Gorou felt horrible as he walked along the stone hallways of the Thiroe castle.
The sheath on his waist felt light and he could not find a pommel to wrest his wrist on. The empty scabbard just hung there, lifelessly and dejected. The owner of the empty scabbard himself had a slump in his step, dragging his feet wherever he went.
"Haaaah," This should've been Gorou's ninety-eighth sigh of the night.
He had been careless for but a split second, and now he had a debt he would have difficulties paying.
It was just half a second!
He let that Nightwalker get the jump on him from out of nowhere in just half a second!
'If only I could see the future!' Gorou inwardly scolded himself as he was dragged along by his fellow Banishers.
But who could truly blame him?
Every member of that squad had seen the Nightwalker, Nikiri Mist, get slashed through by a sword that was said to be a Nightwalker Bane. They had assumed the Nightwalker to be dead.
Who could have guessed that the Nightwalker had suddenly come back to life? It was fine if the sword didn't work because that meant that the Nightwalker would've been sent back into its main body instead. That also meant there would be a window of time where they would not receive any sort of counter-attack.
After all, the Nightwalker would have to travel back to where they killed him. Not to mention the short recuperation period the Nightwalkers had to respect, else they accumulate too much damage.
The Banishers had taken all this into account, deeming the Nightwalker a nullified threat.
But, as reality would have it, the Nightwalker had struck them when they were not expecting it, from an angle only possible if humans could fly without any Mystic Energy fluctuations.
There was not a single flash of light nor any gathering of Will.
There was no invocation of the mystical. None at all. Thus, per their common sense, how could a regular human fly?
'It was like that bastard appeared out of thin air,' Gorou grumbled as he simulated the encounter in his mind.
He was imagining what he could have done better. Should he have prioritised his sword? Unsheathing it to strike? Then what about his balance? How could he have avoided falling into beast-infested waters while wielding his sword?
What about the Nightwalker? How could he have dealt with him better? What could the Nightwalker have done to fight off his imagined actions?
Gorou was currently obsessed with figuring out a counter-attack, but he couldn't find a good, concrete answer. He knew too little of his enemy to properly gauge whether or not something would work or not.
"Haaaah," Gorou sighed again and turned a corner.
In the long hallway before him, Gorou thought he was seeing things. There was a grey individual, whose face was nonexistent and looked to be made of fog.
"I've been image training so much that I can see actual Nightwalkers," Gorou mocked himself as he shook his head.
It was then that Hana and the other turned the same corner, and Gorou heard their footsteps freeze.
"Nightwalker!" Gorou heard Momoe yell in shock.
"Prepare for combat!" Hana's voice boomed, as she dashed past the dazed Gorou to drive the Nightwalker away from the noble accompanying her.
The Nightwalker dodged to the side and into the wall. Hana's sword slashed into its chest area, creating a fissure where its lungs and heart should have been.
The excess energy from Hana's slash went on to tear at the painting hanging on the wall.
RIP!
A gash appeared in the middle of two acrylic mountains, and Hana instantly flung her foot out.
Boom!
'A doorway indeed,' Hana scrunched her brows, 'What does that Nightwalker want...?'
Hana charged into the broken doorway, but she had to hurriedly dive down as an iron staff was headed straight for the area between her eyes. There was a small shockwave in the air as the pole missed its target.
Whooom!
The staff instantly swung down after its miss, grazing Hana's nose as she dodged backwards. But the pole did not strike the ground.
'It was a feint!' Hana swore when she saw the staff easily freeze midair. Not much power had been put into the downward slash!
It then stabbed forward, and Hana hurriedly tried to parry. Her sword moved to meet the thrusting iron staff.
Clang!
A fierce ringing blasted both fighters' ears, and a nick appeared on Hana's blade. The lady Banisher staggered backwards and fled into the hallway. There, at least, her companions could back her up.
The iron staff was following right after her, biting at her tail. It thrust at her vitals like the bullets of a gun, killed two birds with one stone as it swung through the air and repositioned while threatening her limbs, and kept her at bay.
Hana could not close the gap created by the iron staff's reach and counterattacks. She always felt threatened whenever she harboured any thought to strike.
Thus, when the two of them brought the fight into the hallways, Hana yelled out,
"Help!" It was a simple shout, yes, but with the way she yelled it, and the small injuries she had already incurred, it spoke way more than expected.
Her squadmates had already reacted even before she requested aid. Five additional Rank 2 fighters suddenly burst out in strength.
Hana felt her opponent's attack slightly waver.
