The Unsurpassed Maiden

"What happened?" Mi Young asks as she tries to stand up.

"You were turning pale." Hae Choon says. "And look, there's smoke coming out of you."

When Hae Choon raises the young girl's hands to let her see, Mi Young's eyes widen in surprise. "How the hell is this happening?"

"That's normal. Your body forces out half of your energy. The smoke is excess mana that didn't manage to get into a vessel where they can enter." Hae Choon explains while helping the black haired girl on her feet. "How are you feeling?"

"Light." Mi Young replies.

"Hm. Are you feeling weaker?" Hae Choon questions.

The black haired girl nodded her head as she held onto the younger man's arms for support. "I feel like half of my energy was burnt out."

"Congrats. You have successfully forced out half of your soul." The other party says with a playful chuckle. "Oh right. You have to see this."

After saying those words, Hae Choon crouches down to grab the discarded spell book on the floor and hands it to the young girl. He points at something in the book and tells Mi Young to read it. This phrase appeared earlier when you were still meditating."

When Mi Young followed what Hae Choon was pointing at, she saw another passage now written on the bottommost part of the page. "Woah. It really worked."

"Hm. I also managed to read some lines for this one spell. The reason why you have to force out half of your soul was mainly because the soul will be the one who will attract the second piece of metal to the first one. I didn't have much time to read the rest since I immediately went to check on you."

"That's fine. Thank you by the way." The black haired student says while giving the other party a genuine and thankful smile.

This made Hae Choon blush. She scratches the back of his neck as he replies softly, "You're welcome. And it was nothing, really."

After that, the black haired girl went to check the spell book again. She touches the new words written on the piece of paper and Mi Young couldn't help but feel amazed with how amazing the spell book really is. Somehow, it felt like the words were written there ever since. And just by looking at the edges of the page, Mi Young knew that it was one of the most visited pages. It's as if the previous owner always finds time to use this spell for her personal use.

Mi Young reads the passage and waits for something to happen. They waited for a couple of seconds but nothing seems to changed. The black haired girl frowns as she looks up at Hae Choon who looked puzzled as well. When the other party shrugs the black haired girl decided to read the words again.

However, just as she was about to chant the spell once more, the nail that was still hovering on the surface of the water Mi young made earlier, started to float higher until it reached Mi Young's eye level.

"What's happening?" The young girl whispers as she looks at the unsteady piece of metal.

The piece of metal continued to shake and spin around as if something was controlling it. Seconds later, it finally stopped and started floating towards the only door of the room.

Both parties looked at each other. "Should we follow it?"

"What's the point of making his spell if we don't follow it?" Mi Young says as she quickly gathers her spell book and follows the piece of metal towards the door.

The metal stops just a few inches from the door, as If it's waiting for Mi Young to open it.

The black haired girl was about to grab the doorknob when Hae Choon stops her. "Wait!"

"What?"

"We need to be careful, okay? Soldiers are lurking everywhere. Especially now that they know that I can teleport. They must have put guards in almost all of the corridors so we need to be extra careful. Do not engage in any battle unless necessary. All we have to do is run and escape." Hae Choon instructs Mi Young before letting go of the black haired girl's arms.

The young girl nodded her head at the other party before she took a deep breath and opened the door. Immediately, the metal floats over the entrance the moment Mi Young opens the doorway. It went towards the left part of the hallway which led to another huge double door.

Mi Young and Hae Choon continued following the piece of metal closely behind. They also didn't forget to observe their surroundings first before following the metal which was still floating on the air.

At some point, they have to stop following it for a couple of minutes because they need to cross a hallway where two guards were posted. Hae Choon distracted the guards by summoning his "pet" which they used as bait.

When they were sure that the guards were far away from them, they immediately crossed the hallway and towards the direction where the piece of metal went.

Mi Young grew anxious at first because she thought that the metal left them behind but to her surprise, the metal was just hovering in the air across the corridor as if it was waiting for them.

"I guess it's linked towards your soul and at the same time to your original body. It can get far away from you so it has to stop at some point." Hae Choon reasons out as they both followed the metal once more.

It wasn't long before they metal led them towards a stairway. It would have been okay if they needed to use the stairway instead of the elevator. However, what stopped them was the four soldiers blocking the entire stairway.

Mi Young curses softly while she and Hae Choon both peered at the stairway where the metal went. "What do we do now?"

"I can't summon the golem from here. And it would be too obvious if the golem came from where we are hiding." Hae  Choon says while looking at the soldiers who are all guarding the stairway like unmoving mannequins.

"How about your teleportation?" Mi Young asks, looking at Hae Choon expectantly.

The other party softly shook his head with a disappointed expression. "We can't risk teleporting there. We might encounter bigger problems. Who knows what's waiting for us upstairs."

"You're right. That would be too risky." Mi Young whispers as she turns her gaze back towards the four soldiers. "And if I use my spell book now, the other spell I chanted earlier would stop, and it would stop leading us towards where Kwang Soo and Jang Hoon are."

Hae Choon bites his lip as he considers a plan. Mi Young doing the same thing as she sits behind the door where they were hiding.

"I have an idea." Hae Choon says. Mi Young quickly gets up from where she was sitting as she moves closer towards the other party to hear what he was about to say.

After a couple of minutes discussing about their plan, Mi Young comments, "You know this is like a suicide plan, right?"

"I know but we don't have any choice, don't we?" Hae Choon says while scrunching his nose.

The black haired girl sighs before she pats the other party's shoulder. "Okay. Be careful. I promise I will be on time."

"You better be." That was the only thing Hae Choon says before he sends a wink at the young girl as he goes out from the room where they were hiding.

Mi Young hears him say something like "oops wrong direction!" towards the four soldiers posted at the end of the stairway before he starts running towards the opposite direction.

When Mi Young was sure that the soldiers and Hae Choon were out of sight, she immediately ran towards the stairs all the way up until she reached the floor on top. She sees the piece of metal hovering at the center of the corridor, and when it felt Mi Young's presence, it immediately started to move towards the north direction.

The black haired girl curses before she says, "I'll follow you later. I  need to find an empty room first."

With that, Mi Young went towards the west part of the floor where she noticed a series of doors were located.

The black haired student started walking slowly as she tried to peer inside each room. However, all the doors were locked. She tried opening them once more but it seems like all doors won't budge. Mi Young cursed when she noticed that she was running out of time.

Since all doors were all closed, she had no other way but to use force against it. The black haired girl summons her mana power and coats her whole right hand with her Geo element. When she deems herself ready enough, she raises her hands and with great force, she punches the doorknob, breaking it completely.

The door immediately went open upon losing its lock. The young girl bites her lip, trying to suppress her smile as she hurriedly goes inside the room.

However, she stops dead in her tracks when she realizes what was inside the room.