Alex's POV:
"*Sigh* Fuck!" I grumbled depressingly.
After I lost the fight with that immortal bastard, I was unfortunate enough to be captured alive. I say unfortunate because unlike before, when I was sent to prison for laughing at the-.
"Pft!"
Anyways, unlike last time, when they didn't know who I was, I don't know if I'll be able to escape. With my identity as a pseudo-arch magician being revealed, the difficulty level has now increased. Anti-magic countermeasures have now been put in place, I've been placed in an aura-suppressing straitjacket spirit artifact that limits my aura abilities, and the special holding cell I am currently locked inside is under constant surveillance. Now, as the disciple of possibly the world's best escape artist, I could probably manage something with enough time, but there are two big problems. First of all, I'm currently stuck in a hostage stand-off.
After we were captured, they were going to execute my two juniors, but fortunately before being captured, I had managed to infect the only immortal of this nation with my plague curse which has spread to many of the soldiers in the palace. Though this straitjacket weakens my abilities, it's not powerful enough to completely suppress my aura, and even if it was, it only interferes with my ability to use aura, but it does nothing about the curse plague that has already been unleashed. Because of this, I managed to negotiate for them to be spared for the time being in exchange for slowing the progression of my aura curse. Otherwise, they might have lost their only immortal by now. We are still negotiating the matter, or rather, they are trying to force me into lifting my aura curse through torture, but.
*cough**Cough*
*Thud*
"Tsk! Another one! You do realize the more you kill, the worse your sentence will be, right?" Said that smug asshole inquisitor hiding behind the reinforced door of my cell while watching his buddy die through the peep hole.
Even with my hands bound, and my magic restricted, I can still infect them with plague fire if they get too close, which makes torture kind of tricky. And as for the other reason why I haven't escaped yet.
"Ugh! My fuckin legs still hurt!"
I had lost my legs when I got captured, so even if I did escape my cell, it would make it difficult to run anywhere. Even if I took out the guards right outside my cell before they had the chance to call for help, based on the footsteps I hear from outside, they've organized it so that the guards are swapped every ten minutes, meaning that once I got out of the cell, I would have about ten to twenty minutes before getting discovered, depending on whether or not I can silence the new guards in time. Considering I'll need to somehow rescue my juniors as well before sneaking out of the palace, that is not a lot of time to work with, even if I still had my legs.
"Fuck! Of all the times not to have my uncle around! Why couldn't they have just killed me instead?"
If my uncle was here, he might have been of some help. Heck, if he had been here, I wouldn't have lost my legs like that. As obnoxious and annoying as he can be, he is almost as perceptive as my master and his spirit magic is very convenient. If he had been there to warn me of traps, I wouldn't have lost my legs, and he'd have been able to run some interference to weaken the power of that guy's attacks while lowering the energy wastage of my spells.
"That's not important right now! Focus on what you can do with what you have, and leave reflecting on what you didn't for later!" I said, repeating some old words of wisdom given by my master back before she started acting like my uncle.
I don't know how much time I have until shit hits the fan, so I need to come up with a plan before it does. The current hostage-stalemate I am in only bought me some time, but it will not last forever, but more importantly, if I don't get out of here soon, I'll fail master's test.
My master practiced and mastered the art of torture in the world of demons, back before it became the civilized society it is today. It was a land where torture, murder, and mayhem were the norm, a place where skinning someone alive would be considered a cute gesture or as some sort of S and M game. Even in such a place, the torture methods she developed and the atrocities she committed were so horrific, so vile, many still don't dare say her name to this day, and speaking from experience, she will not hesitate to inflict the same atrocities on to her own disciples as a form of punishment.
Normally by now, master would have ended this test of hers and given us all a failing score with a penalty that would have us all praying for death by the end. The fact that she hasn't means there is either still a way out of this I am just not seeing, or she is currently not observing us. Either way, I need to hurry and make a move before it is too late.
"Hm? Hey, do you guys see tha-!"
*Thud**Thud**Thud**Clang*
*Thud**Thud**Thud**Clang*
Suddenly, from outside the metal box I had been locked in, I could hear something strange. It sounded similar to a bunch of arrows flying through the room, but slightly different, followed by the sounds of the guards collapsing. However, even though they were all down, I could still hear the sounds of something flying around the room and banging against the containment cell I was in.
"Whose out there?"
*Clang*
"Shinji? Kenji? Aiko?" I asked, hopefully.
*Clang*
"Uncle? Or maybe, are you a rescue team from the dark empire?" I asked, a little less enthusiastic as the former would mean I'd be hearing some condescending words for the next couple of weeks and the latter would mean owing one of my colleagues a favor.
*Clang**Crack*
"…! *Sigh* Maste-!"
*Bang**Thud**Swoosh*
"Whoa! What the-! Shit!" I said, as I swayed my body to the side to evade the glowing purple string that suddenly came shooting through the wall towards my face.
Unfortunately, right after the string hit the wall where my head had been, it changed directions and once more bolted towards me, who was trying to crawl away like a worm due to a lack of legs and my hands being restrained. Seeing I wasn't going to be able to dodge this, I reflexively use my aura, strengthening my body while at the same time covering myself in plague fire.
*Sizzle*
"Huh? Wait, what?" I muttered in confusion as I saw the string being burned by my plague fire.
My aura fire doesn't generate any heat like a normal fire does, nor does it offer any sort of protection from regular projectiles as its only real power is to inflict disease-like curses. It offers little to no resistance when something collides with it, most things will just pass right through it, unless.
