Wicked Reincarnation

Some time prior when they just got to the plaza and the battlefield just began, Noel faced the assistant.

"I can't believe you're here to take back your power, that's wishful thinking."

"Why?" actually Noel knew, even if he took the assistant's lifeforce and copied his ability he'd only get to copy the illusion power of the assistant.

His true power. Since he stole Noel's power with someone else's power it wasn't the assistant's power, so Noel couldn't copy it.

"Because it's impossible."

"Ha," Noel smirked, "Even so I can't let an ass like you take it."

The assistant remained unfazed by the provocation.

"I'm just telling you," he shrugged his shoulders and formed a power orb.

Seeing Xavi's power in that guy's possession made Noel's blood boil. The good thing Noel quickly noticed was that the assistant's power and control over Noel's power was only half as good.

Meaning that from the original power almost nothing was left. The only advantage the assistant had was the variety of abilities he possessed but that only amounted to nothing because Noel already knew all of the abilities, so he couldn't get surprised. Noel's assumptions were confirmed by how easy Noel could swat the power orb away with his sword.

"Why even bother stealing other's powers? You that unconfident in yours?" Noel was curious but of course, the assistant didn't give Noel a proper answer, "You's like to know."

"Actually, yes I do," Noel dodged a few more power orbs.

The roaring of the battlefield made his movements seem even more dramatic.

"Don't you know you can't even use ¼ of the original powers?"

"Haha!" the assistant laughed and summoned a sword, "Does it matter? The more abilities I have, the more viable I become!"

The assistant coated the sword in electricity. However compared to Timo's, the blue sparks on the assistant's sword just looked incredibly pitiful, however, it didn't change the fact that they still burnt and hurt viciously.

Seeing that, Noel jumped a few steps back and wore a wry smile, "Believing that is stupid."

"We'll see!" the assistant raised his sword and cut through the air.

Noel was actually impressed seeing that the blue sparks turned to streaks yearning to burn him. He quickly deflected and jumped to the sides.

The energy raced past Noel and hit a soldier right in the chest. Only this small amount could make the soldier collapse and writhe in pain. Noel shuddered. How insane would Timo's power be?

Noel definitely didn't want to fight Timo and had to be careful of this attack. The assistant was also surprised. He knew he could only copy a small portion but that damned commander was actually this strong. No wonder Min favoured and trusted Timo so much.

Having tasted the power he possessed, the assistant started to ferociously attack Noel. He never imagined to become a captain especially without experience and fighting skills. It was only thanks to Min's urgency to fill the ranks and the assistant obtaining this copy ability of Noel.

All in all, the assistant was just lucky. That was why the assistant had no clue of fighting and just blindly attacked Noel to the best he could.

Noel instantly caught on. In terms of fighting, Noel had more experience thus it wasn't hard for Noel to find out the assistant's clumsiness and his weakness.

With the abilities Noel has gained from Lu, Holn and Skyla, sadly not Yano's, he was able to quickly corner the assistant. It was a battle of bringing out the skills one after another one.

"Why?" the assistant landed on the ground and crawled away from Noel. In terms of controlling the various abilities, the assistant definitely had more time to get used to them and learn while Noel only had an hour or so.

But since Noel was able to learn from the original owners personally, he was able to grasp the powers to a better extent than the assistant.

The fight was fairly short and just when Noah was about to finish off the assistant he saw Holn and Lia flashing past the plaza and making it past the gate.

Reassured Noel turned back to the assistant who desperately held his hand up, "Wait! Wait! I can give you important intel! You'll find me useful!"

"Really?" Noel stopped his momentum and thought. The relief spread on the assistant's face before it was destroyed by blunt fear, "Sadly I'm too uneducated to make use of intel, so tell them the devil personally-"

SPLAT

The assistant's head rolled off.

Just like how Noel killed Kil, he finished the assistant off the same way. The assistant seemed to have mumbled something in his final moments but Noel couldn't care less. His eyes swept across the plaza as he got rid of the ghosts surrounding him.

Then all of a sudden an influx of ghosts appeared. A type that Noel has never seen before.

