"Slis?"
The Xirik cultists hid in the shadows of Coral Lane's buildings, watching the sli adventurers that had charged in with the adventurer squads, their eyes flickering.
But their targets were clear. They slipped past the front-line tal Sli, daggers tracing through drifting shadows, aiming to stab the elf companions behind it.
"Captain...?!"
The elf mage sensed a cold murderous intent from behind and cried out, only having ti to cast a shield on herself.
"Your opponent is Bem!"
Big Brother Sli's soft, buzzing voice rang in the attackers' minds.
The next mont, the round, supposedly slow tal Sli shot forward like a launched cannonball and slamd into the back of the cultist attempting the assassination.
Crack!!
The Xirik cultist felt like a solid tal ingot dropped from above had struck him squarely.
The trendous impact blacked his vision, his chest's blood and qi surged, and worst of all, his neck felt as if it had been torn—clearly broken.
He flew like a rag, smashed heavily onto the ground several ters away, twitched a few tis, and fell silent.
The other cultists' hearts froze. They tried to ambush the rear-line mages or priests, but human warriors and dwarf shieldguards who had expected this repelled them.
They prowled like wolves hidden in the alley's darkness, constantly shifting to seek a perfect opening.
However, with that small-seeming tal Sli blocking them, in such a narrow lane they absolutely could not use the flexibility and tactics of assassins.
Their glances t in the gloom, the cultists seeing the thoughts in one another's eyes; they had to admit they had underestimated these sli adventurers.
At the very least, this tal Sli's insane physical resistance, combined with a flexibility and combat instinct that did not match its round body, made finding an opening extrely difficult.
Besides, this sli seed to be the team's core.
After exchanging looks, a dozen figures moved at once, dodging the elf mage's occasional fireballs and ice spikes. Daggers beca cold streaks, leaving shadow trails as they all lunged at the tal Sli.
[Wounding Art]
These were physical, razor-sharp stabs combined with corrosive shadow energy. They believed the tal Sli, with almost no magic resistance, could not withstand such targeted attacks.
Hum!
What the cultists did not expect was that Big Brother Sli had once been the Sli Kingdom's mounted sli captain of the monster legions; he had followed His Majesty through almost every major war and been battle-tested.
He had faced barrage attacks from the Border Corps' mage squads and fought desperately against human cavalry charges, and he had overco those enemies.
And now was no different.
This was the confidence of the strongest Silver-rank sli besides Sli Majesty himself.
It did not even need to dodge.
Its round tallic body suddenly... burst into roaring flas across its surface, instantly engulfing the incoming cold blades and shadows.
The shadow energy fizzled and dissipated the mont it touched the low-temperature flas.
"How?!"
The Xirik cultists were horrified. Before they could figure out why that tal Liam—no, that tal sli—seed to command elental magic, the adventurer squads launched a fierce counterattack.
Hidden Xirik operatives erged from stealth; daggers traced hot, ruthless arcs, and one cut the neck of a Stone Descendant cultist without rcy.
Blood spurted!
The cultist couldn't even clutch his gushing neck in ti. Instinctively trying to slip back into the shadows, he was sent tumbling out by a Stone Descendant assassin's heavy petrified body.
Then a short blade drove him hard onto a nearby wall, pinning him.
As fellow shadow assassins, the Stone Descendants knew the strengths and weaknesses of shadow practitioners and even possessed petrification power to compensate for fragile physiques.
The Stone Descendant who charged into the assassins beca a berserker unafraid of injury, unleashing a massacre. To him, the Xirik cultists who relied on shadows and trickery were a joke.
anwhile, with human warriors and dwarf shieldguards firmly protecting the elf mage as she cast, Big Brother Sli had no reservations.
He no longer stayed put; he transford into a morning-star-like form and stord into enemy lines, engaging the shadow assassins in brutal close combat.
He used his body's excellent elasticity to bounce rapidly off alley walls and floors; every impact was heavy and crushing, leaving the cultists attempting to surround him flustered.
When fighting assassins head-on, he raised his small round shield to block incoming daggers, and like a seasoned warrior used his short sword to duel the Xirik cultists.