"It's a metaphysical construct, like my aura fire!"
The only reason why something might be prevented from passing through it like this would be if it was a soul construct similar to 3rd stage aura.
*Swoosh**Swoosh**Swoosh**Sizzle*
"Damn! This isn't the time to think about this!" I said, as more strings came piercing through the walls.
*Tear*
I then used my 1st stage aura to tear open the straitjacket limiting my aura control, so I could better defend myself as I crawled towards the exit. Even if my plague fire can keep me safe for a bit, if enough of these strings came flying at me all at once, it could create an opening in my defenses. As my aura can also be pushed back by clashing with another person's aura, the longer this goes on, the more danger I'll be in. Which is why I hurried to pick the lock of the door in front of me.
*Click*
"Finally! Now let's see how you like me now that, I'm."
My words trailed off as I saw what was lurking behind that door. Aura users tend to have a limited range at which they can effectively control and manifest their aura, with a few exceptions like my boss and master who can cover entire cities in flames with ease. So, I had assumed that whoever was attacking me was going to be right outside the room, but instead, I saw a ton of purple string flittering in the air or pierced into the dried husks on the floor that probably used to be the guards.
"Any chance we could talk this out?" I asked, as I saw all the threads turning towards me.
*SWOOSH*
"Yeah, I didn't think so." I said, as I engulfed the room in plague fire.
As my plague fire was slowly pierced by a thick, wavy strand of purple threads, I finally finished preparing my teleportation spell.
*Sizzle*
*Pop*
"Gha! Shit, I must have made a mistake somewhere!" I said, as I grabbed at the pain in my side caused by rushing my teleport spell.
Hoping I hadn't just accidentally rearranged or fused my organs together, I took a look around. I had successfully teleported to the plaza right outside the dungeon entrance where the others were being kept. Because they wanted to separate me from the other three to prevent us from working together, I had gotten the royalty treatment and gotten a whole building to myself. Though, in part, I was a little worried that it might have been to hide that they had already killed my juniors from me despite the agreement we made, but those worries were soon pushed to the back of my head as I saw the state of my surroundings.
"Oh, come on! This is so unfair!" I complained as I saw there were even more strings flittering around the plaza than there was in my room.
The whole plaza was swarming with purple string while dried corpses were littering the grounds. On the bright side, it would seem they hadn't managed to break through the prison gates just yet, though judging by the dents in the door, that would only be a matter of time.
*Swoosh**Swish*Sizzle*
As the strings began shooting towards me, I pulled out my necrosis scythe, safely stored inside my soul where it can't be confiscated, and proceeded to cut the various strings shooting towards me. As spirit and soul weapons hold spiritual properties within them, they too can interfere with aura constructs. Of course, when used in tandem with a compatible aura like the necrosis scythe is with my plague fire, rather than interfering, the power can be amplified.
*Swish**Sizzle*
"There! Cleared a path! Now, I just need to get over there, open the door and get inside!" I said, after sending a green fire slash towards the dungeon gates, creating a nice and safe disease-ridden pathway for me to take.
I then tried casting wind spells at my feet to propel myself through the air as I normally do when I fly, but…
"AAHAAHA!"
*Crash*
Unfortunately, I forgot to account my current lack of legs. My weight loss resulted in an increase in speed, and the weight distribution was a little off causing me to lose some control. I ended up scraping against the ground while hurdling face first into the dungeon gate at an uncontrollable speed.
*BANG*
If not for my body currently being reinforced with aura, I would have likely been turned into a red stain on those doors. Instead, I ended up knocking the metal doors down, leaving my facial imprint and some of my teeth inside it.
"Ugh! Whoa! Shit!"
*Thud*
Dizzy, and most definitely concussed, I stumbled, or I guess, dazedly crawled my way into the dungeon since I don't have legs, as I began looking for my juniors.
"WHO THE HELL ARE-! SHIT, IT'S THE MA-!*Thud*" The guard guy said as he suddenly had a purple string in his foreheat.
*Sizzle*
I then watched smoke come out of the entry point in his skull as he was drained of everything, and turned into a pile of dry skin and bones in armor.
"Welp, that's not! *Bleurgh* And that's probably a bad sign!" I said, vomiting a mouthful of blood as a torrent of purple strings had come shooting through the doorway.
Apparently, the strings had gotten through the plague firewall quicker than I thought, and even more unfortunate, the sturdy metal doors that would have bought me some more time had been torn of its hinges.
*Sizzle*
"Okay, let's do this!" I said, gripping my necrosis scythe as blood ran down my nose and the purple mosquito strings trying to suck me dry were increasing by the hundreds.
*Swish**Sizzle*
Swinging my necrosis scythe, I put up another fire wall at the doorway, before I continued to dizzily crawl down the hallway, blood running out of my nose and eyes.
"AAH! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT!"
"IT'S A GHOST! RUN!"
*Thud*
Fortunately, for some reason the guards I expected to fight along the way took one look in my direction, went pale in the face and ran away, or were stung by the purple strings who managed to break past my latest firewall.
"Th-there you *Cough* are!" I said, coughing up a mouthful of blood as I finally found the cell of one of my juniors.
"AAAAH! I KNEW THIS PLACE WAS HAUNTED! STAY BACK!"
I'm not sure if it is the concussion, the blood loss or whatever is happening with my organs, but for some reason Kenji didn't seem very happy to see me as I poked my head into his cell.