ALL NOVEL Chapter 155 “Red.”
Chapter 155
“Red.”
Kalysto took several minutes trying to convince Katia that everything was fine with her and that it was just a residual effect of using some of her skills.
And almost ten minutes after she was finally able to get it inside her inventory, along with Medhas’ book, a new horn resounded throughout the castle.
Kalysto, worried about all the time that had passed since she had freed the boys, went back through the same corridors she had gone to rescue Katia, but halfway near the entrance of the prison they had been put in, she met Sandra. The other fire mage in the group of heroes and the one who had stayed behind in the tower along with Milo.
Kalysto entered the corridor that led to the empty jails right behind Sandra. The blonde stopped for a second and Kalysto thought she had noticed her presence, but the seventeen-year-old girl gasped when she saw that not only were there several guards and mages lying on the floor, but a hole in the back wall. One that Kalysto had made almost half an hour ago.
“They escaped...” she muttered in surprise, too low for the saintess to hear, ”The heroes have escaped!” She began to shout at the top of her lungs as she turned and ran, ready to deliver the news to the guards. But Sandra hit an invisible wall, falling to the hard, dirty ground.
Ice creation! Kalysto thought, freezing the blonde’s body to just half a centimeter below her nose so she could breathe.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you give them away,“ Kalysto muttered, but by the way the blonde’s eyes widened, she knew she recognized her voice. “Besides, I never liked you,” the blonde growled and tried to melt the ice. “...I’m sorry, but I can’t let you do that either... Sleep well!” She said, then left her there waiting for one of the other guards to come and find her, while she stood in front of what was left of the wall at the end of the cell corridor and took a deep breath, hoping that would be enough to calm the change in her eyes.
“Too bad I don’t have a mirror nearby,” she muttered, as she checked her arms, noticing that the two snaking black lines that had been there before had completely disappeared.
Then she stood in the small space between the stone wall and the earth that had not collapsed, and jumped. Only to find the group of heroes fighting for their lives as they were surrounded by several groups of orcs, undead and walking skeletons.
“Fall back!” Rita shouted as she launched a fireball at a huge green-skinned orc and Koden slit the throat of an armored skeleton, only to have it rise again soon after, as if nothing had happened to it.
“Why do they revive so quickly?” Edward complained as he stole the sword from the skeleton Koden had defeated and Oscar jumped on the back of the orc Rita was fighting and slit its throat.
“How should I know?” Koden replied in annoyance, as he cut off the head of an undead goblin and threw its body away with a kick.
Dispel Ezhil! Ezhil purification! Dispel Ezhil! Ezhil purification! Kalysto conjured, a little proud to see that even though they were under pressure, the boys could defend themselves on their own. The golden light burst from her body disinterring the undead and causing all skeleton warriors to fall to the ground, breaking the spell that held them together and causing them to re-form. At the same time, she pulled out the minotaur’s axe and chopped off the head of a nearby orc, who were the only enemies to survive her earlier attack.
[You have gained 1000 experience points!] x15
[You have gained 800 experience points!] x20
[You have gained 1200 experience points!]
“That’s not fair, that was mine!” Koden complained and Kalysto rolled her eyes at his competitive attitude.
“You still have a whole dozen orcs to choose from,” replied the saintess as Rita exclaimed.
“I’m winning by three!”
“That’s not fair! You had help from your boyfriend!” The tank defended himself.
“Come on guys, stop it!” Kalysto scolded them, too amused by their attitude as she watched Emanuel use the twins as human shields, staying away from the monsters while the rest of the group fought. “Ice creation!” she conjured, freezing the bodies of ten orcs, leaving only their necks and heads exposed for easy elimination. “There you go! No need to fight each other anymore.”
“Great! Thank you!” Koden exclaimed excitedly and without wasting the given opportunity, he jumped over the ice wall and started decapitating heads. “Hey! Go look for yours somewhere else!” he shouted when Rita and Oscar joined him.
[You’ve gained 400 experience points!]
