Iridescent Spirit - Chapter 50 Conflict In Rukptens Auction

BOOOOM!

With a resounding explosion, the auditorium’s ceiling began to cave in. The walls vibrated as rubble fell onto the stage. Despite that, since there were several sorcerers in the gallery, the ceiling was quickly stabilized and a barrier protected the audience.

In that slight second of inattention, Kavras Nightfall’s brain had vanished into thin air.

However, unlike the audience, several figures watched the stage from the start to finish.

BOOOOM!

Soon, another explosion occurred on the right side of the dome, then the left. Crowds of various guests panicked and ran to the exits to flee while some remained seated.

“Calm down!” A man in a knight’s armor roared like a lion. Mana carried his voice throughout the auditorium. Instead of pacifying, most ordinary guests fainted. Luckily, Philip assumed this would happen after seeing that familiar knight and distributed earplugs to the children beforehand.

“Leon! You fool!” Philip muttered as he stood.

“We found them, let’s go!” Jae signaled within the ruckus.

The others nodded as they slipped through the crowd and split up into two groups. The groups raced towards opposite directions.

With one door to the outside behind them and one in the backstage, there were only two places for the thieves to escape from.

——-

A few hours before the last three items were to be presented, four figures wandered around the premises of the auction’s dome.

“Wendy, have you found them?” Melody asked while her mist masked the four figure’s appearance.

“Little rat~, little cat~, where is the weird person~?” Wendy crouched down to a group of pests. A multitude of glittering eyes glanced at her as if they were communicating with the cervitaur.

Squeak. Meow. Reee. Squeak.

“Yes~, over there~?” Wendy turned toward Layla and told her the coordinates of three figures.

“Wow, you can talk to animals?” Lucy Holman, the disciple of the Church of Unity, crouched near Wendy.

“Yes~,” she replied without thinking.

“Could you figure out the location of something like this?” Lucy withdrew a piece of paper with a pencil-drawn image.

Wendy nodded, “I can try~.”

“I doubt that animals could find the criminals we’re looking for, but if we like can find the traps they placed around the dome, we could find some clues or something,” Lucy stated.

“Hello~, little mouse~, can you see this?” Wendy pointed to the paper, “Could you find something that looks like it~?”

Squeak!

Speaking words that only Wendy could understand, the mouse replied, “Easy peasy, woman. Make sure to pay me in food.”

“Alright~,” she rushed the critters away.

While Wendy was ordering the street animals, Melody observed the surroundings. The citizens of Rukpten were malnourished and unkempt. With their exhausted bodies, they cleaned up their stalls in preparation for the visitors to stop by after the auction.

“Layla, Wendy, let’s go,” Melody noticed that two of the stall owners had disappeared. One seemed to walk into the alleyways while the other advanced to the auction’s location.

On the way, Layla stationed herself on the roof of one of the nearby buildings. Wendy, Melody, and Lucy traveled to the location that the mice had relayed to Wendy after a while.

“Here’s one,” Melody glanced at the talisman stuck onto the dome’s walls. The encrypted words were filled with sinister mana that caused the magic item in Lucy’s hand to react.

Next to the talisman was a time bomb, which had twelve minutes left.

“F***,” Lucy cursed, “I could deal with the talisman with my magic, but a bomb made by the dwarves can’t be easily tinkered with nor can I physically remove it. If I did try, it’d explode.”

“Watch out!” Nora shouted from Wendy’s sack. Since she could see mana in the air, the slime detected a malevolent presence.

Arms constructed from dirt emerged from the ground and clenched onto Lucy and Melody’s legs. On the other hand, Wendy nimbly stepped away from the clay hands.

“What’s this? Impossible! My magic should have grabbed your feet, but they fazed through,” a man with an opossum skull mask appeared to face them. Waving his hand, he chanted several lines from the grimoire he held.

Without waiting for the man to finish, Lucy pulled a meter long pole from in between her breasts and freed herself from the hands. Melody blew on her palm as a mist created from mana diffused into the air. From the mist emerged an illusionary dragon that charged at the opossum masked man.

Opening its fangs it bit into nothing as the man dodged. Finishing his chant, clay golems rose from the floor to fight against the group.

