Lionel Stuart blasted the gigantic s.h.a.ggrowth back with another wave of his sword, a blizzard of petals slicing through its misshapen ma.s.s. A little ahead of him, Yuan Dao Yue Guang punched through the bulk of Ying Bu Si"s shadows as he advanced toward the desperately retreating a.s.sa.s.sin, destroying his spells with sheer force.
Or Ba Qi, but you know what I mean.
The purple Ghost-type Soul Beast tackled the Vermillion Phoenix soaring high in the air, and Michael swung his sword, clas.h.i.+ng against the blades of the Umbra a.s.sa.s.sin who had summoned it. The two exchanged a flurry of strikes that sent sparks spiraling through the air.
"Go!" Michael shouted.
For a moment, Shun Yin didn"t react. He was too busily engaging the a.s.sa.s.sins in front of him to pay attention to whatever the others said. Then Glen and White Tiger smashed through the trio of Umbra a.s.sa.s.sins attacking him, scattering them with terrifying lightning spells.
"Go!" Michael shouted again. "Shun Yin, you go ahead! We"ll take care of the a.s.sa.s.sins here!"
"Go ahead, where?" Shun Yin blurted out, puzzled.
"The ritual is taking place the temple! Further back in the main hall, there should be a hatch somewhere! It should have a set of stairs leading to the bas.e.m.e.nt. If all their forces are here to stop us, then there shouldn"t be much a.s.sa.s.sins or mages left guarding the device they are using to artificially trigger an Emergence event!"
"You"re gambling quite a bit on that," Lionel remarked as he dodged one tentacle before cutting another apart. "If he goes alone, there won"t be anybody to support him…especially if there happens to be another group of enemies waiting down there."
"But he"s the only one who can convince Angie to stop this madness." Michael took a deep breath, his expression bitter. "He"s the only one she would never hurt. If he can talk to her, he might be able to change her mind and put a stop to all this!"
"What makes you think Angie is the one behind all this?" Glen muttered as he ducked under the shadowy blade of an Umbra a.s.sa.s.sin before slamming his palm into his opponent"s chest and electrocuting him. Despite lethal voltage running through his body, the a.s.sa.s.sin was able to resist the spell and continued to fight on, retaliating with a slash that forced Glen back.
"You are right. Angie really isn"t behind this." Michael smiled wryly as he combated against the grim Umbra a.s.sa.s.sin who had summoned the ghost-type Soul Beast. "But if there"s anyone who can persuade her to turn against whoever is behind this, it will be him."
"You put too much faith in me," Shun Yin replied bitterly. "I couldn"t even convince Angelica to give up on her insane goal of destroying the Porter clan."
"You didn"t try," Michael pointed out as he rolled his eyes. "And now that the Porter clan has been all but annihilated, she has already achieved her goal. There is no longer any reason for her to continue siding with whoever she joined up with."
"Then why is she still with them?""Remember what I told you, about a month ago? The message she asked me to pa.s.s on to you?"
Shun Yin blinked in surprise. He did indeed recall the letter that Michael delivered to him on behalf of Angelica.
"Please don"t join the a.s.sa.s.sins Guild. I intend to betray the organization hiring them. All I desire is more power…that way, I will be able to be together with you. Our paths may be different, but our destination is definitely the same. I"m sure we"ll arrive there together…eventually."
His eyes widened. Michael was definitely giving him a hint somewhere, reminding him of Angelica"s plans. She didn"t stay with the mastermind behind this artificial apocalyptic Emergence event after the demise of her clan to destroy the world. She was planning to betray the organization who had schemed the end of the world all this time. And what better way to obstruct their plans than from doing it within their organization?
That was why she stuck with them after she achieved her goal of a.s.sa.s.sinating her family and clan elders. To stop them from destroying the world. Still, Shun Yin had to admit that she had a really convoluted way of doing this. And why even bother with wiping out the majority of the Porter clan when you were going to destroy the world anyway?
