Epiphany Of The Weak 134 Ava And Leon Kosmos

The moment that Aegis User looked at me, his head was chopped off by my elongated scythe. It shot upwards into the air. As a result, blood sprayed on the graphite before his body crashed down as well.

"Aaaaah!"

The few people around him went into a panic state. They tried to run away when Hope and the others arrived.

"Ava, that guy--"

"He's an Aegis User!" I said to Hope.

"His name is Liam," said Lily. "A User in the same group as Reinhart."

Liam's body stood on his own two feet; his head regenerating. I didn't expect him to do anything next, but, it turned out I was wrong. Despite being headless, he formed red Aegis crystals on his arms.

"Get away from there!" Hope yelled at the few civilians that refused to move away from Liam's headless body. Upon hearing Hope's voice, they ran to his side after that before he shielded everyone from Liam's wide slash.

Hope's golden shield glowed after Liam's blade bounced off it. However, something happened to that blade a moment later. Slowly, Liam's Aegis blade changed its color to pink. I thought he wanted to try using his specialty of some sort.

Lily stood in front of everyone in her Full Aegis Form, expecting Liam to use his specialty against us.

But what happened instead was him regenerating his head completely as his crystals turned back to red. He then clicked his tongue and took a few steps away.

"Tsk. Lutalo Aegis Squad is here, huh."

Liam turned their back against us and ran away.

"I'm not going to let you!"

I formed dual, white blades from my arms and went after him along with Lily. She jumped up high and landed near Liam in order to allow her pink crystals to burst forth. The crystals proceeded to block Liam's escape route up ahead.

"Oh, come on!" When he looked over his shoulder, white flames slammed against his body.

"AAAAARGHH!"

My dual white blades spewed more of its flames onto Liam. After some time, there was only a dark corpse in front of me. Still, he was regenerating, and I didn't want to kill him anyway. I did just enough to render him immobile.

"A . . . Ava," said Liam weakly.

"Hm?"

Red Aegis crystals suddenly sprouted out from his whole body, attempting to strike at Lily and me.

"Ava!"

Lily hugged me and took the blow of the attack. Of course, she wasn't harmed as her Full Aegis Form nullified Liam's Aegis crystals. When both of us looked back at him, he had disappeared.

"What the . . . Where did he go?" I said.

"Aaaaaah!"

I turned around and found a guy among the civilians was screaming in pain. His blue eyes shed blood somehow. Fortunately, Gray was there with us to provide checkup and such. He also checked the other civilians along with Jennifer and Hope.

In the end, that blonde man who shed tears of blood was a.s.sured by Gray.

"He's fine for now. High blood pressure caused a blood vessel in his eye to pop. It's a relatively small one," said Gray.

"Thank you," said the blonde man. From how I saw it, he seemed to be in his 20s.

"Just don't move your eyes too much, you know what I mean?"

After Gray said that, Hope talked to that blonde man for a few minutes. Then, the man turned to the rest of us.

"Thank you for saving us," he said. The other few civilians that were at his side nodded.

"Where did you guys come from?" asked Beatrice.

"We ran away from the city and that strange guy found us. He wants to go inside that city."

Hope and I looked at each other.

"What city?" I asked.

"The underground city under Saratov. We ran away from there. The People's Light is also in that city."

"Underground city?" Jennifer muttered. "Hmm, that explains why Klaus said that The People's Light is hiding underground."

"Why have I never heard of an underground city before?" I asked Hope.

"Ah, it's kind of like an escape bunker in case anything happened to Russia. The whole world knows about it, but no one other than the Russians can actually make use of such a thing. If it is indeed true, which you can probably tell it is, a bunker is a bunker. Just that it is underground and took the form of a city, I guess. Though, I'm sure foreign spies have information about the underground cities already."

I nodded a few times.

"So there's more than one underground city, spread throughout Russia," said Beatrice.

"Yup," said Hope. He then focused his attention on the blonde civilian. "Why did you guys ran away?"

"They tried to kill us! Evgeny and Jessie have gone crazy!" said the blonde man. His body was shaking as he continued to mumble about the same thing over and over.

"The leader of The People's Light?" said Beatrice.

Hope nodded at her. "Also, the C.U's push a year ago against The People's Light could've revealed a few other underground cities as well. That Aegis User who managed to escape should be an indication that the C.U forces are somewhere nearby."

Lily tapped at Hope's shoulder a few time to draw his attention. "Hope, we should contact Klaus regarding these civilians. Questioning can come later."

"Yeah, you're right." He then looked at Beatrice. "Let me borrow your Hologram Bracelet."

