Clad rushed in as he swung his blade full of energy towards her. Liana barely dodged his attacks as she was surprised he was faster than she expected him to be, and leaped away from him, sending multiple wind projectiles his way as she went out of his reach.
!!!
Clad quickly took care of the incoming attacks by parrying them, surprising the woman even more.
"You're quite fast ill admit, probably slightly faster than that blind lightning swordsman."
"What was his name again, Drohas?"
"Well, not that it matters right now."
"Because I'll be tearing you apart!" Liana confidently said as she pointed her fan towards him.
"That is if you actually get a hit in," Clad replied with a smirk on his face, which irritated her. She dashed to him as she swung her fan in a sweeping motion, creating strong winds on impact and damaging the green garden. The two continued to exchange blows with each other. With Clad eventually landing a punch to her face, knocking her out on impact.
"Ah," she let out as she fell on the ground.
Thud!
As he was about to walk away from Liana, he couldn't help but notice something was off about her.
"Her energy is unusually inconsistent, especially for someone who is that good at combat."
"Its as if someone toyed with her from the inside..."
Clad opened her closed eyelids and saw something that couldn't be seen from afar. Her eyeballs were severely irritated by a foreign energy source, leaving a faint purple on her sclerae.
"Must have been the work of the rat king."
"If only I could do something about this..." Clad said as he sat next to her in a meditation position and closed his eyes, and was surprised by what he saw.
"What the hell?" He let out, having witnessed something he had never seen before. It was the woman, but she seemed different; she was light gray in color and had a piece of herself shattered as a long, purple rock came out of her back.
"This must be the source of this dark energy."
Clad didn't know how he could see her soul, and that he could repair it, but he felt like he could, so he gave it a try. He calmly put his hands on her back as she screamed in pain, echoing in the pitch-black void that the two were in.
Ugh!
Clad concentrated his energy on destroying the foreign object, but gradually felt his energy getting weaker and more insignificant, when suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder. Shocked, he turned around to see who it was. But he couldn't recognize what he was looking at as he couldn't describe a single thing he was witnessing; it looked humanoid in appearance, yet it didn't feel human at all. It felt like it was a being from above, similar to Mordaar but more unknown, he thought. But he could tell that the entity that had its hand on him was a woman, based on its body shape and the white dress it was wearing.
The entity let out a calm sigh before turning his head around to Liana's back without even touching his head. Surprising him even more was the fact that the dark stone was completely gone.
"Huh?" Clad said as his eyes suddenly opened. Confused by what happened, he wondered what the thing was that helped him, but couldn't think of a straight answer, so he thought of asking Mordaar about it when he met him again.
"I don't know what is going to happen to her when she wakes up, but I have something to do," he said as he got up and continued his way towards the castle.