Chapter 1147: Song of Slaughter

Amiran lunged forward, calling upon his Aspect and bringing down an avalanche of destructive force upon the formation of the Song infiltrators. Two waves of crushing power rolled forward from his weapons... only to shatter against the invisible bulwark of a sonic boom.

The concrete floor was shattered as the whole factory trembled.

A moment later, a swift silhouette shot toward him from the cloud of dust - Morrow, her calm eyes full of cold murderous intent. Her shabby civilian clothes were torn, revealing glimpses of a slender enchanted armor hidden beneath.

In her hand, there was a narrow blade that seemed too fragile to be used in actual combat.

Amiran raised his sword, batting the blade away. At the same time, his hammer flew forward, the spike protruding from its top aimed precisely at the enemy's unprotected throat.

However, as soon as his sword met the steel of Morrow's weapon, there was a melodious ring. That ring suddenly magnified, crashing into him like a stone wall. Grimacing from pain piercing his ears, the Knight of Valor was thrown back.

He rolled over his shoulder, catching a glimpse of his warriors. They were advancing, ready to clash with the Awakened of Clan Song... even though Amiran only saw them for a tiny sliver of a second, he noticed two things.

First, the blood spilling from the breach in the roof of the main production hall. Second, the fact that only four of the six cohorts seemed to have made it down.

Wrath ignited in his heart.

'Treacherous worms...'

One of Morrow's cohorts was missing, and now, two of his own had failed to descend. It was not hard to understand what had most likely happened - the damned witch must have sent some of her people to ambush the warriors of Valor on the upper levels of the factory. To sacrifice their lives so that the rest could escape.

A cunning maneuver... albeit a fruitless one. It was of no use. Even with the missing cohort buying the infiltrators time with their blood, the force of Song was still hopelessly outmatched.

Morrow was desperate. And wouldn't she be?

The executioner she faced was none other than Amiran. The sword of Valor was inescapable.

Even more frustratingly, the Knight was using his Aspect to wrap himself in a thin layer of protective force, stifling all sounds that could have resulted from their clash.

Still, it was just a matter of time before he made a mistake.

Morrow was confident...

Just a dozen seconds later, however, her confidence waned.

Not because she felt pressured by Amiran - and she did, of course. A Knight of Valor was not an enemy to be taken lightly. No, it was because Morrow was suddenly unsure of how much time she had left.

Because their soldiers were dying too quickly.

All of them were the absolute elites of the Awakened world, so their battle was unsurprisingly intense and bloody. The whole factory was quaking and convulsing from the magnitude of the unleashed violence, as if on the verge of collapsing.

Before it did, they would have to escape to the streets.

And yet... the battle was somehow too bloody, and too lethal. There were too many corpses on the ground already, especially at the edges of the formation, where the fighting was supposed to be less intense.

Morrow remembered that the assassin Amiran had sent ahead of the main force was still here, somewhere, in the production hall - that could have been an explanation, if not for the fact that there were more of Valor warriors dying than that of Song.

Something... something strange was going on.

Morrow deflected a glancing blow from Amiran's sword and evaded the beak of the war hammer, pushing forward to deliver a strike of her own.

'I am missing something. Something... is not right...'

Even though she was suppressing the valiant Knight, and even though her soldiers were seemingly prevailing against the servants of Valor...

A cold, unsettling feeling slowly found its way into Morrow's heart.