He followed the straight pathway.

Soon after, the forest ended and the hallway started appearing. It was filled with lit candles on both walls.

After what felt like an eternity, Noy finally arrived at the end.

There stood tall two statues with spears in their hands guarding the door. It was taller than any mansion that he had previously seen. It closely resembled the spearmen or paladins that used spears.

"It doesn't look like it can talk."

Noy readied his dagger and slashed at it.

"UWAAAAAAAAH!!"

He couldn't pierce it. Its defense was too strong for him to break through.

Dust fell all over the place. Both statues started to move and respond to his attack. One moved sideways while the other one kept advancing towards Noy.

"What kind of monster is that?" Noy asked himself as the one statue attacked him from the front.

He sidestepped the spear attack and tried attacking from long range with his chained dagger.

It cleanly hit the statue but it didn't even leave a scratch, let alone damage it.

"Damn! These things are too tough."

Just then another statue that went sideways sliced downwards with its spear.

He instantly teleported a short distance backward keeping both statues in his front vision.

"I need to take care of one statue first. Fighting both of them at one will be tough."

"Mold Earth!"

The ground where both statues were standing started shaking up.

"Earth Shatter!"

The ground suddenly shattered like glass. Both the statues couldn't maintain their balance and fell to the ground. However, there was no damage done to it.

Noy double-jumped in the air and enhanced his chained dagger to stab at the statue's chest. It then propelled him toward the head of the fallen statue.

He retracted the chains and wrapped them around its neck.

"Umbra!"

The chains started glowing with light.

"DIEEE!"

He pulled the chains as hard.

"AGGHHHHH!"

The chains looked as if they would almost break but still, he strangled the statue with all his might.

Finally, a minute later, the head fell off the statue and rolled to the ground. It became lifeless and didn't move anymore.

Another statue was just getting up after falling.

It looked at the rolling statue's head and radiated a strong aura.

It seemed as if it was angry even though there was no distinct change in its facial structure.

The spear that it held became a little larger and tried stabbing at Noy.

He easily dodged it by double jumping into the air and then tried chaining its neck around like with the previous statue.

This time it grabbed the chain by its hand and threw it far away which also resulted in Noy getting thrown back. He crashed into the wall on his back and blood started flowing through his head and hands.

He fell to the ground with a strange sensation running through his body as the statue made a contact with him. It felt as if something was trying to steal his life force. It was almost as if he was being drained of energy.

"What is this thing?"

The statue's spear was glowing brightly. When the light shone upon Noy's body, it felt as though the monster was absorbing him.

"No way... this is... it’s absorbing my mana."

He fell on his knees huffing heavily. It was as if all his stamina was stolen away.

“It seems it also has the ability to steal mana by attacking. What do I do?”

“Even the Wind Slash doesn’t look like it can cut through the statue… My only option is to strangle it and cut its head off like how I did with the other statue..”

Cough Cough

The blood started coming out of his mouth.

“It has started becoming aware of his neck. I have to find a way…”

With a sudden surge of last adrenaline, he readied his resolve.

“It’s do or die now.”

Noy charged ahead with all his might.

The statue tried to stab at the Noy while he was running but he sidestepped it.

Then he launched his chained dagger and stabbed the stomach of the statue propelling him in the air.

It sliced the spear sideways towards the airborne Noy but he maneuvered around the incoming spear with his chained daggers. He alternated between his chained daggers simultaneously like a spider and dodged all the spear attacks.

He then flew higher aiming to strangle it.

“If I just go there, it will be able to grab my chains and I will get thrown around like last time... Just one thing to try this.”

He changed his direction from going upwards to sideways.

While he was maneuvering, he eventually wrapped around the hands of the statue.

The statue seemed confused that it couldn’t move its hands as it wanted anymore but as soon as it noticed what was going on, it was already too late.

Noy jumped up above the statue with his one chained dagger wrapped around the statue’s hands and body.

He double-jumped along with his other chained dagger wrapping around the neck of the statue in the process. After the neck was cleanly covered with the chains, he then stood at the back of the statue’s neck.

“Umbra!!!”

Both the chained daggers started glowing and he pulled them as hard as he can.

Aghhh

He put all his remaining stamina and strength into pulling them.

After a while, he fell down from the statue. As his consciousness started fading while he was falling, he saw the neck of the statue falling down.

“Hahah!” He became unconscious and plummeted to the ground.

***

Noy slowly opened his eyes.

“Looks like I have again become indebted to you.”

“This time you were the one who saved me. You have freed me from this prison.” Akriel replied.

Noy was back in the room where Akriel lived. There were no visible wounds on his body. Akriel had healed him when he was unconscious.

“Why haven’t you escaped already when the guardians are dead?”

“I cannot leave you without saying goodbye. Even though it was not official, you were still kind of like my disciple. So, I wanted to give you one last gift before we parted ways.”

Akriel held his finger out to the forehead of Noy.

Noy felt something strange enter his body.

“What did you do?”

“When it’s the right time, it will show itself.”

Noy didn’t ask any more questions as it seemed like Akriel was in a hurry.

“Let’s go out now.” Akriel said with a smile.

They both made their way out.

There were still parts of the statue on the ground left as it was. They opened the door slowly.

The beautiful scenery of the blue sky that they hadn’t seen for several years and the wind gusts passing through greeted them.

"It's time for us to go our separate ways now. With the way this world has been operating, I am sure we will meet again in the future."

"Yes! Let's meet again Master."

Noy politely bowed before Akriel banished somewhere like the dust blowing away in the wind.

"Time for that bastard emperor to die!!!"

He had a devilish grin on his face and went to the pathway that lay ahead.