225 Chapter 225: Lion versus Tiger

The lion spirit vessel growled as he struggled to his feet, but White Tiger didn't give him the chance to recover. With a roar, White Tiger lunged at the lion spirit vessel and smacked him across the face, drawing several red lines of blood from his gray face and tearing out chunks of hair from his thick mane.

Snarling, the possessed man retaliated with a swipe of his own, his claws exploding outward to tear into White Tiger's flesh. However, the summoned spirit deftly dodged the counterattack, and then returned with another slash that the lion spirit vessel somehow managed to deflect away with his arm. The possessed guy twisted the claws' trajectory in midair, having them turn almost 180 degrees to stab White Tiger's back.

As if it had eyes on the back of its head, White Tiger ducked downward, allowing the claws to sail past its head and clip the edges of its white fur. The lion spirit vessel snarled, but somehow stopped his claws from stabbing himself in time.

With a single swipe, White Tiger smashed the claws into shards of keratin, showering the lion spirit vessel with fragments of its own nails. Far from defenseless, the lion spirit vessel immediately cast a spell and blasted White Tiger with crimson lightning.

However, the White Tiger possessed powerful electricity of its own. Golden lightning surged out of its body to clash against the web of crimson energies, the two violent storms erupting in an explosion.

White Tiger tumbled out of the smoke and landed on all fours, growling ferociously. Apart from singed fur and some smoke rising from its body, it was unscathed. In contrast, the lion spirit vessel crashed out of the fumes, bloodied and burned. He raised a paw and sent another volley of claws spiraling toward White Tiger, but it was clear that his movements had slowed down drastically. White Tiger effortlessly dodged the attack before sending another bolt of golden lighting at its foe. The lion spirit vessel was sent hurtling back against the wall, debris raining down around him as he slumped down on the scorched ground.

"I'll take care of that thing. You deal with the Assassins."

Shun Yin raised an eyebrow at Glen's instruction. "You're putting an awful amount of faith in me, thinking that I can handle two professional Assassins by myself."

"Heh." Glen grinned at him. "You're the guy Angie fell in love with and the person I recognized as a comrade. I have very high expectations of you."

"…I'll leave Mei to you then."

When Glen nodded, Shun Yin gently pushed her toward his friend's direction before turning to face the two Assassins.

"Oh dear…seems like the experiment failed. The spirit can't even take care of a single summoned Soul Beast."

The female Assassin's voice was tinged with mocking dismay. Shun Yin ignored her remark and drew his sword before lunging forward.

"Brad, leave this brat to me."

The huge Assassin made no movement, but he clearly complied with the girl's request. The female Assassin lunged forward and slashed at Shun Yin with her daggers. Even though he was hurt, Shun Yin still somehow parried her strike with his sword.

However, her speed almost caught him by surprise. The female Assassin spun around and delivered a kick to his head, but he ducked it, only to block her right dagger with his sword. He withdrew a step as she stabbed at him with her left dagger, barely avoiding getting grazed by the tip. Noticing some fluid spread across the blade, Shu Yin surmised that the daggers must be poisoned.

I've to be careful.

Far from discouraged, the female Assassin relentlessly pressed on with her attack, scything her daggers toward his neck. Shun Yin retreated another step, and then countered with a riposte that forced her to jump backward.

"Oh, how skillful!"

Giggling, the female Assassin spun about, almost as if she was doing a waltz, and struck Shun Yin from two different directions. Shun Yin dodged the first one, and then deflected the second one, but his opponent reversed the first dagger in her hand and stabbed downward.

"!!!"

Shun Yin whirled about and slammed his elbow into her wrist, knocking the blade away from him.

"You even prevented that attack!"

The female Assassin sounded shocked now, but she kicked Shun Yin, who blocked her foot with his knee before swinging his blazing sword. She did a cartwheel and flipped herself backward, and then tossed one of her daggers at him.

Shun Yin struck it away, but the enemy had already produced a new dagger and was lunging at him again. Shun Yin desperately fended off her relentless hail of attacks, parrying, blocking, deflecting and defending, but her speed only seemed to increase.

