Unlike me, Lilith was able to meet up with her friends and stick together with them. Apparently they had reunited sometime during the three days when she was chasing me, but she had insisted on pursuing me, so they just kept their distance and allowed her to. After I had defeated her, I had seen her going back to her team, and enjoyed a few days of solace.

…until today.

"They've been wiped out." Lilith looked extremely pale. She glanced behind her, as if watching out for somebody, and then turned back to me with a shake of her head. Tears welled up in her eyes. "I couldn't save any of them."

"W…wait, what? What's going on?" I scowled, completely bewildered. "Start from the beginning. Wiped out by who? Save them from who?"

As if to answer my question, a flock of birds flapped their wings and fled a deeper part of the forest. The both of us turned to watch them, and I could see the trees swaying in the distance.

"Somebody's coming," I muttered, picking up a dense aura of killing intent. These guys meant business. No wonder Lilith said her friends were wiped out. These guys evidently had no intention of showing any mercy.

"It's them!" Lilith hissed angrily.

"Who is 'them'?" I asked dryly. Pus.h.i.+ng up my gla.s.ses, I had my lenses sharpen and enhance my vision, and I spotted a group of mages hiding inside the vegetation. They were all wearing black ninja costumes. I tried not to burst out laughing at their ridiculous outfit, even as I recalled who they were. "Oh, those ninja guys again."

The same ones who were attacking Lilith when I first met her. Except that this time, they had called a ton of friends to come with them.

"What the h.e.l.l?! There's at least thirty of them, and they have surrounded us." my face contorted in confusion. "I'm pretty sure there's a limit to the number of students from each school who can partic.i.p.ate in this."

"They are not all from the same school," Lilith informed me in a chilling tone. "They've infiltrated various schools, most likely for some kind of sinister motive, and now they've decided to gather in their original group."

"Sinister motive? I hope it's not something as ridiculous as wanting to capture you."

"No, I'm just a minor target…a tertiary objective. Their leader, Ji Xuan, is just abusing his authority and position to order his subordinates to capture me for his own selfish desires. But they are going along with it because he promised them their own women."

"Oh, yeah. I've been meaning to ask you who the h.e.l.l this Ji Xuan is the entire time." Honestly, I had completely forgotten about him, or couldn't care less because he had absolutely nothing to do with me. Unfortunately, it seemed that I had been dragged into this mess, but I certainly couldn't just leave Lilith alone in this sort of situation. I had seen what kind of people these lackeys of Ji Xuan were. They were horrible b.a.s.t.a.r.ds with rape on their mind.

"Ji Xuan is…the Spiritual Saint. One of the most promising youngsters who partic.i.p.ated in this Spiritual Road training camp."

The both of us were already running. There were far too many of them for the two of us to fight. Even Ip Man wouldn't be able to defeat thirty Black Belts coming at him all at once. It sucked, but we had to retreat.

Perhaps I could summon my Constellation spirits, but even they would be dragged down by the sheer numbers eventually. I had no choice but to retreat with Lilith. Come to think of it…

"When you asked me for help, I don't suppose you're asking me to fight and defeat all of those guys, are you?"

"Of course not. Even I'm not that unreasonable."

So she did recognize that she was unreasonable. Good girl. Recognizing one of your flaws was the first step to growing as a character.

"What do you suggest we do then?" I asked while we burst into a clearing. Before Lilith could reply, a bunch of the ninja dudes appeared right in front of us. A splinter group who had gone ahead to cut off our line of retreat and enclose us in a trap.

No choice. It seemed like I had to fight them here and now.

Summoning Gemini, I charged at the nearest guy and knocked him away with a slash. He managed to parry them both, but I unleashed twin waves of black and white mana to blast him aside. Spinning around, I kicked a second ninja who sought to ambush me, my foot catching him in the neck and sending him toppling to the ground.

"Go on ahead!" I instructed Lilith, who had drawn her crimson sword and set parts of the clearing ablaze. "I'll hold these guys off!"

