The Devil's Cage

In the underground sewers back in West Coast City.

Elli was shuttling swiftly across the filthy sewers with her rain boots since she had already gotten used to the stench.

Though, Elli would turned around and checked on "Charles" behind her from time to time or more precisely, Tally in disguise.

Elli was hoping to see a disgusted, uncomfortable expression on Tally's face but it disappointed her. All the while. Tally remained calm and wasn't affected by the environment, although her face was altered by the transforming potion, still any expression would be reflected on her face, otherwise, the potion wouldn't be Simones's prized possession in his collection.

Though, Elli was really curious about how Tally knew Simones carried such a potion with him. Even for herself, she only knew of the existence of the potion in her teacher's books and it was the first time she saw it with her own eyes.

Maybe there were other similar potions in other mystic's collections but it was a slim chance.

After all, after the Blood Moon War, the aftermath of which was was too influential to the whole West Coast. Other than inheritance or legacy items, the biggest loss throughout the whole West Coast was the factions and societies losing their collections.

Precious potions, tools, rare equipment, and books.

All of the items of a mystical individual was enough of a reason to fight over.

While one side was raiding and plundering all the resources, the other side would surely form a grudge against them.

In fact, since the Blood Moon War, the West and the East had always carried a hostile relationship.

Tally simply used the information she had gotten from her family to reply the curious young lass and it was only natural that Elli didn't buy it. Such excuses were only effective against little children.

Although Elli was not an adult by any means, she had been through a lot, granting her maturity beyond her peers. Not only Tally did know the secret prized potion of Simones but she even suggested the "confusion" and "delaying" action plan.

The young lass believed that Tally had much more behind that she was hiding but the situation at hand was not a good time to ask the question because they were not alone inside the underground sewers.

The torchlight was the only source of light underground and when the light shed over to the darker spots, rats squeaked noisily.

The rats weren't scared off by the sudden light but instead, they stared at Elli and Tally with their ghastly emerald eyes. Although it was not the first encounter, being stared with a dozen pairs of eyes caused quite the unsettling feeling in Elli's heart.

A moment later, the young lass had an uncorked test tube in her hand.

The solution inside was faint and not too harsh to the nose but it has a unique scent to its smoke as it flowed out from the test tube.

Right away, the rats which were ready to throw themselves at the two ladies ran off in panic as the smoke came.

Fortunately, it was the only trouble they came across throughout the sewer journey.

At the end of the road, Elli opened up the secret door after chanting the secret password and revealed a big, well-lighted room before them.

As if they had reached a room that has a small square, connecting to all sorts of tunnel passageways.

Each of the passageways were fully carved with mystical runes and inside the room as big as a small squad had ten times more carvings than the passageways.

From Elli's perspective, all she saw was a bunch of messy carvings, other than a rounded enneagram basic magic circle, she couldn't spot anything else.

It was too complicated and messy, yet such complicated and crowded magic circles were the work of a young Nikorei.

Back in the days when Nikorei hadn't acquired the title of God of Earth she was already a prominent rising figure in all kinds of mystical territories.

She was young, curious and overflowing with the urge to learn, causing her powers to skyrocket. As she continued her vast endeavors, some successful experimental products and some not so successful ones followed as well.

The defensive magic circle before Elli was only a half successful experimental product.

As Nikorei's disciple, Elli couldn't understand what the purpose of her teacher creating this defensive magic circle was and neither did she know why couldn't she finish it.

Elli only found the magic circle in one of her teacher's notes and coincidentally, when Kieran mentioned forming a point of defense, she revealed the magic circle that was hidden under West Coast City to the group.

The whole process was coincidental as if it was arranged by something but Elli wasn't Kieran, she wouldn't give so much thought about the process, especially when she had other tasks with her.

"Let's begin!" Elli said.

"Um! Elli, you get that side, I'll get this one here!" Tally said using Charles's voice.

