Chapter 25: The Enemy of my Enemy

I am alone, hiding behind some trees near the dirt road; which can go up to a shining Church, or   down to a stone archway that leads to nowhere.  From my experiences with fiction it isn’t all   crazy to think that the path that goes down in the middle of nowhere is the “main exit” that the guards were talking about, so I decided to go with the path that goes upward. Good thing, I still have with me the pen and paper that guided us to the portal which would help point to the location of Stephanie but would also hinder me if I pass through anyone and get found out. I must be smart in using this guide.

I headed up to the trees nearest to the church building. I saw that the main entrance of the church building is being guarded by people wearing golden military equipment. There are multiple stained windows on the side of the building that I thought of breaking to enter, but that's just too hasty and risky. I circled around the building and saw three points of entry that I can perhaps use. One point of entry is a storm cellar located on the right side of the church building, another is a functioning kitchen located at the back, and a few meters away from the left side, there is a bell tower connected to the church through a bridge.

The time should be nearing midnight. Logically, there should not be anybody near the bell tower. To be sure, I decided to seek the help of the Library and wrote, “The Bell tower in this inferior dimension is not normally used at midnight.” The Library found no flaws which made me sigh in relief. But then, I had an inkling of doubt. Usually, prisoners or victims are kept at the deepest darkest corners of the place. The storm cellar would be the perfect place to do that, so I asked the Library again, “Stephanie Adkins is being kept in the storm cellar.” The Library found flaws and corrected the statement with, “It is not Stephanie Adkins who is being kept in the cellar.” While it may not be my niece who is being kept in the cellar, I should still help the person being held there to get out. After all, as the saying goes, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

I slowly headed to the cellar and touched the lock of the door so that a book will be compiled to see what kind of lock I must break. “Padlock is enhanced by the magic of the Church of Holy Light’s Archbishop. Only people who are Rank-9 and above can forcefully break the lock. Flaws: The lock has been exposed to too much light energy. Any more energy would overload the materials causing the lock to break." It turned out that I must be a Rank-9 to break this lock. I wonder If I can do anything… Right! I can make use of the property of the Heavenly Way mana. It is formless, light, and can copy any type of energy in existence. I then tried to copy the form of energy that was previously applied to the lock hoping that it would exploit its significant flaw. Light energy feels weightless and pure but has a heavy aura and a property of purification that rejects everything else that isn't related to light. Eventually, the energy in my body turned to the light energy needed to break the lock. I then employed my mana into the lock and after expending around 95% of my mana, it finally broke. Each increase in rank comes with indefinite exponential increase in power. For example, a Rank-3 cultivator can only house around 300 kilograms of strength, but as soon as Rank-7 is reached, it would increase to up to a minimum of 100,000 kilograms or 100 megagrams. Since I cultivate my mana and body with the use of the Heavenly Arts, my total strength sums up to 600 kilograms and 90 megagrams, almost as powerful as the strength of an ordinary Rank-7 Primary cultivator. A Rank-3 cultivator being able to break a lock that needs a Rank-9 practitioner is a blessing in and of itself. It shows how powerful the Heavenly Arts is, compared to usual techniques.  

After successfully breaking the lock, I ran back to the trees and meditated to bring my mana storage back to full and remove all the tiredness from my body which took around an hour. I then opened the cellar and headed down inside. While I was heading down, I smelled a pungent odor, like the smell in a wet market where there is lots of meat and stinky stuff floating around. When I reached the bottom, I found where the smell was coming from; piles and piles and piles of flesh heaped on top of each other, each stack reaching around 7-8 feet in height. What stood in the middle was a demon with yellow-colored bat-like wings, pure white skin glowing with pure yellow light. Looking straight at me, the demon said, “Are you my final opponent before I reach my freedom?” As he spoke, yellow-colored swirls showed up behind him. Before I could speak, the yellow-colored swirls became shuriken stars and flew towards me, which, fortunately, I was able to dodge. The demon continued attacking me, so I immediately shouted, "Flaws!" in my head to see his flaws while trying to dodge his attacks. Reading the book in my head while fighting, I saw how his attacks would pan out and headed straight for the blind spots. After a few exchanges of reading while dodging, I found out what he is.

I shouted, “I know what you are! Why don’t you show yourself?” The demon just chuckled and threw out more projectiles at me. This time, I wasn’t scared; I jumped through the air and punched through the batwing of the demon. He didn’t flinch but he crashed down on the ground. Without breaking a sweat, he stood up and jumped towards me as I was falling midair and tried to claw out my neck. I then raised my arm to block him and the pure black metallic bangle I am wearing, suddenly came alive out of instinct. When I passed mana through it, instead of the usual blue light, it got filled with my pure white and transparent mana, glowing a faint white color. In a second, it turned into a scimitar, a long and curved saber. Prepared with saber intent, I slashed the scimitar and hit the demon's claws. With my full force, it barely broke off; I see no blood in his fingertips and even in his bat wings which I hit earlier. I then said, “Why don’t you come out now, will-o'-wisp?” After some time, a 50-inch humanoid shape of light exited the body of the demon. The faint golden light emanating from the demon is now gone and his body crashed onto the ground with a thud.