One cultist, relying on nimble footwork, tried to circle around and strike the side. Big Brother Sli remained calm, angling his round shield to deflect the dagger. His heavy tallic body suddenly side-butted like a battering ram into the cultist's chest.
The cultist grunted and flew back, slamming into the wall and sliding down, ribs perhaps broken.
Another cultist leapt down from an eave in shadow, dagger aid at Big Brother Sli's head. He didn't even look up. He slapped his short sword upward to catch the dagger, rolled his round body backward to dodge another incoming strike, then batted the attacker's ankle with his shield, making the assailant stumble.
Then he simply trampled over him.
These Xirik cultists, experts in ambushes and assassinations, had never t such a stubborn fighter and were beaten back step by step, becoming dismayed.
Their pride in shadow techniques seed pale and powerless in narrow alley combat against this unpredictable tal Sli.
Elsewhere, other adventurer squads confronted cultists trying to flee or resist. The Sli Mage waved a small staff, launching volley after volley of fireballs. Scorching flas ravaged the alley, forcing would-be shadow-hiders to scatter.
Under the pressure from the adventurer squads, the situation tilted decisively.
So local adventurer teams, who had rushed from Misty Bay Harbor's Adventurer's Guild expecting a fierce battle and prepared for casualties, arrived to help. But when they charged into Coral Lane and saw the scene, they awkwardly halted at the alley mouth, staring at each other.
Their grip on weapons loosened, tightened, loosened again—faces complicated. They half-thought they didn't need to intervene; these cultists might be cleaned up by those slis and their allies without their help.
On a higher eave, Nilly and the envoy nad Liam were in a chase.
Each ti Nilly erged from shadow and slashed her dagger with icy killing intent toward Liam, he managed by instinct to slip by and kept running without looking back, refusing to be pinned down.
"Don't run, co on, why don't we duel? Slash each other once, how about that?" Nilly shouted as she chased.
Liam kept fleeing full out, as if he hadn't heard her.
He had seen the petrification power of the Stone Descendants, a force that made any close attacker pay dearly. The shadows hiding behind the girl were unusual, like an abyss—impossible to fathom and seeming to devour his soul if he approached.
"Fine, I'll take a loss, let you stab an extra ti!" Nilly kept taunting.
Right after she said it, she saw Liam suddenly stop running and stand motionless, back turned to her, as if agreeing.
Before she closed the distance, the gel clone on his shoulder calmly wobbled and gelled out: "Just an illusion. He's behind you."
Nilly's eyes narrowed and her body squatted instinctively in an instant.
A cold blade shaved past her scalp, its edge catching the surprised look on Liam's face. He hadn't expected the girl not only to see through his shadow illusions but also to dodge in... that manner. Because of Nilly's small height, the trick actually worked.
By the ti Liam reacted, Nilly had already sprung up, dagger in both hands, driving the shadow blade into his heart.
Liam staggered backward repeatedly, but his face showed little pain. His gaze remained calm, and no blood flowed from the wound where the shadow dagger struck. The dagger seed to pierce into a dense darkness that quickly dissolved; the wound revealed only warped pitch-black.
This made the gel clone recall the Border Corps commander who had offered his soul to a demon and whose body had seed filled with strange matter.
Liam began chanting in a low voice: "Ancient hero spirits... please offer your strength to the New Sun..."
[Dark Art]
[Soul Summoning]
With his chant, a thick darkness suddenly spread from him. This darkness seed alive and began to swallow the surrounding holy light.
Light and dark clashed violently with a sound; the Holy Light formation's radiance dimd noticeably, constricted to a smaller area.
Within this dark-shrouded zone, shadows on the ground twisted and skeletons in tattered armor, holding rusted weapons, crawled slowly out of the gloom.
Their eye sockets burned with ghostly green flas; the shadows seed to cloak them, making their silhouettes flicker in obscurity.
"Silver-rank undead?!"
Silver undead in numbers—this was a terrifying force. Though they moved slowly, they forced the adventurers to retreat again and again.
Just as Kane said, the rchant Alliance council wasn't a solid whole and was inefficient. Even now, apart from so ordinary guards and warriors, no true Extraordinary professionals had arrived to handle what was clearly a cult-related danger.
"What a strange spell..." Nilly frowned as she continued pursuing Liam, unable to understand how he could wield such powerful magic.
