Chapter 67

I'm posting some chapters ahead of time on my discord server: https://discord.gg/r2VSvS5kaH

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"Princess Tessia!"

The shout was coming from above. The voice was unfamiliar to Claire, but not to Tessia. From somewhere, the latter had heard of it before. Back in the years, when she was still an elven princess and didn't attend Xyrus.

There were two lovely ladies passing by in the corridors, and both of them greeted her in the same manner. 'Princess Tessia' they addressed her like that. One of them had jet black hair and a seductive figure. The second was an elegant woman, with white-greenish hair. Elves, of course, since at that time humans weren't allowed in the Kingdom.

Apparently, later she found out that the two of them were Lances. Lance Aya, nicknamed "Phantasm," and Lance Alea, nicknamed "Aureate," The strong women whom Tessia respected and aspired to become in the future.

"Lance Aya?!" She called out for them. Indeed, it was them. Lance Aya flew down, followed by Lance Alea. First used her wind magic to sweep away all the fog around her and create a breathing space.

"Princess Tessia! We apologize for being so late. Please, move out of this forest and let Alea escort them. Bairon should be arriving as well, knowing that the human princess and prince are here. You might as well find them!" Aya instructed her companion quickly. This was not the time to be playing around, and Aya knew it well.

"Got it." Alea shot a salute before grabbing onto the girl with vines and lifting her in the air together with her.

Aya, on the other hand, is prepared to engage the enemy. She used wind and sound magic to conceal her presence. In this state, she shouldn't be seen by anyone else if she doesn't wish them to find her.

The lance then gently flies up above the smoking forest and tries to search for the most problematic enemies. Two of them were already apparent, as their battle was shaking the earth miles away. The huge bear, with endurance large enough to take hits and not even flinch, and the skinny man in dark clothes, fast enough to make even Aya hard to follow with her eyes.

'I need to get closer.'

For better observation, Aya decided to shorten the distance between the battle and herself. Willing herself to fly forward, Aya's magic responded to her and made her body float in the desired direction. While Aya was calmly watching how the battle would unfold, Tank was having a sweaty battle with the Alacryan man.

The shadow's large body wasn't as maneuverable as the man's, it had the scary speed, but the Alacryan still appeared faster. He would easily use his sickles to rip and tear Tank's shadowy body, only for it to regenerate again. The battle wouldn't stop until the Alacryan runs out of stamina, Tank will just exhaust him.

'This thing…it's not mutated beast.'

The Alacryan dismissed his previous claims. The shadowy bear definitely isn't a mutated mana-beast. Even he doesn't have this kind of regeneration, and nobody should have! When his sickle passed through the bear's body, it just didn't feel material.

'And who's this... annoying bug?'

Alacryan's eyes shot upwards, to where he felt the presence of someone else. 'Pretty strong. The white-core mage... most likely a lance. Can conceal her presence…maybe that one. Yeah, sure, that's her. An elf with wind and sound magic.'

He pretended he didn't see the woman flying in the sky but just continued to fight his opponent. This manipulation of battle was unnoticed by both Tank and Aya. The elf just continued to observe while the bear furiously kept attacking the man.

During the battle, he found time to fly up and kept his attack concentrated on the tank. Unexpectedly, the bear increased its size and continued to attack the person. This was what the man was aiming for so far—to somehow get closer to the lance woman while she had her guard lowered.

'I got her.' He grinned as he found the right moment to attack with his sickle. The elf was close enough, and Tank was only about to swing its large paws at him.

This time the abnormality was noticed by Aya. It was a little late, but she still managed to conjure a wind sword and deflect the incoming projectile. 'Could he see me?' She didn't anticipate an attack. Even though she deflected it, was it all just for this?

"What are you going to do about the second one, though?" The man asked, pointing somewhere else under them.

Aya instantly looked down to check if there was something. Seeing nothing, she looked back at the man.

"Pew!" With a funny expression, the Alacryan made a gun from his hand and shot a green liquid from the tip of his fingers. The little ball, which resembled the bullet, had comparable speed as well, even faster. Also, it was so small that seeing its trajectory was impossible for Aya. She wasn't able to deflect this one.

Before she could conjure a barrier, the projectile hit her leg. The liquid spread over her leg, damaging it even further. 'It's an acid!' Aya screamed in her mind. She had a way to stop acid, it was to just remove it with her wind magic. But would that man let her do that?

"Are you sure you should squabble with me rather than save those two girls you came for?"

"Well, she is being taken care of… I'm free to squabble with you as much as I want." While gritting her teeth, Aya seductively smiled.

"Hah, what an interesting foe. I'll give you more than that. My weapons are covered in poison. That elf with platinum hair received quite a cut with it. I presume she will be dead in a few or so minutes."

Aya widened her eyes in horror and realization. She remembered that large cut on Tessia's shoulder. Aya didn't give it much attention because it was nasty and she could still continue walking.

'I have to tell Alea…'

"This bear right there, however, seems to have immunity. I was waiting all along for it to die, but it's still energized." Alacryan looked down to see the bear. Tank was on his two with crossed arms, staring at them, waiting for them to finish the discussion. After all, he got manners and stuff.

"You are one of them, aren't you… Scythes, I think."