Their target was Lilith, so I doubted they would waste too much time and energy on me. The best I could do was delay a few of them as long as possible while Lilith attempted her escape.

A third ninja came at me and I parried his short sword with my twin swords, twirling them around and exchanging a few blow with him. This time, my opponent was good. I tried to cast Castor and Pollux again, but he flipped back and cleaved them apart before kicking off the ground and slicing at me. Several wind blades buffeted me, but I spun Castor and Pollux around to cut them apart before they could flay the skin off me.

A fourth ninja tried to attack me from behind, but Lilith countered with a strike before he could stab me in the back. As she knocked him away, another ninja descended upon her, but she merely reversed the grip of her crimson sword and stabbed him in the chest. The guy went down with a grunt.

By now, I had managed to shake off the wind ninja, and threw both Gemini twin swords into the air. Spinning rapidly, they cut through a couple of unsuspecting ninjas, and they both went down, clutching their bleeding necks. The wind guy cast another spell to bombard me with wind blades, but I summoned Scutum Sobiescianum to defend myself. Moving the Constellation s.h.i.+eld aside, I summoned Orion and unleashed a hail of azure arrows upon the group and forcibly paving a path.

"Go, go, go!" I yelled at Lilith.

That was the plan, but she was currently engaging a ninja who was bombarding her with a few hundred daggers. Um…they were a bit too small to be daggers, so throwing knives, I guess? Whatever they were, I could see a storm of silver raining upon Lilith, each relatively small blade crackling with electricity.

Taking a deep breath, Lilith conjured an immense inferno that formed a firewall between her and the deadly projectiles. Spinning her sword, she cut down whatever knives that managed to penetrate her fiery barrier, while her defensive spell incinerated the rest.

"Hmph."

Her a.s.sailant was not limited to just throwing countless knives at his opponent, however. Several of the throwing knives abruptly twisted around and altered their trajectories, flying past Lilith's barrier and spinning about to strike her from behind. I jumped forward and shot them down with a couple of arrows, but the wind guy came back for more. instinctively, I dove to the ground and rolled away as ma.s.sive, almost invisible wind blades, struck into the place where I had been occupying, tearing out great furrows in the earth.

While I was preoccupied with dodging, one of the knives managed to s.h.i.+ft direction and sliced deeply into Lilith's arm.

"AAAH!"

She cried out and staggered forward, and a few other knives managed to stab her in her body, but fortunately didn't hit anything vital. Gritting her teeth, Lilith tore the knives out of her body and flung them side, then fell to her knees as the deadly electricity coursed through her. Fortunately, her innate magical resistance protected her from death, but she wasn't able to prevent herself from being paralyzed by those stun-type spells.

"Lilith!"

While Lilith was on her knees, one of the ninjas descended in front of her and pointed his sword at her neck. She gasped, but glared at him defiantly, despite knowing that she had no way of resisting him.

"The both of you," the ninja dude drawled. "Don't even think of getting away."

As if to prove his point, the rest of the ninjas dropped down around us, encircling the both of us. The wind dude c.o.c.ked his head at me, and I reluctantly lowered my bow, dismissing it even. A few of the ninjas were readying their throwing knives, preparing to throw them at me if I so much as twitch.

Whatever.

"The Spiritual Road is now completely controlled by Ji Xuan," the ninja dude with the sword sneered as he continued to wave his weapon threateningly at Lilith. "n.o.body will save you."

If he expected me to buy that bulls.h.i.+t, he would sadly be disappointed. I was sure my friends, at the very least, wouldn't follow. Not unless they had already been eliminated, but I trusted them enough to know they wouldn't fall so easily.

But saying all that was meaningless, not when they had us cornered. Or at least it seemed that they had us cornered. However, I knew Lilith well enough – she would have a plan to get her out of this. And she was counting on me as well.

That was the reason why she approached me for help in the first place.

