A sinister smile bloomed on Arabella's face as she looked at Mishael mockingly, "You are well informed… Temple Knight Captain…"
"Are you here to take your family out?" Mishael's eyes squinted dangerously as he carefully asked.
Arabella let out a chuckle before answering, "Yes and no… it is true that I want to get my family back… but I want more than that!"
"You know that they deserve it… you are young, are you not using your time to just turn over a new leaf?" Mishael asked if there was a slight trace of regret while he was looking at Arabella's young appearance.
The Lady was still clearly young and there would still be a lot of opportunities for her to pursue an honest life far from the evil her family had been into.
But looking at the aura that emanated on her entire body and the sword that she was wielding, it seemed like she had already taken the decision to be a curse user.
"Why would I? I have never thought that way when you took away my family's prestige." Arabella shrugged and just smiled, "Enough of the empty talk! Might as well die earlier!"
With that Arabella immediately dashed forward and met Mishael's counterattack.
Clash! Clang!
The sound of the clashing swords and body blows rang in the air as Mishael and Arabella along with their respective troops engaged in a tight battle.
"Not bad… you are the temple knight's captain after all!" Arabella raised her eyebrows after their first combat exchange.
'This guy is not an easy opponent…' She thought as she looked at Mishael who was not even bothered seeing her battle style that was completely made to counter the temple knight's combat style.
'He has many tricks on his sleeve…' Arabella remembered their exchange earlier and found that Mishael is quite a talented knight.
Most of the time, he managed to accurately guess her moves and adjust his position so that he could quickly counterattack.
'Time to pick up the pace!' Arabella was quite impatient as she thought that figuring out all of the opponent's tricks was completely a waste of time.
For her, the most important thing is to get the job done no matter what it takes.
And so she summoned her curse power and synchronized it with her teammates. At once, they were covered by a blackish-purple aura and immediately disappeared in front of Mishael and his team.
"Where did they go?" They all blurted out as they looked around.
But the next second, Arabella and the men randomly popped on their blindspot and wounded Mishael's side.
Mishael did not panic and quickly focused on observing the entire situation while narrowly avoiding the sneak attacks.
In the end, he noticed that as the daylight arose the space used for their disappearance and appearance seemed to narrow down slowly.
Thinking deeply, he looked down and saw their shadows. Coincidentally, he witnessed one of the opponents dive into the shadow and immediately disappear.
"It's the shadows!" Mishael shouted, alerting his team. "Quick, use the reverse illuminating spell!"
With this, the entire surroundings of the area became pitch black. It is said that the brighter the light, the darker the shadow would be, but if it is total darkness, the shadow is no longer there.
And so as soon as the area became pitch black confined in a dome shape barrier, the synchronized sneak attacks also slowed down.
"Enhance your eyes to see through the dark and start the retaliation attack." Mishael quickly let his team recover from the adjustment and launched a counterattack.
Without the advantage of the shadows, Arabella's team quickly went down, leaving only three or so apart from her.
Arabella frowned at the sudden reversal of the situation, this is not what she had anticipated.
'Never mind, I'll be the one to kill them all…' She thought as she looked at her remaining men. It is easier for her to utilize her skills instead of sharing it to her team and so she decided to attack alone, no longer caring for the survival of her team.
One by one, she tried to kill off Mishael's men, however, she could only wound them lightly. The curse power seemed to also have no effect on them because of the presence of the cure potion in their bodies.
'Troublesome!' Arabella gritted her teeth and decided to change her strategy. 'I have no choice but to use my powers!'
This time she cast a spell completely awakening her shadow powers. With the augmentation of the curse power, her shadows seemed to become a monster of their own and quickly moved to immediately swallow the troops nearby.
However, the sinister curse power consumes a lot of life force, and Arabella could barely sustain the spell for more than a minute or it will completely be out of control.
'Gobble them up fast!' Arabella quickly controlled the shadow monster and ate up countless soldiers at once.
Mishael on the other hand quickly dashed towards Arabella to let the spell stop and save his men. With a dash of his sword, he laced it with the purest divine power and pointed it towards Arabella's way.
"Not today, Mr. Captain!" Arabella quickly dodged and narrowly avoided the attack. Quickly dividing her focus on controlling the shadow monster and battling against Mishael, she moved nimbly and parried the opponent's aggressive sword strikes.
Vrrr!!
Her ears buzzed at the sharp sound of the swords clashing each other. Her hand was also starting to shake as the blows given by Mishael were getting heavier.
'Divine power?' She realized as she observed that her sword showed signs of corrosion, the curse power remaining on her sword was quickly diminishing.
'Tsk!' Arabella clucked her tongue in disdain and immediately retreated to create a distance between them.
Then she controlled the shadow monster to stop gobbling up the opponents but start absorbing the life essence of the people it ate.
'Quickly absorb that energy and go with me and attack this monster of a captain!' She said to the shadows.
Meanwhile outside, Kazimir and Antoine were also having a hard time as they were completely outnumbered by the enemies.
"They were clearly familiar with the terrain and have readily integrated their troops in it!" Antoine could only comment on how the ambush turned up to be so tough.
They were communicating through a communication stone as they faced their own battles. Antoine and his troops were dealing with the troops on top of the gorge while Kazimir handled the troops who managed to infiltrate the camp.
"Curse the spy! We are clearly read by these people!" Kazimir could only spit his frustration out of his mouth as he was already feeling numb and sore from fighting with so many men.
With a troop of only a few hundred, how are they able to deal with a thousand and so enemies?
"How's Mishael's team?" Kazimir asked his brother who was in a position to oversee the entire situation as he was riding his flying beast while fighting the enemies from the air.
"The area was completely blocked by a pitch-black barrier, I do not know if this barrier is hostile or it was initiated on our side." Antoine could only report what he could see as it was impossible for him to figure out what really happened inside.
"We need him to succeed so that we can reverse our situation… For now, we must hold on and buy him some time." Antoine added.
"Alright, I'll let my troops move closer to his side so that we can also prohibit more troops from coming near to pressure Mishael's team." Kazimir decided as he finished slashing off the head of an opponent.
But before he could signal his men to quickly approach Mishael's side, Antoine's panicked voice immediately sounded in the communication stone.
"Wait, First Brother! Don't let your men come any near! Not good! The enemy is a curse user and is now absorbing the life force of our fallen men! Quickly retreat!" He shouted in panic.
When Kazimir heard this he instinctively turned his head and moved toward the direction of Mishael's battlefield.
There he saw the entire situation.
Only a few men were standing beside the vigilant-looking Mishael, while on the other side was someone he knew very well - Arabella, his cousin!
And with her was a strange-looking black monster that looked like a giant blob of ink. In the centermost part of its body was a faint glowing of purple light which was also quite familiar to Kazimir and Antoine.
This light is an indication that a curse user was starting to absorb his victim's life force while converting it into energy!
"Antoine! Quick! Send your men to pull out some curse potion bombs! Throw it against the monster! Once it has finished absorbing the life force, we are done for!" Kazimir shouted in panic.
His words also alerted the men around him and without him addressing the order directly, they also moved to take out the glass balls filled with cure potion to throw towards the shadow monster.
