Act 4: Fallen Heaven - Chapter 718: The Worst Scenario

Act 4: Fallen Heaven - Chapter 718: The Worst Scenario

Adam punched the doors and sent them crashing to the floor. Surrounded by rocks, crevices, and a flat terrain of smooth stone, he assumed this room to be one of the environment chambers that replicated any environment set. Similar to the halls, the room reached immense, absurd distances as if he were truly outside and striding along a lifeless waste with only pebbles and boulders as his companions. He sensed a familiar presence, his smile widening with anger surging in his flared pupils.

"Come at me, false Kais!" Adam shouted, projecting his voice to the corners of the rocky terrain.

"Well. Your senses have improved since last we met, young disciple of Sevon. But shouldn't you show some respect to your master's brother?" A hooded figure dug himself out of a crevice, shaking off the rubble and dust off his shoulders. The hood flew back and revealed the man's face, the accursed one that haunted Adam's nightmares and fueled his anger for a century since his master's death.

"Enough, you fake. I know you just carry the real Kais's memories. I've been waiting for this day?" Adam put on his brass knuckles, his voice rumbling with thunder.

"By that incorrect logic, despite my ego also existing in this body, shouldn't you want revenge on the old Kais, then? I helped by killing him for you. What other quarrel do you have with me?" Kais scratched his forehead, confused.

"If not for your presence that day, I could have aided in my master's battle. And you took away my chance for revenge." Adam cackled and directed his maniacal smile at Kais. "And lastly, you are a mistake of the Voltens. Not even a memory or thought of the master's enemy should exist in this world."

"Your lust for carnage, like a beast, is proof of the failure of the old ways. Well, it is rare to get good materials for research and more powerful Reis cores. I was planning on killing you anyway." Kais smiled, his eyes curling down in unsettling crescent moons.

Adam smirked in his usual maddened wide eyes and motioned his finger over his neck. "Only one of us leave here alive."

"Damnit. How far down does it go? Did we start from the bottom or the middle of the dark tower?" Oscar lost his patience and kicked a set of doors open, ignoring the tube that flowed Ein from the floor to the ceiling. He searched the other two doorways and went down the one that led downstairs. Landing in another hall of arrogant statues, he grew more irritated, kicking the toes off a statue. He had found some people earlier, but they craved the bounty on his head, so he killed them. How many more must stay in his way? First, Lysander, then these fodders. Where was Avril?

Placing her down, Oscar turned to Lelith, overwhelmed by the desire to murder. A single swipe of his scythe repelled Demon and Erden, her strength only enough for a small gap in their formation. That gap was enough. She sped past, exhibiting speed that surpassed any of his former foes. However, there was no backing down, and no step in retreat was allowed. Contrary to her blinding speed, he stood firm and raised his shield, never blinking. Suddenly, two arrows of radiant light concentrated into a crystalline form brushed past. Lelith dodged the arrows, sidestepped Demon's sword, and flipped over Erden's bullish charge.

"Avril!" He looked back and saw Avila kneeling before Avril's comatose body. Avila held Avril's head and hugged her. She gnashed her teeth and regarded Oscar with a face of anger, tears streaming down the nasty look. "Why does she have to suffer?"

"Then end it. End the cause of her suffering." Oscar strode forward and barraged Lelith with scarlet-platinum blades. Her scythe flashed in swift strokes, breaking the blades, dozens in each swing. Nigh invisible threads absorbed the brunt of Erden's charge, several layers torn by it, and they twirled and spun, binding Erden's body, which was clad in sapphire armor. Fine, straight blazes of blue flames severed the threads, and Demon stepped in, coordinating with Oscar's forward charge. A white and blue piercing stab approached her back, and Oscar charged in, thrusting his scarlet-platinum drill toward her chest.

Avila hovered above, glaring with a sharpness in her golden eyes. She fired a line of arrows that attacked Lelith's potential retreat to the sides and above. A beam of light connected the arrowheads and formed radiant lances between each arrow. Her Meld powers relied on sending forth a collective of arrows, sharper than the norm, and connecting them with a shared spell in between. By using it, she had been a great asset in the defenses, linking explosions into a larger whole.

Lelith's expression didn't break. She seemed unbothered. Her scythe twisted, jabbing the pommel out to block his drill while the blade clashed in a sharp ring against Demon's sword. Their Shattering Waves, concentrated in the Line, unleashed their devastating power onto Lelith. But she swiped her scythe in rapid succession, somehow cutting through the Shattering Waves, the excess power erupting in all directions except hers and knocking away Avila's arrows. Oscar retreated and wiped the sweat from his chin, seeing the Ancestral Mark glowing on her forehead. At least they managed to force that out so early.

Lelith raised her arm, and a short sword hit her wrist with a loud clang. She hadn't used a spell, and judging from how she endured their attacks; Oscar concluded her body was impossibly hard like Santen's. But that should be impossible unless she wasn't a normal human. At the end of the short sword, Serit gripped the handle and spat out a mote of darkness that expanded and encased her in a shadowy orb, black mists wisping eerily from it. His brother-in-law flew back, followed by Erden. Instantly, the edge of Lelith's scythe split the prison open, and Lelith stepped out, glancing from left to right.

"It seems Fate, or rather the Threads connecting us, has brought you all here. The Slave and her husband, Issac's heir, whom I must hunt. The sister of the Slave who fights for her, even though it is no longer her sister. And you, the orphan of the Lonilo. You were granted life back then for this moment. But are you enough to be nutrients for my growth?" Lelith closed her eyes and then opened with dark, emotionless swirling in the blue pupils.

"Shut up." Oscar didn't care for her words, nor about the bounty on his head for being Issac's heir. He peeked at Avril and clenched his fists. As a husband, he had only one thought: to tear off this woman's limbs and carve out her heart. Only with that could the anger burning inside be quenched. Yes, it was time to kill a Grade Nine.