My question remained unanswered as from the side of the room, a door was slammed open and a couple of White Knights marched in with their weapons raised and Holy Magic ready to be used. The old man with the white coat glanced at them for only a moment and then reached his hand into his coat.
Seeing him move, I quickly moved my sword and cut off the old man’s hand.
"Aaaargh!" he screamed painfully as he grabbed on to the bloody stump and rolled on to his back. Seeing this the White Knights realized that they had to move, and lunged at me.
They weren’t particularly powerful—likely just guards left behind for protection—so after pushing them back with a pulse of darkness with my left hand, and throwing a darkness dart to their heads, they were knocked out. They weren’t strong enough for me to go as far as killing them so I decided to spare them, but the old man was a different story. With my blade pointed at the man’s pained expression once more, I pressed him on what I wanted to know.
“I know an old man like yourself wouldn’t be able to survive if not treated right away, so the faster you answer, the faster that you’ll get healed,” I said, looking down on him with as much of a cold expression as I could have.
“Ugh! Urrg…” he let out, his pained face turned into a glare, “I—Do you have any idea of—of the kind of damage that you’re causing to the—the—”
I pressed my weapon on his face and forced him to lay back down on the floor as he tried to move away from the pointy tip of the sword. “I’ve heard plenty of scholars say the same things in the past. Spare me the lecture and you might be saved.”
“M-might… she says…'' he replied, followed by a forced chuckle. “It’s obvious that you have no plans—no plans to let me go.”
Sweat was starting to pour down the side of his face, and I could tell from the amount of blood that he was losing, combined with his apparent age, that he was likely not going to survive for long. I decided to show him some mercy, so I pointed the weapon down to the cut off part of the arm that he was gripping, and used a bit of healing magic. The bleeding was stopped, but the wound remained opened.
“Are you willing to talk now?” I asked, pointing the weapon up to his face again.
I didn’t heal him enough for the pain to fade, so his face remained a sweaty, wrinkled mess. “Heh heh. It seems like you’re not so stupid after all… but in the end, you won’t get what you want.”
“Just tell me what I want to know,” I said, my tone of voice getting louder and the tip of my weapon pressing down on the side of his cheek, where a blood drop was formed.
“The boss left his place while you were scrounging around inside the tunnels,” he quickly replied with his eyes set on the weapon. “If you hurry, you might just catch her at the entrance of base.”
“The entrance of the base…” I repeated after him, quickly widening my eyes as the realization set on me that Nicole was alone over there.
The old man noticed my expression and a grin formed on his wrinkled face. “Ahhh… I know that face. That’s the face of someone that knows they’re doomed… but is it—is it fear for oneself… No…!” He forced out a loud laugh. “That’s the face of someone afraid of losing a loved one!”
I quickly cleared the expression I was making and turned it into a furious glare down at the old man; however, the ugly grin remained on his face, as if he had won something—despite laying down on his back, and at the other end of a sword.
The desire to immediately cut him down filled me, but the image of Nicole’s fiery back as I left her behind to come here flashed through my mind. I couldn’t waste a second longer even killing this old man. I had to get to her as fast as I could, so I quickly turned to the window that I used to come up here and jumped out as the old man cackled in between pained breaths. Regret for healing him hit me for a moment.
In the room below, Super-Demon remained with his eyes turned up here. He was seemingly pacing in place, unprepared for me to jump out, so as soon as I did, he jolted in place. “Althea! What happened? Did you defeat the villain? What about—hey!”
I ignored his questions and dashed for the locked door that we used to get here as soon as I touched the ground. I didn’t know how the base was arranged and I wasn’t going to go exploring for a quicker route, so my best chance to get back was to use the same path I used to get here.
The metallic doors remained shut in place, but with a quick slash of my empowered sword, I cut away at the middle of it, and followed it up with a powerful blast of darkness that sent the doors flying all the way across the hallway where one piece got buried in a wall, and the other piece up to the ceiling.
I didn’t waste a beat and rushed out of the room and into the hallway. I could hear Super-Demon’s steps trying to catch up with me, but I was much faster than he could possibly run. There was a nagging thought that said that I shouldn’t leave him behind and alone like I did with Nicole, but I had dealt with every threat in this place up to that room. There was no reason for something to happen to him, so I pushed ahead.
I reached the tubular hallways, looked to the side that I took to get here and with the only thought of getting back to the entrance in my mind, I dashed through them.
Halfway through, I stumbled upon a group of White Knights leading a larger group of soldiers that were heading in the same direction.
One of the soldiers at the back of the group noticed my approaching figure and shouted, “Someone’s coming!”
The rest of the soldiers and the knights quickly stopped on their march and urgently turned to look my way. They quickly realized that I wasn’t part of their army and started attacking. Soldiers fired their loud weapons, and Knights pulled out their Holy Magic-empowered ones.
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I didn’t have time to deal with them… but if Super-Demon was behind me, I had to deal with them, else I could be leading him to his death, and since I wasn’t sure about Nicole's status at the moment, I could only hope that was she alright, so I couldn't leave danger for Super-Demin.
Still, I had to be swift with this group of enemies.
The soldiers’ bullets bounced back on my armor and my empowered body, and after suddenly stopping right by their feet, I used a powerful darkness blast to send the soldiers flying back into the knights, the walls, and the floor. Some of them tried to stand back up to continue fighting, but after a glare of my own, they lowered their weapons.
They were still a danger for Super-Demon behind me, however, and I couldn’t afford to leave anything dangerous behind. There was no choice. I had to get rid of everyone here, even if they weren’t guilty.
My Darkness Aura changed into a Hellfire one. The floor under me was blackened, and then turned red under my flames. The soldiers scrambled to get away, but… but there was nowhere to run from Hellfires. My aura exploded, and the soldiers that were trying to get away were engulfed in my flames, quickly turned to ashes.