Well, whatever. He was never going to find out unless he asked her directly. And the only way to do that was to meet her.
"I"ll be counting on you then."
Gathering mana into his sword, Shun Yin launched himself forward. Three of the Umbra a.s.sa.s.sins lunged at him, determined to halt his advance, but his blade erupted into a h.e.l.lish inferno before was.h.i.+ng over the three of them. Two of the Umbra a.s.sa.s.sins retreated in reflex, avoiding a fiery death, but their third comrade was instantly incinerated.
Without missing a beat, Shun Yin surged into the back of the main hall where they had been fighting in all this while. The two Umbra a.s.sa.s.sins spun around and pursued him, their blades flas.h.i.+ng downward dangerously.
"Oh no, you don"t!"
"!!!"
The two a.s.sa.s.sins were forced to dive to the side as jagged bolts of golden lightning struck the s.p.a.ce where they would have occupied if they continued on their trajectory toward their target. Flanked by his growling White Tiger, Glen approached them.
"Your opponent is me!"
Shun Yin didn"t even turn back, trusting his friend to watch his back. He cleaved through a pile of rubble that was in his way, almost on intuition, and spotted the hatch that Michael was talking about. He yanked it open with his free hand, the trapdoor swinging upward to reveal a set of stairs leading to the darkness below.
Without any hesitation, he plunged downward, leaving the fighting behind him.
Eventually, he reached the bottom of the stairs, which then tapered off into a long corridor. Slowing down, he proceeded cautiously, aware that there would be traps planted between here and his destination.
"!!"
As he took a single step forward, he sensed something enormous. An awfully potent source of mana that hummed and thrummed from deep within the temple. Michael was correct. Whatever they planned on doing, it was being carried out in the bowels of the Phoenix Temple, its sacred grounds desecrated by lunatics.
"…this is…"
Shun Yin was sure that the source of the mana was what the enemy used to artificially trigger the Emergence event. Such tremendous amounts of energies were required to rip open the fabric of time-s.p.a.ce and cause a rupture between the two dimensions. It was unlike the miniaturized devices that the Dark Church eventually developed in the present, but back then the technology was still young and undeveloped.
These were pretty much the prototypes that they used.
However, it was clear that they needed a lot of mana to power the device that they used to artificially trigger the Emergence event. That was why Shun Yin knew he was on the right track. He began to hasten his pace.
"!!!"
He slowed down when he caught sight of something ma.s.sive guarding the corridor. At first he thought it was a spirit, particularly when he remembered the experiments the a.s.sa.s.sins Guild carried out by using human subjects as vessels.
The creature was emanating that much mana, after all.
Then, as it roared, he could see its physical shape coming in more clearly. It wasn"t humanoid, but a gigantic beast that stood on four legs. Three heads snapped and snarled, spittle flying from fanged jaws.
"Cerberus?"
Shun Yin frowned when he recognized the three-headed monster. He readied his sword, flames igniting along the length of his blade as he prepared for combat. The three-headed hound growled, a throaty bellow emitting from all of its throats in unison.
Then it pounced on him.
"!!!"
Shun Yin barely caught sight of a huge, dark blur that literally flew across the hundred meters between them in a single bound before all ten tons of it crashed on top of him. Diving to the side, he hit the ground and desperately rolled away as a ma.s.sive paw crushed the spot where he had been lying on a millisecond earlier.
"Kuh!"
Springing to his feet, he launched a surge of flames at the offending Cerberus, but it merely batted his fire spell away with a swipe of its huge paw. The left head twisted around to close its jaws around him, and he was forced to withdraw.
"?!"
The right head then crashed toward him from the opposite direction, forcing him to raise his sword to parry the snout before the big, razor-sharp teeth could tear him into shreds. He unleashed a burst of flames at pointblank range, causing the a.s.saulting head to yelp and recoil from pain. Shun Yin followed up with a second spell, but the center head darted forward and chomped on the fireball, extinguis.h.i.+ng it inside its mouth.
