Chapter 237: The three
His thick veins were heavily imprinted on his skin, and each step he took ended in a limp, with his feet slightly bent at an odd angle. Vacuse grimaced. "The coward you are looking for is right here!"
The three assassins flinched, and Vacuse took small joy in that to alienate the pain he was feeling. "So what are you going to do? Try to kill me? Something that hasn’t worked well for you, if I may say!"
Even though their faces were hidden behind their thick clothes, Vacuse could see the flash of anger in their dull eyes. Just looking at them gave him the impression that he was looking at controlled puppets. They moved like one, and maybe that’s what they were.
But puppets or not, Vacuse had underestimated them, and he nearly paid the price. His recent victories against third-stage Magus had made him almost overconfident, and he looked down on them because they were second circle.
That first attack nearly ended him!
The three shifted behind their masks, and yet they didn’t say anything, not outwardly at least.
Vacuse narrowed his eyes. "Who sent you after me? Is it the Magus? Who? That fifth circle old man?"
The three didn’t say anything, but confusion clung to them, and Vacuse grunted. "Then it must be the gang! I know the Gloomspire won’t just sit back and let things happen as I wanted them to. But I didn’t expect them to send assassins after me."
Vacuse shook his head slowly. He was buying time.
The reason he retreated into his void was to buy time to heal, but just as Rith said, the void wasn’t safe. Not only was the Void energy threatening, but he could also feel creatures prowling outside the area that Rith had cut off for him.
The power concentrated on his legs was simply too much for them to carry. As such, he couldn’t even utilize it properly. Now, he had redirected all the energy to the rest of his body to give his legs the chance to heal before he absolutely destroyed them.
Vacuse walked up to his void creature and tapped him on the shoulder. "We attack now!"
Of course, the creature didn’t understand his verbal words. He could only respond to the mental commands that Vacuse gave, and respond he did.
His four hands raised, claws opened wide. And then, from each palm, black fire flickered to life.
Instantly, the surroundings began to heat up.
Vacuse took a step back, created his umbrella, and shouted, "Use all of your powers!"
Maybe he shouldn’t have.
Time seemed to slow as the small burning fire turned into an inferno in an instant. The temperature skyrocketed, and the air rippled and cracked. The ground beneath them softened and began to cook, turning red hot.
Vacuse grimaced, sweat covering his face, and without hesitation, he stepped back into his void, only leaving a small space for himself to see through.
The ground turned into liquid and began to evaporate. Vacuse shuddered as he remembered what Rith said about Sivan’s black fire.
It could erase as well as burn.
The walls and ceiling were now hot red, and the air was thick with blistering heat, so thick that even Vacuse, who was watching from a relatively safe space, felt his eyes dry up.
The three had it worse. The ground beneath them was turning into liquid even behind their shield. But they didn’t disappear as they should have, because the red ground also contained a hint of black, as a snout slightly raised.
Vacuse had manifested part of his domain under them, and it was blocking their power.
Vacuse couldn’t wait for Sivan to condense all of his power anymore, as it was taking too long. "Fire!"
Sivan’s four hands came together, and all the black fire turned into a single fireball. He hefted it and threw it at the assassins.
What happened next was hard for even Vacuse to describe.
Their shield meant nothing.
There was a massive sound of explosion and a shockwave of rolling heat that boiled and eradicated everything in its path. But at the same time, the fire ate the things it touched. Not all, but some parts of the wall and ground were simply gone—no crater or cracked ground. They were just gone. The holes they left behind were smooth.
One of the three, the one that took the direct onslaught of the attack, disappeared whole, while the others were burnt to ashes.
Part of the ground was destroyed while some was erased.
It was a devastating attack, and even by Vacuse’s standards, it was powerful. Excitement ran through him as he began imagining what he could do with it.
The attack was a one-time one, but that was something he could work with. If needed, he could use Sivan as a reserve shock attack. "What type of power will it be if I allow you to condense everything?
"Go back into the void. Next time, I’ll have you prepare the attack in the void and just appear to use it. But a shame, I can’t loot any body."
Just then, Vacuse blinked as he felt something.
Immediately, his mind connected to his void space, and what he found shocked him. It was the dead body of the one that was erased by the void.
He was dead for sure, but his body was right there.
"So everything that I erased will return to me?" Vacuse wondered out loud.
And with just a little bit of checking, he found bits of the wall and ground with lots of stones and dust in his void space.
"They really are there. But for what? What am I to do with them? Rith, I know you can hear me, answer!"
The little dragon did not answer.
If he remembered correctly, Rith said the bodies of those he killed were still in the void, wandering it. Then, would the one erased gain the same ability to start moving in time? Wait, what of those he drags into the void... are they the same?
Vacuse sighed and gritted his teeth. "I really need a better teacher."