“By the way, hope you do not mind me if I borrow some of that sizzling electrical energy!” Peppers merely informed Ayse and Keyrin via the System Channel as she absorbed the thundercloud’s mana into her staff. The roaring thunder got crackled louder whenever the lightning bolts zapped Pepper’s weapon but instead of being charred, its mana twirled around the staff as if it was dancing before it turned into a raw form of magic essence.
The two Thunder Magic Users felt that there was no need to maintain the domination of the skies any longer, so they gave Peppers everything she wanted before retreating. This way, her cast time was also reduced significantly to prepare for the best skill in her repertoire.
Also, with electrical energy to play with, she realised she could do another variation of her explosion as a wide magical circle once again hovered above the Southern Capital. The rainbow coloured circle slowly turned from purplish blue from all the mana absorbed from the clouds and the Southerners could already feel an ominous feeling emanating from it.
While all of these were happening, most of Jin’s monsters had already retreated, leaving Meomi the only one within the capital still battling against Leopardo. Since she had failed to kill him with her initial attack, more and more soldiers had come in to protect their interim leader.
With the mysterious organisation abandoning them to the inevitable monster horde attack, at the very least they had to buy their interim leader enough time to lead the elites into retreat. However, Meomi was unwilling to let her slippery prey escape. Each time the soldiers intervene and guard Leopardo to run away from the current situation, Meomi easily slashes them away because of her Catzerker Fury trait.
This ensued a cat and mouse game with Leopardo running away from the walls of the Southern Capital and into the town where he thought he would have space to run and hide. Unfortunately, he had not accounted for Meomi being a werecat and his smell was extremely nauseating for Meomi making it impossible for her to lose him.
With her automated climbing gear, she continued to chase Leopardo relentlessly and exchanged a few blows before his guards and mercenaries came in to intervene. “You are just wasting your time running away! And Nightingale, I did not expect you to protect such a wussy!”
Meomi shouted as she saw her former maid running beside Leopardo.
Nightingale was still bleeding from Meomi’s previous attack, yet she was bound by duty and had sworn an Oath when she enrolled into this particular mercenary organisation.
There was some magic at play making it impossible for her to defy Leopardo’s orders to protect him. She could only hope Leopardo and his remaining few guards could outrun Meomi. Although that was a wish that would not come through given her mobility and even if they could, that ominous magical circle hovering above their heads would not give them a chance to leave properly.
“Do not fall for her words.” Leopardo smirked as he made a right turn and revealed a narrow back street alley with a mage maintaining a portal for their leader. “Nightingale, follow me! I have many questions about this secret organisation that you so eagerly vouched for. As for the rest, guard me with your lives! Your death won’t be forgotten, you honourable soldiers!” Leopardo shouted as he grabbed Nightingale’s cape and pulled her along forcefully.
The guards obeyed their interim leader’s orders without question and felt prideful that they were given such a task to perform. Upon his orders, they formed a tight formation at the front while some parkoured and took to the roofs so that Meomi would not have any space to move forward easily even with her automated climbing gear.
But they underestimated the werecat with her Catzerker Fury burning brightly through the past fights. As if her whole body was burning with red chi when the guards saw her, they realised their so called tight defence was nothing but a small little stone on the path. She screeched as she shot her climbing gear’s anchor head to the far end of the backstreet alley and with the boost of the air crystal, Meomi charged through the multiple defensive lines like a razor cutting the thick bushels.
The mage realised that there was nothing stopping the attacker from coming through and decided to end the spell but a shot suddenly came through and burst his mouth before he could start the incantation to close the portal. Meomi’s gunblade was working as intended and she zoomed past the guards and into the portal. Just in time before it closed due to the lack of mana maintaining it with the mage’s death.
On the other side of the portal, she found herself in a wide spacious hall with marble tiling and well decorated walls( And also many heavily armed guards pointing the weapons at her!) Yet despite all of those, she could still the familiar sounds of despair fighting from a distance. In order to prevent her Catzerker Fury from dissipating, her body already moved to the nearest guard and killed him effortlessly while trying to assimilate the information around her.
It was only with the fourth kill did she realise she actually was in the heart of the Southern Capital’s Citadel. “So, it’s a diversion portal huh? Quite a clever method.” Meomi mumbled as she concentrated on her nose, only to realise that the nauseating sense had disappeared in the far corner, indicating that there could be another mage that teleported him away.
“Argh! So irritating!” Meomi cursed as she proceeded to fight against all the heavily armed guards as a way to cool herself down before the last call for the retreat was enforced by the System.
Meanwhile, Leopardo was laughing to himself that his plan to escape had seemingly worked splendidly. He had indeed gone into another portal and was now lying low in an out of reach hideout in the Southern Region.
‘To think there would be a group of sentient monsters willing to help us. How foolish I was to accept their help.” He thought to himself. “But never again. The only good monster is a DEAD monster.’ Leopardo unceremoniously kicked Nightingale into her guts, causing her to throw up.
“See what you did? What kind of help have you brought?! The whole capital is in shambles and perhaps gone! I cannot believe your leader Bison had naïve enough to trust them. Guess my intentions to have him killed by the Demon Rats could not be achieved.” Leopardo said as he delighted in Nightingale’s suffering.
“Now tell me everything about them and their weakness.” Leopardo ordered as he pulled a dagger out. “And do not even think of lying to me or I will cut your limbs off.”
That was when Nightingale saw the real Southern Stars leader right in front of her. That he was far from being as magnanimous as he had always seemed when she had grown up training in his organisation. Back when she had been recruited into Southern Stars because of the Demon Rat situation, she had believed that their leader had taken pity on them. Especially since, they had fed her, had clothed her and had provided her shelter. All she needed to do had been to learn and hone her fighting skills to the best of ability, so she could fulfil missions and bring back coins.
And even with limited interactions with Leopardo, he had always portrayed himself as a reliable leader and not a man being induced by madness like the one she was facing right now. Could that be the reason why Meomi had so desperately tried to kill him? Because she had seen through him?
“Ouf!” Another kick to the gut since she was not responding to her leader in time, followed a punch to the face while he pulled her by the hair.
“SPEAK!” Leopardo shouted as he felt he had lost everything he had built and the anger in him could not be quelled even with the information the Nightingale was about to provide. He needed a punching bag to vent his anger and Nightingale as the former housemaid of the crazy cat lady seemed to be the perfect candidate.
“Meomi…. Save me.” Nightingale whispered as she suffered even more blows, unable to retaliate. She scorned the tattoo of the three stars that was disabling her from even trying to fight back. Each time she willed herself to defy the leader of the Southern Stars, her hands and legs instantly went numb.
But just as she was about to black out, she heard a voice…
A very sinister one.
