novelThe Unexpected Encounter
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Chapter 276: The Unexpected Encounter
Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion
Ivanovszki?!
Lucien was more than shocked. Luckily, Lucien had made himself stay concentrated when he heard the footsteps and he was always quite good at staying calm, or his Invisibility spell would have expired already because of his sudden mood swing.
Ural City was as big as Allyn, and its suburb area, surrounded by great mountains, was even broader. How could two people who were both trying to avoid each other just meet like this in the end of a mine tunnel?!
Lucien tried to calm down and restrain his idea of killing Ivanovszki, as a grand knight could sense nearby danger, including someone's intent to kill. He wondered if this was a coincidence or in fact Ivanovszki was following him all the way.
Hiding in the corner, Lucien saw that Ivanovszki stopped in front of the end of the tunnel and looked around.
Maybe it was because Ivanovszki just assumed that no one would be here. He did not use any other methods to check the surroundings. Then, after releasing a sigh, Ivanovszki looked more relaxed.
Turning around, Ivanovszki got down on one knee in front of the invisible entrance gap and started to pray with his hand crossing in front of his chest, "God the Father, may thy Kingdom come and live in us; may our filth and sin be purified; may our soul be saved..."
Praying? At this time? Lucien was confused. He totally did not expect that this great smuggler would be a loyal follower of the God of Truth.
However, soon Lucien realized that neither the North Church nor the South Church addressed the God of Truth as God the Father. Lucien also noticed that the cross that Ivanovszki was wearing looked quite different—the vertical was shorter and the horizontal was longer, like a lying down cross.
Therefore Lucien guessed that Ivanovszki was a follower of some other gods, but soon he rejected this idea. According to the book he read before, no followers of any gods, in order to avoid the influence of the Saint Truth, were using crosses as their symbol.
Which power was behind Ivanovszki? Lucien was getting more and more confused. He tried hard to stop thinking, or his spiritual power might be noticed by Ivanovszki due to his active mind.
When Ivanovszki's praying ended, holy divine power and white light surrounded him.
To Lucien's great surprise, the power was indeed that of the Saint Truth. Although the followers of different gods could all cast divine powers, the powers had their unique features and varied slightly.
The holy light went into Ivanovszki's eyes. Smiling, Ivanovszki reached out his right hand and it directly went into the entrance gap to the World of Souls.
"Thanks, God the Father... for helping me find this secret world, so I can temporarily shelter myself, " Ivanovszki murmured to himself in a relaxed manner.
However, the look on Ivanovszki's face suddenly changed! Grabbing his heavy sword with his left hand, Ivanovszki fiercely hacked at the corner where Lucien was hiding in.
Lucien was greatly shocked when he saw Ivanovszki found the entrance gap. For a second, Lucien was distracted, and the grand knight instantly noticed it!
Luckily, as soon as Lucien had this sudden mood swing, he knew what was going to happen. Trying his best to calm down as soon as possible, Lucien activated the magic model in his soul.
Circles of blue light spread out surrounding Lucien like ripples.
The third circle spell, Deep Sleep! This was another new spell Lucien constructed in his soul in those couple of months he had been in the empire.
Using Spider Web should be Lucien's best choice. However, this second circle spell, although Lucien had built its magic model in his soul, still required casting reagents just like the spell Maskelyne's Star.
Although Ivanovszki was very fast, as Deep Sleep was a ranged spell, there was no chance that he could avoid it.
When Ivanovszki hacked his heavy sword at Lucien, his body was covered with a layer of white holy light. So, Lucien's blue light was directly cut off.
Some spilled blue light affected Ivanovszki slightly, but it was only for a second. Squinting a bit, Ivanovszki became sober again, and his attacks did not stop.
That was totally out of Lucien's expectation. Fortunately, he still had a plan B. Activating his spiritual power, his body was covered by a magic flame shield, using the power of the ring, Element.
When Ivanovszki's heavy sword hit the flame shield, sparkles burst out everywhere.
The flame shield shook fiercely and cracked a little, while Ivanovszki let out a painful moaning when the flame burned his skin black.
Powerful Fire Shield was not only for physical, elemental and pure power defence, but it could also reflect damage with the flames. The fifth circle spell did not show its full power because Lucien's previous enemies were all using creepy and strange necromancy, curse and soul spells.
"Damned it! How many magic items does this Peter guy have?!" Ivanovszki also found Peter. To his surprise, Peter used another fifth circle spell.
Although Ivanovszki was very pissed seeing that Peter's magic items seemed to be countless, as a grand knight, he quickly forced himself to focus on the fight again. As soon as the holy white light mitigated the pain, Ivanovszki swiftly dodged sideways to avoid being located by the sorcerer, and then used his heavy sword and hacked at Lucien again.
Again, the heavy sword hit Lucien's flame shield. The shield's structure was damaged. And the great impact brought by Ivanovszki's hacking buzzed Lucien's mind, making it hard for Lucien to focus, thus, Lucien's buffering time for casting spells became longer.
