Joren got up and immediately made his way over to the fallen assassin stabbing him in the throat with an aura blade he formed. He looked around and noticed four other assassins standing around the room and one of them was next to Tessa.
Because of the loud noise, Tessa woke up, startled to see the assassins in the room with them.
"Mission failed! Proceed with plan B!" One of the assassins spoke
"Tessa, time to go!" Joren shouted as he dashed towards her, picked her up, and blasted through the window.
On the rooftops all around him, assassins converged on Joren's location as he was still in the air. Weapons appeared from their cloaks as if emerging from the shadows. Shuriken, throwing knives, blow darts, and more small projectiles were hurled Joren's way.
"Friends of yours?" He asked Tessa
"No. These guys don't belong to my family. Our house only cultivates the fire element. I have no idea who or why these assassins are after us."
"Well, they seem to know who we are, so that means your family either put a bounty on us, or they hired them to catch us."
He sidestepped away from the projectiles that were thrown at his face, but since assassins were all around him, their weapons also encompassed him, so he had to keep moving.
He pushed off the air and lept higher into the sky avoiding the weapons coming at his back. Quickly moving again, he pushed the air with one hand, forcing him downward then activated his lightning and zigzagged around every assassin and their weapons at high speeds, breaking out of their formation.
"After him! Don't let them escape!" One by one, assassins lept from wherever they were and chased after Joren. It looked as if shadows were chasing him the way their bodies blended with the night sky.
Joren raced through the town avoiding many stalls and obstacles that were in his way. Appearing from the shadows, an assassin appeared next to him and thrusted a dagger at his throat.
Being quick on his feet, Joren threw Tessa in the air and dodged the dagger by leaning back. He continued with his momentum by doing a full backflip, kicking the dagger out of the assassin's hand, jumping into the air, and kicking the dagger which went flying into the assassin's throat, all in an instant.
He caught Tessa in the air and continued to run.
All around him, more and more assassins appeared from the shadows and attacked at him and Tessa.
"What the hell! How are they catching up with me so quickly?!"
"It's because the shadow element is more powerful during the night," Tessa spoke roughly as she was bumping up and down on Joren's back as he ran.
"Shouldn't they be stronger in the day, you know, when actual shadows are around?!" He dodged another strike at his neck and countered by swinging a lightning sword at the assassin's neck. The assassin dodged and prepared to counterattack, but Joren let go of the lightning sword and it flew into the assassin's chest.
"Get them off our backs!" Joren yelled
"Ugh, you're supposed to be protecting me! {Fire Net}" Tessa cast a spell called 'Fire Net' and a giant net of fire spread across the town road, connecting on each side. Some of the assassins were caught in the net and were burned alive, while others managed to avoid it or jump through the gaps that the net had.
"That's your way of getting them off our backs?!" Joren questioned
"I'm not done!" Following up Tessa spoke another spell {Fire Rain} and thousands of small flames, the size of raindrops, formed in the air above the entire road. From a distance, it would look as if a bunch of fireflies were being drawn towards a certain area, but from up close, it was no different than staring death in the face.
"What is that going to-" Joren couldn't even finish his words with the first fire droplet landed on the ground and exploded with such force, that he was forced to run in the air for a bit.
Left and right, explosions kept going off. Assassins were retreating but that was like trying to run away from the rain in a grass plain, you can't. Bodies caught on fire, limbs were blown off, faces were scorched, and screams of pain were heard. Some tried to retreat into the shadows using their element, but when the fire rain exploded on the shadow, the assassins were forced out of it and took the full force of the explosion, dying instantly.
"What the fuck?!" He shouted. "You've had a spell like that locked away and you're just now using it?" Instead of hearing her response, he heard heavy breathing and panting. He put her head on his shoulder and looked at her, noticing that she was sweating profusely and had ragged breathing.
'Ahh, it's a spell that takes a lot out of her. I need to get out of here, fast.' He pulled out a mana potion from his storage ring and force-fed it to her.
"T-Thanks." Her complexion returned and her breathing steadied.
"No problem, I just feel bad for the people wondering what's going on right now." He made it to the Town gate and blitzed through it, watching as the guards were at a loss for what was going on.
"Shadows go away with bright lights, right? Can you make a fireball that big enough and bright enough to cast away any shadows?" It was a long shot, but Joren still wanted to know his options.
"No, I can't do that. The mana consumption for that is too large for me at my current level. I can make a large fireball, yes, but no one big enough or bright enough to do what you want."
"I see." He thought about what he could do. "Then can you-"
"Joren watch out!" Tessa yelled
An assassin came full force at Joren's face brandishing daggers in his hand. He didn't even notice that the assassin was there as he somehow wasn't able sense them, and because of that, he wasn't prepared to avoid the attack so when he attempted to, he was cut in the chest.