I can't let her cut me even once, or it's all over!

Ducking under one of his opponent's swing, Shun Yin kicked her squarely in the gut, but she didn't seem fazed and instead stabbed down toward his leg. Fortunately, Shun Yin already withdrew his limb in time and attacked her with his flaming sword. The female Assassin parried the blazing blade with her dagger and struggled to drive him off.

"Huff…"

Shun Yin allowed the momentum of her blow to send him flying several meters back, so as to maximize the distance between them. Finally skidding to a stop, he held his sword in both hands and took a deep breath.

Behind him, the furious battle between lion and tiger continued. The lion spirit vessel clawed at the White Tiger, sending streaks of crimson lightning flying, but the Soul Beast effortlessly evaded the deadly web of electricity. In response, it launched golden bolts of lightning at its foe. The lion spirit vessel struggled to dodge through the crackling electricity, his agility helping him to swerve past several of them. Spinning in midair, the possessed human sent another volley of elongating claws at the darting and dashing tiger.

A searing blast of lightning lanced forward and disintegrated the lengthening claws before they could reach the dodging White Tiger. Lowering his smoking hand, Glen smiled grimly. The lion spirit vessel turned to roar furiously at him…

…only for White Tiger to decapitate him. Lightning wreathing its claws, the immense Soul Beast literally swiped the lion spirit vessel's head from his shoulders, effectively beheading the monstrous enemy. The headless gray corpse teetered for a moment before toppling over. The body began dissolving into nothingness and faded away.

"No way!" the female Assassin gaped at the impossible sight. Slightly shifting her attention away from Shun Yin, she glanced at the scene of the lion spirit vessel's death. She clicked her tongue, annoyed. "Damn it, the technology is far from completed. So the spirits still aren't as strong as Soul Beasts, huh? Or perhaps it's the type of spirit we summoned…we should have summoned a much more powerful spirit…"

"Does it matter? You'll never be allowed to conduct this sort of experiments again." Glen turned toward the female Assassin, his White Tiger flanking him. At a mental command, his Soul Beast pounced on her, lightning erupting from its body.

"Brad!" the female Assassin shouted. The huge guy nodded once and leaped forward, intercepting the massive Soul Beast and tackling it to the ground. The White Tiger wrestled with Brad, the latter holding off the former's claws, but just barely.

And then lightning exploded from White Tiger's body, bathing Brad in deadly electricity. The huge Assassin gathered mana to physically reinforce himself to withstand the lightning spell, but Glen arrived while he was still pinned down by his summoned Soul Beast.

"Heads up!" he said gleefully as he poked Brad's forehead with a glowing finger. Brad struggled to knock him away, but the White Tiger continued to pin him down, crushing his arms with its heavy paws. "Shining Finger!"

A highly concentrated bolt of lightning arced out of Glen's finger and bore a hole through Brad's forehead, drilling past skin and skull to melt the brain within. Even with the physical reinforcement spell, the highly focused mana that Glen gathered and concentrated into a single tiny point was enough to penetrate the large guy's defenses.

Brad went into spasms, his body shaking violently as the electricity flowed through his body. Not that it would help much – his brain had already melted into a puddle caged within his skull, and blood was dripping from his eyes, nose and mouth.

"What in the…?!"

The female Assassin didn't have time to be surprised. While she was distracted, Shun Yin had been spending all this time casting his spell.

And now he completed the casting.

"Combust, Yan Yue!" he shouted. His sword burst into flames…well, it was already ablaze, but a much more ferocious fire consumed his blade, expanding beyond its former size to swell up gigantically above him. Shun Yin swung his sword and unleashed the titanic tide of flames upon the half-distracted female Assassin, engulfing her in hellish fire.

The female Assassin screamed as she disappeared from view. Despite trying to rely on her lightning reflexes to save herself, she was unable to escape the overwhelming torrent of fire.

But Shun Yin was far from finished.

