80 Breaking Through

"You're quite right, Merida, my niece isn't dumb, but she IS foolish. All of this, our lands, our homes, all of which are now facing ruins, all these are because of her, because she wanted a Champion of her own."

"That isn't fair, Lord Remus, the princess only wanted the best for her people."

"Enough! The moment she made her covenant with the Betrayer, she's an enemy to this world. I should have stopped her when I had the chance, but now it's too late. There's only one thing to do now."

A covenant with the Betrayer? That's the first I've heard of it, but it certainly doesn't sound good.

"Merida, what is he talking about?"

"It's... I'm sorry, Lady Toto, but I believe it is better if you hear it from the princess herself."

"Why is that, Merida? Is it because without my niece's deceptive tongue, her villainy would be all too clear to those who hear of her deeds?"

"Lord Remus, I beg of you, do not speak ill of the princess, not in front of the Champion, and not in front of me. Or else, I may not guarantee that you'll be able to walk away safely."

Merida speaks with calmness in her tone, and in spite of her words, she is in complete control over her emotions. I find that to be impressive.

"Hmph! Rather than worry about me, how about you worry about yourself, Merida? Because you're the one who won't be walking away and neither will the Champion. If you come quietly, I'll at least let the Champion live, she's just a poor soul that had been dragged into this after all. However, if you insist on escaping, then I'll have no choice but to eliminate every single one of you before you cause both me and this world any more trouble."

"That's not going to happen."

Like that, Merida went and decided for me. Not that I mind. I wasn't going to just head on back to the jail cell either. I have to get back, back to the others.

"So be it then."

With those grim words from Remus, Merida draws her dagger, and from her cold eyes, I can see that she's more than ready to kill. In the next instant, Merida was already behind him. She had used one of her skills, [Assassination], the one that lets her teleport behind her target and strike at where they're the most vulnerable. The only one I've seen is able to readily avoid this skill is Cecilia, and she had practiced it with Six over and over again till she got it down. That's why I was confident, confident that this will be over within an instant. However, the bad feeling I had, the one that budded within me when I saw that Remus came to confront us alone, it wasn't unwarranted.

"Not even a single scratch!?"

Merida's eyes widen in shock. She apparently can't believe what had just happened. I guess this means that either Remus was never this strong or that he has been hiding his strength this whole time.

"Do you understand now? It is futile to fight me. I've been granted this power by the 'Creator' herself."

The 'Creator'? Is he talking about some kind of god? Like the Keepers? Or perhaps, even above the Keepers? Either way, it doesn't seem like Merida alone will be able to beat him. I'll have to do something. Or at least, I should. But, what do I do? At times like this, either Cecilia or Aurelius would have a plan. I just have to follow them through. Right now, however, they're not here, are they? Even so, even so, I have to do something. I can't just sit still. I have to do something. Even if I can't do much, I have to do something. That's right, even if there's no one here to help me or for me to rely upon, I have to do it. I must.

I still remember it, that one time she lost her temper for my sake. She got so mad that she scared even me, though that's not saying much I suppose. I guess she couldn't help it. I was such a wimp back then, after all, even now, I'm still somewhat like. I was the type who would rather let someone walk all over me than to have to stand up for myself. So I suppose she must have thought that she had to do it. I'm supposed to be the older one here and yet I'm like that after all. She must have been so frustrated. It's because I'm the way I am that she had to be tough.

"Sophia, help me get some distance from Remus."

Even though I was only whispering, I see Remus's dog-like ears turning towards my direction. He's heard me, I have no doubt about that.

Quickly, I turn my eyes towards Merida, hoping to signal her with a strong look. Thankfully, I think she somewhat caught it and quickly draws out her second blade and promptly closes in on Remus.

Without a sign of hurry, Remus casually takes half a step backward and gently leans away, causing Merida's blade to barely swipe past his neck.

Having missed her seemingly perfect swing, one of Merida's brows twitches, either in irritation or surprise. Still, that does not slow her down as she shifts her weight and moves in for a second swing.

Again, Remus avoids it, this time with impossibly quick footwork that maneuvered him right out of the blade's path. Seeing that she had missed once more, Merida immediately tries to pull against her momentum and get some distance from Remus. Unfortunately, Merida is a tad bit too slow as Remus' right leg seemingly vanished, leaving a small burst of soil and dust in the ground where it once stood.

Perhaps sensing her imminent death, Merida literally forced herself to bend over backwards as Remus' leg sweeps over her like whirlwind, threatening to tear her in two if she had been caught directly.

With Merida ending up in an odd posture beneath him, an amused smirk surfaces upon Remus' face, and though he has no feline features, he certainly reminds me of a cat toying with its prey.

Still in mid-swing, Remus' leg quickly alters its trajectory, turning upwards with inhuman flexibility before tracing an arc on its way back down, slamming into the ground and raising up a cloud of dirt and even chunks of earth. Merida was pulverized, or at least, she could have been. However, with her [Shadow Step], Merida was able to narrowly escape what would more than certainly be a deathblow as well as drawing some distance away from Remus.