"Argh." He groaned in pain. He looked up to see the assassin charging back at him once more, so he attempted to go in the air to avoid him, but Tessa had different plans. As soon as Joren lept into the sky, she cast a spell, {Fire Whip}, and it latched onto the assassin's leg. She yanked him up with them and shot a massive fireball at his face. Since there were no shadows for him to retreat to, the assassin was blown up and exploded like fireworks.
"Damn, that was brutal," Joren remarked
"Says the guy who blew up one of my knight's heads in front of me." She fired back
"Fair enough." He smiled and then looked around. 'Guess we're going back into the forest' he thought as he noticed the assassin's still on their trail. "Hey, you see that cloud over there?" Joren threw a lightning bolt at the cloud he was talking about. It was a large cluster of thick clouds hovering a good distance from them.
"Yeah, I see it, why?"
"I want you to hit it with the most powerful fire spell you have. Pump everything you got into it. I need it as hot as you can make it."
"Why would I do that? I would run out of mana!" She looked at him as if he was crazy. Well, he was crazy, so she looked at him as if he was crazier than normal.
"Don't worry, I have a plan, hopefully."
"What do you mean 'hopefully'?"
"If this my plan works, then we will be able to get out of here, if not, then we're fucked."
"You...I...Ugh! Fine. It'll take at least two minutes for me to cast the spell the way you want me to so hold them off until I'm ready."
"So do what I was already doing, got it." He dodged to the side as a knife passed by his face. Many more weapons single on his location forcing him to move in an unorthodox manner. When an assassin got too close, he just dodged, if a knife was thrown in his direction, he moved out the way. He only focused on dodging and not attacking, he didn't want to engage in combat when Tessa was preparing her spell.
"Okay, I'm ready!" Her entire body exuded orange mana as she started casting her spell. A circular ring of runes formed around her hand and expanded as she lifted it above her head. It was five feet in diameter when her spell was ready {Fire Storm} she spoke the name of the spell. They managed to get a lot closer to the cloud when her spell was ready.
Before her spell was launched, Joren channeled all the lightning mana he could muster up for one big lightning bolt. He didn't hold anything back as he pumped as much mana as he could but not going overboard so he could still have some left over to flee if needed.
"Now! Release it!" At his words, she launched her spell into the sky in the direction of the clouds. Joren followed up by chucking the lightning bolt as hard as he could, causing a small shockwave to push them backward.
"What are they doing?" An assassin asked
"I don't know. Be on guard everyone!" Another one answered
As soon as {Fire Storm} spell made contact with the cloud, Joren's lightning bolt stuck the fire spell and it exploded in a blazing glory of orange and purple light, fire popping as lightning crackled. Although the explosion illuminated the area, it wasn't enough to cast away the shadows like Joren wanted.
"That was your plan?" Tessa asked, her breath rough as she drank a mana potion Joren prepared for her.
"No, that was just step one. Now it's time for step two." The reason why Joren wanted her to use her most powerful spell and make it as hot as she could was to turn the fire into a plasma. Joren electrically charged the spell as well to aid in that process and he knew his plan was a success when he spotted orange lightning crackling in the clouds.
Using both hands, he charged them with lightning and shot a continuous stream of lightning into the clouds. Upon entry, Joren willed his lightning to connect with the electrically charged clouds to force a reaction.
The lightning clouds connected with Joren's lightning but once it did, a huge surge of electrical energy rebounded back and electrocuted him.
"Arghhhhhh!" The pain he felt was not like anything he felt before. The orange lightning overrode his tolerance for lightning and shocked him to the core. Fortunately, it wasn't enough to stop him from completing his plan and he was also quick enough to shield Tessa from the brunt of the electrical energy. She also protected herself with her mana but she still felt herself being shocked
"Come on!" Joren shouted. He pumped more lightning into the clouds and the lightning in the clouds fully connected to his own. Once that happened, the lightning came from his body and the clouds turned a burnt sienna color.
The sky crackled with the color of rust as it roared with thunder. The large amount of lightning concentrated at a single point in the clouds and Joren knew it was time to act. With all his strength, he threw both of his arms down to his left side and what followed was a massive lightning bolt that rained from the sky.
The burnt sienna-colored lightning bolt was so massive, it was as if Zeus himself was delivering divine punishment. The sky flashed a rusted orange color and the sheer force of the thunder that followed shook the entire area, booming so loud it broke windows and shattered anything that couldn't handle such high decibels.
"Run away!"
"Get back!"
"Retreat!"
"T-That's insane!"
All the assassins fled in fear, running as fast as they could to get away from the massive lightning bolt that was coming down on them, but it was too late. Within a second, the lightning hit the ground and once it did, everything in its vicinity was vaporized.