The Exalt [Cultivation Fantasy]

Adam punched the doors and sent them crashing to the floor. Surrounded by rocks, crevices, and a flat terrain of smooth stone, he assumed this room to be one of the environment chambers that replicated any environment set. Similar to the halls, the room reached immense, absurd distances as if he were truly outside and striding along a lifeless waste with only pebbles and boulders as his companions. He sensed a familiar presence, his smile widening with anger surging in his flared pupils.

"Come at me, false Kais!" Adam shouted, projecting his voice to the corners of the rocky terrain.

"Well. Your senses have improved since last we met, young disciple of Sevon. But shouldn't you show some respect to your master's brother?" A hooded figure dug himself out of a crevice, shaking off the rubble and dust off his shoulders. The hood flew back and revealed the man's face, the accursed one that haunted Adam's nightmares and fueled his anger for a century since his master's death.

"Enough, you fake. I know you just carry the real Kais's memories. I've been waiting for this day?" Adam put on his brass knuckles, his voice rumbling with thunder.

"By that incorrect logic, despite my ego also existing in this body, shouldn't you want revenge on the old Kais, then? I helped by killing him for you. What other quarrel do you have with me?" Kais scratched his forehead, confused.

"If not for your presence that day, I could have aided in my master's battle. And you took away my chance for revenge." Adam cackled and directed his maniacal smile at Kais. "And lastly, you are a mistake of the Voltens. Not even a memory or thought of the master's enemy should exist in this world."

"Your lust for carnage, like a beast, is proof of the failure of the old ways. Well, it is rare to get good materials for research and more powerful Reis cores. I was planning on killing you anyway." Kais smiled, his eyes curling down in unsettling crescent moons.

Adam smirked in his usual maddened wide eyes and motioned his finger over his neck. "Only one of us leave here alive."

…….

"Damnit. How far down does it go? Did we start from the bottom or the middle of the dark tower?" Oscar lost his patience and kicked a set of doors open, ignoring the tube that flowed Ein from the floor to the ceiling. He searched the other two doorways and went down the one that led downstairs. Landing in another hall of arrogant statues, he grew more irritated, kicking the toes off a statue. He had found some people earlier, but they craved the bounty on his head, so he killed them. How many more must stay in his way? First, Lysander, then these fodders. Where was Avril?

"Wait!" Erden halted and sniffed deeply. "I smell her. She is near." Before Oscar could react, his friend grimaced, "Her blood is flowing, and another is by her. We must hurry!" They bolted faster across the hall and flew down the stairs, no longer caring for an enemy lurking around the corner. His priority was Avril. The closer he got, the more the scent of blood permeated the air, thick and familiar. He had hoped Erden was mistaken, but a beast's nose could not be doubted. Still, he hoped. What happened to her? The worry irked his heart.

"Avril!" Oscar shouted, bursting from the stairway. His eyes went wide before tightening as his anger flared, and he bared his teeth, erupting Ein in a great blaze that swallowed half the room as he instantly entered the Guise. A blue antler and a red flaming horn protruded from his forehead. The rage forced a beastly roar from his throat, and blood flowed from his eyes. Erden extended his wings and stomped with his hooves, letting out his own enraged roar. His horrid scene in front of him was the worst imaginable future come to pass.

"Issac's heir. So you descended as well." Lelith Lilisa turned to Oscar and lowered her scythe, blood dripping off its sharp edge. Her indifferent gaze made it seem as if she hadn't just performed an act of cruelty. She pointed behind her and said, "I never lose what belongs to me. What you committed is thievery. I wonder why many can't just play the role they're given. You should have stayed a simple Grade Four with no prospects while she–" She held the scythe near Avril's throat. "-should have remained Slave."

Chains of torturers, the kind laden with spikes on every link, bound Avril's limbs, coiling around her arms and legs, even wrapping around her stomach. They hoisted her up in the air, parading her like a condemned criminal before a crowd. The spikes dug deep into her flesh, blood leaking out and puddling below. But the worst, the most infuriating, was the brutality done to her once-fair countenance. Deep cuts streaked scarlet and disfigured her, not a single inch of skin on her face spared. It reminded him of the scar-ridden face she had when they first met, the one she hid behind bandages and masks.

