The corrupted clearing was convulsing, it's like the gate was breathing out poison.

The black blood flowing from the core was seeping into the ground, and the tendrils that were left were crawling in different shapes. Half plant, half flesh with hollow eyes.

Both Class S and Class A were tightening their formation under Adam's command. There was no need for courtesy right now, they needed to survive.

"Everyone, hold the line!" Sarah cried out, she held her staff as she carved out a wave of water that knocked back the first wave of the tendrils.

Mary would slam her hands on the ground, summoning a stone barricade the blocked the wave from their right.

Charles move through them like a wind and lightning incarnate, his katana was slicing through those corrupted limbs before they could even lash out at them.

Jake he was still hung up in his loss against Adam, was fighting with furious focus. He was shredding the enemies with methodical slashes rather than showing any bravado.

The cultists also started to advance, even if their evil they battled with discipline in their ranks, each of their steps were synchronized and measured.

Their blades were radiating a faint violet haze.

"Their way to organized for cultists," Damian observed them, he was appalled as how they were so composed, for evil worshippers.

Akira's expression on the other hand, hardened. "They are more prepared than these monsters, they came in here for the kill."

Adam on the other hand was calm, but slowly getting enraged. With each rank up he acts more and more like a dragon, and with these cultists and ambushes happening he wouldn't be able to control his temper. "Then we'll just slaughter all of them brutally. We'll cut off the roots of corruption, the rest will lose their steam but these cult bastards must die here."

It was Adam, Finn and Eve who have taken point.

Eve use frosty winds to snare the corrupted beasts making their movements sluggish.

Finn discharged concentrated lightning into their cores, killing them where they stood.

Adam was using space distortions that but at the cultists edges, there were minor folds in space that forced them to misstep, this opened gaps that he exploited to cut them down.

Brad and Doom, both of them slammed the the ground as earth and ice turned into defensive walls, this was to buy some time.

Duke and Selena both formed a moving shield of light and water, the water would flow in front of the group, this purified the lingering corruption that tried to leech of their mana.

But cultists always a number of tricks up their sleeves, when they noticed that their ranks are getting thinned out, they used sacrificial moves, sending out a team of their own to anchor the corrupted tendrils to the earth.

This created living anchors that would regenerate the core.

"Break those damned anchors!" Amy screamed at them as she started sprinting forward.

The twins from Caelthorn Akira and Damian, they moved like assassins with precision. They didn't to the assassins to slash them immediately, they just aimed their dual daggers to their ankles and the bindings of the anchors, they severed sigils with surgical and precise strikes, the anchors would sizzle and wither.

And for a moment that battle was shifting in their favor.

Amidst all of blood and dead bodies, there was one cultist who was older and gaunt.

His eyes were blown wide with fear, as he was pinned down beneath Eve's frozen constructs.

Blood was leaked off from a cut that was across his forehead, his breathing was becoming even more ragged.

He was clutching on a pendant at his chest, there was a tiny orb that was studded with a thread that was something like a black opal.

It was pulsing, he pushed all the pain aside and hissed out a command, and the orb activated.

There was a thin tendril made of maan that moved like a snake upward through the corrupted sky, a sigil that was laced with a shower it darted through the gate into the void itself.

"T-the...the one—" he gasped, his voice was torn by the corruption. "He carries... a dragonic resonance... he has ancient blood...he—" That's when the orbs bean started to shudder. And whatever received the transmission answer a cold, pulse that made the cultist twitch in acknowledgement not comfort.

It was Eve's rapier that ended his breath before the message could be spread even further. The orb just let out a single bright burst and then it died under a snow of frozen blood.

But the signal was already sent. And somewhere far beyond the human sight, the knowledge of Adam's strange mana was now rippling through lists and shadows. That relay wouldn't vanish just because the messenger has died.

As the whole team was tightening their defensive perimeter, there was movements in the treeline that showed another threat was incoming.

There were shadows that slipped between the trunks, their figures were clad in void like camouflage, and their faces were obscured by masks.