"Okay." The young lass nodded and headed towards the passageway aside.

Just when Elli stepped into the passageway, an air-breaking whistle sounded behind her.

Arrows!

Elli could precisely determine it was from a bunch of arrows based on the powerful wind. She quickly moved her body aside, dodging the arrow strike.

Souuu!

The arrow grazed her shoulder and was shot to the end of the passageway. She could clearly hear the crashing noise when the arrow plunged into the wall, it would surely destroy the magic circle!

Just as the thought bloomed in her mind, Elli didn't even have the time to check the damage as she was assaulted with more attacks.

Sou Sou Sou!

Three more arrows appeared out of thin air before her, firing straight at her.

At the same time, a figure appeared behind the arrows, wielding a dagger, aiming towards Elli's throat.

Elli barely dodged the three rapid arrows but the dagger was almost inches away from her throat but the dagger couldn't advance forth anymore.

A tremendous force appeared on the figure's neck following Elli raising her hand and…

Crack!

A clear cracking noise turned the figure's head upside down completely, causing its body fell to the ground.

Elli turned her eyes angrily at Tally and shouted in rage, "TALLY LANDSKY!"

It was not something that they promised before if Elli didn't brand her spell, [Void Hand] onto her glove, she might have already bit the dust.

Elli wasn't fond of Tally from the start and after Tally broke her promise, Elli exploded right away.

However, Tally pretended she didn't hear any of those rageful words, her eyes even looked a little dispirited.

Even an idiot knew something went wrong, let alone Elli who was smarter than others.

The young lass noticed something went wrong and she waved both her hands, retreated backward quickly. A pair of formless, millstone sized huge hands appeared before her, acted as her shield but…

"Not bad, not bad at all! Interesting technique!" The voice sounded behind the young lass.

Elli wanted to turn around to the voice but a spine-chilling coldness spread from her back and went throughout her body, she could even feel that her heart was slowly freezing over.

An abysmal, wicked, freezing figure appeared out of thin air before the young lass. The figure covered its body and face with a black outfit, leaving out only a pair of scarlet eyes.

The scarlet eyes were sizing up its prey with a gaze of interest.

"Don't worry, dear. You won't die! And you too! I will slowly torture the both of you, letting you ladies know the true terror of torturing! Well, it isn't really a challenge for a lady!"

"Oh, a transforming potion? This is quite the trouble!"

The black shadowed figure walked over to Tally, it then raised its hand, spraying out a small cloud of mist and the transforming effect on Tally was instantly dissolved.

"Tsk, Tsk!".

The black shadow figure gasped in admiration when it saw Tally's true face.

Then, it went closer to Tally and raised its hand to grab Tally's coat.

Tally was terrified when she saw the hand getting nearer, her strong unyielding attitude vanished long ago. All that was left was her truest nature.

Terrified, despair! Everything started to form on her face.

Even though she saw Elli was struggling with all her might, she knew Elli couldn't save her.

After all, the shadowy figure before Tally was a Fallen!

The mortal enemy of the Sanctuary's Holy Knight!

Such monster was definitely out of her league and even Elli's to deal with.

In fact, there were only a handful of people within the mystical realm that could fight such a monster.

"Maybe he can…"

The face that Tally hated the most appeared in her heart as the thought bloomed but it vanished right after.

The hateful bastard was still in Ciaran City, how could he appear before her?

Fate was always cruel!

When she saw the black fingers had reached her coat, Tally was ready to resign to fate.

She smiled grimly, ready to give up since she couldn't resist or struggle, she needed to know how to give up.

She hated the phrase though, giving up.

She had always been struggling, whether was it the unyielding attitude or striving for authority and position, everything was a struggle, struggling to prove herself to those men.

Now…

What could she do when a hopeless situation stood before her?

Hope was long gone, Tally then closed her eyes.

Then…

"You really look hideous."

A sudden voice sounded in her ears.