Liam remained silent, still running, and tried to use the chaos from the undead to destroy key magic nodes that maintained the formation.
With the undead's help, the Xirik cultists finally caught their breath and reorganized. With the undead covering them, they turned to encircle several adventurer squads.
The adventurers had to fall back, back to back, forming a small defensive circle. The elf mage, pale-faced, asked, "Captain... what do we do?"
Big Brother Sli hopped forward, his little face resolute—just as in countless previous battles against powerful foes—he threw his round body between his teammates and danger without hesitation.
The sight, though small, brought comfort. He raised his short sword and, like a legion commander, spoke in a soft but firm voice: "All warriors... fall in!"
Under the bewildered gaze of the local adventurers, the Sli Warriors rose up, looking like death-defying fighters worthy of respect.
"Hahaha, we can't let a bunch of slis look down on us." The local warriors tightened their grips, preparing to join the fight.
Then they witnessed a strange scene.
The Sli Warriors following Big Brother Sli heaved, their round gel bodies swelling violently as ripples of unstable mana appeared across their surfaces and their colors began to shift.
[Gel Mimicry]
[Dragon Bloodline]
Under the adventurers' stunned eyes, their bodies stretched and reshaped like living clay—elongated necks, tallic-feel scales, unfolded mbranous wings, thick tails, even vague dragon head outlines.
Soon the dozen or so slis mimicked into tiny gel wyverns. They beat gel wings, emitting roars like young dragons, exuding faint Dragon's Aura, and charged into the undead horde, launching brutal slaughter.
Slis turning into dragons?!
A previously unseen sli variety, slis could beco dragons?
The adventurers were incredulous.
"Didn't expect this, did you? We even have Dragon Slis."
Elara stepped out from the shadows after killing a silver undead, smugly chin-up at the Xirik cultists.
Behind her, Leon and Max also erged among the undead.
Silver Dragon Slis fought very differently from ordinary slis. Though miniature, they were strong and extrely agile.
Their main attacks were sharp bites and slashes, or spraying gel acid to corrode enemies. Their scales had solid physical and magical resistance; the gel body absorbed blunt force and tearing well, quickly recovering even if hit by the undead's rusted weapons.
"Brothers, charge!" "Tear them apart."
With the Dragon Slis' aid, the adventurers quickly counterattacked, driving back the silver undead and reducing them to scattered piles of bone.
At the underground church's exit, commotion arose as Casimir finally led Sun Church followers charging out of the shadow portal.
"Praise Sli Majesty!" Casimir raised his arm and proclaid loudly.
"Praise the holy ssiah!" his followers chanted and prayed as they cast spells.
Once they joined the battle, the Xirik cultists were ultimately defeated—killed or captured.
Seeing this, Liam knew annihilation was inevitable and stopped running. He stood on an eave watching the cultists and undead being cleared below and the enemies closing in from all sides, and surprisingly raised both hands.
"Respected assassin lady, I surrender."
He knew full well that owing to so hidden connections between the church and certain council mbers, even if imprisoned he'd likely be released through "legal" ans soon.
However, the furious Sun Church followers cared nothing for that. Seeing Liam—the obvious heretical leader—try to surrender inflad their anger.
"In the na of Ignis, in the na of the ssiah, purify him!"
"Heretics are unforgivable!"
"Destroy him!"
Holy fire, sunfla beams—various sun god spells poured down like a storm, completely engulfing Liam on the eave.
Holy light consud that area; along with the remaining darkness and shadows around him, everything was purified cleanly.
When the light faded, the eave bore only a charred black mark and a few wisps of ash drifting in the wind.
Nilly spread her hands in mock regret, as if to say it wasn't her doing.
In truth, whether she had moved a finger or not, no one really knew.
The gel clone bounced and looked at Casimir, realizing that those who had glowed white with faith earlier were indeed Sun Church worshippers. He marveled at how Casimir had managed to preach to a contingent of Sun followers and actually recruit them.
No wonder he was a Bishop of the Great Sli Religion. The gel clone happily thought.
Counting carefully, the Great Sli Religion seed to have the scale of a small church now and had produced a cleric.
It suddenly realized the Great Sli Religion's prospects might actually be pretty good.
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