"What the…?!"
Shun Yin gaped as he watched smoke steam from within the center head"s closed jaws, but the Cerberus merely shook his attacks off before howling at him.
"Ugh!"
The sonic a.s.sault threw Shun Yin off his feet and sent him cras.h.i.+ng into the wall several dozen meters away. Even as the concrete cracked from the impact, the fire mage could see the invisible sound wave tear a ravaged path through the ground and leaving a trail of destruction.
Dropping to the ground, he clutched his bleeding ears and winced, trying to maintain his focus despite his sense of balance being warped from the sonic a.s.sault. The monster wasn"t kind enough to wait for him to recover, however, and it seized the opportunity to lunge at him again.
With his sense of balance disorientated, Shun Yin couldn"t move from his position. He was too dizzy. Instead, he closed his eyes and swung his sword as hard as he could, unleas.h.i.+ng a torrent of fire at his enemy. Cerberus was knocked back, kept at bay by the firewall that now spread between it and its prey.
However, it continued to pace the corridor, its three pairs of blazing eyes fixed upon Shun Yin"s kneeling figure. Leaning on his sword, Shun Yin gathered more mana into his head, trying to restore his sense of balance and minimize the damage caused by his injuries. Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes and glared at the Cerberus.
The three-headed monster stopped for a moment and opened all three jaws to unleash another sonic a.s.sault. The sheer force of the sound wave blasted the flames back like a hurricane and extinguished them. This time, Shun Yin was prepared, and he clamped his hands over his hears as he evaded the supersonic blast. Tucking his legs into his chest, he rolled across the air and flipped himself over to safety.
However, Cerberus wasn"t content with firing off sonic a.s.saults from a distance.
The moment Shun Yin landed, Cerberus sprang at him. Twisting around, Shun Yin crouched low and ducked under a swinging paw that pa.s.sed over his head and ruffled his hair, cutting off the ends of several strands. The moment Cerberus flew past him, he immediately spun around and swung his sword, unleas.h.i.+ng another ma.s.sive fire bolt at its rear.
"!!!"
Something whipped out and struck him from behind the curtain of flames he had conjured. Only his reflexes saved him, Shun Yin raising his sword to parry the cruel blow. The tremendous impact hurled him to the side, causing another crater in the heavily devastated wall.
"Ugh…!"
Blood dripped from his mouth, Shun Yin collapsing to a heap at the bottom of the wall. Trying to support himself with his sword, he glanced up and was horrified to see a serpent. The colossal snake hissed and bared its venomous fangs, a forked tongue darting out.
No, it wasn"t a serpent. It was Cerberus"s tail. For some reason, the monster had four heads instead of three, with the serpent making up its tail.
"What in the world…?"
Wiping the blood from his mouth, Shun Yin slowly rose to his feet and gripped his sword with both hands, preparing to conjure another fire spell. Before he could finish casting it, Cerberus pounced on him, its outstretched paws ready to crush him.
"?!"
A glowing white crescent slammed into its side, knocking it off course and sending the gargantuan creature sprawling on the ground.
"My, my. You"re having trouble with a spirit of this level? How will you ever be able to defeat the elite a.s.sa.s.sins serving the Dark Church at this rate?"
"?!"
Shun Yin"s eyes widened when he recognized the familiar voice. Blinking, he also realized the earlier white crescent as the arc of energy generated by a sword slash. The person who saved him was a superlative swordswoman.
And not just any swordswoman.
Angelica Porter strolled out from the shadows, her sword in hand. Cerberus snarled as it turned upon her, its three heads frothing in rage and the serpent hissing vengefully. Even though it had taken a direct hit from her sword, it was still very much alive.
Her lack of success didn"t seem to concern her. Instead, Angelica smiled as she adopted an offensive stance.
"Get up, Shun Yin," she instructed gently. "We"re going to stop this Emergence event from occurring."