Allies 6

In front of the mansion, on the large plaza, servants surrounded the space and barricaded any entrance from the city Rag to the entrance of the outskirts. The servants in their colourful robes and black, tall hats all lined up around two people in the plaza, giving them a huge space to fight to their hearts' content.

On the stairs, sitting on a chair, Elder D watched with his eyebrows furrowed. He was worried. The words Lia talked about were frightening but even he knew that there was no way around it.

There would be a war against the Ghost King. And it would be merciless.

Mika agreed to the fight thanks to Lia's taunting and despite Elder D not being comfortable with the idea, he couldn't just reject the new Immortal King any longer.

As a hidden family, it was still his duty to assist and support the Immortal King. It was only… this Immortal King was not what he expected one to be.

On the battleground, Lia stood opposite to Mika. A servant walked between them and held a small flag.

"No weapons and no powers allowed. Please fight fair and square," the servant announced the rules.

Lia has promised not to use her power, even if she wanted, she couldn't. There were no corpses for her to control. Also, since Mika didn't have any power, if she won with her power then there was no need to fight at all.

They needed to be on equal grounds and Lia needed to show how stuck up Mika was, believing he could beat her. A guy with no prior experience except for maybe getting into a fight here and then.

However, Lia has been through so much, life and death situations, witnessed many more deaths of people then Mika could ever hope to imagine, bloodied her hands and relentlessly trained. There was no way Mika, who only held onto his beliefs without experiencing anything himself, could understand her battles, much less defeat her.

"You keep your word, right? If you lose, you'll stop bothering us," Mika stretched his legs.

Lia smiled, "And if I win, how about being my lapdog?"

Mika instantly froze on the spot and with vigilant eyes watched her, "Don't joke around."

"My bad," her smile didn't disappear. If it was Xavi, he would've died from blushing, sadly Mika was rather a moody teenager than a cute little kid.

"On the count of three," the servant waved the flag between them. Neither Lia nor Mika broke the eye contact.

"1, 2 and-"

On 3 both of them rushed towards each other. Mika was confident in his fighting abilities, he pulled out to get ahold of Lia's neck but he could only graze her skin when Lia ducked and while crouching spun around his body to get behind him.

Quickly, she pushed him forward and grabbed both of his hands to tie them behind his back. With one of her leg, she went between Mika's and swiped his foot from the ground causing him to lose balance and fall forwards.

However, before he could drop to the ground, Lia moved at an extremely fast pace before him and under his body pushed him up so he could stand on his feet again.

Confused, Mika had no idea what was going on until he saw Lia raise her leg and spun to kick him on the head. Mika had good reflexes and instantly held up his arm to block it but to his surprise, Lia immediately retracted her leg as if it was only a faint.

Then her other leg swung in the air and kicked him in the chest letting him fly backwards and collide against the surrounding circle of servants. Mika fell to his butt and had a hard time discerning what was going on.

To the surrounding people watching it was clear. This was by no means a fight nor a battle. It was simply Lia toying with Mika for fun.

Only from that, it was obvious how big the gap between their abilities was. However, Mika still didn't realise it and being as stubborn as he was, he continued to treat it as a fight not noticing Lia didn't even take him seriously.

Lia decided to humour him until he could get it into his head. He was basically a punching bag for her, swaying back and forth between her attacks while he couldn't land a single one on her.

In the end, Mika ended up panting on the floor not knowing how to look Lia in the eyes nor what to say. He didn't want to admit.

"You've lost, no?"

Mika remained quiet. There was no way he was going to say and join her. There was no way he could follow someone as reckless and uncaring as her.

Mika just rested on the ground not looking anywhere but at the stony plaza. Lia sighed, then she moved to Elder D on the stairs and told him, "Would you give me some time alone with Mika?"

Elder D could only nod in agreement and pulled all his servants away to go back into the mansion but the unease in his heart made him worry if Lia wasn't going to do anything to his son.

Although, she has already beaten him several times, what else could she do?

Once all the people vanished from the plaza and in the wide and far no one else but Lia and Mika were present, she walked to him and stood next to him.

"I don't want the people I care about die either nor do I want innocent people to lose their lives because of me, so I understand your sentiment, however, you have to become strong enough to bear through those sacrifices and carry on to see through your goals," Lia watched the greens of the forest and looked back to the white veil absent-mindedly before she continued,

"I'm not going to ask you to completely disregard any life nor bliss over their deaths. I'm asking you to remain calm and rational in face of the deaths of your loved ones. This is a lesson that I have learned and hope to pass on to you."

In the end, Lia more or less has achieved some of her revenge. She blindly charged into a void full of driving force to exact her so-called justice and didn't notice she was swallowed up by it. Mistakes were made along the way and innocent people have fallen to her feet.

After she came back from the abyss she was consumed by her hatred and rage, even now it still swirled around in her, she wasn't going to give up on it. However, now she had a greater goal and for that goal to be accomplished she needed to be part rational and part emotional.

Balance was the key.

Lia understood that Mika hated her because of her decisions that caused three people to die in front of him, but she needed him to understand that right now and in the future, there would be many more grievances and injustice.

Instead of hating and get stuck in the past, they had to do what they could to move on, become stronger, so those kinds of things could never happen again.

Bringing down Min was part of her revenge and part of her duty as the Immortal King. There was no difference, the only difference was in the way she would stop him. Depending on it, she would be either emotional letting her revenge overtake her or she would stay rational and handle it in a way that wouldn't cause any more harm.

To satisfy her own desire or to care for the greater good. It was all a matter of viewpoint and what value a person put their weight on.

She had no right to lecture Mika anymore or force him but she extended a hand to him to help not only him but also herself.

In the end, it was debatable if she was selfish or if she wasn't. Or only deluded herself into thinking she wasn't.