Chapter 12

"Oh? so you did detect me, and here I thought why you two would suddenly stop moving.", A ghastly voice sounded out from all directions inside the cave.

Hearing the voice, Charlotte who was being carried on the back of her grandfather, suddenly paled. How could she not know the owner of this voice? It was the vile creature that killed her comrades and her own sister!

Charlotte spoke with fear and agony, "Grandfather, it's that vile creature!"

Hearing that it was the creature that they had come for, both Crimson and Raymond didn't hesitate as they immediately attacked towards the source of the voice. Faced with a barrage of earth and water spells, Jaime had no option but to come out of his hiding and defend himself. At first, Jaime thought that the group of mages were out here adventuring but when he heard and looked carefully at Charlotte, he remembered her. She was one of those mages that had tried to attack him previously and now it looked like she had returned with strong helpers.

It didn't even take moments into the fight, when Jaime already found himself being brutally suppressed. The two mages that the girl had brought were both peak five-tier mages, what bad luck!

"Spell of Earth, bury the fiend before me: Ground Burial", Crimson Stark started casting a powerful five-tier spell.

Jaime didn't hesitate as he turned around and tried to escape, these old foggey mages were too cunning and sly in their attacks. Jaime had already suffered many setbacks under their hands just in a few rounds.

"You can forget about running, Water from the Heavens: bind!", with Raymond's final chant, huge chains made out of water binded and trapped Jaime like a caged bird. No matter how he struggled, he couldn't rid himself of the chains.

"Heed my call and obliterate my enemy: Dark sphere!", left with no choice, Jaime resorted to spamming his dark spheres around towards the cave walls.

But before it could achieve its effect, Crimson's earth spell: Ground Burial had finally been casted. The earth under Jaime's feet collapsed as a huge torrential amount of earth elements then gathered above him and formed a huge boulder as it fell towards him, aiming to effectively crush and bury him for good.

"Oh Shi-", Jaime felt restless as he saw his approaching doom, but the inevitable became evitable when one of Jaime's previously spammed dark spheres, just in time, managed to off-set the tender balance of the cave as it blasted out the cave walls. This caused heavy tremors in the surroundings, which made Raymond pitifully fall over, effectively interrupting his Water bind spell.

These tremors also didn't spare Jaime as he lost his balance and rolled back a distance on the ground, coincidentally managing to reduce the impact from the ground burial spell as the huge boulder just seemingly glazed past his skeletal body.

But a five-tier spell was not to be underestimated, as it still managed to make Jaime suffer as it crushed his left ankle that couldn't avoid the spell but this could already be considered as a good result for Jaime, a second late would have otherwise concluded with his left leg completely being reduced to bone dust.

As the two old men, Raymond and Crimson were struggling to get up, Charlotte was already up and ready. She noticed some movements in the dark and saw "something" trying to run away.

Realising that it was probably the vile creature, Charlotte ran to catch up to it.

"Wait Charlotte, don't rush! you are no match for the creature...", Crimson's voice echoed silently but there was no follow up response.

"You need to hurry up.", Crimson then looked towards Raymond, the previous tremors had badly sprained his ankle and Crimson could only hope for Raymond to follow behind his granddaughter.

"hahaha.. what bad luck!", Raymond's rueful response was heard and after Crimson concentrated onto his friend, he gasped in shock.

"Ray-Raymond...", It was only now did Crimson realise that a small boulder had fallen onto his dear friend when the tremors occurred, crushing half-side of his body!

Jaime struggled as he ran, hopped, crawled trying to get as far away from those five-tier mages as possible. He knew the way he was running to would end up leading him back to where he had previously tried to escape from, but he had no other choice! He could only hope that the radiant knights weren't around the cave, and he could, by some stroke of luck, escape to the Savage Lands. As there were two five-tier mages chasing him from the back and a group of radiant knights searching for him in the front, Jaime could only count on his luck at this moment.

"Heavenly Palatine Sword!", suddenly, before Jaime could reach the cave exit, a huge sword made entirely of light shone brightly before him like the sun as it swiftly stabbed into him.

Anguished cries escaped out of Jaime's mouth as his body trembled and retreated back, step by step.

Light orbs suddenly lit up around the cave exit, and Jaime could see a group of radiant knights standing before him led by the middle-aged man with a pencil-thin mustache and white armor, Sir Luthur.

"We came here after tracing your tracks, but didn't expect you to so happily come out to greet us.", Jake Gyllenhaal said as he stood beside Sir Luthur.

Jaime grunted in pain as he tried to remove the light sword that jutted through him but everytime he tried to do so, he felt an inexplicable pain and in the end he could only find himself weakening at a rapid pace and losing control over the dark elements.

With a bang, Jaime heavily collapsed to the ground on his knees, huge amounts of light elements had accumulated in his skeletal body via the light sword, it completely restrained him down.

Just when Sir Luthur was about to lift his sword to end the vile creature infront of him once and for all, heavy steps were heard before a silhouette appeared at a distance.

Jaime turned back and looked, "So it is her...", The silhouette was soon revealed to be a fair teenage girl with almond eyes and braided russet hair. Under the light of the illumination orbs, Jaime could clearly see the contours of her face and the outlines of her sleek figure.

Charlotte panted as she stared at Jaime with a sense of vengeance, she even ignored the radiant knights who were looking at her dumbfoundedly.

"Hear my command and rip through my enemy: Earth Spikes!", Unhesitatingly, Charlotte casted the strongest spell in her arsenal. At this moment, what she wished was to annihilate the hateful creature before her and take revenge for her sister.

"Hold up-", Sir Luthur was just about to stop Charlotte but he was a moment too late and powerful spikes shot out from the ground around Jaime and they ruthlessly stabbed all over his body.

"..To think I would actually "die" like this...", Jaime laughed as he spoke in a hateful manner, the grim greenish light in his sockets abruptly shone with a fiery blaze before dissipating into nothingness as Jaime's skull got pierced by few spikes and shattered into pieces.

After the rigorous onslaught of the spikes ended, what was left of the vile creature were only pieces of his bones.

Sir Luthur frowned as he looked at Charlotte who had interfered in his business but since the outcome was what they had all wished, he didn't say otherwise.

"Round up all those bones and seal them in a casket filled with holy water. Later on, send the casket to the Church of Light in Heavenly Resplendent Empire.", Sir Luthur commanded his knights.

Normally after "purging" an evil, the radiant knights would just leave but Sir Luthur felt that the remains of this creature had to be properly taken care of to prevent any future troubles as they reeked of dark magic.