Getting a head start, Lilly had flung herself forward through the sand, arriving at the small village. She quickly rushed in and headed straight into the entrance where the others were waiting for her.
“Emergency!” were the first words she shouted, springing the others into action. “At the portal, there was this man, he’s all by himself but he’s really strong.”
“Me and Tilon were fighting against him, but we couldn’t hurt him. Tilon’s still fighting, we have to hurry, we need to fight him together, just like we did against the Light Faction Elder!”
The others had concerned looks on their faces. They could tell by Lilly’s reaction that the situation was dire. They expected this going up against the Dark Faction.
Even Alba could hear Cronker in her ear, saying he told her so.
“We still need to look after Raze though; we can’t bring him to the battlefield,” Alba suggested, while thinking of what the next best thing to do was.
“We have to hurry; otherwise, Tilon will be…”
“I’m here guys, don’t worry,” Tilon said from the entrance.
Everyone jumped from their position in shock like they had seen some type of ghost, but it was Tilon, and strangely he wasn’t hurt.
“Tilon, you’re safe, wait, you’re right behind me, what happened?” Lilly asked, thinking that she might be going crazy.
“It was the man we were fighting against. He moved away from me, headed back to the portal, and said I could go,” Tilon replied, gulping after finishing his words.
What the man had done was an extreme display of confidence, and it was worrying for them.
“Just how strong is this guy?” Alba thought.
“Do you really think that there are many that are strong enough to take out the entirety of the Crimson Crane?” Kizer asked. “The most likely thing is, he doesn’t know how many there are of us, nor does he know our strength.”
Alba had to admit it was most likely the case. Although she was a standout figure of the Crimson Crane due to her rare features, the same couldn’t be said for the others.
Especially in the Dark Faction where their status was a lot less known compared to others.
The fact that both Tilon and Lilly came back fine, with a few of them, they should be able to beat this person.
“Whatever we do, we have to fight, especially if he’s protecting the portal. All of us, gear up and be ready for battle. Reno, stay here with the Dark Magus, look after him, I trust you, okay.”
With two members less of the original Crimson Crane group, Alba was hoping it would be enough. It had to be.
Amir was waiting patiently in the sand. He was standing still like a statue, looking at the sight, and then through the torn-down village, he could see them appearing.
A group of six, all with different weapons, coming towards him. They didn’t rush forward; there was nowhere for them to hide due to the destroyed city. They could only face Amir head-on.
When the group was around twenty meters away, he raised his hand, as if to tell them to stop moving forward.
“There are a lot more of you than I thought. It is only growing my curiosity more as to what happened here. Was there a portal break somewhere else that led you all in?” Amir asked, but it wasn’t a question to them.
It sounded more like he was rambling to himself.
“As I said to the two before, we don’t have to fight.”
Alba found this hard to believe. “If you just wanted to talk, then why kill the Dimension boss, leaving our only option to come here?” she asked.
“That was to see if anyone would come out,” Amir replied. “The situation is a difficult one, and these dimensions at times can be as big as other worlds.”
“Do you expect me to search the entire place while also keeping an eye on the portal? By myself, that is impossible; the only way was to do what I did.”
“And now that I have a lot of you here, I shall ask you a question. I am looking for a student that belongs to the Dark Faction Pagna Academy, a sharp jaw, rough around the eyes, and he has white hair. I don’t suppose you have seen someone that matches this description?”
The Crimson Crane members grunted. They all knew the description matched Raze, but why was he here after them?
Did the academy care so much about a single student? It might just be standard procedure, but the measures seemed extreme, and the same with the person who had been sent.
Unless they knew Raze’s real identity, which had somewhat clicked in Alba’s head.
“This place is vast as you said, it would be hard to run into others here,” Alba shouted.
“Ah, well, I know he’s here; we assigned him to this portal, he has to be here. I’m just wondering whether or not he’s alive,” Amir commented.
“If he is, I really need to bring him back to the academy. He is a student, after all.”
Alba kept thinking; Raze wanted to go against the academy, so while he was in the state he was in now, she couldn’t bring him back.
“It seems you know something, so I might have to fight against you,” Amir said to the silence.
“Do you really think you can take us on, and what’s so important about a single child anyway?” Alba replied back.
She knew it was quite clear that the man knew something was up. The group of people being here.
The question, it made Amir laugh.
“I thought something like this might have happened, and I can’t believe it did. It was as I suspected; that kid, he’s from Alter, isn’t he? In fact, I knew as soon as those others had shown up to see him.”
Alba had heard of Alter before. A specialized group that was able to help Clans with almost any problem. Raze belonged to that group of people?
Is it why he was able to make such precious items and pills, but Alter never shared out their secrets. Thinking along these lines, it was quite possible that Raze was a rogue.
“Are you from Alter?” Alba eventually asked.
“Me?” Amir replied. “No, I’m from another group, one that you might have never heard of, the Bonum Society.”
The Crimson Crane members raised an eyebrow; none of them had heard of such a group before.
“It’s normal to not hear of them; most who do end up dead.”
Chapter 422 That’s Fighting Talk
Alba tensed her hands around her weapons after hearing those words. Because it was clear as day that they were threatening words.
The other members witnessing this did the same, and the first one to fire away was Froma as she let go of the arrow.
It flew straight ahead in the air, bringing a large current with it. Amir moved his head to the side, avoiding the blow, and the arrow continued until it went through the portal where they had entered from.
“Well, whoever’s standing on the other side right now, I’m pretty sure they might be dead,” Amir said.
“I don’t think it’s the right time for you to be making jokes, old man!” Kizer shouted from above, drawing his sword.
He had a few on his back, and this time the sword he drew was a large great sword with a blue-colored hilt. The sword smashed down and directly hit Amir’s leg.
