Curse you Shin! Curse you!

Izumi slowly turned her head as she looked at a surprised Ken who shot a look at Izumi and charged forward. Izumi followed Ken's lead as he charged at the guards in front of them blocking the entrance.

"Take the left one!" Ken shouted as he slid to the right a bit and escaped the incoming swift attack from the guard with the lance. Izumi followed Ken's words and slid to the left and hit the protector on the left with her sheathed Katana as Ken hit the right one in a similar fashion and started running towards the exit as fast as he could along with Izumi.

"How the hell is this a training? This is a god damn death trap!" Ken shouted as he ran through the corridor with Izumi. They were being followed by a dozen or so protectors who started to fill their weapons and body with energy.

With every swing from the protectors weapons, a crescent shaped or a sphere shaped energy sped towards them at a great speed but failed to hit Izumi or Ken as they were a few a meters ahead and the passage was in a curved manner, due to which the attacks missed and hit the wall. The energy was absorbed by the walls and windows which were inscribed by powerful and ancient spells.

"We are gonna die if we lead ourselves to a straight path!" Izumi let out a cry as she looked back at all the energy strikes that hit the wall.

"Yeah, exactly. Now I want you both to think quickly and effectively about how to get out alive. I made you both walk all around the fort earlier, just so that you remember the basic blueprint of the fort. Cmon you both, I have high expectations from you, good luck!" Shin gave them both a quick note as he appeared and disappeared from the shadows formed by the moon light making it's way through the windows.

"Wait, Shin…" Before Izumi could even complete her sentence, Shin already disappeared completely into thin air.

'Is this what the guardians and Commander Leo warned them about, they could have been a bit more specific about what they meant.' These were the thoughts that were running through Izumi's and Ken's mind as they made their way into a small space between two walls and hid under their black clothes. They would have been immediately spotted if they hadn't decreased their energy emission as low as 30% to their actual emission quantity.

"Good call. This is the very reason why I taught you both how to decrease your energy emission. Taking shelter and hiding from the enemies is a good tactic to escape them, but if you guys stay here too long then it would be hard for you to get out because they will lock down all the gates and exits to the fort. The exciting part here is, this fort has only two ways to come in or to go out which are the east and the west entrances." Shin appeared and disappeared from the shadows of the small space between the walls as he said those words.

"I never knew he was such a sadist!" Ken let out a small shriek as he clenched his teeth.

"So, how do we get out of here?" Ken asked as he looked at an Izumi who was lost deep in her thoughts.

"We need to know where we are, the way to get out and how many protectors are blocking the gates." Izumi picked her right hand up as she summoned her eagle spirit. The eagle spirit was only 55 days old and still looked like an eagle hatchling. The spirit was beaming with blue coloured energy and had no physical body but was small in size given its age.

"Fly over the heads of all the protector and check all their positions and don't forget to keep your energy emission as low as possible. Go!" Izumi patted the eagle's sides as she ordered. A thin layer of white energy covered her eyes as her spirit took off.

The corridors were narrow but the ceiling was at a height of 18 feet which let the little eagle hatchling spirit fly over everyone's heads.

"That's it girl, that's it." Izumi looked into a distance as if she was in a trance as she uttered those words. Izumi could see everything her spirit could, this was the advantage for protectors with an aerial spirit.

"Ken, the west gate is heavily guarded and closed. The east gate is still open and not heavily guarded yet but it is in the process of being closed and sealed off. We have to move now or we will miss our last chance to get out alive!" Izumi dragged Ken out of the small space as the thin layer of energy covering her eyes suddenly dispersed into the air.

"If it was that easy to do so, what's the point of this training." Shin grinned slightly as he stared at Izumi and Ken from a distance as he supported himself against the wall with no fear of being caught or seen by the protectors. The situation was more like a playground for Shin who was trained to blend in with the shadows from a very young age.

"Come back little one." Izumi looked at the eagle spirit which was standing on a small platform fitted on the ceiling. The eagle spirit flew towards Izumi's soul sword and immediately turned into blue coloured energy and got sucked into the katana.

"The next turn would lead us towards the east gate and there are about 8 guards, so be careful and try to avoid getting hit. Let's just focus on getting out of here." Izumi didn't spare a look towards Ken and looked cautiously towards the incoming turn.

Ken and Izumi took the turn and ran towards the east gate in front of them. As the two made their way through an entrance towards the road that will lead them out of the gate, they were suddenly met with 16 guards who looked as if they were ordered to kill anyone who tries to approach them.

There was one bear spirit and two fox spirits howling in front of the protectors that guarded the doors.

"Did you really think that you would be able to get out of the fort so easily?" Three of the protectors in front of Ken and Izumi were the A - Rank protectors in the fort and also the captains of different squads.

"Why are you even chasing us? We didn't do anything, did we?" Izumi shouted out loud as she tried to reason with the captains in front of them.

"Not directly, but you must have helped the man who killed the commander and the city's lord. You were just talking how you three were best friends a few moments ago and I heard it loud and clear. So don't try to fool us!" One of the guards behind the captains answered Izumi's questions as he held out his sword.

'Curse you Shin! Curse you!' Izumi cried out loud in her head as she unsheathed her katana.

"Three spirits huh, not bad. They are not ready for a head to head battle with such heavily armed protectors. What are you going to do now? And I am pretty sure they are cursing me in their head right now." Shin murmured to himself as he walked on the east wall of the fort with all the guards who were supposed to be on the wall guarding it, knocked out and forced to sleep.