Enduring the agonizing heat, he jumped straight into the inferno and slashed the female Assassin while she was still stumbling around, immolated by his spell. She shrieked and crashed over, but blood didn't spurt out of her wound because it was instantly cauterized by the extreme temperatures. Nonetheless, Shun Yin had delivered sufficient damage to incapacitate her.

With a groan, the female Assassin lay on the ground, unmoving and gravely injured. Shun Yin kicked the daggers out of her hands before dismissing the flames. He then placed his blade next to her neck.

"Surrender," he ordered.

The female Assassin hissed and spat at him.

"You think you've won? Really? You must be really naïve if you think we're the only operatives in this building."

"I could say the same to you, if you really believe that these two kids were the only ones who infiltrated your base."

Both Shun Yin and Glen glanced up in surprise when they heard a familiar voice. Michael Porter strolled in, his sword in hand. There was blood on the blade, dried blood, probably from a cauterized wound.

"We took care of the Assassins in the other rooms," Michael informed the two high school students. He then glanced at the wounded female Assassin, who was lying on the ground. "You didn't kill her?"

"She's helpless and incapacitated. There is no need to kill her." Shun Yin shrugged. "Besides, we can interrogate her for more information."

"I guess there's that, but just a word of advice. An Assassin is never helpless." Michael sighed. "I'll get the investigation team to apprehend her, but just to be safe, keep her there." He was about to poke his head out of the room and call out to his comrades when he caught sight of Mei, who was inching closer to Shun Yin. Doing a double take, he gaped at her. "Who is that?"

"Mei." Shun Yin reached out with his free hand to pat her head. "We found her in one of the labs. They've been conducting experiments on humans, fusing them with spirits."

"If you don't mind, I would like to bring her to the Porter's private hospital, to see if we can help her." Glen raised a hand, and Michael nodded in approval.

"Sure. I'll help you take care of that. I'll be back…"

"!!!"

Shun Yin was so distracted speaking to Michael that he didn't notice the female Assassin moving under him. From her dark sleeve a new dagger slid out and she stabbed at his sword hand.

"Watch out!"

Having clung to Shun Yin, Mei was the first one to see the move and the first one to act. She tackled Shun Yin and knocked him aside. Michael spun around, and the moment the female Assassin leaped to her feet, he beheaded her without any hesitation. The female Assassin's head, still concealed beneath her hood, tumbled about and crashed onto the ground in an undignified manner, leaving a trail of blood.

Her headless body then fell over with a thump.

"Shun Yin! Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I am. But…"

Shun Yin's expression was pale and ghastly. He was staring down at Mei, who was convulsing violently. Blood had blossomed on her back. It was just a shallow cut, but…

…it was a cut made by a poisoned dagger.

"Fuck!"

"Medic! Get a healer over here! Immediately!"

While Glen was swearing uncontrollably in panic, Michael stormed out of the room with a yell.

"Mei! Are you all right!? Talk to me, Mei!" Shun Yin gripped her hand tightly. Her temperature was plummeting, perspiration glistened her whitening skin, and he could sense her pulse weakening. "Stay with me, Mei. You'll be all right. You'll definitely be all right! We'll save you!"

"…Big Brother…"

Mei was staring at him hollowly, the life fading from her eyes, but she managed a tiny smile.

"…are you all right? Did that bad woman…hurt you?"

"No. I'm all right. You saved me, Mei. Thank you so much!" Shun Yin hugged her to his chest, tears dripping from his eyes. "You're a hero, Mei. And heroes don't die. Heroes can't die. That's why you shouldn't give up. We'll get you…"

"Ah…I see many pretty stars." Mei's voice had dropped to an inaudible whisper and she was staring upward dreamily, her tone soft but delighted. "I…feel like I'm flying. Are you…carrying me, Big Brother?"

"No…but I'll carry you when you recover, okay? That's why…don't give up. Once you heal up, I'll bring you flying to wherever! Mei!"

However, Mei no longer heard him. Drawing her last breath, her chest stopped rising gently, and her pulse stopped.