"I guess someone did tell you about the structure of the Alacryan military. Yes, I'm a Scythe, but yet, I'm subordinate in rank to other Scythes because of my inexperience."

"Quite talkative, aren't you?'

"You won't be getting out of here alive anyway. It would be funny to see a dead person talk." The man laughed at his own joke.

"Why not? It would be fun to hear it from a dead man like you."

The woman grinned and attacked the man, along with the bear. The man's face changed and became serious. He looked at the two as if they were idiots. This elf wanted to kill him with the wind sword, and on the other hand, the bear wanted to eat him literally.

'These guys don't learn from lessons do they?' Stretching out his hands, the sickles themselves returned to their places. They began to burn with a black flame. The dark magic then spread to the chains.

Drawing his sickles in quick succession, the man sent waves of flames all around him. Like a balloon being pumped, the dome of black flames quickly expanded and was close to reaching Aya. In response to this, the elf created her own wind barrier to block flames. It turned out successful. The greenish barrier wasn't passed by the flames.

Nobody was going to stop the failed attack, so the man attacked by swinging one of his sickles from time to time, aiming it at Aya's neck. The lance lowered herself to avoid the blow. She then charges her own attack but gets hindered by another swing of the sickle.

'Dang it, he isn't letting me aim properly. If only this bear could...'

As if understanding Aya's thought process, the bear jumped up to grab the man. Without much hassle, the man flew upward and wasn't caught by the creature's jaw. This was enough for Aya to use a sound and wind magic spell. She disappeared from the Alacryan's sight, becoming invisible to him again.

'She disappeared again. What a peculiar use of magic.'

Instead of using his sight, the man now concentrates on sensing mana signature. Then he felt something way more disturbing than just Aya, this bear under him. The bear didn't have a mana core, so the question was where was he getting the mana from? The mana with capabilities to regenerate to this extent and instill fear into opponents because of its dark nature.

'What in the world…'

Aya cast another spell on the distracted man. It was the pure use of sound magic, to make the opponent sleep. Yes, it did work and made a Scythe feel dizzy, but the spell was shrugged off when the Alacryan found out about it.

"This is pissing m-!" As the man was about to roar out, Tank entered the action and managed to catch him with its fangs. The huge shadow smashed down the Scythe on the ground and proceeded to smash it in there again. Of course, it didn't forget to use its own sharp claws to tear up everything it touched.

"Get away from me!"

The place where Tank smashed the Scythe burst into flames, creating a bubble of hot lingering dark flames that would burn everything else. It seemed like the Scythe went crazy, and despite the flames hurting his own body, he kept on burning.

Tank was still okay though. Those dark flames couldn't hurt his body anyhow. The man didn't know that, though, he expanded and expanded the range of his corrosive flames. Aiming to kill not only the bear but the female lance as well. By the way, there was still no sight of her. The scythe was doing everything blindly.

With the final scream, the scythe unleashed the final wave of dark flames. Thinking this would surely do the job. To his fiasco, the flames could only hurt the surroundings, not the creature with resistance to this attack. When the dome of black flames died down, there was a silhouette of a standing person.

'This damned woman!'

Something in the Scythe snapped earlier. He felt extremely angry, scared, and frustrated. He just tried to sense the presence of Aya, but in the end, he felt some connection the bear had. He felt its nature.

Completely submerged with rage, the scythe charged at the flaming person. He brought back his sickle, ready to be thrust into the chest of a standing person. 'I will get rid of this woman!' he was thinking.

"Die!"

He brought down his sickles and they were about to enter the flames when they just dispersed. Instead of the usually expected sound of flesh being cut by sickles, it felt like metal hit metal. The scythe straightened his eyes and looked at what happened.

There was a sign of torn clothing, but weirdly enough, there was no blood. When he looked up to see the individual's face, he saw the teenage boy glancing down at him with seemingly endless sharp eyes, which burned his soul to crisp like Vritra's magic. This individual had the same nature as the bear. If the Scythe had the say in it, he would definitely rate this individual the scariest in the entire universe. The teen's darkness devoured the light, even the light he had in himself.

"What's wrong? Scared?"

The scythe snapped out of his trance. He jumped away from the teenage boy, his beastly instincts were yelling at him to do so, but he was caught in the hair by a certain force. As if he was tied by a solid mana construct. It was definitely the teenage boy who did that, he had his hand raised towards the Scythe. The hand was controlling the surrounding mana according to the shape it was taking. Right now, it was grabbing the man.

The man's eyes now thoroughly inspected the standing figure. He had a lean body, not like his skinny, it actually looked strong. He was quite tall as well, despite his age. He could tower over the average Alacryan. He has smooth skin on his face, beautiful eyes, and an aura of dominance around him. The first impression was something that couldn't be described by words. The man's mind couldn't process the unmatchable strength.

Behind the person was the female lance, who was looking at them wide-eyed. Her eyes were jumping from the teen to the Scythe. They were filled with confusion and surprise.

"I'm friendly. You can leave for your initial mission. I'll take care of this."

The teenager called out for her. She flinched at hearing the low voice addressing her, telling him to just leave the battle like this. How could Aya be sure that this person was actually a friend? She shot a glance at the nearby bear. It had lowered its head and dared not raise its head to see what was going on.

"I believe it's not time to process things slowly. As proof of my allegiance, I'll finish this off, instead of you."