"Alright." She went closer to him. The gold bracelet she wore projected Klaus's image after she pressed a rectangular b.u.t.ton on top of it. The hologram displayed was in blue light.

Lily and Hope told Klaus what had happened, and he suggested that we should bring the civilians back to the airships. The civilians agreed without a question, presumably because they didn't want to go back to that underground city. We all agreed and went back to the forest after that.

"I didn't feel it until now, but it's coooold," I said to Hope.

"Well, we are in Russia."

The medical staffs took care of the civilians while our own search group hung out near the Teria airships. The blonde guy from before approached us.

"I can bring you guys to the underground city. I'm sure you are searching for it, right?" he said.

"Huh? How do you know we came here to find that city?" I said.

He took a deep breath before answering. "Your uniform. You guys are the famous Lutalo Aegis Squad, right? Everyone knows about Lutalo. You people helped quite a lot of rebel groups all around the globe for the past year."

I nodded.

"And since you guys are in Russia, I'm sure your objective must be The People's Light since it's a rebel group too," he continued.

"Hmm." I put a hand at my chin.

"Can I? I'll be more than willing to help."

"Before that, what's your name, Mister?" I asked.

"Ah . . . My name is Leon. Leon Kosmos."

"Leon Kosmos," repeated Hope, who was just beside me. "A unique name."

"Thank you."

Lily coughed. "I don't mind having him in the group. He will point us to the entrance. It's not like we have any lead right now."

Our search group agreed about having Leon being our navigator.

"Ava," said Aegis in my head.

"Yeah?"

"It's . . ."

My Aegis told me what it wanted to say, and I was surprised. I confirmed the information it had conveyed to me a few more times. "It's true, Ava. Be careful."

"Alright," I nodded weakly.

"Ava, its time," said Hope, waving at me from a dozen feet up ahead. The rest of the group were waiting for me, along with Leon.

"Wait, Ava!"

Klaus quickly ran to my side. "I just contacted Caesar's group. They will follow your coordinates once you reach the entrance."

"Ah, okay."

Klaus then whispered in my ear. "That Leon . . . I just have to not make any ruckus here with all the crews in the airships. It might take a turn for the worse."

"Yeah. I'll keep an eye out for Leon. I'm sure Hope is thinking the same thing too."

"Be careful, Ava," said Klaus.

"Alright. Take good care of those civilians."

"Will do."

Our search group once again walked into the city of Saratov, guided by Leon to the underground city's entrance. While we were walking, Beatrice glanced at Leon a few times before she posed a question.

"Where is this entrance anyway?" she asked.

"In a warehouse not far from here. There's a small door that will lead us underground," replied Leon.

"What exactly happened in that underground city?" prompted Beatrice.

Leon's face darkened. "The leaders of The People's Light . . . Evgeny, and Jessie . . . They force the civilians that took refuge in there to be killed one by one. Those rebels are killing innocent people because the city had run out of supplies as we speak."

"What?!" I exclaimed.

Jennifer shook her head and pointed at Leon with her right index finger. "Why don't they go out and find some supplies? I mean--" She covered her mouth immediately. "The C.U . . ."

Leon nodded. "The military forces are everywhere. They might just be around the outskirts of Saratov right now, who knows. They are trying to find The People's Light, so, there is only so much supply they can bring back from the surface."

"Also, there is a chance that the rebels will accidentally reveal their position if they ever do more than that," said Hope.

I rubbed my hands together and blew at it. It was indeed cold, much more than Canada. Though, it could be due to the season.

"Those rebels are foolish. Killing civilians just to save themselves shows what humans are willing to do in times of desperation," I mumbled.

Hope smiled at me. "A rebel group is still a rebel group. Compared to the more organized and advanced C.U and its military forces. Then Amathelia comes in and ruins it. The C.U's chain of command is already hectic and there exists friction between the high-ranking officers back then. Amathelia's rule only makes it worse with her aggressively using the Anciles."

"Then, there's the military coup, going stronger and stronger as time pa.s.ses," said Beatrice.

"Um, Beatrice. Don't take what I said about rebels being rebels at heart. I was merely referring to The People's Light."

"No, it's fine, Hope . . . Thank you."

Hope frowned.

Lily walked closer to him and said what she had in mind. "Kian must be very powerful to force The People's Light into hiding."

"The Four Pillars are absurdly powerful to begin with," I said with a pout. "Besides, I'm sure the military coup is fighting the C.U's forces in Russia somewhere right now."

"Yeah. The Pillars have those forces as their support," agreed Lily.

It didn't seem that long since we departed, and the warehouse that Leon spoke of slowly came into view. It was just like the one back at Mansel Island.

"Alright, here we are," said Leon.