Having gotten out of Remus' immediate reach, Merida takes a deep breath with her dagger at the ready, her mind trying to figure out a way to keep up with Remus. Yet, the lord gives her no such opportunity. In an instant, he was behind her. It's the Assassin skill: [Assassination]. As for why the nobleman would have such a skill, I don't have a clue and neither do I have the leisure to try and figure it out.

With the back of his fist, Remus swings at Merida, who at the moment is unprepared to deal with this sudden attack. Knowing that she would have no time to dodge, Merida instead chooses to block with her arm.

There was a cracking sound, the cracking of bones. The impact of Remus' strike was strong enough to break Merida's bones. She must have known, it was the same strike that shattered her dagger, after all, so she must have been prepared for the worst.

As she was being struck, Merida kicked off the ground, using the force of the impact to allow herself to be blown towards us.

"Sophia!"

Before I even tell her to, the healer was already on the move and with her magic, she beings healing Merida.

"Not so fast!"

Of course, Remus has no intention of letting that happen. How quaint, because I'm thinking the same thing about him.

"I say the same to you, sir."

A semi-transparent wall blocks Remus' way. It's the Enchanter spell: [Mana Wall]. With my current condition, just the act of casting is painful. However, I've fought through worse pain before. I don't think anything will be able to compare to what happens when you cast five [Meteors] at once. Even so, after going through the trouble of conjuring up the [Mana Wall], Remus breaks past it in an instant. Well, that's fine, enough time has been brought.

"Heads up, Remus."

"Hm?"

Once I mentioned it, Remus starts to take notice, that everything in our surroundings had been dyed red, that it's starting to get rather toasty.

"You didn't!"

"Oh, but I did."

Looking up, what the lord beholds is a great big piece of burning space rock heading straight for him. Then, while he's distracted.

"[Bind Circle!]"

"!!!"

And that makes a double whammy surprise for our Lord Remus. With Remus fixed in place, Merida, who has now recovered thanks to Sophia, hauls me over her shoulder and begins running at full sprint.

"I'm sorry. My [Shadow Step] is still-"

"It's fine. It's not as if I'm counting on you to know every thought in my head. Just run!"

Since I'm over Merida's shoulder, I get a good view of what is happening behind us as we make our escape, and there, I behold the most infuriating yet amazing sight. Trapped where he stands, I thought Remus would by all rights be crushed by the [Meteor]. However, that man, he's still intact, and not only that, the [Meteor] had not even touched the ground. It's suspended in mid-air, or so it seemed at first. At a second glance though, I see that there's a [Mana Wall] in between him and the Meteor, no, not just one, but a total of five. Five whole [Mana Walls]. I know that the princess can perform double casting, but quintuple casting!? Now that's just getting ridiculous.

The [Meteor] eventually cracked through one, then the other one, then the next one, however, by the fourth [Mana Wall], the [Meteor] had lost power and was completely stopped. With the mana supplied to it completely used up, the [Meteor] crumbled away till it was dust and then from dust into nothing.

"Are you serious!?"

Even Merida, calm as she is, is shocked. This man, Remus, a nobleman said to have no combat experience at all, had just survived something even a Champion would have a hard time walking away from.

"I've had enough of this. You'll all die here!"

Remus' voice is filled with rage, making his composure from before look like a big lie. Then, after making his angry proclamation, he disappeared. And before any of us gets to exclaim our surprise, Remus is already in front of us.

This skill, from the light emitting from the ground as he disappears and appears, I know this. It's [Warp], a high-level Warlock spell. It's a spell that lets the caster place down two runes that teleports those who step into it to one another. However, there are no runes around here. If there were, I would have seen it with my [Insight]. How in the world did he do this?

"This is the end of the line for you."

From the gaps of his fingers, purplish sparks begin to arc between one finger to the next. I know this too. It's the Sorcerer spell, [Lightning], a high level [Air] elemental spell that required the completion of a chain of quests before it could be learned. Of course, that was from Elysium Online. Even so, I have not seen or heard of anyone with the ability to use the [Lightning] spell in Elgardia before. I've heard from one of the mages that it was supposed to be an ancient spell that, due to how dangerous and volatile it was, did not have many successors and was eventually lost to time. As for how Remus could have gotten his hands on it, I could not even being to fathom nor do I have the time to. Right now, I'm more concerned with keeping myself alive.

"[Stone Ward]!"

An armor of stone forms around us, just in time for a blinding flash of light to burn into our vision. My eyes feel as though they're on fire, but the pain indicates that I'm still alive, hopefully.

"Tch! Pesky little-"

Apparently detecting something coming his way, Remus quickly leaps backward, swinging his fist as he does. Though my vision is limited by the [Stone Ward], I can still hear, and what I heard is the sound of something shattering accompanied by some kind of liquid splattering across my vision. The liquid has a somewhat brownish-gold color.

"[Dispell]!"

A familiar voice calls out, and following that, our [Stone Wards] fall apart. Just as I am wondering what am I suppose to do now that our defenses are down, I am hit by a sense of vertigo. Rapidly, the world seems to spin around me, but I soon realize that I am in fact the one who is spinning, and not only that, I am now in the air, cradled by a set of large talons with Merida right beside me. I turn to look, only to find Sophia caught in another, her face pale and seemingly at a loss. I'm sure that I'm making the same face as well. What in the world is going on?

***