“Demon!” fearfully shouted one of the White Knights when he saw what happened. “Evil! Icon of Darkness! You shall be cleansed!”
A barrage of Holy Magic fell upon me, ranging from beams, balls, arrows, blades, and even a couple of common magic spells like fireballs, and lightning. I raised a darkness barrier where the spells crashed. None of them were particularly effective, and I wasn’t going to deal with them, so after taking one step forward, I increased my Hellfire Power as much as I could, and blood-red fire spread through the tunnel.
“Gods!” shouted one man, before screaming and being engulfed by the flames.
A few of them got together and tried to block my power by combining their magic and creating a large and bright Holy Barrier in the middle of the tunnel to cut off the flames getting close to them, only managing to do so for the ones that didn’t quite reach them.
But I was already on the move, and after a couple of leaps forward, I reached the barrier, shattering it like thin glass with a wide horizontal slash of my blade. One knight shouted in pain as the blade cut him, splitting him in half, before both halves were set aflame with Hellfire, falling unmoving to the floor.
The other knights faltered in their steps, and I could tell they were about to run away. I would’ve extended my offer of mercy if they surrendered, but both Nicole and Super-Demon were in danger. There was no time. I had wasted enough here.
I stomped the ground as I moved forward. Fire spread from under the heels of my boots and the few of them that were closer to me were set on fire. Then, with a booming leap, I passed through them, my weapon cutting them down like overgrown grass; and like it, their cut up bodies flew into the air, before falling lifelessly back to the ground.
I didn’t bother checking on them anymore, but to ensure nobody could stand back up to do any harm, I fired an explosion of both Darkness and Hellfire at their remains and continued dashing down the tunnels.
Not a lot of things had changed on my way there, with only a few things being shifted from place, so I was able to reach the first hallway that I used after landing on the entrance of this base. I was momentarily stunned by the darkness at the end of it, where I expected to see either Nicole or Eletha, facing each other.
But I didn't have time to ponder. I snapped out of my surprise, and rushed over to the end of it.
I was starting to get anxious about what I might find, and the thought that perhaps Nicole could hold out for a moment allowed me to keep calm. I had seen her block one of Eletha’s attacks with the aid of James, so there was a possibility that she could still do it.
As soon as I was getting closer to the depths, I noticed that the way was blocked by fallen rocks. Something did happen while I was away dealing with the old man and his strange creations. Hopefully, this was Nicole’s doing and not someone else… but I wouldn’t know unless I moved them away.
By channeling Earth Magic, I pushed away the dense and heavy rocks that were blocking my path. Light poured in, which was good, since this meant that the whole place wasn’t buried with Nicole under it, but I couldn’t see nor hear anything from her; not even a yelp of surprise.
With one final push, all the rocks standing in the way flew into the large room where we first fought with the army of knights and soldiers.
There was nobody there, only the remains of battle. With my heaving breath, I examined the room. I could see the charred remains of a lot of people, broken walls, burned down steel and weapons, and I could even see that there was powerful Water and Ice Magic used here to fight…
That wasn’t the Holy Power that Eletha used, so Nicole was forced to fight someone else… Someone that could've been powerful.
And yet, regardless of what direction I looked, I couldn’t find either Nicole or Eletha; be that their bodies or signs of them. So I turned my attention to the remaining hallways at the sides of this entrance room. I couldn’t know exactly which way to look for it, and I was starting to feel desperate to know where Nicole was.
I took a step forward, and as soon as I did, a shadow cascaded from the entrance stairs. I readied myself with both Darkness and Hellfire, as well with my weapon. Then, when I was about to leap forward, a pair of dark armored feet hurried down, quickly allowing me to see who it was.
James came down, his armor covered in cuts, with his left arm bleeding and missing the armor, his helmet half-destroyed, and blood falling from the side of his head. He seemed to have had a hard time with whoever he was fighting, but I didn’t think that he fought Eletha, since I couldn’t sense Holy Power anywhere in that direction.
I opened my mouth to ask him about it, and right then, a powerful amount of Holy Power was used from my right side; from one of the hallways. I snapped my head that way, and dashed in that direction.
“Althea! Hey, where is Nicole—hey!” James shouted, but like with Super-Demon, I ignored him and went into the hallway.
It wasn’t a long one like the one that I took to get here, so soon after, I stepped into the large room that it led to.
I found myself inside a room full of burning golden fires, and only stopped when I saw both Eletha and Nicole.
Nicole was on one knee right by Eletha’s feet, her body covered in bruises, and her breath heavy as she looked up to Eletha. Eletha, on the other hand, was looking down on Nicole with a cold look and her large blade held high.
At that moment, Eletha glanced at me, and then, in one quick motion, swung her weapon. Nicole turned to look at me, and right as she did, Eletha’s large blade passed right by her neck, cutting through both it and the orange tips of her hair.
Time seemed to slow down to a crawl, and my body froze like it had never done before. I watched with widened eyes how Nicole’s head flew out of her neck and drops of blood took to the air with it. Her head slowly turned to look this way, until her widened eyes met with mine.
I watched how in that slowed down moment, the color and the light of her eyes faded, and her head kept turning. Her eyes moved with it, losing focus with mine as they looked beyond me. I kept track of them as they were covered by the few locks of hair left behind in the turning motion.
Then, time moved forward once more, and her head hit the floor with a thud that sounded as if there were no other sounds in the room. Blood poured out of her head; and from the cut neck of her body, a fountain followed as it tumbled backwards with the arms lifting to the air.
In that moment the world around me turned both dark and red, and my mind went blank.
I was too late.