All we needed was to buy a bit of time. Since time was the one thing that summoners needed the most. Besides the mana required to cast the summoning spell and maintain the Soul Beasts' existence, of course.

"You want my blood token or something?" I asked, moving my hand toward my pocket. "If I give you my blood token, you'll let Lilith go?"

"Don't be absurd. What can so many of us do with your one blood token?" the guy evidently had no idea that I actually had eleven blood tokens on me. Still not enough to share amongst themselves, but I wasn't going to tell him that. "No. Ji Xuan has already ordered that you, Richard Huang, must die here today."

"Huh?" my jaw dropped. "Why?"

"Who knows? Ji Xuan probably sees you as a threat…a romantic rival for Lilith, I suppose? If he wants Lilith for himself, of course he'll want to eliminate you."

Then they ignored me. A few of them were approaching Lilith with lecherous expressions.

"Hey, brothers. What do you say about us having some fun with her?"

"Good idea. Everyone, let's enjoy ourselves before we hand her over to Ji Xuan."

"It'll be a waste to not take advantage of such a beauty."

"Seriously?" I snorted and somehow managed to draw their attention back to me, focusing on the guy who told me of Ji Xuan's order. "That's not the reason. I'll tell you the real reason." I began jabbing my finger at each and every one of them. "It's simply because you're all one-dimensional villains from a third-rate cultivation novel who exists solely to justify the protagonist murdering them. You're deliberately created to be as flat and despicable as possible because you're just forgettable two-bit characters who will never appear again in the story. So your minds are filled with nothing but murder and rape so that I can justify myself in killing you guys."

"…huh?"

They all gaped at me.

"Who the f.u.c.k are you calling one-dimensional villains?!"

"Who the h.e.l.l is forgettable?!"

"What do you mean by our minds are filled with nothing but murder and rape!?"

"Are you seriously asking me that question?" I buried my face in my palm. "Or are you lacking in self-awareness? You're trying to murder me for no reason other than because some idiot who deludes himself into thinking he's a bigshot asked you to, and you're trying to rape a girl here, and you still don't understand that is villainous behavior? And ever since you guys showed up in the story, have you actually done anything significant that isn't attempted murder or attempted rape? And you claim that your minds aren't filled with nothing but murder and rape? That has to be the greatest bulls.h.i.+t I've ever heard in my life."

"SHUT UP!"

"Oh, I've touched a nerve, eh?"

"WE TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!"

All at once, the ninjas threw their knives, kunai, shuriken and daggers at me. I rolled my eyes and completed a single spell. A chibi Black Tortoise appeared over my shoulder, even as I drew Gan Jiang. Azure mana rippled through the length of my blade, and I stabbed it to the ground to erect an ice fortress that surrounded me.

The ninja weapons all struck the frost barrier and bounced off harmlessly.

"You…! If you don't surrender, we'll kill your girl!"

"She's not my girl, and you don't have the ability to kill her anyway."

"Huh?" the sword ninja snarled, and then he thrust his sword forward at Lilith's neck, but by now she had suppressed the electricity that had been paralyzing her body and picked up her crimson sword to deflect it to the side. Looking up, she smiled.

"You guys have given me too much time."

"?!"

A fiery meteor descended upon the battlefield, and an explosion rocked the clearing while gouging out a crater from the earth. A dozen ninjas were scorched by the sudden arrival of Lilith's h.e.l.lfire Bear, a few of the immolated ninjas screaming as they rolled around on the ground desperately to put out the flames. The rest of the ninjas spread out immediately as they faced the ferocious h.e.l.lfire Bear, while a few of the blackened ones managed to pick themselves up.

"The h.e.l.lfire Bear…!"

"She summoned it!"

"Don't worry!" the guy with the sword shouted. "It's just one Soul Beast! If we work together, we will surely be able to overcome it!"

"Oh? Then what happens if you have to face two Soul Beasts?" I asked, an amused smirk on my face.

As if on cue, Vermillion Phoenix erupted from the heavens and descended, bathing the entire clearing in superheated flames.