They didn’t get to travel far before they encountered a great number of tiny, exploding flying fish that blocked their way. Any sudden disturbance in the environment would detonate them and Angor’s group couldn’t find a way through.
“Leave them to me,” Keely said as she took out her lamp and lit it up.
“No,” Angor said as he dragged her back, “you should save your strength for important matters.”
Copying his tactic when dealing with the first of flying fishes he encountered in the garden, Angor tricked the fishes into a basic illusion. He then killed one of them from afar and caused a chain reaction that wiped out all the others.
The explosions persisted for some time, tainting the entire sky in red.
While avoiding the falling corpses as much as possible, Angor steered his Gondola away.
But another danger soon followed. They had not seen anything yet, but they were sure it wasn’t peaceful since Luna was meowing madly.
Nausica picked up a scale and frowned. “Hey Angor, there are... thirty different signals within a range of a hundred kilometers, all heading our way.”
“Yup, that’s what Luna just told me.” Keely nodded.
Using the scale, Nausica could only sense 30 scale owners, which meant they were expecting more than 30 assailants if some of the enemies were yet to obtain any scale.
“How many are straight ahead of us?”
“Six. Two to the southwest, one to the southeast, and three directly south,” Nausica said as she quickly deduced the general direction of enemies as well as their distances.
Angor nodded and immediately made a plan.
“We’ll keep moving. Keely and Shiliew, prepare to engage them, I’ll use illusions to assist. Nausica, take control of Gondola. Shan, stop their attacks from damaging the boat.”
Angor handed his revolver to Nausica and a trigger crossbow to Shan. Using the enchanted ammunition he saved, common level-2 apprentices could also deal considerable damage with these weapons.
They saw someone after moving for a dozen more kilometers. There were five, two of which were Bloodline users riding on their own vehicles.
The battle ended before it could begin. Angor didn’t even need to use any illusions because Keely’s Inferno fire froze them into ice sculptures, which then fell into the sea helplessly.
“There are two signals moving together,” Nausica alerted them while steering the boat.
Soon, Angor saw two figures getting bigger in the distance.
“‘Gravedigger’ Monroe and ‘Dancer of Edge’ Thorn!” Shan called out, and when the others looked pretty confused, she explained, “Monroe is a level-2 apprentice while Thorn reached level-3 thirty years ago.”
Both of them were elites since Shan knew their names.
Shan didn’t look too well upon realizing an elite level-3 apprentice was upon them, but Angor and Keely didn’t seem too concerned. As for Shiliew... It seemed that she wasn’t interested at all.
“Just someone with an undeserved reputation. Kill them,” said Keely.
“Look who we have here... ‘Inferno Witch’ Keely and... Oh, isn’t this the new student of Mister Sunders?” The speaker, Thorn, was a middle-aged apprentice who was obviously approaching her senior years.
“And a bunch of nameless brats, I see. You found so many Meraid’s Swords? How about sharing some with us?” Thorn then secretly sent a Voice Transmission to her teammate, who was a short hunchback, “Can you do this, Monroe?”
Monroe grinned widely, which caused his face to wrinkle all over. “No problem of course! It’s just a freaking alchemist with a false name and other guys who are even less well-known.”
Despite his confident words, Monroe flinched a little when looking at Keely.
“Leave that woman be.” Thorn nodded and said, “I’ll go get the level-1 with a silver arm and the blue-haired witch. We’ll seize their swords and leave immediately.”
After setting their plan, they both rushed toward Gondola.
“Don’t stop, maintain speed,” Angor said to Nausica when he saw her slowing down the boat.
Nausica nodded and maximized the power output of the engine.
Angor quickly deployed a small illusion around them, while Keely let out a burst of fierce laughter as she prepared her flames.
“Water curtain,” Shiliew suddenly mumbled behind their backs.
The water of the sea rose and became several walls of water in front of them. However, they could only block people’s view; Thorn and Monroe simply went through them.
“Lava,” Shiliew chanted again in a small voice that only those on the boat could hear.
Thorn and Monroe were drenched by water after pushing through the water curtains, and they didn’t pay it any attention. But after Shiliew finished her spell, the water that remained on their bodies instantly turned into red, hot lava.
They screamed at the top of their lungs.
Within a second, their skin was burned off, while their bones were slowly exposed to the air.
Quickly, they triggered their bloodline power, which granted enough resistance to the heat, so that they could remove all the lava. However, the scorching liquid already ruined their bodies beyond human recognition.
“MY HAIR! MY HEAD-This, this isn’t my hand, nooo!” Thorn tried to reach for her face, only to see a white, bone hand coming up.
She directed a furious gaze at Shiliew, who was dozing off again. “YOU! I’m going to kill you little b*tch!!”
Monroe was trying to repair his body using Heal as much as he could. He quickly moved to stop Thorn’s reckless action. “Calm down! We can always find another target!”
Monroe was smart enough to realize that they had zero hope against Angor’s team. The others in the group had not even joined the fight yet!
They had to retreat and see if they could catch another prey.
Thorn was experienced enough to get rid of her rage. She slowly moved away while keeping her gaze at Shiliew. “I’ll remember this! I’ll make sure you’re dead next time...”
Since the enemies backed off, Nausica pushed Gondola to its limit and immediately left the area.
“Poison,” Shiliew muttered again.
The others heard screaming coming from behind them.
Everyone looked back and saw the bodies of Monroe and Thorn quickly dissolving into deformed skeletons as their lives were taken away.
No one spoke a word at the terrifying sight.
Keely glanced at Shiliew and decided she would be more careful around this woman from now on.
Angor also recalled what Sunders told him about Shiliew before, that she was an Occult “Matter Handler” who was talented at manipulating water. But he never thought Shiliew could actually create non-water-related substances, such as lava and poison, out of water. It seemed Shiliew could change water into any liquid.
That’s cheating!
Angor tried, but he failed to think of anything that could counter those moves should he ever need to face them.
Shiliew yawned loudly and slumped against the rails.
“That’s the side-effect of her ability... the more energy she uses, the faster she falls asleep,” Shan explained while hopping down from Gank’s shoulder. She then opened up a small pouch hanging on Shiliew’s waist. When she found a pill, she stuffed it into Shiliew’s mouth. “Her professor prepared these before coming here. They’re used to forcefully wake her up.”
The pill quickly took effect, and Shiliew opened her eyes. She looked totally fine, if one did not mind the thick black circles around her eyes.
“Welp. Now I see how you pummeled Jebra as if you were bullying a helpless bunny,” Angor teased.
Shan and Nausica nodded slowly. As Shiliew’s teammate, they both knew Shiliew was strong. But not THIS strong.
Shiliew looked puzzled by what she heard and lowered her head bashfully. She wondered why people kept mentioning Jebra’s name in front of her even though she didn’t know that name.
Do I really have a second personality? But... why do I not know it? Shiliew fell into her own thoughts.
Since Jebra’s name was brought up again, Shan mentioned something else she learned about this matter, “Shiliew never falls asleep when fighting Jebra. I wonder why.”
Angor raised an eyebrow at the interesting clue. He already believed that Shiliew was some kind of natural nemesis brought upon Jebra, and now, he had another reason to believe so.
With Shiliew’s help and combined with the fact that the sea was her “home court”, they successfully fought off several more groups of offenders. Angor and Keely almost didn’t have to do anything.
Half an hour later, they were halfway toward their final destination.
Luna suddenly began to meow loudly again.
“Signals approaching from different directions,” Nausica alerted them, “more than a hundred of them. Wait...” Nausica showed a confused look. “I think there’s a single one right in front of us.”