Channeling her mana, she created a barrier of light over her pole and thrust into the golems. Melody recognized the action as weapon enforcement, which any being could do.

“Wendy!” Melody called out as the cervitaur circled around the golems to pick the fairy up. On Wendy’s back, Melody seemed as if she were floating since her illusions were still masking their nonhuman features.

Moving away from direct conflict, Melody created more flashy illusion such as wolves and griffons.

After a second, the masked man noticed that those were simply illusions. The mist passed through him as he ignored the incoming illusions.

Lucy reinforced a rock with her mana and chucked it at the man. While he avoided the rock, a dog pounced from the side of his head. Knowing it was an illusion, he stood and began another chant.

Suddenly, from the dog, an arrow shot through the man’s head. And, he never finished the spell.

“Nice, Layla,” Melody made a thumbs up as Wendy continued to run around the golems.

“Why isn’t the magic undone?” Melody frowned as more golems approached. Her illusions could not fool inorganic beings like golems.

“Letum’s magic requires a price to pay and in return, it’s more permanent,” Lucy replied as she destroyed more dirt bodies.

Two shadows with dead animal masks approached the scene as they wondered what happened to their companion.

A figure with a bear mask slashed at Wendy with a metal claw. From behind the man was a woman in a parrot mask. She waved her staff as pitch black tendrils flowed out. The tentacles tangled around Wendy’s body, leaving her immobile to the bear mask’s blitz.

“Wendy!” Melody cried out. She gathered her mist to release a dragon at the bear mask. Since the bear had seen the fight from earlier, he knew that Melody was simply using an illusion.

Blocking an arrow that shot toward his head with one claw, he used the other to slash at Wendy.

A metal pole stopped the claw and propelled the man away. Lucy’s mana strengthening was far more superior than the man’s.

Withdrawing three rings from her chest, she threw one at the parrot mask. The woman created a wall of black shadows to block against the ring.

However, the ring flashed a golden light and cut through the wall. Like a handcuff, the ring wrapped around and secured the woman.

Disregarding his companion, the bear mask bolted toward Lucy. They began to exchange blows without allowing Layla to aim her arrows properly.

“Aim at me!” Lucy yelled.

Without hesitation, Layla listened to the churches’ servant and shot an arrow directly at her chest. Directing her mana into the area in front of her, a semi-transparent golden barrier redirected the arrow into the man’s thigh.

Using this opportunity, Lucy plunged her pole into the man’s abdomen. While he was incapacitated, she flung another ring at the man and trapped him.

“Disarm the bombs or else!” Lucy demanded.

“It’s too late!” The parrot lady shrieked.

“Get down!” Melody yelled as Wendy freed herself from the parrot mask’s bindings.

Wendy carried Melody and ran while Lucy followed.

BOOOOM!

They toppled over as the debris from the explosion passed them.

——-

Jade, Clara, Scarlett, and Natalie dashed through the masses. After the explosions, they had identified a group of conspicuous bony animal-masked men. Because of the knight named Leon’s shout, most guests had collapsed, causing the masked men to be easily identified by the children.

Scarlett charged at an elk masked figure. She propelled herself using her robust tail and swung her fist at the opponent. In return, the elk mask was caught off guard as his body was slammed into the air.

The three who were next to the elk mask formed their stances and prepared to fight the attacker.

With her spear, Jade lunged at the nearest cultist. The cultist snatched a talisman from his pocket and launched it in front of him.

A barrier of black mana similar to that of the parrot mask’s obstructed Jade’s assault. Jade pulled at her spear once before determining that the weapon was stuck within the sticky barrier and decided to abandon it.

BOOOOM!

Like a stroke of fortune for the enemies, an explosion occurred from the wall next to them. The dust and rock intercepted between the two groups as the masked group took this chance to run away.

“Oh no you don’t,” Natalie muttered coherently. Waving her finger, blobs of paint slapped onto the backs of the figures, staining the group’s clothing without them noticing.

“Let us chase after them,” Jade ordered.

The four children pursued the masked cultists through the chaos. With Natalie’s paint on them, she could trace their location.

It was time for them to hunt the cultists down one by one.
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