Chapter 26

As we walked into the Fatui's hideout I stayed closer to Lumine and then our group reshuffled their positions with the archers moving to the back and the great sword users moved to the front.

"Hey guys," Amber said as she took up position behind us and I nodded to her and Venti as we heard a mighty crash as Diluc walked around a corner and then was pushed back and had to smash aside a massive sledgehammer coated with lightning with a grunt of effort.

"Intruders!" The Fatui agent cried out and I saw my first example of the effects a Delusion would do on a man as the nine-foot-tall giant muscular man swung his electro-enhanced hammer at Diluc but was then blindsided by Noelle's massive club shattering his frontal armor and probably pulverizing his ribs as he bent over to vomit but his life was cut short as Eula brought down her own large great sword down upon the weakened man's exposed neck with how he was bent over.

"Come on!" Diluc yelled running forward as several more Fatui agents ran through a large archway from a higher floor and elementally infused arrows whizzed over our heads as our archers jumped onto some debris and began shooting at the Cicin mages that were trying to shoot balls of elemental energies at us from a distance.

I was unable to get in the thick of battle because as soon as I slashed my saber through a teleporting Fatui Sharpshooter's chest that was shooting powerful globs of congealed fire that was closer to lava at us, I was beset upon by several of the Fatui's specialized assassination units.

Even Lumine hissed as one of the four of them managed to stab me in the back with one of his boomerang daggers and feeling my Aura dip heavily although I didn't know the exact amount I had as I didn't have a scroll from Rwby or whatever to keep exact track I knew I couldn't hold back even as I was throwing my Anemo energy around to keep the other flying daggers getting me and Lumine.

With a flash, a large Ruin Guard formed into existence beside me and the Fatui assassins froze for but a moment. That single moment of not turning briefly invisible and making weird clones allowed my Ruin Guard to grab one of them with each of its long arms and their organs were instantly pulped in the mechanical arms of the Ruin Guard.

With only two of them around I made quick work of them with Lumine's help after she cornered a Cicin mage, and broke her elemental shield. killed her and then helped me clean up the assassins.

"These guys are much tougher than Hilichurls," I said to Lumine with a grimace as I wiped off the blood from my sword.

"Yes... Diluc seems to find this cathartic though." Lumine said dryly as we noted the owner of the Dawn Winery was taking an almost sadistic joy in using his large great sword to pulp the poor opponents he managed to get within a length of, and that's if they weren't flash fried to a charred corpse from him using his Pyro vision to coat his sword in flames or sent hawk shaped fire constructs to destroy defensive positions.

Kaeya and Jean both were fighting in a methodical fashion as they danced around the larger mutated men that wielded Fatui delusions for the normal-sized agents were put down with powerful shredding winds from Jean and icy winds that would freeze foes solid in a split moment by Kaeya.

I realized that although my sword style was based on using my saber's slashing focus, I was definitely lagging behind them in terms of skill with the sword.

"Let my Ruin Guard go ahead!" I called as I saw a large metal gate in front of our group that the Fatui obviously closed to in order to stop us.

The group moved the side and I realized that Eula was probably unaware of my ability as she was giving me and my Ruin Guard odd looks once my Ruin Guard bent over slightly to tilt its chest forward and a volley of missiles hit the gate and destroyed it, I could hear Jean muttering. "Never let Klee know that Jake can have missiles on demand..."

My Ruin Guard stomped over and smashed aside the remains of the metal gate but then I noticed that the following tunnel was too short for my Ruin Guard, so I dismissed it, with it becoming motes of light.

Diluc and the others ran forward through the broken gate that my Ruin Guard smashed open, but I was taken aback as Eula was waiting at the sides of the gate and she began walking beside me and Lumine.

"Thought you would be upfront with Noelle and the others?" I said lightly keeping my eyes peeled for any disturbance on the dusty ground as you need to only be stabbed once in the back by an invisible fucker before you get some minor trauma about masked edgy guys trying to shiv you.

"I am going to be keeping an eye on you in particular... Kaeya says your little Ruin Guard trick can bring dangerous eyes upon you and more importantly I recognize Noble family crests... And where else is a snowflake-themed Noble family supposed to be from other than Snezhnaya."

My face twitched at how she was almost insinuating I was supposedly killing my own countrymen, but although I had basically accepted the Schnee bloodline that had been slapped onto my body in my transmigration, I had little interest in pretending to from Snezhnaya especially seeing as everyone except people from the very land of Snezhnaya hated them basically.

I looked over to her and pointed at her Cryo vision as I snorted. "You have the blessing of the Cryo Archon anchored to your body, does that make you a citizen of Snezhnaya? No, it doesn't, and just because I have a blood tie to a certain Noble Family that doesn't even hail from Snezhnaya that has a damn snowflake for its emblem doesn't mean I am from that country."

Eula for a moment looked like she wanted to retort but she took a deep breath to calm herself before she formally apologized. "I apologize, as a member of the Lawrence clan have recently learned ill tidings about how the certain groups within Mondstadt like the merchant companies have already been bought by them, so seeing a foreign Noble with the potent abilities to create Ruin Guards had me feeling uneasy."

I nodded in understanding and had to hold back a wry smile as I knew from playing her story quest in the game that her clan was already dipping its toes into the Fatui's games and was basically already a traitor with how they sold confidential state secrets. "Let's just focus on the task at hand... And also make sure Amber has her wits about her." I said with some concern as I noticed the normally so chipper Outrider was pale at the sight of the carnage we caused and being consoled by Venti.

"I will make sure she is well after the mission is complete," Eula said with distaste as she put the mission priority first, but I could see she wanted to spirit away Amber to get her head in the game but even now as we made our way through the Domains tunnels, we heard a series of explosions and our companions were blasted back towards us thankfully covered in a Geo elemental shield and I caught them with a powerful gust of wind so they didnt bowl us over.

"They have cannons!" Jean almost snarled and it took me a moment to realize what she meant. Old school cannons were a massive pain to move around, especially in the extremely hilly terrain that was common here in Mondstadt so the only reason the Fatui would have such weapons was if they were possibly considering laying siege to the city of Mondstadt itself as it was a city built on a large island in the center of a massive lake and thus a conventional army was practically useless in invading such a place. Or more likely, they were going to use them on Dvalin in order to kill him.

"Barb... I mean Venti please shoot Anemo arrows into the barrels of the cannons, so they self-destruct." Jean ordered almost accidentally calling Venti by his Archon name but other than Diluc twitching slightly no one seemed to notice and if anything, they might have thought Jean was almost about to call the Fatui a 'bastard' or something.

"Let me draw their fire real quick," I said, and then with a hum a trio a Mitachurls armed with massive shields and a large group of normal Hilichurls were summoned armed with their normal clubs and wooden shields ran screaming into the tunnel that the other people were got blasted out of.

"Good work Jake! Venti, you are up!" Jean said and Venti grinned as he ran up behind the Mitachurls using their shields as cover.

As I went into the next room, I saw it was a long bridge with no guard rail, and below it was the ever-present endless void that was in Domains so I realized why they didn't try to overpower the cannons as if they didn't perfectly dodge the exploding cannon balls they could easily be launched off into the void which would be a death sentence.