“Deal with me? Too confident, aren’t you? Mann Matthews?”
Mann’s self-assured words annoyed Emily, so she simply revealed herself.
She floated in the air, gazing down at them with cold eyes.
“You still don’t understand the situation, do you? You’re the ones in a dead end now!”
As Emily’s voice fell, countless puppets swarmed out from the ground, the walls, and even two enormous puppets materialized out of thin air. They had long lost any trace of human features, their bodies covered in dense stitching.
“Dead end? They’re just intimidating to look at.”
Mann stared at the two most conspicuous puppets. For some reason, he couldn’t sense a trace of mana from them.
But just looking at the detail of their exterior, they were far inferior to the two puppets that had assassinated him earlier. In other words, their performance was far worse.
The only thing that gave him pause…
Mann raised his head, fixating on the floating Emily. He asked in a low voice:
“What’s going on? Is she a puppet too?”
“No, she’s a living human.”
“Oh? Then she’s probably not Uss.”
If he were Uss, he definitely wouldn’t appear at a time like this.
But since anything can happen, he’d try a bluff first.
“Hey! Call Uss out! Haven’t you played the turtle-in-a-shell game long enough?”
Emily looked at Mann with disdain:
“What a low-class provocation. If you want to see him, he has to agree to it!”
Just as I thought…
Mann’s expression gradually turned serious. This state of the enemy hidden while we’re exposed meant every second dragged out hastened the descent of that monster.
Not to mention they still didn’t know Uss’s true identity or location.
“Captain, Mei, we need to hurry. We can’t drag this out!”
“Yes, Master Mann!”
Mei stared at Emily, her pupils slowly turning red.
Sophien was startled to see Mei like this. But she quickly snapped out of it, summoning white dragon-scale armor to cover her entire body.
“That’s right! You hurt my men. Don’t think you’ll get off easy!”
“Hmph! Just you?”
Emily still wore a composed expression.
“Fine then. Since you want to throw your lives away, I’ll grant you that wish. Two Divine Emissaries… having you as sacrifices for my God’s resurrection is more than enough!”
With that, she flew backward, disappearing from sight.
“You all destroy these puppets, then get out immediately!”
Sophien gave orders to the Knight Order members.
“We’re going to continue pursuing Emily!”
The three of them quickly chased in the direction Emily had retreated.
“What now, Lord Mann? Can you sense her whereabouts?”
“No. She must be using some method to conceal her magic power.”
“Then what do we do, Master Mann? We’re too passive like this…”
Before Mei could finish, an arrow grazed Mann’s neck and stuck into the ground.
“This won’t work. The three of us will just become live targets. We’ll be worn down to death!”
“Concealing magic power…”
While Mann was thinking, more and more arrows rained toward them.
“I’ve got it! Captain, spread your mana throughout the entire Holy Light Array. With your ability, it should be easy, right?”
“And Mei, stay close to me later!”
Sophien immediately realized what Mann intended.
If magic power was concealed, making her location untraceable, then flooding the area with mana would make any unit without mana stand out starkly. Only Mann, with his extreme sensitivity to mana, could pull it off.
As Sophien’s mana began to spread rapidly, Mann quickly locked onto a position.
“Earth Shrink Technique!”
He appeared in front of Emily in an instant, coating his shin with Divine Light and delivering a swift downward kick.
“Get down!”
Although Emily remained hidden, the sound of her being abruptly knocked downward and the faint glow left by Mann’s attack revealed her location.
Mei seized the moment. Her form vanished in an instant, and when she reappeared, she was standing beside Mann, her dagger covered in blood.
Mann inwardly praised Mei’s eerie footwork.
‘After training in the Earth Shrink Technique for so long in the Consciousness Space, I’m still far behind her…’
A soft thump interrupted Mann’s thoughts.
A severed arm fell to the ground.
Forced out of concealment by the intense pain, Emily looked quite disheveled.
“If I remember correctly, you said we were sacrifices, right?”