The two of them were clashing, and more sparks of Qi came from the two of them as they were facing each other.
“Oh, you are stronger than the other two, you have quite a lot of power,” Amir stated.
Right in the middle of their confrontation, that was when Alba as well as Elvlin had appeared by the side, Alba with her dual-curved red swords, and Elvlin with her large glaive that was too big for her body.
Both of them came forward and proceeded to unleash a large strike, hitting Amir right on his body. It was a clean hit with only his Qi to defend him.
His body went flying in the air, and he had flipped over backward before getting his footing back.
“Do you remember me!” Lilly said as she thrust her spear forward.
Amir quickly kicked it away but noticed her attacks were relentless, and when he went to strike back, Tilon was right there blocking the attack.
In the middle of fighting the two of them, Froma had jumped in the air and unleashed three arrows that had hit Amir.
He had blocked two of them but one had pierced his shoulder with blood dripping down from it. Right after, Kizer had returned with his attack, with a sword strike from the side, and the same with Alba who was relentless.
Out of the two, Amir needed to decide which strike to block, and kicking out his leg, he blocked Kizer’s hit. Alba’s two swords struck him in a large X, causing blood to appear out of his mouth as he skidded across the ground again.
Quickly, he lifted his legs and rapidly started to kick, unleashing a large amount of energy towards Kizer and Elvlin who were following up, and they had to back away.
However, there was one thing that was clear compared to before. The Crimson Crane, now nearly all of them present, were doing well fighting against the single person, even though he might have been stronger than all of them.
“You said some pretty threatening words back there,” Alba said. “Knowing that, the other one was part of Alter and with what he can do, I thought you might have some special powers.”
Amir was holding onto his chest looking at the situation. Out of all of them, he was trying to figure out who would attack first.
Using his hand, he pulled the arrow out from his shoulder, the tip covered in blood, and threw it on the floor.
“What, did you think everyone that is part of a group has some sort of special power?” Amir commented. “No, I’m not like them.”
“I have my own strength, but I have to admit, I’m quite surprised by all of you and how well you fight together. I think I’ve heard of you before, the Crimson Crane, right?”
“Oh, you make me blush,” Alba replied. “I worked hard to try and make our clan name something that could be shared and known around the world. The fact that you know it, it does make me proud.”
“Well, information gathering is meant to be our forte; it would be disappointing if we didn’t know a group as large as yours.”
In the middle of his speech, Froma started off once again firing three arrows out. With a sweep of his leg, he had broken all of them, and immediately he could see Kizer had charged in.
The moment his foot landed, Amir swung it back and focused all of his Qi to his foot. It bashed right into Kizer’s sword, breaking it in half.
Just as Amir was going to follow up with another kick, though, Tilon was there with his shield to block him from getting hurt, and then Alba was dealing with the rest.
“Kizer, don’t hold back,” Alba commented as she rushed in.
She came up from the side and was swinging her swords widely one after the other. Amir was on the back foot as he kicked them away and was able to block most of the attacks.
He was carefully watching from behind just in case there were more sneak attacks, but Alba, being the highest stage warrior out of them all, was a handful herself.
“Come on, you were confident in taking us all on, even when you saw us, but now I can see that there is quite a struggle on your face as well!” Alba stated.
It seemed like Amir himself was too busy to really answer the question, but using a strong kick, he shifted Alba back for a second giving him time to breathe.
“Why do you want the kid so bad, has Alter hired you to protect him?” Amir asked.
“And what about you, are you just trying to kill him because he belongs to some other society, just like that damned woman as well!” Alba exclaimed, going in for another attack once again.
“You have no idea!” Amir lifted up his foot and slammed it on the ground, the whole area started to shake violently. “You have no idea what you’re stepping into. The clans, everything, the whole Pagna world is naïve to the things going on in this world!”
Everyone was stumbling from the shock, but there was one person that was ready, Kizer had jumped into the air again, but this time, rather than his broken blue sword, he had a sword with a dragon-like design by the hilt, and the guard was orange in color.
“If you want him so badly, then have a taste of what he can make!” The sword started to glow up, the sword created by none other than the Dark Magus.
Kizer didn’t like using it too much due to its effects, but it was the perfect time to finish off someone like him.
Amir spun his body, gathered his Qi, and both the sword and his leg clashed again. The shockwave created shifted the rubble and broken trees like an agent storm pushing them to the side.
The intense amount of power caused Amir to cough up blood slightly, and nearly his whole body felt like it was going to be crushed.
Lifting up his other leg from the ground, he pushed Kizer in the stomach. It wasn’t a move made to hurt him but just to get him away.
When pushing away, the rest of the energy from Kizer’s attack had gone into the ground, shaking the entire area even more so.
Amir now looked weak; he wiped the blood from his mouth and stood up. Rather than placing his hands behind his back though, he placed them to the side.
“You asked me before if I was special in some way, right? I didn’t think I would need to use this.”
His hands were stretched out from the side, and right in front of all their eyes, it looked like his skin was splitting apart.
It was ripped, being shed from his hands and was falling onto the ground. Blood wasn’t falling off though; instead, a strange black casing was surrounding both of his hands.
At the same time, one of Amir’s eyes was being covered over in a strange yellow color, and parts of his face were hardening with a scaly exoskeleton as well.
One of his hands now looked like a giant claw of a beast. At the same time, his other hand looked to have been going through some type of transformation as well.
It was broken apart, long and dangling in the air, like some type of tentacle, but the tentacles started to wrap around themselves and formed into a solid object, a large giant blade made of the same stuff the rest of his body was.
Alba and her group being around as long as they have done before, knew exactly what this was.
“You’re a hybrid!” Alba gritted her teeth.