Nice and the other members of the party who were still out and searching for the remaining villagers gathered back at the village square.
Nice pulls out a scroll from his special storage and reads its contents.
“Altier and Grey have found a lead as to where the villagers are” said Nice.
Bullard takes the scroll and reads it “it says that we will find the entrance in the bartenders basement”.
Frank and Ellie stared at each other eventually Frank folds his arms “well we should get going” said Frank.
With that Nice and the other members of the party head straight to the bartender’s house.
Bullard opens the door and walks in while the rest followed behind, eventually reaching the basement of the building and seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
Frank sighs in annoyance “so what?
Nothing is here as we all can see”, hearing that Nice thinks to himself “knowing Altier she can’t just tell me to come here knowing there will be nothing in here, there has to be a way”.
With that, Nice calls Frank and jerks his hand signaling him to come close.
“Hey Frank could you use your ability to see the density of soul essence in here?”.
Frank stretches his hand while answering “yes I can but what for?”.
Nice smiles and says “nothing I just have a hunch as to why Altier told us to come here so just do it”.
Frank brings down his arms and releases soul essence from his core thereby activating his awakened ability.
Doing that Frank sees a great amount of soul essence around the place and it was particularly dense at the end of the basement “I see it now, there’s a lot of soul essence still in here and I can see Altier soul essence too” he walks up to the spot where the portal stood “it’s particularly more dense in this spot”.
Hearing that Nice smirks “good it’s just as I thought”.
The others wore confused faces as to Nice last word’s eventually Ellie raises her hand “what do you mean by that Nice”.
Nice turns to her with a smile “it simply means that there was a spacial rift in this particular spot in other words Altier didn’t go where she did on foot instead she went through a portal which stood at this very spot”.
Bullard clenched his fist on hearing Nice’s words “so you’re saying she could be anywhere in the world?”.
Nice stares at him and says “technically yes but in this case it’s a big no”.
Everyone was confused once again eventually Frank asks why.
Nice turns back to the spot where the portal stood and explained “Altier’s not too far from this village that’s because, if she was our buddy Frank over there won’t be able to see her soul essence still lingering around here”.
And with that Nice brings out a special item which had runes all over it and places the item on the spot where the portal stood.
He then proceeds to infuse soul essence into the item and instantly a portal opens right there and then.
Seeing that the other members of the party couldn’t hide their shock, Bullard then asks “what is that thing and how did it open a portal”.
Nice turns to them and explains “that is one of my Blessed objects which helps to reopen anything that hasn’t been closed for too long and apparently it even works on portals so I guess we’re lucky”.
Everyone just stares at him “yeah right luck” said Frank.
With that they all step into the portal and allowing it to close behind them as the step into a new location.
***
“What are you Grey?” Altier asks with a somewhat concerned face.
Mathew attempts to stand and answers her “that’s not what we should talk about right now” he then points to the countless people and the creature “that’s what we should be concerned about”.
Altier nods and helps Mathew stand up “so how long have you been in here fighting?” Altier asks.
Mathew looks forward and says “I don’t know, I guess it’s been like an hour or so”.
As soon as that was said, one of the pipe like tails of the creature swung in their direction.
Altier holds Mathew and jumps eventually evading the attack, “do you have enough strength to keep fighting?” Asked Altier.
Mathew nods his head positively “yes I do, I can’t let that damn thing live another day after what it’s done”.
Altier couldn’t help but notice the anger in his eyes and thinks to herself “those eyes and this enormous amount of rage he’s feeling, just what exactly did he go through to have this amount of rage in him?”.
Altier lets go of Mathew leaving him to stand on his own, “alright here’s the plan I’ll go after that creature myself while you cut down the pipes it’s using to control these people, got that?”.
Mathew nods his head.
” alright good, let’s go”.
And with that Altier and Mathew both push forward towards the creature and the people.
Altier reaches for her spacial storage and summons her twin blades.
She then steps on the wall on her left, using it as a lift to propel herself into the air in order to reach a good distance to strike the creature.
Meanwhile Mathew picks up the black blade and begins cutting off the pipes connected to the peoples body.
Altier eventually reaches the creature and stands looking at it with an indifferent expression on her face “so you’re a fallen one that’s good, it simply means that I have a good chance at killing you all by myself”.
The creature raises its body and sends three pipe like tails towards Altier.
Seeing that she dashed towards the tails and slices one of them clean off while the other two were deflected.
“Damn this thing should be easy to kill it’s just its tails that are the problem, how many does it have anyway?”.
Altier grunts and keeps pushing forward while the creature sends more tails after her.
She then sees the barrage of tails coming towards her and dodges them for a while eventually getting hit by one of them in the leg.
“Damnit how can I get into striking range when that thing keeps sending its tails after me?”.
With a frustrated expression Altier reverses time on her body thereby healing herself.
She then moves again to get into a good striking range so as to land a solid hit on the creature.
The fallen creature sends more tails after her but instead of dodging this time, Altier simply grabs one and allows it to move her towards the creature ultimately landing at a considerable distance close to the creature.
Now at a good distance, Altier sprints towards the creature and slashes one of its legs.
The creature now in pain opens its mouth and gathers soul essence in a condensed form, releasing it towards Altier.
Seeing that, Altier sets her blades in a cross form attempting to block the attack.
The condensed soul essence eventually reaches her and she manages to block it for a few seconds but the creature increases the density thereby making her unable to block any longer and letting it get through her defenses.
In great pain Altier coughs up a mouthful of blood with injuries all over her body from taking that one attack from the fallen creature.
She tries to stand but falters and falls to her feet “damnit why can’t I stand now of all times?”.
Meanwhile the creature prepares another condensed soul essence attack aiming it towards her in order to finish her off.
As it released the attack Altier grabs a tiny hole to her right and uses it to shift her body away eventually dodging the attack from the creature.
She then uses her ability to reverse time on her legs allowing her to stand a bit.
Altier glares at the fallen creature with huge animosity and charges forward but this charge was different.
As she moved the creature sends more tails to cut her down but Altier didn’t care to dodge anymore, instead she let the pipe like tails hit and stab her, because in that moment all she cared about was getting to the fallen creature and killing it.
She tanks all the attacks and eventually gets within striking range, at that moment she steps on a rock and pushes herself upwards directly above the creature.
Altier then spins in a wide circle making her swords cut the creature’s eyes, two of them at least.
The creature roars in pain and sends more tails to attack her.
Altier without thinking cuts all the tails down and slashed the creatures legs making a deep wound on it.
The creature now more furious makes another ball of condensed soul essence and fires it towards her but Altier braces herself and plans to block it when all of a sudden one of the pipe like tails moved behind her and ends up stabbing her right through the heart.