Chapter 258 - 258 Lilia Vs Avery

Lilia seeing Avery coming at her with a dagger tightened her fighting stance and got ready to counterattack.

Dodging Avery's first blow Lilia turned on the tops of her toes and sent a right jab for his exposed side, hoping to smash him into the hallway wall.

Yet Avery was no slouch either and bending his body at an unnatural angle with incredibly agility just managed to avoid Lilia's strike and counterattack.

Bringing his dagger down, Avery sliced at Lilia's exposed hand that was not protected by her armor planning to take her whole hand off.

However, as his blade hit her skin it was repelled as if she was made of diamonds, and only the smallest scratch appeared on her skin.

Seeing this Avery's eyes went wide, but he had no time to digest what he had just seen as Lilia brought up her left leg to kick him away.

Putting his arms in front of his body and leaning back Avery allowed the kick to push him back while dispersing the force.

Flying back over a dozen feet, Avery managed to take minimal damage from Lilia's kick even though her stats were definitively higher than his.

This was the difference in battle experience they had, since while Lilia had plenty of familiarity fighting beasts and monsters, she had never had a true all-out battle with another person.

'It should only take a few more seconds.' Avery thought.

Even though his dagger had not done nearly as much damage as he thought it would, it was coated in a very powerful venom that normally even one drop would be enough to kill even someone at level fifty.

Except Lilia was not just anyone and her unique skill quickly sealed up the small scratch and ejected the venom from her body.

Seeing this Avery was now certain he had no chance of winning. 

He knew he could never physically overpower Lilia, and if his best weapon poison did not work on her, then his only option was retreat.

Unfortunately, he took too long to analyze the situation and with the brief pause in their fight, Lilia had pulled out her best gauntlets prioritizing her safety over keeping the power of her gear hidden.

'Shit.'

Seeing the top tier mithril gauntlets that Lilia had just equipped, Avery immediately began running down the hall to escape.

He hated that he would have to abandon his mission and break his perfect record, but he was no good to Permafrost dead or captured, so retreat was his only option.

However, Lilia was not going to let the man that had just attacked her go and began chasing after him, and with her far higher stats Lilia soon was gaining on Avery.

Seeing this Avery dropped a smoke bomb behind him to cover his escape, but as the smoke began to fill the hallway and he was about to round the corner he heard Lilia finish a spell.

"Force Wave."

An instant later a large blast of force flew out from Lilia's fist expanding through the hallway causing it to shake and crack before slamming into Avery.

Yet Avery had just barely deployed a magical item that created a barrier in front of him, which took just enough of the spell's power to leave him relatively unharmed.

Unfortunately, the spell still pushed him against the hallway's wall which was now crumbling after taking the power of Lilia's tier four spell.

In fact, if not for Avery's barrier creating item taking the brunt of Lilia's spell, she may have taken down part of the building.

Slammed up against a crumbling wall Avery tried to make his way towards the nearby window he had spotted just down the bend in the hall, but as he recovered his balance his danger sense went off again.

Putting up his arms in a defense posture Avery blocked Lilia's punch with his arms.

Crack!

A sickening sound resounded in Avery's ears and an intense wave of pain followed as even with the defensive capabilities of his cloak and its mithril threaded cloth his arms were both shattered by Lilia's attack.

However, that was not all the power behind the attack, as Lilia's punch smashed him through the already damaged wall and flying outside.

Falling towards the ground from three stories up, Avery did his best to position himself to land on his feet, but with his shattered arms and ruptured organs from Lilia's full powered punch he slipped over and crashed into the ground worsening his injuries.

By some miracle though Avery was still alive and conscious, and removing one of the false teeth he had, crushed the capsule hidden inside that contained a powerful healing potion.

Of course, the potion was only a small dose, so it did not come close to fully restoring him, but it did heal him enough to no longer be in danger of dying.

Using his left arm which was slightly less damaged than the other, Avery bared through the pain and opened up the magic bag tied to his belt to get another healing potion.

Unfortunately, as he did, two golden lion cubs jumped out of the nearby bushes and pincered him from two sides.

Avery did not know where they had come from, but if he had waited one more day to gather information, he would have found that Lilia had just registered these two as her beast companions.

Hoping that the two magical beasts were just curious, Avery took a healing potion and tried to drink it, but before he could Aurelia swatted it out of his hands shattering the potion.

Naturally, Lilia had already updated the two of them as to what was happening, and as intelligent beasts, they were not about to allow someone that tried to harm their master get away.

Resigning himself, Avery knew that it was only a matter of time before he was found, so moving his tongue in his mouth aimed to pull out the false tooth that contained a capsule of deadly poison and kill himself.

Except as he moved his tongue to where the tooth should have been, it was gone having been knocked out when Lilia smashed him through the wall.

Frantically he tired to pull out any of the other lethal poisons he kept on his person, but Zareen came over and picked up his magic bag in her mouth while Aurelia removed his belt and dragged it away.

Gritting his teeth Avery forced himself to stand up even though he was still horribly injured, and his body felt like it was on fire.

"Hey, you there what are you doing here."

Looking over Avery saw six of the academy's guards running over, obviously alerted by the commotion that his and Lilia's battle had caused.

Looking at the guards Avery though up a quick ploy that had a chance of getting him out of this mess.

"Please help me. On of the students is attacking me and she has sicked her beast companions after me." Avery said with a hoarse voice as he coughed up some blood and pulled down his hood to show the guards his face.

Luckily a couple of them recognized him and the lead guard said, "Professor Avery?!... What is going on here?"

The guards then began looking around at what was going on. 

The first year's dormitory looked like it was partially falling apart and in front of them was a well-respected professor bloody and battered surrounded by two golden lion cubs.

It was all very bizarre and none of them had ever experienced anything like this since working at the academy that was normally considered a cushy easy job.

Then a moment later Lilia ran up onto the scene and seeing the guards said, "That man just attacked me arrest him."

Hearing this now the guards were receiving different messages and were not sure who was telling the truth.

Normally they would have believed the professor, but he was dressed up in a jet-black cloak and what appeared to be the broken remains of a mask could still be seen around his neck.

But on the other side Lilia was wearing top tier armor and weapons that made her look like one of the kingdom's elite knights which made no sense for a student.

"Okay both of you stay put. We are going to take the two of you in and get to the bottom of this."

With no clear picture of who exactly was the perpetrator the head guard had no other option but to detain both of them.

Yet Lilia who did not know why the guards wanted to arrest her as well said, "What do you mean take me in. I am one of this school's students and that man is an intruder that attacked me in my room."

Naturally Lilia was confused, from her perspective Avery was obviously suspicious and there was no reason for the guards to want to take her in.

"Miss this man here is one of the academies esteemed professors, and he says you attacked him. Now we need both of you to come with us to get the bottom of this so if you are innocent just come quietly and everything will be resolved." The highest-ranking guard said trying to get the situation under control.

Now understanding the whole situation Lilia stood down and began putting her weapons and armor away allowing the guards to do their job.

She had done nothing wrong so Lilia was certain that the truth would come out and her attacker would be found guilty.

Of course, Avery knew this as well and under a detailed investigation he was sure to be found out.

However, he was far too injured to run so his only hope was that his organization would value him enough to bail him out.

Thus, the two of them were taken into custody as the entire population of the academy woke up to find out what the huge commotion was going on at the first year's dormitory.