Chapter 92
The man who had been speaking to the two of them, Canel, suddenly collapsed as the poison from several box jellyfish rampaged through his body, making his heartbeat pound violently, destroying his cells from the inside, and turning every breath into burning embers scraping against his throat.
That caused the skeletal serpent he had summoned to disappear.
Receiver's of Prisoner, on the second level, Motivation.
Meanwhile, Zavi's pupils widened, his knees buckled, and his hands went limp as he kept covering his mouth while blood spilled out endlessly.
'Am I going to die here?' he thought bitterly, mourning his own fate before trying to heal his ruined chest, which still bled heavily but could at least be concealed through wound exchange healing.
"Aa...ron." Zavi tried to continue his sentence as he stood hunched over, glancing toward the one-and-a-half-meter gate behind him.
He stayed silent, trying to remain calm so the wound transfer technique Aaron had taught him and once used against Resse would succeed. At the cost of half the spirituality inside his body.
His chest felt slightly better as he managed to move his arms and stand properly again. With a hole still in his chest and blood continuing to pour out, Zavi recklessly ran to buy time so the wound transfer technique could fully take effect.
But the moment he passed through the small gate behind him, a gunshot rang out, and the bullet tore through the air straight toward him.
The bullet vanished in an instant, swallowed by Aaron's shadow that lunged upward from below, while Aaron himself remained focused on recovering from the Death revival beneath the ground through the world behind the shadow veil, occasionally helping Zavi from there.
"Don't die on me, Actitus."
Aaron scratched a short message onto the stone road not far from the one-and-a-half-meter gate, making Zavi smile in relief once he noticed it.
"Good luck," Zavi whispered as he stepped forward once more, continuing to ignore the condition of his own body.
On the other side, from the perspective of the sniper, Celina, and the other eleven people. They could no longer see Zavi because he had hidden himself behind rows of buildings, a practice hall, causing seven of them to move in pursuit of him, including Celina, who held a deep grudge and wanted to defeat Aaron.
At that same moment, the remaining five people, including Canel, turned their attention toward the two figures who had suddenly appeared from the right side, a one-way stone path that led directly into the center of the university and was squeezed tightly between buildings on both sides.
Those two people were Zuhen and Felina, who had just arrived after hearing the screams and gunshots.
Without the slightest hesitation, one of them immediately unleashed a barrage of attacks the moment he noticed a Recipestele floating near Zuhen's shoulder, firing green sphere-shaped energy toward the two of them.
The attack was easily avoided as the two of them instantly moved in opposite directions, allowing the building behind them to be destroyed and leaving only dust scattering aimlessly through the air.
From within the thick cloud of dust, Tell immediately beat his wings and charged toward a woman with a Recipestele floating beside her head, causing Tell's killing intent to surge dramatically.
With a single movement of his tiny hand, he released a pale blue flash toward the Recipestele, but the attack was casually blocked, causing Tell to freeze midair in irritation.
"You're at the same level as me, huh?" Tell asked, wanting to make sure, hoping this fight would be entertaining.
The Recipestele let out a quiet giggle before answering, "Maybe. Though from the looks of it, you seem really weak?" The Recipestele smirked mockingly, trying to provoke Tell's anger.
Tell snorted as his tiny fingers clenched tightly.
"You damn bastard..."
He poured part of his strength into his wings and lunged toward the Recipestele that floated even higher than before, allowing black feathers to scatter like falling leaves as he shot toward it.
From below, Zuhen clicked his tongue as he watched Tell act recklessly and get so easily provoked by a creature similar to himself.
"Don't expect anything," he muttered while glancing sideways, "looks like I'll be betting on you, Felina." He forced out a smile as he looked at her face.
Instead of fear or surprise, Felina's face lit up brightly, even smiling happily after hearing that.
"Just leave it to me," she said confidently, pressing a hand against her chest.
After that, she immediately rushed forward the moment two of them split apart and moved toward her. Her face turned serious as she quickly touched her elbow before charging toward one of them.
She targeted the woman on her left side, assuming she was an ordinary human without supernatural abilities and would be easier to deal with.
But it wasn't as simple as she thought.
The moment his companion was in danger, the man on the right hurried over to protect her, but his attempt failed because Zuhen intercepted him with a powerful punch to his left shoulder.
Thud...
The man was thrown backward as his gaze snapped toward Zuhen.
"Bastard..." The man immediately lunged forward and threw a punch toward the left side of Zuhen's chest, but failed when Zuhen grabbed his right arm.
"Damn it." The man muttered before slapping Zuhen's arm away with his other hand, then punching Zuhen in the face.
Thud...
Another punch landed on the right side of Zuhen's chest, followed by a flurry of blows that gradually cornered Zuhen and forced him entirely onto the defensive. Seeing an opening, the man drove the heel of his shoe hard into Zuhen's waist, powerful enough to send Zuhen flying several meters from where he stood.
Zuhen clicked his tongue as both his hands and knees slammed against the stone road, his eyes fixed on the man approaching him.
He stayed silent for a moment while watching the man run closer toward him, and the instant the man attempted to kick him, Zuhen immediately stood up, grabbed the man's lower leg, yanked him forward until his face was directly in front of him, then smashed a punch into the left side of the man's face.
Thud...
The punch was unavoidable, shocking the man before his body was flung sideways. But that still wasn't enough as Zuhen followed up by driving his elbow into the man's back in combination with a knee strike.
Thud...
The man groaned in pain.
Then from behind the man...
Bang!
A bullet shot past their bodies and slammed into the one-and-a-half-meter gate far away from where they stood.
A man arrived together with Canel, unable to tolerate the reckless fight between the two Recipesteles that was destroying everything around them, and moved to help his struggling companion.
