There was a moment of silence in the room after the skeleton's statement. But as if wanting us to get back to the subject at hand, an explosion from the outside resounded and the man in the white robes laughed out loud with a mocking tone.
"Has this thing gone crazy already? Perhaps the things that we did to it before already brought its soul to the edge," he said, turning to look over at me. "I'll admit that the girl does look very similar to the pictures there are of the Gods' chosen, but that Holy Woman would never intrude into a sacred site like this—much less kill in cold blood one of the most devout of followers."
He gestured towards the dead body of the woman I killed before, but I kept my eyes on him as I prepared myself to attack and take Mirlaneth away from him.
"She is!" shouted the skeleton, causing the man and his two knights to turn to look over at him. "Most of our people know her face by heart! She was a calamity, and that's her face! Even her fighting stance is the same as the Hero's!"
The man simply scoffed and waved his hand in a dismissive manner. "This skeleton has clearly gone Deranged." He turned to look at his knights. "You know what they say about a skeleton that's about to die: they turn crazy and attack everything in sight before their souls explode." He shook his head with a shrug. "Not only did it not tell us how to break this unholy barrier of darkness, but now it's gone crazy and is a danger for us all. Get rid of it."
The knights wordlessly walked towards the skeleton, who tried to get away by moving on the floor, but the chains kept him in place. However, despite the dangerous situation, it was a good opportunity to strike them and rescue both Mirlaneth and the skeleton, so I dashed over to them.
As if expecting my movements, both knights brought up their weapons and blocked my sudden attack. I was surprised to see them move this fast, reminding me of the speed that Reeta had, but I wasn't going to go easy on them, since this wasn't training. This was real combat, where it's kill or be killed.
The one with the large sword pressed a jewel at the end of his sword's grip, which glowed in a golden light before coating the blade in his hands with a faint glint of Holy Power. It must be something similar to that Sacred Cut I did a couple of times, which meant that I should be careful with this one.
And there was even the same amount of danger from the other one that did the same with a jewel on the hammer's head.
The man with the white robes seemed completely unconcerned about what I was doing, as he simply took a cup of wine and drank from it while looking between me and the knights.
I couldn't afford to waste more time here, as with every passing second, there was a chance that both Igladith and Bo'guth were defeated, just as much as their daughter losing her power completely and being left at the mercy of these people.
Darkness and Hellfire moved within my body. I needed to respond to their imitation of Holy Power with something much more powerful than theirs; and mana wouldn't be enough.
An aura of darkness enveloped me, and the large blade in my hand flared with a blood-red fire. The knights faltered momentarily when they looked at me, and this time, the man with the white robes seemed to be surprised.
With my body empowered with Darkness and Hellfire, I moved just as fast as Reeta would've done, which opened the possibility for me to appear in an instant in front of the knight with the large blade.
The man gasped and raised his weapon, which clashed with mine, creating an explosion of both Hellfire and Holy Power. However, his Holy Power was nothing when faced with real power, so his power dissipated and I pressed my blade even harder on top of him.
He was, however, a powerful man, so even while I was pressing down on him, he was able to hold me back. But I was stronger right now, so I was gaining more ground with each passing moment.
The other knight wouldn't sit still, so when he noticed that I was about to overpower this one, he rushed with his hammer held high; a glint of Holy Power accumulated on top of the weapon's head.
I quickly moved away and the man slammed his hammer on the place where I was standing just a second ago, creating a shockwave of Holy Power that pushed me back even more than I wanted.
The two of them took that opening to rush me at the same time, moving like a blur in my direction. If their weapons still had the same Holy Power, then it could've been dangerous, but as they were right now, it was enough to raise a Mana Barrier—or it should've be.
Both their weapons slammed it, and the Barrier broke completely. I recoiled from the mana lost, but I recovered by filling my body with Darkness and Hellfire, creating a shockwave of Hellfire and Darkness that exploded from my body.
The shockwave threw the two knights back and close to where their leader was.
Their leader stood up from the chair turning his head to the side to look at them, and slamming the desk as he did. "What the hell do you think you're doing!? We wasted enough money buying those artifacts from Leyfall for you two to be pushed back like this. This is the power of the Holy Gods! Darkness shall not prevail!"
Both knights quickly stood back up with a grunt and prepared themselves to keep on fighting.
I wasn't just a close range fighter. Magic and the control of Godly Powers was part of my skills too, so I pointed my opened left palm in their direction and fired a torrent of Hellfire.
A beam—not unlike the one that the Unholy Dark Beast used—fired from my hand. It quickly covered the distance between us, burning the air and everything in its path as the floor was blazed by its heat.
The knight with the Hammer was quick to react, jumping to the side to avoid the beam, while the other knight hesitated for but a split second; a second in which the beam managed to burn his arm and part of his torso off.
"Arrrghhh!" that man painfully shouted, gripping the side of his body as he rolled on the ground in agony, only to stop after a moment as his body sagged and all movement stopped.
The man with the white robes slammed his desk again and growled in anger. I glanced at him, thinking about dashing over to him and forcing him to surrender, but he ignored me as he looked over to the Dark Barrier, before hitting something under his desk.