They weren't cultists, they were moving with cold efficiency, that of paid killers.

A low whistle from the leader split the air. And three of them struck towards Adam as one.

They have been waiting for the chaos, so they could use it as a distraction.

Their blows were precise, aimed at the joints and throat, their blades were laced with silent toxins.

The first one leaped, a thin poisoned blade was flickering towards Adam's neck.

Adam just dodged the attack with ease, this wasn't with speed alone but also with instinct that was tightening his muscles.

The assassins would press on the advantage, their blades were whistling through the air.

Two of them darted to flank him, while the other moved forward to finish the strike.

This was their go-to plan: because of the gate corruption and since no one could get in unless the gate is cleared, they would assume the casualties was because of the gate. There will be no alarms, no witnesses, just corpses that were beaming with corrupted energy.

Adam moved away. Where their strikes should've landed there was only empty air and shattered mana.

He was slipping into their rhythm, he countered, made feints and then crashed their momentum as he struck a mana infused fist into one of the assassin's check that broke his ribs.

The second assassin's wrist was taken out by a thumb and forefinger snap that left tendon and the knife useless.

The third assassin tried to make a retreat, but Adam moved so fast and slashed his chest and left him on his knees coughing up blood.

They didn't even scream, they just fell, and silence filled the who filed.

The leader however, still standing had one trick left:

He hurled a smoke bomb that exploded between Adam and the rest of the team, it filled the air with a chocking black smoke.

In that moment, amidst the blind chaos there was another blade that was flashing towards Adam's flank.

CLANG!

The blade got parried by Adams armor that was camouflaged into his battle clothing. He didn't feel any pain and wasn't afraid.

He moved his and grabbed the attacker's wrist as if he knew where he was. He twisted the masked man's arm and broke it.

Adam's palm the pressed down and there was a soft cracking sound.

The masked leaders eyes widened, there were no theatrics, just the shock and realization that his plan failed.

A detailed surface on the leaders ring there was a tiny crest, it was stylized into a coiling serpent. This was Cedric's contact sigil.

The cold was flashing through Adam that made his blood hiss on the battlefield, but he didn't have time to think about that. He just had to make sure everyone here survived.

Everyone was quiet as they all rallied.

The Caelthorn siblings and Charles were moving through the smoke like knives, Akira's darkness affinity was swallowing the light, while Damian's lightning was cutting the corrupted illusions.

Sarah and Simon Corven were pouring currents and dampening shields that would scrub the worst of the lethal toxins that were filling the air.

Mary's boulders were becoming mobile shields, Main was busy writing emergency runes in the dirt that was dampening enchantments and also set temporary sanctified circles.

Their were seized by a single minded sense of urgency, the whole team was moving like one single organism.

Adam was steady as he carved a path through the core's knot where there was a mass of corrupted flesh and a ritual Stine that was responsible for the gates might.

Finn and Grace were riding in his rhythm, they funneled immense elemental strikes that would distract and shatter the protective circles.

Eve's rapier was traced with slashes of freezing air that let the other to strike cleanly.

Brad and Doom braces for impact, they took the core's lashings while the rest of them were concentrating on a final coordinated strike.

Adam would place his sword at the center of the assembled sigils and he then channeled his mana.

He didn't about and just made a pose.

"Now!" He ordered.

The field then compressed. Ice was biting down into the Core's surface as the space was constricted at its edges.

The core was convulsing, it's eyes spiraled and the contacted into a shrieking nub of black.

The was a shockwave that rolled outward like a tide of cold wind vacuums, it was shredding through the tendrils and unbinding the anchors that the cultists were using.

The dust settled and the core lay there cracked. The immediate corruption collapse and dozens of corrupted creatures dissolved into black ash.

The cultists who were not slain made a retreat, they dragged their broken, and flickering banner into the trees.

The assassins, their leader was pale and breathing through a collapsed stench, he vanished through a black path between the trees.

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