The Exalt [Cultivation Fantasy]

With the Guise still activated, Oscar sped through the complex structure of the underground prison, fending off any New Dawn members in his way. A dark look shadowed his face, seeing the New Dawn members instinctively crunch on the poison in their mouths even when their heads were severed. He no longer tried to capture any and went all out to slaughter them, carving a path of blood.

"Where is she?!" Oscar shouted, creating a huge hole in someone's chest. Erden also rampaged, burning many others into ashes. The flames burned more fiercely the more he didn't see Avril. "Where is my wife?!"

None of the New Dawn members could withstand his carnage, his bloodlust. Oscar's hatred was unending, fueled further by the tanks of hearts and organs—disgusting experiments before his eyes. Was she in one of those tanks? Did they carve out her organs? With his bare hands, Oscar roared and tore apart the others, limb by limb, in pure malice and unrivaled cruelty, spewing out the blood of his enemies. From room to room, hallway to hallway, he and Erden continued the massacre until they ended up in a long hallway.

"Where are you?" Oscar was about to cry in agony when steps clattered around behind him.

"Oscar?" A warm, slightly surprised voice called out, stilling his heart and filling it with joy. Shortly after, the voice spoke again, this time with love and delight, "Hubby!"

Oscar faced the other direction and opened his arms wide as an indigo blur pounced onto his chest. Avril's face buried into him, and her arms clung tightly like snakes around his back. Even with the shroud of Guise on his body, the warmth of Avril in his arms could never be blocked, every slight twitch of her breathing hot on his clothes.

She was covered in blood. But what of it? He was also showered in blood.

"Don't!" Oscar tightened his hug, and she lifted her head in response. That face with her golden eyes looked so enticing, but he gulped down his desire to kiss her, not in front of all the people behind her and not in this horrific prison. He lifted her strands of hair which were out of place, and tucked them behind her ear. "Don't ever suggest anything like that again. I won't let it happen. Never."

Avril smiled, raised her arm in his embrace, and patted his head. "But you came for me, didn't you? She rubs his head and consoles him. She knows for sure that no matter what, her dear husband will come for her. Even in prison, she knew it was true and broke out to help."

He wanted to move, but his body fell forward and nearly toppled Avril to the floor. His Guise had come to an end. The blue antlers faded away as the shroud dissipated into the air. He sighed in annoyance at himself for being an idiot. He had relaxed far too much to the point of his Guise coming undone. Thankfully, Avril propped him up and carried him on her shoulder.

"For you to use the Guise, it must have been a harsh battle. Are you also alright, Erden?" Avril said, turning to Erden.

Erden grunted, and Oscar relayed his friend's response. "It was a tough battle, but still nothing to us. It's too bad the Guise can't be used forever, or we'd be unstoppable. How about you? Your hands are injured."

"She smirks and laughs. I broke out and tried to find you first, but I ended up leading everyone here out with me. We freed everyone we could find. But the New Dawn is too elusive. They killed themselves and destroyed every record they had." Avril said, walking along the hall with her entourage of fellow prisoners, all giving him grateful looks. She turned her head toward them and said, "Ah! Everyone, this is my husband. You need to thank him for finding this place."

"The thanks goes to you as well." Oscar sighed, trying to move even a finger to no avail.

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"Thank you, our savior!" The other prisoners and test subjects all bowed and praised them. Their crying faces of relief and gratitude were nice to see. It was good to know that he and Avril saved so many.

Suddenly, the place shook once. Then the ground cracked, a glowing crevice forming on the solid stone floor. From that crack, Ein began to flow.

"What's going on?" Avril asked, her voice trembling at the sparks of Ein that spilled from the cracking ground.

Still hanging on Avril's shoulders, Oscar felt a tremor through his spine. His body couldn't move an inch but still trembled due to Avril's shaking. Pop! A section of the ground cracked open like a mini volcano, bursting with Ein that flowed like magma. He sensed the deadly force behind just the motes of Ein leaking from the broken ground and began to fear. The fear elevated to horror as more cracks formed. Then, the entire underground base began to quake and groan, dust and rubble falling like rain along the chambers and tunnels.

"Run!" He shouted to the top of his lungs as the glowing cracks spread along the walls and floor, leaking more dense and violent Ein.

…….

High in the skies over Convecia City, an icy fire burned on the clouds and several golden lions. Helen rested on several soft feathers under her feet, catching her breath. Aldric's power had exceeded her imagination, repelling her and Hector's special combined flames through sheer strength and will.

The day had gone long, and night began to settle in as the moon wandered under the bed of stars, beaming down on Helen's unkempt hair, disheveled by the fierceness of the battle. Hector's warcry swept through her ears, and she saw her former beloved swing his mighty furnace hammer, burning with icy flames.

Aldric's lions all pounced onto his broadsword and compacted themselves to coat the blade. A single swing enveloped Hector in a storm of countless stashes and claws. Her heart sank, and Helen mustered her strength to fly toward Hector, who was flung away. Catching Hector's battered body, she gritted her teeth at Aldric and prepared the last of her Ein to counter his finishing blow. But it never came. She could only gawk when Aldric scoffed, turned, and started to fly away. His fleeing figure infuriated her, but she stopped herself from following him.

"Where do you think you're going, Aldric!" Hector shouted, coughing and gasping from the horrible injuries on his furnace body. Lava and fire flowed like blood from the severe wounds on the black armor.

"Hector, don't!" Helen held him back. To chase after Aldric was too dangerous right now in their current conditions. Supporting Hector on her shoulder, she glanced up at the retreating Aldric, wondering where he would run to. Soon, the reinforcements she and Hector summoned would encircle the city and leave Aldric no way out.

To her surprise, a dark shadow moved in the stormy cloud, taking the shape of a vessel. Aldric swung his arm, the clouds parting at his coming to reveal a large airship. Helen stared blankly at the large fortress in the air, large turbines of powerful Ein propelling it afloat as barriers of Ein surrounded it. This fortress airship had an entire army manning it, all garbed in Aldric's iconic lion's armor, and stood firm as a disciplined whole. Where did this large construct come from?

Aldric landed on a metal terrace, overlooking most of the fortress airship, and faced Helen and Hector. They all stared at each other in silence, unsaid emotions and questions flying between their gazes. The three friends of long years, of days long past, who played around with sticks as weapons and ate candy from the stalls together, had nothing to say at this moment. Seeing Aldric's stalwart, armored figure, she remembered the young boy who declared he would be the vanguard and charge into the battlefields so no one else had to, becoming an iron-willed protector. A long time ago, he once shone, brimming with a blinding resolve that made many want to follow him.

But now, she only saw a cold, indifferent executioner with a bloody blade, and the soldiers who followed him seemed more like puppets waiting on the sidelines. Helen desperately wanted to know, to find out the reason. Her soul cried out in pain. "Aldric…what happened to you?"

"Do you have time to talk?" Aldric raised his hand, holding a strange cube that glowed with patterns and formations on its surface.

Helen felt her blood run cold even though she was an ice user. That device in Aldric's hand couldn't be what she knew it certainly was. "You wouldn't!"

"I am…." Aldric squeezed on the cube, cracks spilling from his fingertips.

"Everyone! Get away from the palace!" Wasting no time, Helen shouted to all of Convecia City. She dragged Hector with her and sped down like a demon, unable to keep her calm at Aldric's cruelty. "It's going to explode!"

A sound of something shattering rang through the violent winds in her ear, clear and sharp; Aldric had crushed the cube and started something terrible. The palace trembled, and Helen sensed an overwhelming, unstable Ein welling from below. It was going to blow up!

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