Read Novel Full Chapter 480: The High Ground [I]
Chapter 480: The High Ground [I]
“Michael was eliminated only hours ago, Sylvia,” I said as I descended into the clearing at the base of the Ebony Tower. “Only Alexia, a handful of her men, and two of my remaining aerial specialists came back. We were careful not to let the word spread.”
Sylvia scrambled to her feet, wiping a trail of fresh blood from a thin scratch on her cheek.
Her silver eyes, usually so sharp and dignified, were now panicky with frantic calculation as she reached for her sword hilt.
“And since you can’t leave your Sector, you shouldn’t have known about his elimination.” I summoned Aurieth. The Divine Sword came flying from somewhere inside the Castle and landed in my firm grasp. “Not unless you were the informant for the enemy. Not unless you were getting instructions and updates in return. Am I wrong, traitor?”
Sylvia didn’t answer with words. She knew there was no talking her way out of this.
The lithe girl kicked off against the wet earth and closed the distance between us in a blur. Again, I was a little surprised by her speed.
Whatever control her innate ability gave her over air and wind made her extremely fast.
Unfortunately, she was facing me.
I raised my free hand.
As if following my command, the ground itself rose from beneath the traitor, moisture freezing and soil compacting tightly to create a giant, icy earthen hand. It shot out of the mud and swallowed her whole.
Sylvia could only widen her eyes as the hand slammed shut, trapping her from the waist down in a vice-like grip. She let out a choked gasp, her arms and legs caught.
“You know, I’m actually disappointed.” I clicked my tongue a few times in mock disappointment, stopping a few feet in front of her. Looking up, I rested Aurieth on my shoulder. “When Juli accused you, I defended you. I thought you were just a tragic girl dealing with a bad breakup.”
Sylvia coughed a fleck of blood, her breath shallow.
She drew every Enhancement Card in her arsenal, but whatever supernatural strength she mustered ended up not being enough.
I was constantly enforcing my conjured construct with Essence. There was no way she was breaking free in time.
I made the earthen hand tighten its grip around her slender waist. It was only to stop her from resisting. And if I nearly crushed a rib or two in the process, it must’ve been an honest mistake on my side.
Sylvia let out a strangled cry, pained and angry. Her face went stark white, her bones groaning beneath the immense pressure.
“L-Lady Thalia… promised…” she choked out through bloody lips, her silver eyes watering as she glared down at me with desperation. “She promised—”
Whatever she wanted to say, it was too late.
A colossal golem of earth had emerged from the ground behind her, its size dwarfing a small mountain and its torso alone rising above the canopy of the mangroves.
In its hands, the golem held a massive club of compressed dirt and frozen earth crudely shaped like an oversized baseball bat.
“W-Wait! No—!” Sylvia breathed hard, genuinely terrified as she realized this was a demonstration, not an interrogation. I was going to make an example out of her.
The giant golem snapped its torso. The massive club came swinging around and crashed into the trapped girl’s body, sending a shockwave through the marshlands.
THWAAAM–!!!
The disastrous impact split the moonlit night.
The sound was like a physical force shaking the entire clearing.
Mud and water erupted outward in a violent ring, trees bent under the strong gale, and the lower branches of the mangroves snapped like brittle twigs.
For a brief moment, there was nothing but dust.
Then the golem withdrew its club.
The upper portion of the earthen hand holding Sylvia up high was decimated, completely obliterated to a rain of fine dirt.
Sylvia herself was gone. A black blur moved at the edge of my vision. One of the instructors had arrived in time to pull her away before she could become a bloody splatter on some tree trunk.
A shame, really.
Whatever promises Thalia made to her, I hoped it also included good health insurance.
I was about to turn and walk away. But all of a sudden, from somewhere deep in the woods ahead, a sharp glint of steel flashed in the darkness of the night.
A silver projectile, moving so fast it looked like a hazy streak, was heading straight toward my chest.