Zuhen immediately retreated after that, convinced he would soon be killed and briefly considered cheating just to defeat them.
Meanwhile, Felina's fight still hadn't ended as she was forced to battle two people at once, including a Hollow woman who supported her companion from the rear, making things difficult because she had to avoid the knife attacks from the woman she targeted while also dodging the green sphere-shaped energy attacks aimed at her.
Several times she almost managed to touch the woman and trap her inside a barrier, even making the motion of drawing a bow that would launch invisible needles. But those attacks were nowhere near as effective as she had expected because the green sphere-shaped energy completely nullified her attacks.
The only way she could defeat both of them at once was by touching their bodies, combined with the three first-stage abilities of Prefence, Suffering.
Felina clicked her tongue as she glanced behind her, realizing Zuhen had been cornered while three people, one of them a Receivers, prepared to finish him off.
But one shout changed everything.
"Felina, do it now!" Zuhen shouted loudly, causing the three men in front of him to immediately react and become wary of their surroundings.
Seeing that opportunity, Zuhen instantly turned around and sprinted toward the road he had come from earlier before entering the building used as the university's gathering hall for meetings and important announcements, where he intended to chant a first-stage decomposition spell.
If all three men were struck by his attack at once, victory would fall into his hands.
The three men immediately entered the building, and the moment they stepped inside, caution tightly gripped their minds while their eyes constantly scanned the surroundings.
"Within the vast emptiness.
Zuhen moved while slipping through the shadows as he began carrying out surprise attacks.
"The moonlight drives away the darkness of night.
He continued moving to mislead them, occasionally knocking objects over throughout the darkness-covered hall.
"The ocean gains profound momentum.
He became even more aggressive in knocking things over, causing bursts of gunfire to echo as he moved deeper inside.
"Inside it lies nothing but meaningless nonsense.
The moment he finished chanting the first-stage decomposition spell, his face turned deathly pale, his jaw stiffened, while the hairs on the back of his neck stood beneath his thick jacket. The immense spiritual pressure of a first-stage spell filled him with fear.
Then, pitch-black rose petals appeared around his body before shooting toward the three men searching for him.
The moment Canel sensed the deadly cold sensation heading toward him, he immediately released the main weapon he had been saving since receiving orders from a Receiver of The Coffin, who was also his companion.
The building exploded as four demon horses with twin horns, crimson tails that drove away the darkness, and claws as sharp as blades appeared in an instant.
All of it happened because the demon horses released by Canel, two of them, collided with the first-stage decomposition spell and triggered a devastating explosion.
The unavoidable explosion erupted instantly.
Zuhen was blasted away by the shockwave that slammed into his back, and it also brought both battles to an abrupt halt as all four of them were thrown backward and crashed into the river wall barriers and the lower area of the university walkway, causing cracks to slowly spread over time.
Chunks of the building flew in every direction, several of them hurtling toward the four of them and forcing them to abandon the fight entirely to focus on destroying the falling debris.
The three men, including Canel, survived after allowing the remaining two demon horses to be crushed beneath the rubble while thick black smoke rose high into the sky together with blazing orange flames.
Realizing that, Canel immediately hurried away from the area, intending to escape the university because he knew those two demon horses would not die so easily and... he had lost control over them.
All of it was because the first-stage decomposition spell Zuhen had cast earlier had completely interfered with Canel's activation and control over the demon horses.
"So," said the man beside him. "Are we running away?" he asked to make sure.
"Yeah," Canel answered half-heartedly.
....
Meanwhile, while Zavi was still focused on fleeing from the seven people chasing him, his steps abruptly stopped when he heard the powerful explosion and saw orange flames soaring high into the sky alongside waves of heat and air crashing toward him, making the trees beside him sway violently and shed their leaves, while the seven people not far from him also witnessed the explosion.
He immediately resumed running, refusing to let the explosion distract him.
'What kind of attack caused that?' he wondered amid the relentless blasts of heated wind.
Realizing their target had escaped, the seven people quickly resumed the chase, and occasionally Celina would launch herself forward, only to fail because of Aaron's interference.
Celina thrust her elbow forward as black smoke began pouring out while she attempted to shoot Zavi with bullets enhanced by the same magnetic force as before.
But before she could do it, several chunks of debris suddenly floated directly behind them and threatened to crush all of their bodies like lumps of meat.
Their attempt to attack Zavi failed because she and her six companions had to focus on destroying the debris with the destructive abilities of a Controller and redirecting the debris' landing point elsewhere.
Zavi watched that with an expression wavering between relief and tension because the explosion had truly helped buy him more time, and he was genuinely grateful Aaron had been helping him from underground.
....
Elsewhere, still in Huween, beneath the road leading toward Pamlinov Station, five people stood with their eyes fixed on the explosion not far from where they were.
The Devils is here.
Narissa frowned. "What happened over there?"
Seeing the opportunity, Hagi replied mockingly. "Obviously some stupid fight broke out."
Narissa clicked her tongue and immediately started ranting endlessly at him.
"Looks like Karl still hasn't shown up tonight," Ren said while checking the bullets in his pistol.
Elmer let out a sigh.
"Yeah," he answered calmly. "Could he be over there?" he asked, trying to make sure.
"Maybe," Veranica replied calmly.
After thinking it over for a moment, Elmer finally spoke in a restrained tone, "Enough with the nonsense. Let's head there now."
Narissa clicked her tongue while walking after the others.
....
Elsewhere, not far from the university, another seven people who called themselves 'Black Cage' noticed the explosion around the massive university.
"Came from them?" Vabian muttered uncertainly.
Kharensya turned toward him and replied indifferently.
"No way it came from them."
"We should head there immediately." Keilta immediately stepped forward, and the other six quickly followed behind her.