Chapter 201: I’ll Help You!
“And you’re still trying to deny it?” Rex roared. “The wounds on her face, the wounds on her body, they were all made by wind magic! If it wasn’t you, then who else could it have been?”
Vera clenched her teeth.
She glanced at Lillian in the distance. That wounded girl was leaning against Ryan, her face pale and pitiful. Those wounds were real. The blood was real. The pained expression on her face was real.
But Vera had not done it.
She knew with absolute certainty that she had not done it.
Then she looked at Ryan again. He was standing there, saying nothing, only watching her.
“I’ll say this one last time,” her voice turned cold, “I. Did. Not. Hurt. Her.”
Rex did not listen. He brought his sword down again.
Vera twisted aside and drew in a deep breath.
This could not go on.
She raised a hand, and wind elements began to gather wildly in her palm. They came surging in from every direction, stirring the Mirror Cavern into a violent current of air. She began to chant, the syllables ancient and drawn-out, echoing through the empty space.
In the mirrors, countless Veras were chanting as well.
Rex froze for a moment.
He could feel that power. It was too strong, so strong that it made his heart tighten. The wind howled around him like countless invisible hands, tugging at his clothes, shoving at his body.
But he did not retreat.
He gritted his teeth, tightened his grip on his sword, and charged straight into that gale.
“Rex—!”
Lillian’s voice came from behind them, trembling with tears and panic. “Ryan! Go help him! Vera’s too strong! He can’t hold her off!”
Ryan lowered his eyes and glanced at her.
Lillian looked up at him. Her eyes were full of tears. The wounds on her face were still bleeding. She looked unbearably pitiful. Her hand clutched his sleeve so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.
“Please,” she said. “He... he’ll die...”
Ryan was silent for a second.
In that second, he looked into her eyes. They were beautiful eyes, the kind that made people soften the moment they saw them. Tears trembled there, as if they could spill over at any moment.
He nodded.
“Stay here,” he said. “Don’t run around.”
Lillian nodded hard, released his sleeve, and backed away several steps, shrinking into the corner beside one of the mirrors.
Ryan drew the short knife at his waist.
Its blade flashed with a cold gleam in the reflected light of the mirrors. He stepped forward, and the dual elements of wind and lightning exploded beneath his feet, driving him forward like a streak of light straight into the fight.
Vera had just finished casting that large-scale spell.
Countless wind blades condensed in the air and came shrieking down toward Rex. Rex raised his sword to block, but there were too many of them, too dense, like a torrential storm. He deflected a dozen, but more cut into him, shredding his clothes and opening bloody lines across his skin.
He was pinned down, half-kneeling on the floor, supporting himself with his sword as he gritted his teeth and endured the rain of blades.
Vera was breathing hard, already preparing to withdraw the spell.
She did not want to kill him. She had never wanted to kill anyone.
Then she saw a dark figure rushing toward her.
Ryan.
The short knife carved a pale arc through the light, coming straight for her throat.
Vera’s pupils constricted violently.
In that instant, she suddenly remembered long ago, watching someone practice with a blade at the training grounds. Back then, she had thought, His strikes are so fast. Fast as light.
Now she understood.
Light could kill.
“Ryan, could it be that you too—”
Before she could finish, a furious roar erupted behind her.
Rex got to his feet.
The wind blades were still falling, but he ignored them. He gripped his greatsword in both hands, every muscle in his body tensing. Beneath those blood-soaked clothes, his muscles swelled like carved stone. With a roar, he swept his sword in a wide arc and shattered the remaining wind blades.
Then he charged Vera as well.
Two attackers, one from each side.
Vera stood in the middle, watching those two figures close in on her at the same time.
Something changed in her eyes.
That gray-green gaze, which had always carried a certain warmth, distance, and indifference, lost all of it. In its place came a light as cold as ice.
She stopped holding back.
Sometimes you do not want to kill.
But other people force your hand.
“Fine,” she said softly. “Then let me show you.”
She raised both hands. Wind elements gathered around her, no longer taking the form of scattered wind blades like before, but coalescing into a vast vortex. The storm spun and screamed, making every mirror in the cavern buzz and tremble. The light throughout the cave was thrown into chaos, those dazzling bands of brightness twisting into warped lines.
Then she thrust both hands forward.
The vortex surged toward them.
Ryan and Rex were both swallowed into it.
The wind was no longer soft.
It had become countless invisible knives, cutting in from every direction. Every blade of wind left behind a shrill, tearing whistle in the air, like the scream of something dying.
Ryan twisted past one slash, only for another to slice through his sleeve and leave a bloodline across his arm. He clenched his teeth and slashed backhand into the storm.
His blade struck nothing.
Those wind blades had no body. They merely existed. They merely cut.
Rex’s situation was even worse.
His greatsword was too heavy. Every swing took time. But the wind blades needed no time at all. They came endlessly, from every possible angle.
His clothes had already been cut into strips, exposing the bloody wounds beneath. None of them were deep, but there were too many of them, too dense, like the marks of a slow execution.
“Damn it!” he roared, sweeping his sword and scattering one wave of blades, only for more to surge forward and carve fresh wounds into him.
Vera stood at the center of the vortex.
Her hands were raised high, all ten fingers tracing intricate patterns in the air. The wind elements moved with her gestures, swirling, condensing, gathering, until above her head there formed a gigantic azure bird.
The bird spread its wings, its span reaching more than ten meters. Every feather was formed of condensed wind blades, gleaming with cold, metallic light in the mirrored reflections.
She looked down once.
There was no killing intent in those gray-green eyes. Only a weary light.
She had not wanted this.
But she had no choice.
Some roads are not chosen. You are pushed onto them, and only after you have begun walking do you realize there is no way back.
The azure bird dove.
Ryan lifted his head and watched it plunge toward him. Its feathers burst apart in midair, turning into countless finer, denser wind blades that came down in a sweeping storm.
There was no dodging this.
He tightened his grip on his knife, ready to take it head-on.
At that moment—
“Rex—!”
A voice rang out from behind them.
Lillian.
She was standing at the edge of the battle, a longsword in her hand. In the mirrored light, the blade shone with a silver-white glow, and cold Ice Element energy had already begun to gather around it. A pale blue radiance coiled around the sword, rising, spinning, making her whole body seem to glow.
“I’m here to help you!”
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