“Kalysto never said they were just for you,” the blonde defended herself just before cutting off the head of another orc with a sword she had just stolen from one of the skeleton warriors Kalysto had killed. “See, even if Oscar kills one of them, she doesn’t say anything!” The twins, seeing this, immediately imitated the blonde, stealing a sword from the fallen skeletons and jumping on the ice to also annihilate some orcs.
[You have gained 400 experience points!] x2
[You have gained 500 experience points!] x4
“Where were you? Those things almost killed us!” Edward shouted, his voice thick with anxiety. His face was pale.
Kalysto arched an eyebrow as she settled the Minotaur’s axe over her shoulder and watched him coolly, at the same time as the orcs that had been several meters away from them rushed in their direction at the sight of the clear path.
“I had other things to do,” she answered as if it were nothing and before he could vent all his frustration against her, Kalysto jumped over the ice column as a new horde of undead monsters advanced towards them, ”We need to get away from the castle! If someone finds out that we escaped, they will come after us, and if they catch you again, I will not go to rescue you!” She warned the rest of them.
[You have gained 500 experience points!] x3
A mighty roar silenced them as a huge troll almost five meters tall ran towards them with a gigantic mace in his hand, throwing several groups of skeletons aside to make room.
Then two others, a meter smaller than the first one, ran towards them, each from a different direction. Blocking any chance they had of escape.
“The big guy is mine!” shouted Kalysto immediately and jumped, cutting the bodies of undead, skeletons and wolves that crossed her path.
[You have gained 1500 experience points!] x5
[You have gained 2000 experience points!]
“We’ll go for the one on the right!” Oscar chose, immediately jumping on an orc and stabbing it between the eyes. Rita followed him shortly after.
“That means the third one is mine! All right! The rest of you, come with me. We’ll defeat that monster together!” He got excited as he pointed at the third troll. But neither Edward, nor Emanuel, nor the twins shared his enthusiasm.
“Do you want us to face that thing? Are you crazy?” Gideon complained, and Edward’s legs shook as he watched him approach.
“Do you want to be a hero?“ The tank turned, looking at the man who had been his friend and classmate for a year and a half.
Edward swallowed hard. His face had an unhealthy greenish color, but he still nodded his head.
“Then stop waiting for someone to come to your rescue! It doesn’t matter that we’re afraid! What really matters is what we do in spite of being afraid!” He argued. “You can choose to stay here as a coward or you can choose to face your fear and become stronger!... Do you all want to go home as heroes or cowards?” Koden nodded his head, believing he had gotten his message across. And after what he considered the most motivating speech he had ever given in his life, the young tank, like the other three heroes summoned from another world, launched into battle.
Edward and Gideon tried to follow him, while Emanuel stayed in the safety of the ice wall created by Kalysto and Gabriel began to shoot arrows at his side.
“Ezhil Purification! Dispel Ezhil! Ezhil Purification!” Kalysto conjured as soon as she was a couple of meters away from the ice wall to prevent the rest of the group from losing the small fort with which they could keep away from some of the monsters.
[You have gained 1500 experience points! x15
[You have gained 1200 experience points!] x10
Kalysto cut off the heads of two more orcs before facing the troll, who, as soon as he reached her, threw his strong mace against her body.
[You have gained 1000 experience points!] x2
The saintess barely had time to dodge the troll’s attack at the same time as another orc threw an axe towards her.
“Ice blades! Ice arrows!” She threw at the troll’s eyes and throat, after dodging the orc’s attack. “Perfect aim! Ice spear!” She conjured and threw it at the orc’s head, who died instantly.
[You have gained 2000 experience points!]
Despite the wounds in his eyes, the troll attacked her again. Throwing his sledgehammer back and forth, trying to be guided by the surrounding sounds, and after evading its last attack, Kalysto jumped on the monster’s arm and ran up to its shoulder.
“Ice daggers!” she conjured and made two slashes at its neck before leaping to the top of the enemy’s head. “Tundra!” She muttered as her new height allowed her to observe the top of the huge red portal glowing in the distance, along with the hundreds of thousands of monsters surrounding the castle and everything else she could see. “Shit!”