Chapter 38- I must do what I can

Ten minutes earlier

That timing was perfect Lucious thought while removing himself from the battlefield.

Under his foot, shards from the communication crystal linked to Adrianna's scattered.

While making their plans, they made countermeasures in case things didn't go the way they wanted.

When a communication crystal is broken, the one its pairs with cracks and becomes unusable.

By breaking his, Lucious managed to send out the signal to attack once Tiavan and the others awakened.

Now that they have arrived, I can use this distraction to make myself useful. Its a good job the others didn't stay unconscious for too long.

Lucious quickly made his way over to Tiavan and the others who were currently bound at the other end of the room.

"Newbie! Get me outta this thing." Tiavan struggled against the chains that were wrapped around his hands and feet but to no avail.

The chains in question were magic artifacts that could seal both mana and aura of anyone below the sixth stage.

"That's the plan." Lucious said as he drew his sword to cut the chains.

But despite his best efforts, he couldn't even scratch them much less cut the chains.

"Whatcha doing rookie?" Sienna chimed in whilst cracking her neck. "If these could be broke with brute force then we'd have done it by now."

"Ahem!" Before Lucious could reply, Johan cleared his throat obnoxiously loud.

"They are charged with monster cores. The only way to free us is to wait for the energy to expire or to drain it yourself."

System, can you speed things up here at all? Draining them manually would take too long.

[Yes Host, however, draining them manually will allow you to refine the quality and purity of either your aura or mana.

Do you still wish for the system to destroy them?]

Obviously not, but thanks for telling me. Lucious sighed and grabbed Tiavan's chains in one hand and Sienna's chains with the other. They can hold on for a few minutes I'm sure.

He could feel the foreign energy from the chains slowly trickling into his veins and so he started to redirect it towards his mana core.

My mana core development is falling behind, I have enough monster cores in my inventory to spend on developing my elemental aura core later.

As he drained the monster core energy within the chains, Lucious filled the others on what had happened since their capture along with the plans made.

"Heh. Plan ain't half bad, rookie. But you sure that vampire is trustworthy?" Sienna grinned while watching the ongoing fight at the other end of the basement.

"Yeah, for now anyway. Our interests align so she won't cause trouble for us."

Lucious didn't reveal information relating to the Queen of monsters or how Bellatrix was captured by her in the past.

"Lucious, your eye! What happened to you?" Tina asked upon seeing his blinded eye as he turned his head.

"Ah, well, I may have gotten a little too reckless. I fought a stage three aura master. I won but lost an eye as a result." He awkwardly chuckled and averted his gaze.

His answer received mixes results from his new friends. Tina wore a worried expression as she extended her scaled tail towards Lucious to gently caress his back.

"Does it hurt? Don't worry, I know a healer in Oura city who can heal you right up. I'll pay the fee since you saved us but you have to let me come with you so I know everything goes ok and-"

"Heh, ya really killed someone two stages higher than ya? Impressive, you're stronger than ya seem rookie." Sienna chimed in if only to silence Tina quickly, lest she ramble on again.

Johan didn't much seem to care and simply kept his focus on the ongoing battle. Things were now beginning to heat up, and was he worried for Adrianna.

He could tell she was beginning to struggle ever since the twilight general started glowing.

Though he had never seen the ability at work before, he knew this was his special ability 'Sanctity of glory' due to how the tides were turning.

"Lucious, can't you hurry it up?" He grumbled without taking his eyes from the battlefield.

"Stop it Johan, he's going as fast as he can." Tiavan replied while looking towards the battlefield.

He had never seen his cousin struggle this much, especially against a human, and he too wanted to join the battlefield.

But he knew rushing Lucious wasn't going to help anyone, if anything it would likely delay the process.

"Leave Little Lucious alone, Johan. He is doing his best to help us even though he is injured.

If you bully him then I'll tell everyone I know the real story about what happened in the reverse dungeon last year."

Little Lucious? Oh please don't let that catch on. And why do you sound like a doting parent? You're not even that much older than me, damn snake.

"Hmph! Just make sure you get us out before the fight is over." Johan said as he grumpily settled down. He kept his gaze on the ongoing fight, anxious to help however he could.

"Forget them, I want to fight ya after all this." Sienna flashed a toothy grin as her white feline tail swayed in excitement.

It would have been a cute smile if not for the fact that she were a fifth stage battle hungry maniac.

"Hell no. You're a fifth stage aura master and I don't have a death wish. I'm not fighting you." Lucious said while shaking his head, firmly shutting her down.

Sensing his hesitation, Sienna grinned and tilted her head in contemplation for several seconds before finally speaking again.

"Fine, no fighting. How about I train ya up a little, I miss having a student to teach." Despite her friendly tone, a sharp glint could be seen in her eye by everyone present.

"Fine, we can train for as long as I'm in Oura city." Lucious had a nagging feeling that she wouldn't give up until he agreed.

However, at his agreement, the others all let out a sympathetic sigh and shook their head.

Whats wrong with them? Are they upset they didn't get to ask me first?

"Great, lookin' forward to it." This Her smile widened as she stared at him like a predator eyeing it's prey.

I sense I've just made a mistake somewhere. Lucious felt a shiver down his spine as he averted his gaze.

After tuning everyone out for fear of making more bad decisions, Lucious focused on the task at hand.

Click

It didn't take him much longer before he finally drained the last of the energy from the artifacts.

Without the energy from the monster core to power them, they were no different to any other metal chain.

Tiavan and Sienna simply broke the now harmless chains with their brute strength alone before moving towards the others to free them themselves.

Due to their own proficiency, it didn't even take a minute before Tina and Johan were freed.

Incredible, they're at least ten times faster than me. Just how big is the gap between us... No, I just need to do what I can. There's no need to compare myself to them, with the system I will catch up soon enough.

The moment everyone had been freed, everybody except for Lucious, suddenly vanished from their spot.