Law of Space and Time

Chapter 10: Yet Another Assassination Attempt

After observing so many pieces of artwork and having some further discussion, it was already close to nighttime. The light of the setting sun passed through the colorful mosaic glass before filtering into the majestic cathedral, casting a kaleidoscope of colors onto the ground. It was as if an eternity had passed by, and everything remained completely still, waiting for him during this time. All of a sudden, an immense sense of sorrow welled up in Erwin's heart. He felt as if he were stuck in the wrong life, and the sorrow was also accompanied by asphyxiating sense of despair.

While Erwin was basking in these inexplicable emotions, another assassination attempt was made on his life.

"Look out!" Onean yelled in alarm as a green arrow came flying toward him from behind, and her heart immediately leaped into her throat. In this instant, she was praying that the physical distance between them could be erased so she could do more than cast instant-release spells from afar to help him. Tears began to well up in her eyes, blurring her vision as she looked on in grief and helplessness. It seemed that Erwin's fate was sealed, and her heart was filled with despair. How she wished the arrow had been fired at her rather than him.

Theresa instantly transformed into a body in an attempt to shield Erwin from the rapidly approaching arrow, but she was too late and unable to keep up with the projectile.

Christine was staring at the arrow with a dazed expression, grabbing onto the air with her hands as if she were making a futile attempt to catch her arrow. The most important person in life was about to be shot down, but there was nothing that she could do aside from watch with her mouth gaped wide open. She had cursed herself countless times in the past for her own powerlessness, and it felt like nothing had changed.

By the time Erwin turned around, the green arrowhead was already no more than a foot away from his chest.

At this point, it was already far too late to conjure up a light shield to project himself.

As a time and space magician, he was more familiar than anyone else with the conditions required to conjure up a light shield. He had suffered close brushes with death in the past, and he had often been able to use his light shield to save himself from dire situations. In those situations, he was either able to conjure up a space in which time stood still to ward off the life-threatening attack, or use the space-time rift formed by the clashes of power to draw the energy of the enemy attack into oblivion.

However, this arrow was already far too close to him, and not only was it imbued with boundless power, what was even more terrifying about it was that it was accumulating more and more power during its flight. This was something that Erwin had never seen before. The enormity of the amount of energy imbued within the arrow made it feel as if it were an oncoming storm, and there was no way that Erwin would be able to suck away all of the energy in the surrounding area to satisfy the conditions required to conjure up a light shield. Perhaps he could conjure up miniature light shields over the palms of his hands to somewhat slow down the arrow, but he was certain that he would end up in an even worse situation than he had in the wake of his clash with Aiden. Not only were both of his hands going to be torn to shreds, there was still a chance that he would be killed anyway. It was certainly far from certain that a pair of miniature light shields would be able to pose sufficient resistance to the arrow to save his life.

Looking at the rapidly oncoming arrow, he heaved an internal sigh and knew that there was no way to ward off the attack.

However, he had no plans to die here.

Ever since his clash against Cheren during the tea party, he came to understand the content in the fourth chapter of "Laws of Time and Space".

When time was completely still, space could be warped.

With that in mind, he raised his hand before making a downward-pressing motion toward the arrow.

A hint of yellow brushed over the shaft of the arrow before vanishing in an instant.

However, as a result, the arrow was deflected ever so slightly off its original trajectory.

The arrow was aimed at Erwin's heart, but due to the interference, it passed through his lung instead.

Outside the cathedral, a middle-aged man slammed his hand against the arcuballista with a frustrated expression.

The little girl beside her was humming a tune with her arms crossed, and she took a nonchalant glance at the man, seemingly already accustomed to such a sight. Unbeknownst to her, her master had injected all of the power he had accumulated over his lifetime into that arrow, and he would never be able to fire another arrow this powerful again.

This middle-aged man was none other than Renjay Min, who Theresa had once told Erwin about.

...

Inside the cathedral, Erwin had collapsed to his knees, and he could see that there was an arcuballista facing him from outside the building. Thus, with one hand pressed over the wound on his chest, he raised his other hand to point at the arcuballista in the distance.josei

Onean and Theresa immediately spotted the arcuballista as well, and they rose up into the air before flying out of the church. Meanwhile, Christine rushed over to Erwin's side before gently helping him into a seated position. She could see that blood was flowing uncontrollably out of Erwin's chest, and that his clothes were already drenched with blood.

With Onean and Theresa emerging from the cathedral, the little girl beside Renjay immediately stopped whistling as she placed her hands onto the hilts of the blades strapped to her waist while casting a wary gaze toward the cathedral.

"Look out, Stinkbag," Renjay cautioned as he kicked the support structure at the bottom of the arcuballista, upon which the entire arcuballista automatically folded into a compact form. Renjay picked up the arcuballista before cradling it in his arms, then flicked a certain point on the weapon with his fingertip, upon which the bow at the tip of the arcuballista detached itself and fell into his grasp. The bow itself was naturally going to be less powerful than an arcuballista, but it was also more maneuverable and better suited for the battle that was about to come.

