Chapter : 45

  "I am helping!" Ken yelled back, his voice muffled by the pstic bags. "I am staying out of your way! That is the best help I can give! You guys are doing great, keep up the good work!"

  The leader of the thugs shook his head, ughing cruelly. "What a joke. Your team is pathetic. Get them!"

  The dozen thugs roared and charged forward. The magical staffs lit up, aiming fire and dark energy directly at Sayma and Naomi. The swordsmen raised their rusty bdes, rushing in to attack.

  The fight broke out instantly, turning the dirty basement into a chaotic battlefield.

  ----

  The basement was filled with the sounds of shouting, cshing metal, and the loud crackle of crude magic. A dozen thugs rushed forward all at once, expecting to easily crush the two girls standing in the middle of the room. They thought it would be a very quick fight.

  They were completely wrong.

  "Don't let them move!" one of the thugs yelled, swinging his heavy rusty sword straight down toward Naomi’s head.

  Naomi did not even flinch. She kept one dagger pressed against the drug dealer’s throat to keep him pinned to the wall. With her other hand, she gripped her second dagger tightly. Her green wind magic fred up around her legs again.

  She moved faster than the thug could swing. Naomi ducked under the rusty bde, twisting her body with perfect bance. She sshed her dagger upward in a quick, clean motion. The sharp steel cut right through the thug's wooden weapon handle. The heavy metal top of the sword flew off and cttered onto the concrete floor.

  Before the thug could even realize his weapon was broken, Naomi kicked him hard in the chest, sending him flying backward into two of his friends.

  "You guys are way too slow!" Naomi shouted confidently.

  She was incredibly fast. She dashed through the room, moving like a green storm. She didn't focus on hurting the men badly; she focused on disarming them. She sliced through crude magical staffs, cutting the wooden poles in half before the mages could finish casting their spells. She dodged heavy axe swings with ease, spinning around the thugs and kicking their legs out from under them.

  But even while she was fighting five men at once, she still had enough energy to be angry at her zy teammate.

  "Ken! I am going to kill you myself when this is over!" Naomi yelled, slicing another staff in half. "You are hiding in actual garbage! You have no honor! You are the biggest coward in the entire Empire!"

  "Honor doesn't protect you from getting stabbed!" Ken shouted back from his hiding spot behind the smelly bck trash bags. "Garbage is very soft! It is a great shield! Just focus on the guys trying to hit you, boss dy!"

  While Naomi was using her incredible speed to handle the close-range fighters, Sayma was taking care of the magic users.

  Three thugs with crude magical staffs stood in the back of the room. They finally managed to gather enough energy. They pointed their staffs directly at Sayma.

  "Burn her!" one of them shouted.

  Three rge, messy fireballs shot across the room. They were hot and dangerous, leaving a trail of smoke in the air. They were flying straight toward Sayma’s face.

  Sayma did not panic. She simply pushed her gsses up her nose and raised both of her hands.

  "Absolute Hexagon," Sayma said calmly.

  Instantly, a beautiful, glowing golden barrier appeared in the air right in front of her. The barrier was made of bright, connected hexagon shapes. It looked exactly like a glowing honeycomb. It was completely solid and perfectly stable.

  The three crude fireballs smmed into the golden barrier. BAM! BAM! BAM!

  The fire exploded outward, filling the center of the room with orange fmes and thick gray smoke. But the golden barrier didn't even shake. There was not a single crack in the light. Sayma stood safely behind her Absolute Hexagon, completely untouched by the heat.

  The three thugs stared in shock. Their best attack did absolutely nothing.

  "My turn," Sayma said politely.

  She pushed her hands forward. The golden barrier did not just block attacks; it could also be used to push back. The Absolute Hexagon suddenly expanded outward. It moved like a massive wave of solid light. It swept across the room, hitting the three magic users directly in their chests. It didn't cut them, but the force was like being hit by a speeding truck. The expanding wave of light crushed the thugs against the brick wall. They groaned loudly and slumped to the floor, totally knocked out.

  Sayma smoothly turned around and created another golden honeycomb shield behind her, perfectly blocking a sneak attack from a thug with a metal pipe. The pipe bounced off the light, jarring the thug's arms so badly he dropped his weapon. Sayma quickly stepped forward and tapped the man on the forehead with a burst of magic, sending him to sleep.

  Meanwhile, behind the pile of smelly trash bags, Ken was completely safe.

  He was still sitting in a tight ball, but he was no longer screaming. Since nobody was looking at him, his fake scared expression completely vanished. His zy, sleepy eyes returned. He felt around in the deep pocket of his dark blue uniform jacket and found a half-stale cracker he had saved from the buffet table the day before.

  Ken pulled the cracker out, brushed a little piece of lint off it, and popped it into his mouth. He chewed casually, watching the fight through a small gap between two bck trash bags.

  He was not just watching. The Sovereign was internally critiquing their fighting stances.

  "Naomi is fast, but her footwork is slightly too wide when she changes direction," Ken thought to himself, chewing his stale cracker. "She relies too much on her wind magic to fix her bance. If she fought a true master, they would trip her the second she shifted her weight to her left heel. She needs to keep her core tighter."

  He shifted his eyes to watch the Vice-Captain.

  "Sayma is much better," Ken noted internally. "Her Absolute Hexagon is very solid. She doesn't waste mana on fshy lights. But she is pying it too safe. She waits for the enemy to attack before she creates her barrier. If she was fighting a Curse magic user, waiting would get her killed. She needs to learn how to throw her barriers offensively before the enemy even moves."

  Even though Ken could see all their fws, he had to admit they were doing a great job against these street thugs. They were elite warriors, and these thugs were just untrained criminals. It was not a fair fight at all.

  Within minutes, the chaotic battle was over.

  The dozen armed thugs were all lying on the concrete floor. Some of them were knocked out cold by Sayma’s light barriers. The others were groaning in pain, holding their bruised chests and legs after Naomi’s high-speed attacks. Broken wooden staffs and rusty swords were scattered everywhere.