Chapter 73: Two Minutes
While Renelle and Isla remained inside the clothing store, completely absorbed in picking out outfits, Adrian switched places with his shadow, appearing in an alleyway.
He hand one hand in his pocket as he adjusted his glasses with the other before speaking,
"I have two minutes before my lady realizes I’m gone," he said, "but I’d like to return a lot earlier just to see her reaction to Isla’s cuteness, so let’s hurry this up."
He had noticed multiple presence earlier and thanks to his shadow, he quickly discovered that the cult was tracking them.
Probably to recover Isla, but unfortunately for them, his Lady was having too much fun to have it be interrupted by them,
So Adrian decided to quickly handle this before Renelle noticed his absence.
"I regret to inform you, dear butler," a voice responded as multiple figures started revealing themselves, "you won’t be making it out of this alley alive."
The next second an almost transparent barrier expanded above them sealing both exits of the alleyway.
The barrier was one that made anyone curious enough to glance through the alleyway to see it as empty.
"Besides," the figure fully stepped away from the shadows, though that didn’t make much difference as they had a cloak on, "your lady should be joining you soon, in the afterlife I mean."
Adrian let out a small chuckle at the man’s words, as if amused by the fact that they thought they could kill Renelle.
Which he was was.
Still, they threatened his lady, so there was only one end for them.
"Who’d like to die first?" He asked in a cold tone as he noticed other presences around.
Just after his words, five more cloaked figures made their presence known. Unlike the cloaked figure speaking earlier, these ones didn’t bother hiding their identities.
Not that one would recognize them anyway, after all, their skins had gone completely black with glowing red cracks riddling it.
They were now, very obviously, corrupted humans.
"Kill him," the cloaked figure gave the order, and the five immediately moved.
BOOM!
One of the corrupted humans soon reached Adrian, and without hesitation, it leapt, engulfing it’s entire being in flames, causing an explosion when it landed.
"One minute and forty seconds," Adrian’s calm voice came from within the smoke and it slowly cleared up to reveal that he was completely unharmed.
In his gloved hand was the head of the corrupted that had reached him first and just a short distance away, impaled by multiple spikes of shadow, was the headless body.
He tossed the head to the side and looked towards the rest of the corrupted humans still rushing towards him.
Despite how quickly he had dispatched the first, the remaining four didn’t hesitate to attack.
One of them coated their hands in rock and then slammed both fists into the ground and the next second, spikes of jagged rocks erupted underneath Adrian’s foot.
But just before they could trap him, he teleported away, leaving a clone behind, but as if that was what they expected,
Another, of the remaining four corrupted humans, was suddenly exactly where he reappeared, lightning coating its entire body and its fist was aimed at Adrian’s face.
BOOM!
The attack landed, or at least that’s what it seemed like, but the next second, ’Adrian’ suddenly changed form, completely wrapping around the corrupted human’s lightning coated arm before spreading to its entire body.
And without hesitation, the shadow ripped away its entire body from the head and let it roll to the ground.
"One minute twenty nine seconds," Adrian’s voice came from behind the remaining three corrupted humans, causing them to quickly turn around but he had already made his move.
A large shadow spike cleanly went through the corrupted human that seemed to control water.
Fortunately for the other two, one had used an earth wall to stop the incoming shadow spike, whilst the one with the wind element was fast enough to move out the way in time.
But that didn’t bother Adrian as he expected as much.
The earth corrupted human immediately reatliated as both its hands slammed into the ground again,
BOOM!
This time, the entire alley shifted and walls rose at each side of its target, ones lined with spike and they quickly closed in on him.
But that wasn’t the end of the attack as the concrete firmly wrapped around Adrian’s feet, preventing his escape.
At the same time, the wind corrupted human vanished, completely gone from sight, and so was any sound he produced.
Adrian, on the other hand, was too calm for someone about to be impaled by multiple, quickly approaching, shadow spikes.