Onean was the first one to charge out of the cathedral, and by then, Renjay had already sent a pair of black arrows firing out of his body directly toward her.

Onean was at the height of her fury, and she raised her Everlife Chinaberry Staff to release the ice phoenix in the Everlife Stone, which flapped its wings vigorously toward the pair of oncoming black arrows. In doing so, it conjured up a ferocious snowstorm, and the black arrows didn't even get a chance to reach the ice phoenix before they were dashed into the ground by the snowstorm.

Renjay couldn't help but be alarmed by the ferocity of Onean's magic power. During the failed assassination attempt on Erwin as he was returning from Tellier, Renjay had already sensed that the silver-haired woman accompanying him was an extremely powerful magician, but only now did he realize just how fearsome she was. Under normal circumstances, the two arrows that he had fired wouldn't have been so feeble, but he had injected too much of his power into the arrow fired at Erwin, so he was far from his peak condition.

Stinkbag quickly came to her master's aid, springing up into the air with a small puff of dust, charging directly toward Onean.

However, right at this moment, a vortex of water suddenly appeared beneath her feet before flinging her up into the air.

As it turned out, Theresa had also arrived on the scene. Onean was taking care of Renjay, so she had naturally picked out Stinkbag as her opponent.

"Find a chance to get away!" Renjay called out to his disciple.

He could already sense that these two women were going to be very difficult to deal with. As a middle-aged man, there was an extremely important life lesson that he had learned, which was that it was never wise to oppose a furious woman.

This was particularly true in this situation, where he was dealing with a pair of furious women who were also fearsome magicians.

Renjay was having a great deal of trouble warding off the ice phoenix, being forced to scurry around like a panicked rat.

As a result, there was no chance for him to fire off any more arrows. Onean was injecting magic power into the ice phoenix with one hand while releasing ice spikes with her other hand, all of which were directed at Renjay's vitals. In the face of both Onean and the ice phoenix's attacks, Renjay was barely able to ensure his own survival, and it was impossible for him to retaliate.

He was an accomplished assassin who had made a name for himself as far back as over two decades ago, yet he was struggling immensely against this beautiful woman who was many decades his junior. Looking at this pair of astonishingly powerful young women, he couldn't help but think of his own exceptionally talented disciple. It seemed that it was always the natural order for the older generation to be eventually overtaken by the younger generation.

Meanwhile, Stinkbag was also having a very hard time dealing with Theresa. She was having to defend herself against Theresa's attacks, yet her attacks were completely ineffective against Theresa as she no longer possessed a physical body. It was like punching into a wall of cotton, leaving her frustrated and powerless. At this point, a series of gashes had already been sliced onto her body by the sharp waves conjured up by Theresa.

In this dire situation, Renjay turned to Onean with a wry smile as he said, "Are you sure you have time to be wasting here? The tip of my arrow has been smeared with poison. I may have missed his heart, but if you don't go back now, he'll still be dead."

Onean's eyes widened slightly upon hearing this, and in that instant, she felt as if her entire body had been plunged into a glacial pit.

After aiming a vicious glare at Renjay, she immediately departed.

"I have to tend to his wounds right away!" Onean said to Theresa, who was still locked in a fierce battle against Stinkbag, then hurriedly returned to the cathedral.

Renjay cast his gaze toward Onean's departing figure, then glanced at the profusely bleeding wounds on his own body, and a wry smile appeared on his face.

Following Onean's departure, Theresa immediately disengaged herself from her battle against Stinkbag. However, she still had the presence of mind to station herself at the entrance of the cathedral in case the two assassins tried any funny business.

"I have no time to waste with you two! Hurry up and piss off!" Theresa yelled.

Stinkbag cast her gaze toward her master, whose clothes were drenched with blood, and she hurriedly rushed over to support him. Upon drawing close to him, she quickly realized that there was something wrong with his left hand, and upon closer examination, she realized that every single bone in his left arm had been broken, leaving it completely crippled. Even if he could recover from those injuries in the future, he would no longer be able to wield a bow.

"How dare you!" Stinkbag gritted her teeth tightly as she glowered at Theresa with a furious expression.

"What are you looking at? If you want to die here, I'm happy to grant you your wish!" Theresa said in a cold voice.

"Let's go," Renjay said as he gave the back of Stinkbag's hand a feeble pat, indicating for her to retreat.

By the time Theresa rushed back into the cathedral, Erwin had already been carried onto the sermon platform by Onean using a levitation spell. It would've been quite interesting to see the reactions of the Holy World Church's pastors if they were to see a non-believer lying on their sermon platform like this. Christine had also gotten onto the platform and had tucked her legs under the back of Erwin's head as a pillow. Tears were streaming down her face, and all of them were falling onto Erwin's cheek.

To the surprise of the three women, even in his current state, Erwin was still in the mood to be joking around. "Well, looks like it really is a bad idea to talk about deities in an unflattering light. I didn't even go that far this time, but I've still almost been killed..."

As soon as his voice trailed off, his head drooped to the side, and he fell unconscious on top of Christine's legs.