victoria said, following after us as we made our way to David.
He was already recovering from what he did, but I still took a closer look. “Think you can keep going?”
“Yeah—yeah. I just used a lot of mana in one go. With a short break, I should be able to do that again,” he said, nodding his head. “Don’t worry. I haven’t done this sort of thing for a while, so I won’t be letting this opportunity slip.”
“Very well,” I said with a nod. “Then, we’ll keep going.”
We turned to look deeper into the Tainted Land. I was soon going to have to fight Eletha once more, and before that, I had to make sure that I had as much power as I could, to ensure that I could keep up with her, regardless of what happened before… and then… try to find a way to stop her.
With that thought in mind, I took a step forward, and deeper into the darkness.