'An opportunity!' Hana's eyes gleamed.
But she was instantly proven wrong.
That waver of ferocity had not come from hesitation, no. Hana's staff-wielding foe was changing gears.
The iron staff suddenly glowed with golden light and the man's energy levels spiked. The temperature in the area frantically rose.
The previously chilly airs where every person's breath could fog suddenly rose to 313 Kelvin. It was hotter than midday in summer.
And the temperatures further increased as Hana and Gorou let out their own energy auras, but the increase wasn't as drastic as before.
BOOM!
Hana barely dodged the golden staff that had swung at her from above. This time, it wasn't a feint, and the staff blasted a fissure into the carpeted stone floor. Dust was spewed into the air.
"This fighting style...!" Hana's eyes dilated in shock, "The Monkey King's Set-up! Exiled Lucien Ophlain!"
Hana hurriedly brought her sword in front of her stomach, just as the golden glowing staff pierced through the dust cloud and barrelled towards her.
Clang!
Hana's enchanted sword earned itself a web of cracks as the loud ring of metal threatened to burst her eardrums. Two milky white Mystic Patterns flew towards Hana, aiming to aid her temporarily as the Artists prepared a sequence instead of simple patterns.
Ropes of Tangible Will accompanied these patterns as well, and this time they were set on arriving before Lucien Ophlain.
But the Exiled assassin had already reacted in kind. The formations of Banishers were already familiar to him. He was going to use his number disadvantage and turn it into an advantage here in this long castle hallway.
A fierce battle would swiftly descend.
Lucien Ophlain faced two front line Evolvers with the support of two Dictators and Two Artists at the back. Unfortunately for the backline, the most they could do was assist the Evolvers through buffs and enhancements, else they cause friendly fire. The hallway was too narrow for them to exercise their utmost strengths, especially with how Lucien Ophlain positioned himself.
Lucien Ophlain also used his staff and damaged the environment in a manner that suited him. Cracks in the ground stopped Hana and Gorou from stepping in certain places, else their feet would fall in. His ferocious swings were always battering both fighters at the same time.
His staff was executing perpetual circular motion, like helicopter blades warding off any approaching bodies.
If Hana and Gorou wished to approach him, they would need to fight the rotational force he was exerting. Hana's sword was already damaged, and Gorou did not have a weapon that suited him. He did not dare block the swinging staff with his fists, especially whenever he felt the shockwaves borne from the sound barrier breaking.
He had not tempered his knuckles and barely practised any barehanded techniques.
The battle had entered a strange lull. Hana and Gorou lacked the skills, ferocity, experience, and equipment to beat this particular Exiled to the ground. Even though they were called Banishers, they were still a newer squad of the Rose family. That, and it was the Exiled who got a jump on them this time.
They usually planned out their attacks beforehand and researched their targets.
'How do I beat him?' Hana inwardly cursed her lack of ability. 'Do I need to let the Artists go crazy just to overpower him? How about the Dictators? Should Gorou and I back off for now?'
Hana thought about the backup plans she and her fellow Banishers had trained for. Clearly, she and Garou were still insufficient. They had to adapt. Hana was willing to accept the humiliation and step back to sprint forward.
Hana opened her mouth to bark her commands, but she felt her words get stuck in her throat.
Another hostile presence erupted from behind them. Hana felt the special bloodlust caused by fighters who trained both their bodies and their minds.
'Another Exiled?!' Hana's expression turned gloomy, 'That bastard Ivan Thiroe! Housing blasphemers! If I get out of this alive, I'm roasting him over a low fire!'
Meanwhile, Athelei was watching all of this unfold, ignored for the most part, just like the master of the Thiroe Household, Ivan Thiroe.
He was furiously scribbling notes inside his mental library. He was familiar with humans fighting humans, but the higher level fights were spars between the Harmonic Knights or Irene Vistas decimating the Nightwalkers with his help.
This fight here was to the death, and it was a frantic one. And Athelei was learning a lot as he watched from special angles. He was a part of the dust clouds that kept blooming from the damaged surroundings. He could watch from Hana's perspective, he could watch from the perspective of her sword, or perhaps as an ant sitting at the tip of Lucien Ophlain's glowing staff.
Athelei's grey fog lightly wrapped around every fighter in the area as he felt every part of their movements in his own way.
He was vividly memorising their fight, and right beside his mind library was an arena. There, solid holograms of the Banishers and the two Exiled could be seen, duking it out.
"Interesting, interesting," Athelei couldn't help but mumble under his breath as he continued to observe and learn.