Behind him.
The wind corrupted human reappeared, revealing that its entire arm had been transformed into a large wind blade and it was aiming directly for his head.
The cloaked figure smiled at Adrian’s current predicament, although their job was to only keep the butler away from the Mesmerling and the Grand Duke’s daughter,
Killing him was also an option.
After all, he had the guts to murder one of theirs, neatly wrapped them in a gift box and had it delivered to one of the cult’s bases.
How did he know of the location? They still weren’t sure, but one thing they were completely sure of was the fact that he was a threat,
A threat that needed to be eliminated.
A threat that he would eliminate here and now, and gain the Master’s favor.
A grin slowly formed on his cloaked face as he watched Adrian stayed still whilst the attacks of the corrupted humans got closer.
’There’s no escape for you now!’ The cloaked figure thought.
But the next second,
"One minute ten seconds."
The shadows beneath Adrian’s feet expanded, spreading unnaturally fast.
It was quickly swallowing the ground, climbing the walls and reaching everything in the alley.
[Domain Of Shadows.]
Every single thing touched by the shadows immediately froze and that included the earth walls, spikes, the corrupted humans and even the cloaked figure.
The restraints on Adrian’s feet, now completely coated in shadow, completely crumbled as he walked forward.
The corrupted humans were suddenly impaled by shadow spikes without Adrian’s active command.
Slowly he walked towards the cloaked figure who wanted, more than anything, to step back, but he was firmly kept in place.
Adrian stopped directly in front of him as they stared at each other for a while, but the cloaked figure immediately broke the silence
"...hehe," it started as a low chuckle as the cloaked figure’s shoulders trembled, "hahaha..."
Before it fully became one full of insanity.
"...HAHAHAHA!"
"What’s so funny?" There was no change in Adrian’s expression as he asked.
"You don’t get it do you," the cloaked figure started, "my job was only to draw you away from the target and stall you for a while, something already achieved."
Adrian looked at the figure as he continued laughing, in his twisted mind, this butler wouldn’t expect this twist at all and the look on his face would be spectacular
"The Mesmerling should be in our hands by now," the man added, his voice filled with twisted satisfaction, "and as for your precious lady."
He took a small pause.
"They should’ve finished with her already."
"Is that so," Adrian said quietly.
The cloaked figure’s grin widened further.
"Yes... so you can kill me now if you’d like,"
He leaned forward slightly, as much as the shadows allowed, "but it won’t change anything."
"You’ve already lost... my condolences."
Silence returned between the two again but the cloaked figure had a large grin on as he took Adrian’s silence as defeat.
"Thirty seconds."
"Huh?" He let out in confusion as he heard Adrian mutter.
"That’s how long it’ll take before the lady notices I’m gone," Adrian explained, "though I guess she’d have already noticed thanks to you."
"You still don’t get it, do you?" The man asked, "I said —"
"I know," Adrian interrupted mid sentence, "so, would you like to see the aftermath of your ambush?"
He didn’t wait for an answer as the cloaked figure felt the world around him blur for a second before everything suddenly changed.
Cold.
That was the first thing the cloaked figure noticed when he got a hold of himself. The next thing he noticed was the fact that he was surrounded by most.
"I guess you were wrong," Adrian spoke up, looking to the side.
The cloaked figure followed his gaze only for his eyes to widen when they landed on what Adrian was looking at.
Ice sculptures.
Or specifically, figures with void black skin and red markings were now encased in solid ice, whether they were dead or alive remained unknown.
"Now then, my dear butler," a voice came from within the mist, pulling the attention of the two towards it, "do you mind telling me where you have been?"
The mist cleared up revealing a figure in a white uniform sitting on a chair with one leg crossed over the other.
In her right hand was a small tea cup, and below the teacup was her left, holding a small plate.
The cloaked figure’s eyes got even wider, if that was even possible as he recognized the figure,
Renelle Ardent