“Then what does that make you, getting injured like this by the sacrifice?”
Mann walked forward, looking down at Emily.
“Hmph… Don’t get too cocky, Mann Matthews!”
“Tell me Uss’s whereabouts and identity, and I’ll give you a quick death.”
Beside him, Sophien’s hand had transformed into a white dragon’s head. It glared fiercely at Emily, who was kneeling on the ground, compressing terrifying mana in its maw.
“Hehe… hehehe…”
Emily lowered her head, laughing weakly.
“You really want to see Uss, Mann Matthews? You’ll definitely regret it…”
“What do you mean?”
“This road to Hell… you chose it with your own hands! Hahahaha!”
She threw her head back and howled, eyes wide open.
“Lord Uss! Mann Matthews has been lured here by your subordinate!…”
Seeing this abnormality, Mann immediately realized something was wrong.
“Sophien, kill her! Now!”
Sophien’s attack fired instantly. A ball of light condensed with狂暴 mana shot toward Emily’s head.
But just before it hit, it inexplicably veered off course, as if drawn by something, and blasted through the wall beside them.
“How is that possible…?”
Even Sophien was stunned.
Mei immediately tried to finish the job, but she was also bizarrely repelled by something.
Only Mann stood frozen. For some reason, a chilling sensation spread through his entire body.
Something behind him seemed to be creaking, as if something was approaching him.
‘What’s going on?’
‘Why can’t I… move?’
He watched helplessly as Emily dodged the attack and faded back into the darkness. He couldn’t even speak, and his consciousness grew increasingly hazy.
“Hey! Mann! What are you doing?”
“Master Mann, where is she?”
But Mann still didn’t respond.
When the two women turned around, they saw Mann grabbed by two bloodless, giant hands gripping his arms. The next moment, he was dragged into a patch of darkness, not a trace of his presence remaining.
“Master Mann!”
Mei charged frantically in the direction Mann had disappeared, not even noticing an arrow speeding toward the back of her head.
“Watch out!”
Fortunately, Sophien pulled Mei aside just in time, barely dodging the lethal strike.
“Hey, calm down! We need to ensure our own safety first. That guy doesn’t need us to worry about him yet!”
“But… but…”
Before Mei could finish, another arrow pierced through the scales and shot straight through Sophien’s arm.
“Another demon-breaking arrow…”
“Lord Captain!”
“I’m fine. With magic power, this kind of wound can heal itself.”
That was true. Although the scales and flesh were regenerating, the demon-breaking arrow’s effect slowed the process by dozens of times.
Sophien clicked her tongue in annoyance.
“Miss Maid, I’m not as sensitive to mana as Lord Mann. So the earlier method may not work.”
“If it comes down to it, don’t worry about me. Take my men and leave the Holy Light Array, the farther the better.”
“What about you? What are you going to do?”
“I’ll use the Divine Envoy’s Authority. But no one can be nearby, because this skill is too dangerous.”
…
In a dark, damp place, Mann slowly opened his eyes.
His whole body felt like it had fallen apart. Even sitting up took tremendous effort. Looking around, he realized he was inside the underground cave of his own mansion.
In the cave, aside from the occasional flutter of bat wings, it was eerily quiet most of the time.
The floor was unevenly dotted with small puddles. Above them, protruding rocks emitted a faint fluorescence, with water droplets occasionally falling.
With the light from the puddles and the glow of the stone pillars overhead, it wasn’t hard to see the cave’s interior.
“What’s going on? This cave should have been sealed for a long time. Why did I suddenly end up here?”
Soon, his attention was caught by a mirror polished from stone directly in front of him.
On the other side of the mirror, a woman who existed only in the original owner’s memory sat leisurely sipping tea.
She was dressed like a noble lady, with purple hair cascading to her waist. Although a thin veil covered her face, her stunning beauty was still visible.
“This feeling of closeness… it can’t be fake…”
Mann walked forward involuntarily. He reached out his hand, wanting to touch the woman in the mirror.
“Mother… is that you?”