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Oscar glared, eyes bloodshot, and kicked off with jets of flames and a platinum rod banging on the floor. He soared toward Lelith and closed the distance in an instant, pouring all of his strength and momentum in a single swing of his shield, overpowering Lelith's scythe. As Lelith was flung away, Demon appeared in his Duality body and cut the chains apart, freeing Avril. Oscar cradled her in his arms, the bloody tears unending at her tormented state, the golden eyes dim and lifeless as her body was stiff. Rather than a living human, he felt he was carrying a statue. Avril didn't react to his presence or the heartfelt embrace. Her mind, her soul had cut off, withdrawn to who-know-where inside the deep recesses of her consciousness.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He stroked her cheek, tracing Lelith's cruel gashes. Flashes of repressed scenery surfaced. Fred's face, Emily's face, Uncle Carlson's face, and Avril's face overlapped. He retrieved the calming elixir out of his dimensional cube, sipped some for himself, and poured it into her mouth, kissing her to force her to gulp it down. Behind him, Erden and Demon held Lelith back, erecting walls of flames and metal to deter her. Rummaging around, he pulled out a precious grade-four healing elixir stored inside a bottle of wood. As Avril involuntarily drank it, her wounds patched themselves up, and he wiped the blood off with his white sleeves.

Placing her down, Oscar turned to Lelith, overwhelmed by the desire to murder. A single swipe of his scythe repelled Demon and Erden, her strength only enough for a small gap in their formation. That gap was enough. She sped past, exhibiting speed that surpassed any of his former foes. However, there was no backing down, and no step in retreat was allowed. Contrary to her blinding speed, he stood firm and raised his shield, never blinking. Suddenly, two arrows of radiant light concentrated into a crystalline form brushed past. Lelith dodged the arrows, sidestepped Demon's sword, and flipped over Erden's bullish charge.

"Avril!" He looked back and saw Avila kneeling before Avril's comatose body. Avila held Avril's head and hugged her. She gnashed her teeth and regarded Oscar with a face of anger, tears streaming down the nasty look. "Why does she have to suffer?"

"Then end it. End the cause of her suffering." Oscar strode forward and barraged Lelith with scarlet-platinum blades. Her scythe flashed in swift strokes, breaking the blades, dozens in each swing. Nigh invisible threads absorbed the brunt of Erden's charge, several layers torn by it, and they twirled and spun, binding Erden's body, which was clad in sapphire armor. Fine, straight blazes of blue flames severed the threads, and Demon stepped in, coordinating with Oscar's forward charge. A white and blue piercing stab approached her back, and Oscar charged in, thrusting his scarlet-platinum drill toward her chest.

Avila hovered above, glaring with a sharpness in her golden eyes. She fired a line of arrows that attacked Lelith's potential retreat to the sides and above. A beam of light connected the arrowheads and formed radiant lances between each arrow. Her Meld powers relied on sending forth a collective of arrows, sharper than the norm, and connecting them with a shared spell in between. By using it, she had been a great asset in the defenses, linking explosions into a larger whole.

Lelith's expression didn't break. She seemed unbothered. Her scythe twisted, jabbing the pommel out to block his drill while the blade clashed in a sharp ring against Demon's sword. Their Shattering Waves, concentrated in the Line, unleashed their devastating power onto Lelith. But she swiped her scythe in rapid succession, somehow cutting through the Shattering Waves, the excess power erupting in all directions except hers and knocking away Avila's arrows. Oscar retreated and wiped the sweat from his chin, seeing the Ancestral Mark glowing on her forehead. At least they managed to force that out so early.

Lelith raised her arm, and a short sword hit her wrist with a loud clang. She hadn't used a spell, and judging from how she endured their attacks; Oscar concluded her body was impossibly hard like Santen's. But that should be impossible unless she wasn't a normal human. At the end of the short sword, Serit gripped the handle and spat out a mote of darkness that expanded and encased her in a shadowy orb, black mists wisping eerily from it. His brother-in-law flew back, followed by Erden. Instantly, the edge of Lelith's scythe split the prison open, and Lelith stepped out, glancing from left to right.

"It seems Fate, or rather the Threads connecting us, has brought you all here. The Slave and her husband, Issac's heir, whom I must hunt. The sister of the Slave who fights for her, even though it is no longer her sister. And you, the orphan of the Lonilo. You were granted life back then for this moment. But are you enough to be nutrients for my growth?" Lelith closed her eyes and then opened with dark, emotionless swirling in the blue pupils.

"Shut up." Oscar didn't care for her words, nor about the bounty on his head for being Issac's heir. He peeked at Avril and clenched his fists. As a husband, he had only one thought: to tear off this woman's limbs and carve out her heart. Only with that could the anger burning inside be quenched. Yes, it was time to kill a Grade Nine.

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