"Interference? A pure Blessing for hunting sorcerers!" As a sorcerer, Lucien was of course relatively profound. He quickly recognized what he was facing.
The Blessing, Interference, could greatly disturb a sorcerer's casting and could even dispel spells. Therefore, it was regarded as one of the most powerful Blessing for hunting sorcerers. As a Saint Knight, Ivanovszki's divine power could strengthen the Blessing even further.
Although the flame shield was almost destroyed, Lucien was still calmly analyzing Ivanovszki's movement and his way of launching attacks. Although his strength should be at least of level five, his shortcomings were speed and agility... which were below level four. Quite possibly, he was using some items to reinforce his strength. As Saint Knights having Interference Blessing always had more requirements when it came to wearing magic or divine items, in most cases, they could only wear bigger items such as armor, boots and gloves enchanted with extra magic circles, in order to counteract their own power.
Holding Amboula in his left hand, Lucien tried to concentrate his spiritual power. It seemed that his experience of fighting against the sixth-circle spell, Distraction, had somehow improved Lucien's soul power slightly. Under Ivanovszki's fierce attacks, The recovery speed of Lucien's soul was faster than Lucien's expectation. Finally, Lucien's buffering time passed.
Ivanovszki was now only a step away from completely destroying the shield. He was confident that he could take away Peter's life with his next attack!
Suddenly, Ivanovszki sensed great danger from the sorcerer. Decisively, Ivanovszki quickly turned around and made a dive for the entrance gap to the World of Souls.
A cluster of greenish-yellow gas came to Ivanovszki. As soon as he touched a bit of it, Ivanovszki instantly felt dizzy and weak. However, he did not slow down his movement, but became even more concentrated on his target—the gap. Holy light burst out of his body, and Ivanovszki successfully jumped into the gap.
Ivanovszki felt lucky that he still had the World of Souls to hide and shelter himself, and the path was informed by God the Father. Only those ones who were favored by God the Father could get to know this path. No any other creatures could.
As soon as he entered the World of Souls, most colors faded, and only black, white and gray were left. This was a silent world, a world of no lives.
Ivanovszki still felt dizzy from the poisonous gas. Half kneeling down on the ground, he activated his Blessing to drive out the toxin from his body. Drops of pus came out, and his life force started to recover quickly.
When he finally relaxed a bit, a great dizziness hit his brain bitterly, then he felt the torturing stabbing pain in his brain like countless needles were penetrating his head. The attack was so out of Ivanovszki's expectation that his Blessing did not help him too much.
Charm Person—the special version against knights!
Seeing Lucien standing in front of him in the World of Souls, Ivanovszki's eyes opened wide.
"How come?!" Ivanovszki could not move because of the great dizziness. Lucien's sword directly hacked at the crack on his armor, left by the corrosive gas.
No sound was made. No obvious damage was left from the hacking. But Ivanovszki felt his thinking and body started to become slow—like slow motion.
It was because of Lucien's sword, Frost. The sword could slow down his enemy's movement.
After hacking at Ivanovszki's armor twice, Lucien took a few strides backwards. Pointing at Ivanovszki's helmet, which had been partially corroded from the gas, Lucien cast Elemental Order and broke the helmet down.
As soon as Ivanovszki's helmet was gone, Lucien activated Fire Weaver's Bracelet. A head-sized fire ball flew right toward Ivanovszki' head.
Ivanovszki was too slow. He could not do anything at this point.
After the silent explosion, Ivanovszki's head was covered with lots of wounds, and his blood, which now looked black, white and gray, was everywhere.
However, as a grand knight, Ivanovszki did not die yet. Instead, he got rid of the negative effect left by the sword. Now, he could move faster.
The only problem was that Ivanovszki's brain was now a complete mess, thus it was hard for him to make any correct decisions. What he knew was to run around to avoid being an easy target.
Unfortunately, another fire ball, a much bigger one, hit his head again.
A small mushroom cloud rose.
The serious injury together with the toxin that remained in his body finally killed Ivanovszki. Staggering and stumbling, his body hit the ground hard.
The level three Saint Knight, Ivanovszki, died.
Lucien did not lower his guard. Decisively, he hacked Ivanovszki's head off. Then, he finally felt a bit more relaxed.
Lucien entered the World of Souls for two reasons: to kill Ivanovszki, and to avoid the toxic gas himself.
Casting Gaston's Poison Cloud in a narrow place could be very dangerous to himself. This was why Lucien did not use it at the very beginning.
"This is... the projection of Dry Vine castle?!"
Now, Lucien finally had the chance to look around. This place looked exactly like the count's castle, spacious and quiet, but the only difference was that it did not have colors other than black, white and gray.
Suddenly, Lucien heard that someone chuckled! In the World of Souls!
Looking up, he saw a young man sitting in a throne above, holding a glass of wine in his hand.
The silver-haired young man had a beautiful face that Lucien was quite familiar with. He was wearing red shirt and black coat with high collar.
He raised the glass slightly and said, "Welcome."
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