"Kyahhh!" a scream of someone familiar. While Noel kept the ghosts away from him, he walked into the direction of the voice.

Then he saw Lily struggling. Their eyes met, "Noel! Lend me a hand!"

Noel could see how badly injured Lily was and ran to her aid. It didn't take too long for the growth of the ghosts to go down but still many floated around, so Noel and Lily got together to fight them off with Lia's corpses helping them.

But the fight against the soldiers and ghosts drew them closer and closer to the beginning of the plaza and away from the palace.

***

"Lia go!" Holn stood in front of Lia and white flames danced in his hands as they faced Sal. The flower petals that surround his body didn't fit the crazed look on his face.

Contrary to the first time they saw Sal, he seemed to have become a completely different person. None of the indifference and arrogance remained, there was only thirst to prove himself.

"It's better if we fight-"

"No," Holn resolutely said, "You'll only be wasting time. If we get the Ghost King then all of this can be over soon. So focus on that."

Holn was right. Holn wasn't weak, Lia knew that so she should believe in him more.

"Ok, be careful."

"Ahaha, don't worry. If you manage to find it, I'll tell you some good stories," Holn laughed as he charged at Sal who exclaimed, "Insolence! I bet you youngsters are younger and weaker than me. So show me respect!"

The irony in his words Sal didn't notice. He was too focused on getting rid of every enemy so he'd never have to face Min's wrath again. In his life, Sal has never met anything scarier than the Ghost King.

So, Sal didn't even register that Lia turned on her heels and ran away. He was too absorbed in Holn. Once Holn's white fire touched Sal's skin, Sal screamed in pain. This bizarre flame was actually burning and stinging like acid. This wasn't a normal fire.

Sal instantly summoned a flower petal storm and charged it at Holn. The latter was caught off guard by the ability. Holn knew he should've been less aggressive and first figure out this opponent's power but he wanted to finish this fight as soon as possible.

Without him, how could Lia find her way? She was also too defenceless. There were no corpses within her reach. She only had a knife. But the more Holn was caught up in his thoughts, the harder it was for him to dodge Sal's attacks.

Holn was flung back about to hit the wall when something soft caught him.

"Lu?"

"I came to help," Lu said with a blank face as he stared at Sal, "I hope I'm not too late."

Lu quickly dodged an attack of Sal while Holn squirmed in Lu's arms, "Ok, thanks but let me down."

"Oh," Lu realised he was still holding Holn and put him on the ground. Holn cursed his smaller size compared to Lu.

"Did you notice?" Lu calmly said as he fixed his gaze at Sal, "His eyes."

This was one of the rare times Lu talked so much, so Holn was shocked momentarily.

He quickly caught himself, "He's missing his left eye."

"It got something to do with his power. His eyes," Lu continued.

Holn still couldn't believe that Lu was talking so much to him, so Holn was a bit happy. Especially because Lu's voice was pleasant to hear.

"Then we know what we gotta do," Holn created a blazing white fire surrounding them, "The holy boys are back."

Lu who was just about to summon his hose froze, "Stop that."

Holn started to cackle which infuriated Sal, "You think just because I've got half of my power you can look down on me?"

One attack after another was thrown at Lu and Holn but Holn was more stunned to see that Lu was smiling and said, "This'll be easy."

Holn broke out into a huge grin. This damn guy. Haha.

***

Meanwhile, Lia ran through the hallways of the palace. Instead of relying on her eyes, she closed them and relied on her memory. Her body dashed through on its own.

She heard the loud fighting sounds erupting behind her but didn't give in to the temptation to turn back and help Holn. He was fine and Lia had to focus on her own task.

Going through all of the possible places Min could hide something, only his private chambers came into question. It was either his bedroom or his studies. Other than that Lia couldn't think of a spot that was more secretive than those two. Putting all of her confidence into that, Lia ran even faster until she noticed her hand was glowing.

Yano was calling. Was he worried about her? Did he bring back good news?

"Yano?" Lia picked up, excited to hear what he was going to say.

"Lia…" however contrary to her expectation Yano's voice sounded worn out as if he was at his last dying breath.