Life had already witnessed a lot of horrible things, and the sight of blood, human entrails, and all sorts of gore, resulting from seeing people being tortured was something that no longer made her flinch. She didn't even know if she should be sad about this fact, but to ensure that she wouldn't break apart, she learned to conceal her emotion and built an iron wall around her heart.
However, there were still things that could make her feel disgusted, send chills down her spine even.
Slurp! With a disgusting slurping noise, something was happening to Fineas' body. His mouth was wide open as if sucking back the blood that flooded out of his body. Moreover, his blood was not even red anymore but turned into a sticky and viscous black liquid.
"What the hell is this?" Neige couldn't help but feel revulsion at the sight of Fineas who stood up as if he was never lying on the floor a while ago. The viscous black liquid gathered around his neck as he stood up, fixing his head. However, his head faced backward, and he used his has to rotate his head to face Neige and the girls.
What they saw left the girls horrified, unable to speak, and just looked at Fineas with teary eyes while trying hard to not scream in fear.
"Th-" It looked like Fineas tried to say something but there was something wrong with his vocal cords.
'He wouldn't go down that easily, huh,' Neige thought after seeing Fineas who still had that calm look on his face. 'So this is the power of a Saint? It's more like something associated with a demon of some kind.'
Neige tried to think about all of the options that were left. She needed to meet up with Adam, that was her priority. There were a lot of ways to achieve this if she was by herself, but things would be more difficult with Amelia around. It was even more difficult now that there were two more girls.
If they get cornered, she envisaged leaving the two girls behind, but that wouldn't change anything much if the reinforcement arrived. As such, she couldn't hold back. She needed to get rid of Fineas for good.
Nonetheless, she also needed to consider the idea that the Holy Mother monitored her movements. In that case, the situation wouldn't improve even if she get rid of Fineas. Well, could she even do that in the first place?
'What was that sticky back liquid? It was as if his body was made of that substance. Is that his ability?' Neige continued to analyze the information that she acquired, comparing what she saw with the image of various fluids stored inside of her memory.
"…" Fineas didn't move, and just stood there. It was as if he didn't intend to attack Neige even after she beheaded him.
"Tch." Clicking her tongue, Neige stood up and prepared to fight Fineas seriously. Seeing her, Fineas tilted his head.
The first thing that she needed to do was to keep Fineas away from Amelia. With that decided, Neige's body began to emit a bright fluorescent golden light. Then, countless visible light particles continued to gather around as her body took them in. Soon, her entire body became semi-transparent, and she was stuck in midair.
Light and Darkness were somewhat special even among all of the elemental gifts. Without light, nothing would exist, but wherever light exists, Darkness also is present. These two elements always exist and are present everywhere in the universe.
"…" Fineas still looked unconcerned at the sight of Neige's transformation. The girls, on the other hand, looked at Neige with eyes full of hope.
The room was illuminated by Neige's power, and soon, she entirely turned into the crystallization of particles of light. So, theoretically, Neige would be able to exist anywhere, everywhere. She was now able to move at light speed. This was not only limited to the current universe, but that was something that she hadn't yet managed to figure out. She hadn't yet managed to unlock the full potential of her ability. But since the creation of the empire, she was the only one who could manage to achieve this level of mastery of the light elemental gift.
Without wasting any more time, Neige attacked Fineas without holding back. She aimed to destroy Fineas without leaving a trace.
Now that she was in her astral form, Neige could also converge the neutral particles around her into light particles. And by directing all of these particles into a single point, she could create a form of destructive energy that was as powerful as a solar flare.
Boom! All of that happened in a blink of an eye. Even someone who had lightning ability couldn't do anything much when faced with such an attack. All of that amount of energy was directed at Fineas in a single ray of light. However, it was also large enough to disintegrate his whole body. At least that was how it should have been.
"…" Neige looked down at the huge hole in front of her. Half of the building was destroyed by the attack, but somehow, Fineas survived. Or more precisely, what was left of his had survived.
The viscous black liquids that were still stuck on the walls and the ground began to move. However, Neige wouldn't leave any chance for Fineas to do anything.
In a flash, all of the viscous liquids were disintegrated by the right of lights that originated from a single orb of light that appeared in the middle of the hole. Then, several such orbs of light appeared around Neige. She was still on her guard.
The energy contained inside these orb of light were enough to destroy a whole city. However, Neige controlled them without any difficulty.
With such a power, she could easily take her father head-on, or so people would think if they know about her power. However, there was a reason why she was convinced that she wouldn't be able to do so. Her father had so many secret weapons that could stop her.
Besides, it was not like she could use this power forever. The longer she used this power, the harder was for her to maintain her consciousness from vanishing. If she was not careful, she would vanish and become a simple particle of light.
As these thoughts crossed Neige's mind, she finally concluded that Fineas wouldn't come back. Thus, she decided that it was best to not waste any more energy and reverted to her normal.
"Kuh…" However, as soon as she regressed to her body made of flesh, she felt the pain that came with ascending into a higher realm and then coming back.
Unlike Adam, she wasn't aware of the true nature of the astral body. She was relying on her instinct. For some reason, even those who were said to be the strongest within the Empire didn't know about this. It was as if the term gift and authority, as well as the level, were sued to limit people's imagination concerning what's beyond that. Even the explanation given about the nature of the levels of gift-holders didn't make any sense.
"Are you alright?" Not thinking about all of these details, Neige approached Amelia and the girls. She looked like she had trouble moving her limbs, but she didn't complain because there was no point in doing so.
"Yeah… I…" Amelia looked like she wanted to say something. After all. She didn't express her opinion all of this time and just went with the flow, almost as if she had given up thinking. She was still scared, and she looked like her mind was exhausted. She appeared to be fine physically but her eyes looked tired and almost lifeless.
Noticing Amelia's situation, Neige wondered about what happened to her. But this was not the time to be talking.
"Let's move from here!" Neige knew that no one would suspect them if they just make sure to be careful as they moved around the town. As of now, no one knew that Amelia or the two girls were connected to Adam, and as long as they were with her, the princess, no one would dare to do something to them. At least, that was what she hoped.
Neige proceeded to clean the girls' faces and tidied their clothes so as not to appear suspicious when they walked together. Then, they didn't use the front door, instead, Neige had a wall on the floor and then they went underground. She planned to move underground until they were a bit far from the building.
The girls followed her without much question, knowing that Neige might be their last hope if they wanted to survive. Asking for her reasons wasn't something necessary at this point. They saw Fineas after all. He was a monster.
"Guh! Kush! Kush!" Suddenly, Rose began to cough violently and vomit blood. They were moving underground, in other words, through the sewer system, so it would be pretty normal to throw up due to the smell, but what happened was something different.
Black viscous liquid… He was really a monster.
"Rose!" Azalea cried, holding her sister in her arm. However, a hand, no viscous black liquid took the shape of an hand and gaped Rose's mouth open.
Seeing this horrifying scene, the three other girls couldn't help but feel goosebumps.
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