The wall behind him suddenly moved—with no magic doing so—and he turned to look at the dark passage beyond it. "Darkness may prevail right now, but I'll be sure to reclaim what belongs to the light!"
The man broke into a sprint and the wall slowly closed itself again. I hurried to follow after him, but the man with the hammer wouldn't allow it, as he moved as soon as I even thought about going into the tunnel.
I quickly blocked his attack, forcing me to take a step back. He followed it up by empowering his hammer yet again with the jewel on the weapon's head, but it seemed like the artifact couldn't do that more than once as the jewel broke and turned to dust right after.
"Yaaaah!" the man shouted and rushed me once more with the hammer held high.
I raised my blade to block as best as I could his attack, but since I wasn't prepared to take this blow head-on, the shockwave that was produced from the clashing of our Powers managed to push me back and dissipate some of the Hellfire that was coating the blade.
The man tried to press the attack yet again, but I could tell from his heaving that he was already at his limit, which made him lag in his response. I managed to restabilize myself at that time, so right when he approached, I moved my blade even faster than he could slam his hammer, hitting him on the side of his white armor and sending him flying to a wall.
"Kuhg!" he exclaimed once he slammed with it, leaving a few cracks on the wall, before sagging to the ground. "Urgh…"
The man was still alive, with the same desire to stand up and continue to struggle with me, as he shakingly took his hammer and raised his body.
"Surrender," I commanded with my blade pointed at him, but the man still shakily stood back up.
"I… I—Urgh—I won't surrender… to darkness!" he exclaimed, taking a small golden jewel from the side of his armor.
I frowned as I looked at it. It was an empowering artifact that was rarely used in my world, but judging by the power contained in it, it seemed like if someone like him were to use it, then the result for himself would be catastrophic.
"If you do that, you will die," I warned, but the man ignored my words as he crushed the jewel in his hand.
A powerful light emerged from his hand, which then spread to the rest of his body, making the man glow with the same golden glint as the weapon he carried. I thought that he was going to keep fighting, but he instead tossed his hammer aside and rushed my way.
"I see…" I whispered and braced myself for the impact.
He was planning on blowing himself up with Holy Power and taking me down with him, but I wasn't about to let him do that.
I opened my left hand and prepared a spell to counter him. A Mana Barrier appeared in front of me, but that wouldn't be enough, so I infused it with Darkness. The Barrier quickly shifted into darker half-transparent tone, making it look like it was one of those tinted windows that some cars in this world have.
However, the man moved much faster than the time I thought I had for the barrier, crashing with it, and slamming his fists on it a couple of times as the golden glow in his body grew brighter and brighter.
With a shout, the light on the man grew until a Holy Power explosion occurred. My Barrier was able to withstand it, but it broke soon after, sending me flying back with the shockwave it produced.
"Ugh…" I struggled as I stood back up, my ears ringing slightly.
I turned my eyes to the place where the man blew up, but there was just a hole on the ground where nothing else of him remained. And just like his explosion, I heard the struggle that Iggladith and Bo'guth were still in, so I couldn't waste any more time.
"Y-you…" the skeleton said as I was moving over to the Dark Barrier that contained Mirlaneth. "You are the Hero of the Holy Gods, aren't you? But those dark powers…"
I didn't respond to him as I placed a hand on the Dark Barrier. It felt as smooth as glass, but at the same time, as hard as steel. My eyes turned to look at the wall where that man with the white robes fled to, and I felt compelled to go after him, but the mission was to rescue this girl, so I had to forget about him for now.
"W-what are you planning to do?!" the skeleton shouted. "That's just a child! Please, leave it alone!"
I finally turned to look over at the shouting skeleton and I sighed. "I came here to rescue her from these fools." I turned to look back at the entrance of the room, where I heard the fighting. "And I think her parents still need help."
Without anyone else in this room to pose a danger to the girl, I decided that it was better to leave her in there for a while longer until everything else was settled, so I moved outside.
Down below, Bo'guth and Igladith were trapped inside a thick cloud of that Holy smoke as people in those white armors rushed inside and were quickly kicked out by them. It seemed like they were in a stalemate as Igladith's dark magic was having trouble clearing the Holy smoke away, and Bo'guth's strength wasn't enough to effectively neutralize the people who also didn't have the strenght to damange them enough as they kept rushing in.
There were also a handful of people with loud weapons—similar to the one that Brian once tried to use for the test—who were constantly firing into the smoke. I couldn't allow this fight to go on for much longer, so with a few swipes of my left hand, fireballs made out of Hellfire flew as fast as the arrow tips they were firing, straight in their direction.
Every single one of them blew up in a mess of blood-red fire, leaving behind only the few bits of their bodies that weren't directly hit.
Once they were dealt with, I jumped from this higher floor, aiming directly for the man with the golden patterns. I pointed the heel of the greaves to the man's head, where I quickly landed, the pointy bit easily piercing his helmet as I drove my foot to the ground, drilling the man's head into the cracked floor.
The people around me paused what they were doing as they turned to look at me. I didn't waste any time, raising my weapon to my shoulder and looking down on the people surrounding me.
"Let's finish this."