Chapter 48 – Fear the Night, Unsheathe the Saber, Thread the Fate (II)

In the south part of the town, a fierce fight was unfolding.

The responsible, two men dressed in black coats and a red-eyed girl with multicolored hair, were currently looking each other while a powerful pressure filled the surroundings.

“Dammit! How can this girl to be so strong!?” Said one of the men sent to catch Lia while cutting the threads in the surroundings.

The fight had been going for at least half an hour already, and during that time, none of the parties had been able to gain any advantage over the other.

The main reason was because of Lia. Though the two men knew beforehand that Lia combat strength was very great, according the observations done following her fight against the two robbers, she shouldn’t be able of contending with two late core-fusing warriors especially cultivated by a clan.

And certainly, the Lia of yesterday wouldn’t have been able of fighting the two assassins alone.

Because of it, when the two men spying the house noticed that Lia detected their presence, they simply decided to attack despite the risk of being noticed for the town hall.

And at the same time, they communicated with the third shadow crow about the situation and said him to attack Aiden and fulfill the orders of the young master.

After all, they were confident in subjugating the girl in no time.

But, how could they had known that Lia strength had been increasing nonstop lately?

With the increase in strength of Lia’s second soul, her combat strength and cultivation were also increasing at a horrifying rate.

Besides it, Lia’s current combat strength was even higher than normal. It was because the negative emotions accumulated inside her stimulated the second soul greatly, augmenting her combat strength for leaps and bounds.

Of course, such emotions also had an influence over her mental state.

The proof of it was Lia’s current smiling expression different from her normal calm and reserved self. It was as if she was happy of being able to fight with someone.

The influence of Lia’s second soul had even reached at the point of changing her hair color to the current multicolored one.

And though the situation wasn’t so bad like the time in the forest, it wasn’t far from it.

From the beginning of the fight, Lia had been sending her threads to attack the two men nonstop. It was at the point where they didn’t have had any opportunity to go closer than twenty meters from her.

Because of it, though the two men’s cultivation was higher than Lia for almost an entire realm, they had been unable of even injuring her.

In the contrary, more than once, they had found themselves trapped inside a multitude of threads.

If not because their weapons were sharp enough and their techniques were focused in speed, they probably would have been overwhelmed for the many attacks for now.

With a gloomy face, hidden below the cloak, one of the men looked towards Lia and spoke to his companion.

“We must hurry. I don’t know why the men from the town hall had not come yet, but they will probably appear here anytime. If we continued delaying, things will become awful.”

“I agree,” Said his companion. “But we need a method to break through her threads. If not, we will be unable of doing anything.”

Both of them remained silent. Though in theory it was simple, the number of threads was too great for most strategies to work.

Looking towards Lia and seeing her to smile, the two men felt a chill on their backs. For some reason, they were feeling more and more afraid with every second they spend fighting.

Such fear didn’t originate from the strength of their opponent. No, it was from something more primal. For some reason, they felt as if a monster was eyeing their souls.

Finally unable of suppressing their restlessness, one of the men gritted his teeth and spoke to his companion.

“Tsk, one of us will try attracting all the threads. The other must take advantage of the moment to attack when she is unprotected.”

“… Very well.” Nodded the other after thinking for a moment.

“Remember, we cannot kill her. The young master wants her alive.”

“…” Nodding with a frown in his forehead, the second man spoke seriously. “Don’t worry, I coated my daggers with a paralyzing poison. A cut will be enough for her to lose her strength.”

Having discussed their strategy, the two men readied themselves and looked to the smiling Lia.

“Had you two finally ended your chat?” Said her with a sweet and diabolic smile. “I was already bored of waiting.”

Seeing the enchanting smile in the girl face, the pair simply looked each other, then, without responding, they attacked.

Sending energy to his legs, one of the men jumped forwards towards the multitude of threads. Swinging his daggers, many of the threads fell to the ground after losing their connection with Lia. The man continued advancing and cutting the threads without stop.

In the beginning, the two had planned to cut the girl’s threads one by one and subjugate her after it. But such plan was proved ineffective quickly. For some reason, the men found that the threads were able to reattach themselves after a few minutes, making their endeavor useless.

Due it, though they were cutting the threads easily, they didn’t rejoice. After all, all it was useless if they were unable to reach her.

The man continued running while cutting the threads. Every time a thread came near him, he swung a dagger, cutting it immediately. At the same time, he tried coming closer to Lia.

Lia, for her part, moved through the place freely, sending the threads to hinder her enemies from approaching. And when one of the men came too close to her, she used a strange ghostly movement to evade him and increase the distance again.

For a time, both parties maintained a balance. The men cut the threads, doing everything in their might to close the distance with Lia. And she sent more threads, trying to hinder her enemies and waiting for an opportunity to wrap the threads around them.

And the opportunity finally appeared.

In the middle of the battle, one of the men was unable to cut one of the threads coming for his legs. Flustered, he tried using the energy in his body to destroy it, only to notice that more threads had exploited the gap to wrap around him.

It was only an instant, but hundreds of threads wrapped around various parts of his body. The man tried using his daggers and the energy in his body to get out from his predicament, but more and more threads were added every second.

It didn’t take long for him to begin to feel the threads tightening around his body. In a few seconds, his body lost almost every capacity to move and the constrains around him became stronger.

Seeing it, the man initially made a frightened expression. Then, he clenched his teeth and made a face of resolution.

“Haaah!”

With a cry, the energy in his body overflowed. Putting strength in the muscles of his body, he extended his hands and every thread around him broke freeing him.

Making use of the enormous quantity of energy filling his body, the man jumped towards Lia, his daggers glowing from the energy filling them.

In that moment, Lia felt a sensation of crisis filling her body. In a hurry, she moved all her threads towards the man, using them to stop his charge.

But at the end, the threads were unable of stopping him completely. With an incredible speed, the man narrowed the distance between the two constantly.

Lia could only retreat before the assault of the man.

Sending her threads to stop him, Lia failed to notice the second man slowly moving and gathering energy in his body.

The first man continued his charge, attacking without restrain and forcing Lia to retreat more and more. At the end, Lia was forced against a wall making it impossible for her to retreat anymore.

But in that moment, the outburst of the man also finished.

However, instead of despair, a smiling expression was in his face.

“Now!” Cried him, and the second man moved.

His body seemed disappear from his position, appearing mysteriously besides Lia, then, with all his strength, he stabbed with the dagger.

The threads, occupied restraining the first man, were unable to return fast enough to stop the attack. And Lia, with her back against the wall, was unable to retreat to evade the attack.

However, she smiled.

“Do you think I will fall twice to the same trick?”

Then, the sleeve of her dress moved.

The thousands of threads composing the sleeve rearranged themselves. Receiving a great amount of energy from Lia’s body, they wrapped around the arm of the attacker, draining all the strength behind the attack and stopping the attack before reaching her.

Making use of the time earned by it, the threads in the surroundings quickly followed Lia’s orders and attacked the man. Like a million of little serpents, they occupied all the space in the surroundings.

Instantly, the faces of both men became pale.

A sweet smile filled Lia’s face and the red in her eyes became even brighter. All the threads in the surroundings moved, as if cheering for the sweet blood they were about to taste.

The two men, having spend a great amount of strength in the previous attacks, were unable to resist effectively, being forced to see how the threads slowly came close to their bodies.

But when they were about to give up the fight and search for a method to escape, another unexpected thing happened.

A strong spike of energy surged from afar.

And at the same time, a weak pulse of saber intent fought against it.

Lia was immediately able to know what was happening.

Aiden was fighting.

… And he was losing.

Rage and fear immediately filled her face.