Renai couldn't believe her ears. This couldn't be happening. How could Nai have lost is memory to such a degree as to even forget her? He had even threatened to harm her. The Nai she had grown to know and love would never even think such a thing.
Renai remained unmoving in utter shock. Should she attempt to restrain him and take him back to the guild headquarters, at least until some form of treatment could be devised to reverse his condition?
As she stood there stewing in her thoughts, Nai began to move. Renai had to reinforce her body with mana almost instantly, otherwise she wouldn't have any chance whatsoever of catching up with him.
As they passed through the dimension barrier however, Nai suddenly turned to face her... a slow sign of recognition showing in his eyes. Renai was overwhelmed with relief as they both opened their arms to embrace each other.
As their bodies came into contact a few moments later tho, Renai sensed that something was off. But she couldn't tell exactly what it was.
Intending to temporarily disengage herself from his embrace to look into his eyes, Renai slowly leaned her upper torso backwards and looked up.
What she saw was not the face of her guild mate but that of an individual she had never met before. The woman's lips parted quickly forming into an unnerving smile. "Why, hello... pleasure to make your acquaintance too vice guild master Renai." The stranger said as the rest of her body shimmered from the neck down, revealing completely feminine features.
"Welcome to my fold." Not even a second later, something struck her at the back of the head and she began to lose consciousness. As the last of her consciousness was fading she heard a voice say. "Now this one will make a great addition to my army."
Back in the tier two segment of the demon dimension... Seishin, who was occupying Fade's body swiftly calibrated what the best possible course of action would be. Seeing as the second humanoid being to appear bearing a similar soul resonance to that of Purple Coat, was slowly coming out of the shadow of his apprentice.
'Vergamont get me Chiru immediately.' She sent to the demon via her soul fragment. Her subborninate disappeared in an instant, arriving mere seconds later with Chiru in tow. By the time Vergamont returned the second being had emerged fully and was now facing towards them.
This one, to Seishin's surprise. Was a female. 'What?' Seishin thought inwardly. 'He has a sister as well or something, what the hell is going on here?'
"I see you sent for more back up, you're still severely outmatched in my opinion, ever heard of quality over quantity?" Float said mockingly. For once Seishin wasn't in the mood to trade witty banter.
She just couldn't wait for this to be over. So far every encounter she had had with anything related to Purple Coat, only served to leave her even more discombobulated than the last. If she could make a wish and cause the young mage to disappear, she wouldn't hesitate to do so.
She should have brought Irene along. Things might have gone much better for her, sadly the Illusionist was elsewhere seeing to other matters with the assistance of one of her other vessel's.
As things were at the moment, Seishin wasn't ready to show all her cards yet. It would be quite foolish of her to do so.
"Spare me, i'm not in the mood to trade witty banter at the moment." Seishin said while rolling her eyes, Fade's eyes to be more precise.
"Let's do thi..." she didn't get a chance to complete her sentence. Seishin barely activated Fade's intangibility, just in time to evade an attack which passed right through her vessel's chest. She immediately propelled herself backwards, coming to a halt after sliding a few meters, creating a shallow trench.
Her attacker straightened and stared at her with what was unmistakably an angry glare. Even tho the shadowy beings features were hidden behind a mask Seishin was certain of it. 'It's angry at me, what for? I'm the one who just narrowly escaped death.'
The inky black being had emerged directly out of her own shadow and thrust it's shadow sword at her vessel's heart. It was clearly not opposed to killing civilians. 'Well, so much for that!' Seishin thought. It wouldn't work on this mage at least.
"Shadow Spawn, don't kill it... that's just a vessel remember. Not the real Hive, it wouldn't be proper of us to kill the innocent civilians in cold blood!" Float yelled at the eerie being. "Thank you young lady, that was terrifying to be honest."
Purple Coat's apprentice simply shook her head without offering a reply. She continued as if ignorant of Seishin's presence: "I'll take that one, you fight the one that uses teleportation."
As Hive watched her assailant flickered and instantly sank into it's own shadow, she immediately looked to where Vergamont was to see the dark figure emerging from his shadow. 'That accursed Purple Coat, we have to catch this girl or someone else who is closely affiliated with him. If we don't have something to hold over him he's gonna be a thorn in my side to the very end.' Seishin thought miserably.
Suddenly very weary of the final newcomer, she averted her gaze towards the female mage. Just then it accelerated towards Chiru with alarming speed. There was a massive surge of mana as Chiru prepared to launch an attack.
The feminine being did not slow it's approach. Hive watched expecting to see their opponent be reduced to numerous bloody chunks of meat, instead Chiru's mana was dispersed moments later like a puff of smoke coming in contact with a violent gust of wind.
