Dire Situation

Dale was exhausted, he looked towards the end of the cave and heard screams, he understood that Monark ran away to perform the ritual, but what filled Dale was the feeling of hot air that was coming from the room.

Jeffrey was tense, a few minutes ago loud noises were heard from the deepest part of the cave, and now loud wails and cries came. He looked at Cyl and threw the shield at him.

-" Go to save the villagers, I can handle Dale." Jeffrey knew he couldn't beat Dale easily but he also felt confident of not losing.

Cyl hesitated for a moment and nodded, while he wanted to fight Dale he knew that he was in no condition to fight him. Dale too was tired but Cyl situation was worse. Cyl took the shield and ran inside the cave.

Dale looked at this and smiled, he didn't stop Cyl from going inside, after all, Monark too left him so now he was repaying the favor. He used the fact of Cyl leaving and started to storm towards the exit.

Jeffrey wanted to stall him but he need to be careful, while his armor was a middle-grade artifact too the red aura from Dale spear was too tyrannical, it even damaged his shield.

As Dale ran away and Jeffrey pursued him the rest of the army started to round up the rest of the bandits and headed down the cave to help their Lieutenant.

Inside the burning room, Luckas and his groups fought to keep themselves awake, the smoke filled the room and their vision started to turn black. Luckas situation was the worst, he started to have a panic attack. Byrth looked at him with pity in his eyes, the man in front of him helped them so much but every effort was for naught.

-" Why don't we try dashing through the fire?" Jonathan didn't look so good too." It is better than dying like this."

Byrth shook his head, he knew that the fire proprieties was too esoteric, his cultivation was from the fire element but not even he thought that he could escape it.

Close to the room, Cyl was running like a madman he wanted to save the villagers so he could go back and help Jeffrey to kill Dale. But as he got closer his eyes turned dark, he could feel that the situation at the room wasn't simple.

He placed the shield Jeffrey gave him at his chest and started to run. -" White Deer Arts, Heavenly Clearing Dash." As he speed up white aura converged around him, a figure of a majestic deer materialized behind him.

He crossed the flames and arrived in the last room of the cave. He was surprised, the other cultivator of the Heigong wasn't in the room and all the villagers were out of the cell.

Byrth saw Cyl and screamed. -" Hey help us, the guy from the Dark Palace trapped us here and escaped."

Cyl was confused there wasn't another entrance to the cave so how could he escape, while he had his doubts he decided to push them away and focused on putting the fire out.

Seeing Cyl analyzing the fire, Byrth spooke again. -" I think he cast this fire with his blood essence."

This caught Cyl in surprise again, he looked at the man and noticed he was a cultivator. -" From what sect you are? Did you fight with the Dark Palace disciple?".

-" We all fought him, he was injured but we couldn't do anything to him we were lucky he decided to escape, he used a white stone and vanished in thin air."

Cyl had a better understanding of the situation now, he only felt respect for the novice cultivator and the villagers, even in the face of disaster they didn't give up and faced a dangerous enemy.

Cyl began to prepare himself, he was exhausted but he gathered every little bit of energy in his body, The white aura began to gather again but this time this it was denser, behind him the White Deer materialized once again.

Cyl focused and raised his sword with one hand and made runes with the other, at the same the White Deer raised his head, its antler shone brightly.

Everyone in the room was staring in awe, while they resisted mornark they were terrified by the powers of cultivators, but now, they felt like they were standing before a saint, the difference of the auras between the two cultivators was enormous.

Monark's aura was grime and dark like he was a demon, but Cyl was pure, elegant, and calming. The villagers were at ease as the light from the White Deer antlers shone, they felt safe and the hope of escaping emerged once again.

Byrth looked at this scene and his gaze hardened, he felt weak and powerless, since his lucky encounter he felt as if he was blessed by the heavens, alas, he felt insignificant now, even in the escape there wasn't so much difference between him and the normal villagers, the person with most importance in the conflict was Luckas.

Byrth looked at Luckas only to find out that he was still in his panicked state, Luckas was crouching and sobbing at the conner, Byrth tried to help him up only to him slump again.

-"Luckas we need to get ready, when the path opens up we must hurry." Byrth spoke but no response came. He looked at Luckas and sighed. he grabbed him and put his arm around his shoulders.

Cyl began to cast his spell, the light of the Deer antlers descended and gathered around Cyl, his sword slowly came down, on his other hand rune gestures keep changing. The aura in his sword flashed and headed to the fire. Cyl concentrated and focused on subduing the flames, he was struggling, he was surprised that the flame was cast by a 1st level Foundation Establishment cultivator.

Cyl found something strange inside the flames, as he fought it he could feel wails inside it, as he studied the flame once again his gaze turned dark. he felt an enormous vitality coming from the fire.

-" Vitality-consuming Fire." Cyl whispered, he turned even serious now, most likely people died trying to cross the fire, this made the power even more resilient, while it couldn't do much damage to him, for normal people that couldn't coat their bodies with Qi the fire would consume their vitality.