I had just enough time to bring Aurieth down from my shoulder, allowing the flat of the golden blade to catch the incoming strike.
It was an arrow.
Clang—!!!
The punch behind the shot was absurd. A shower of sparks burst between us, pushing my boots back full two inches. But because of the angle I was holding my sword at, the arrow deflected off the gilded surface and went ricocheting into the mud beside me.
I used the displacing impact of the deflection to throw myself back, rolling away as far from the buried arrow as possible.
It was shot to ambush me. No doubt its head was either laced in poison or enchanted with an explosive trigger.
And I was proven right the very next second.
BOOOM—!!
The arrow detonated into the ground, blowing the surrounding earth to shreds and ripping up a deluge of scalding mud.
From up ahead, two more arrows came whistling through the night air before I could get back up to my feet.
But that was fine. I had already anticipated this. Hence, I had pushed myself closer to my conjured golem.
The earthen giant moved to defend its master, throwing its free hand in front of me. A large disc of compressed soil and crystallized ice reinforced by my Essence bloomed out of its forearm, forming an impenetrable bulwark.
As the two silver projectiles struck the newly formed barrier and blasted away chunks of it, the giant golem raised its club behind it.
The barrel of the baseball bat started bulging out and flattening, molding into the shape of an axe head.
Without any delay, the giant pivoted its mountainous body and hurled the earthen greataxe into the dark treeline where my assailant was hiding.
It was my sister. I saw her faint outline in the shadows. Which was weird since I never knew she was this good with the bow. Did she pick up a new hobby while I was looking away?
I saw her grit her teeth and knock an arrow on a formidable warbow that seemed to be made out of a pair of beast antlers.
She let fly a shimmering projectile that struck the ginormous axe spinning sideways, cutting toward her like a cartwheel.
KABOOOM—!!
The resulting explosion deviated the axe’s trajectory.
It was not enough to destroy the weapon, but it was enough to twist its path away from Thalia.
The greataxe tore through the trees beside her instead.
Dozens of trunks were torn asunder in a single swing, their roots ripped from the mud as the massive blade, crude and blunt as it was, continued carving through the forest before finally losing momentum and collapsing into the ground.
I didn’t give my sister a chance to pull another shenanigan. Before she could take a relieved breath, I was already plummeting from above, bringing my glowing blade down on her with me.
Thalia dove to the side to evade my horizontal slash and came up just in time to see me thrusting toward her chest.
She gasped and clumsily tumbled to the side again, prompting me to counter-spin and sweep my blade toward her head.
A blinding golden light flashed.
My sister ducked in time to save herself from an untimely decapitation. Dozens of trees behind her, on the other hand, were not so lucky. An incandescent arc sliced everything in half for meters.
Thalia was under my guard now. It was an intentional opening I had gifted her. If she took the bait, I would put her down with a boot to the side of her jaw.
But smart as she was, my twin took the chance to… to run?
“Wait, what?!” I scowled as Thalia sprang up from under me and leapt onto a branch. Then she started jumping from one branch to another, straying clear of the ground that I could manipulate.
Stupefied, for a moment, I just stared.
My sister and I were very different. However, not running away from a fight because of our sky-high ego was one quality we definitely shared.
“Interesting.” I tightened my grip around Aurieth and launched myself after her. It was a setup. Obviously.
The forest blurred around me.
Dashing through the underbrush, exposed roots, and low branches, I followed my big sister toward the edge of the cliff.
She was faster than I remembered.
I could speed up more and get to her in a blink, but I was on the lookout for any traps.
Besides, she had nowhere to go now.
The woods thinned as we approached the fall.
The cliff edge was now only a few inches away from her. I thought she would definitely slow down… but she didn’t.
Instead, she jumped.
My batshit crazy sister slung the warbow across her back and jumped off the cliff. I huffed, amused more than anything, and continued after her. I jumped too.