The Insider System

Chapter 233: Reinforcements

After a while Lake started to wonder if it was stupid to wait here. For all he knew they were just going to wait till reinforcements arrived to take care of him. Turning to leave Lake heard. "Did the Metal Temple send you?" After thinking about this question Lake nodded and said. "Yes." He hadn't wanted to come anywhere near here until the Metal Temples head asked him to.

He had felt like he would have to say goodbye to any money he deserved if he had said no to the Temple Head. "What do you want?" Lake decided to not answer this question and instead said. "Can I ask a question first?" He wanted to know if they had just started talking when he tried to leave because they wanted to keep him here until the people they were waiting on arrived.

"Ok." Hearing this, Lake nodded a bit before asking. "Did you call for reinforcements?" Lake wasn't expecting to get a real answer but if they lied he would know. "Of course we did." Lake was surprised they were honest and asked. "Are they almost here?" This was the only reason he could see for them to be honest.

"They should be here within a minute." Hearing this, Lake wanted to fall back from the sphere a bit so he didn't have to fight the reinforcements while worrying about the people inside the sphere coming out to help them. He didn't do this though. "When did you call for them?" He wanted to know how long it had taken the reinforcements to get here.

They didn't answer his question so Lake decided it was time for him to look around with Mana Vision. He hadn't wanted to take his eyes off of the sphere but letting the reinforcements get too close was worse. The Sight wasn't active yet so if the people in the sphere tried anything he would have a warning.

Looking behind him to where the front entrance he had entered was he didn't see anyone but that didn't mean they weren't there. He would have no way of knowing if they were just slightly outside of Mana Visions range. For all he knew they were outside waiting for him to leave to sneak attack him.

It wasn't a bad plan if they had confidence in the barriers' ability to protect the people inside it. He would eventually give up and when he tried to leave they would get him. He didn't think that was what was happening though. The people were probably outside talking to the people in the sphere planning what to do about him and that's why they hadn't talked to him since they said the reinforcements were almost here.

Going out of the room Lake knew he was probably right when they didn't say anything to stop him. Once he got close enough to the front gate he started to see out into the city enough to start spotting the new people outside. They were hiding in the buildings surrounding the exit but he didn't think they would stay that way if he stayed inside for too long.

Taking his bow, Lake used it to shoot an arrow out towards the city to see if they were weak enough to die from this attack. He felt like the people in the barrier wouldn't be counting on the reinforcements if they were weak. He would just wipe them out like the people in the base.

Losing the connection to the arrow as soon as it was about to hit the first person Lake knew these people were on another level. He wasn't sure if it had been destroyed so he recalled it to his hand. Nothing appeared in his hand so he knew someone had sniped his arrow before he could hit them.

This meant they had at least one person who could feel his attack coming and move fast enough to stop it. He was sure that in the people he had killed earlier some of them had been able to sense the attack coming but had been too slow to react.

With this he was surrounded but there was a way out of this. The staircase back down would allow him to evade this fight but he wasn't sure if he wanted to corner himself back down on the 42nd tier. All they would have to do to get rid of him was close the barrier once he entered the city to hide.

Thinking about being trapped again, Lake decided he would fight. All he needed to do to win was lift some of the restrictions he had put himself under to make them think he was too weak to warrant a crazy response. It seemed he had succeeded because it was just a small force that came to help against him.

Walking out towards them until they were inside Detectors range Lake looked around and found there were three people that were dangerous enough to kill him. This didn't mean the rest of the 25 wouldn't make this fight harder for him. Drawing his sword Lake walked outside while looking directly at the closest of the three he was worried about.

"Hello." Lake felt like there might be a slight intimidation to him singling them out like this and he felt like he was right when his ward ring lost some of its mana. It seemed they had tried to read his stats but his ring had blocked it. Recharging his ring back up to max, he asked. "I'm done here, are you sure you want to fight?"

Of course if they said no he would just move to the next tier and start wiping out the Demon Worshipers there so they would never say no to this question. Seeing the person he had been singling out leave where they had been hiding and appear out on the street, Lake realized he knew them.

"We've been sent to kill you so there's no conversation to have." It was the person who had buried him alive. It was no wonder Detector thought they could kill him; they almost had last time they had fought. Looking at the person he was fighting, Lake wanted to run so that he wasn't standing on stone but sadly there wasn't really a way for him to get away from the fact this place was 80% stone with the other 20% being metal.

At least he knew what to expect this time so he wouldn't just fall into it like he had last time. He also went ahead and started to gather Wind mana in case he had to fly over a sudden pit opening at his feet. It seemed his move wasn't missed by the Demon Worshiper because they started to laugh and asked. "Have we fought before?"

Lake had changed his armor since the last fight so he wasn't surprised they couldn't tell right away like he could. He didn't want to answer this question because he felt like they might try to trick him harder if they knew so he asked. "What do you mean?" He didn't think this would actually change their mind but he might as well try.

He didn't want them to treat this fight like some kind of grudge match and go all out from the very start. Putting his sword to the side, Lake said. "I'm ready." He knew he was giving away the element of surprise by announcing this but with the other two strong people still hidden he didn't really have any chance of surprising anyone unless he moved as fast as he could.

His hopes were that when he disappeared they would be in shock long enough for him to have already taken off a few heads. Using Crunch Lake moved as fast as he could and when The Sight activated he used Burst. Feeling himself crash through a wall he pulled his speed down a bit and went for the closest person to him.

They were inside the building he had crashed into so they were extremely close to each other. Angling his sword so that it would Pass through their neck, Lake used Imbue Fire right as the cut started. Lake was looking for another target when he felt an impact into his stomach and looking down he saw a fist belonging to someone he hadn't seen yet caving in the armor plate on his chest.

This was obviously an attack meant to kill him but sadly for this brawler he was fast enough to cut their arm off before they could actually do any damage to him. Using Fast Hands Lake wiped his sword through their arm and continued it through their entire upper body.

After his attack he realized the person he had just cut in half wasn't real as it dissipated into Black Mana and not understanding what he was seeing ran away by letting himself go faster than he could control backwards until he felt himself go through another wall.

Once he was outside he stopped again to see the person who had come out to talk to him still standing in the same place as he was earlier. "One kill. Not bad." After they said this they held out their arm and Lake saw the flaming corpse of the person he had been able to decapitate fly from the building he was just in and stop in front of the main Demon Worshiper.

"Reverse Death." Lake saw the fire extinguish and the head fly back onto the neck. A second after this happened he heard them take a deep breath before they fell to the ground. He watched until they stood back up and looking at them Lake could tell they were completely fine like he hadn't killed them a second ago.