In the next moment her hand connected with Chiru's chest, sending her careening backwards. Hive's subbordinate started to right herself but before she could do so, there was another loud impact as a projectile which seemed to be composed of pure mana connected with her chest again.
However Chiru's opponent hadn't initiated another attack. Instead what Hive could only assume was a mana bubble, seemed to simply be a bi-product of the previous attack. To her surprise the next attack was a translucent disk like projectile, Chiru only managed to dodge it at the very last moment.
She had already been in the process of being thrown backwards by the previous attacks, so she simply let the momentum help her and ducked swiftly. The disk missed Chiru's head by an inch or two at most, only managing to clip off a piece of her hair.
If the member of their trio who possessed the most destructive raw power was being pushed back to that extent from the get go this did not bode well for them.
That was all she had the chance to witness for the time being, since her own opponent had finally arrived within range. "I hear that you like to deposit little parasitic parcels of yourself into other people. So i'll be keeping an eye on those little mittens of yours." Float said coming to a halt a few paces away from her.
Seishin smiled. "I see my reputation precedes me, you shouldn't be so wary of me tho. My goal is for the betterment of humanity as a whole, especially us women... afterall. Us girls should really stick together, you're the one fighting on the wrong side."
Float simply scoffed at her statement. "I hear that you plan to eradicate most of the men tho, i happen to like men. Wait a minute that doesn't sound right, i like one man in particular."
Seishin chuckled. "Which one, maybe i can spare him and in return you can join my cause?" The girl let out a haughty laugh then replied. "Fat chance, besides i think you'll be the one needing to be spared by him."
There was a massive surge in the atmospheric mana as the girl prepared to attack. "That's enough yapping, let's make our hands discuss the rest of this."
In the next few seconds countless bubbles started appearing at an alarming rate. They then accelerated towards Seishin at a terrifying speed. The first set of bubbles to reach within range popped rapidly, wherever they burst the ground in their vicinity was swiftly covered in ice.
The second set were of a sickly green color, when they popped the sand beneath their feet sizzled. The bright orange ones seemed to be composed of lava. Who could have ever guessed that bubbles could be so troublesome?
Seishin weaved between them like she was performing a graceful dance, phased through the rest and began firing off orbs of pure mana towards her opponent.
The young mage simply morphed into a mass of bubbles and made a breach in the bubbles everytime an attack came within range, letting them pass through her harmlessly.
Dealing with Float was becoming nearly as infuriating as Purple Coat himself already was. All the while Hive could hear a continuous cacophonous ringing close by, where Chiru was locked in fierce combat with her opponent.
Chiru's soul resonance was weakening, which was quite concerning. This had rarely ever happened before. They were either gonna retreat soon or one of Hive's subbordinates might die.
She had long suspected that Purple Coat's apprentice would be under his surveillance, but Seishin couldn't have fathomed that they would have to contend with two beings with power akin to his. They had to retreat now.
Besides even if they somehow captured the young woman, she would only be knowingly taking a trojan horse right into their midst. Who knew how many more of these beings there were.
Sighing inwardly Seishin begrudgingly accepted her failure, then sent a prompt to both of her subbordinates to prepare to retreat. In the next moment Vergamont disengaged from his battle with Shadow Spawn and appeared at her side.
He grabbed her vessel then began teleporting towards Chiru's location, when he appeared there uninhibited and grabbed her by the waist Seishin quickly came to a realization.
This was too easy, she quickly glanced at all three of their enemies, who had already gathered to each others side and were watching them leave as if they didn't have a care in the world.
It was then that she sensed it. In the last moment before Vergamont could teleport right back to their hidden fortress Seishin yelled. "Vergamont don't head back there, you've been marked!"
As they finished teleporting to a random location away from Float and Purple Coat's two soul fragment like beings, Seishin began cursing aloud. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!"
How could she have made such a glaring oversight? Shadow Spawn could obviously teleport via any shadow, presumably even across vast distances just like Vergamont could teleport to any location he had visited before.
If he could keep up with Vergamont, then why would he allow them enough time to escape without attempting to thwart it? It was very obvious, Purple Coat's associate's didn't intend to apprehend them.
They wanted to catch them offguard and mark the demon specifically, they had probably surmised at some point that the accelerated kidnappings had something to do with him.
Right after the encounter with Purple Coat, when they had somehow accomplished such a swift retreat. They must have hatched this plan to mark the person capable of teleportation, which would lead them right to all the missing people.
Now she would have to remove Vergamont from the table for the immediate foreseeable future. 'Damn it!'