Chapter 57 Revenge Finale

Liam was running towards the canteen for the servants but was ambushed on the way. Luckily he still had his artifact with him, so killing the normal spiders wasn't a problem, not yet at least.

KIEEE-SWISH

Completely splitting the beasts into two pieces, he continued to run, 'Please hold on baby, I'm almost there.'

The canteen was a simple room that could hold a few dozen people at once, it was often used for parties of all kinds, but normally it was for the servants to eat dinner. And although Liam's family weren't exactly servants, they didn't get a separate room to eat, not that it mattered to them. Liam saw the door to the canteen in his vision, it looked completely fine, 'They haven't reached it yet, good.', his conclusion was sound, if there were no scratches or dead bodies, it must mean that they haven't gotten to this place yet.

Busting through the doors he was greeted by a bunch of people gasping in surprise. His entrance scared a few of the maids that were hiding under the tables. "Penelope! Are you here? Penelope, Nils?!", Liam was slowly starting to panic when he didn't hear any kind of response. "Liam?", "Dad?", a woman with darker brown hair with two children behind her were inching closer to the man who barged in completely drenched.

"Oh, thank the Goddess! We need to get out of here, fast!", Liam looked a lot different than normal, he knew what he did and was about to do would be held against him if he ever survived this.

"But what about the rest?", Penelope said while pointing at the other servants that were too scared to even move. Some even had already pissed themselves from the screams that resounded throughout the mansion. Liam was a knight at heart, he wouldn't leave behind those who are suffering, but now he could only look downcast before grabbing the arms of his beloved and running out of the room. "I'm sorry honey, but there's no room for anyone else, we need to escape as fast as possible. Hold the kids for me, we need to start running.", "Wha-, but wait- "

"THERE'S NO TIME PENELOPE!", Liam was starting to get angry from his own nervousness. If the monsters got to this place, he could potentially lose his entire family. He didn't want to lose anyone anymore, ever. His frustration helped him only in the killing of the spiders, not soothing the worries of his family. He started to clear a path through the mansion, going to the back of the mansion, where the horses were being kept. He could only hope that some of them were still alive.

The spiders kept coming, for every corner he turned there were twice as many spiders trying to eat him. "Honey, are you okay?", "Huff, huff, we're almost there, no time to waste talking."

They kept going through the hall, eventually making it to the final room before reaching the back door. Liam was already very exhausted, using his artifact drained energy from his body, but he had the determination to keep going for his family. But fate didn't like them escaping without any problems, he got pincered between monsters. He needed to kill the one in front to escape, but the ones behind him were going after his family.

"Dad!", his daughter had tears in her eyes, she was clearly distressed but when she saw that her father couldn't be in two places she started to scream for help. Liam was looking back but the spider in front of him was already about to attack him, not giving him the time to cover for his family.

"Focus on the one in front of you, idiot!", Liam recognized the voice and used the last bit of his energy to kill the one guarding the back door. He felt confident that his family would be safe, and like his faith was answered, when he turned back, they were safe and sound. The decapitated body of the spider lay in front of his wife, lifeless with the killer standing on top of it. "Looks like you made it, now go, there's no time to chat, move it.", the person in question was cold and calculated. It felt like everything was going according to his plans, "I'm sorry Lucas, I truly am."

Lucas scoffed, "If you want to redeem your honor as a knight, help your young master survive in the city.", even with the chaos surrounding him, he had direct orders that had goals coupled with them. "Lucas.", Liam bowed down, an act only performed before their master or the royal line. Doing such a thing before Lucas would be an enormous disrespect to the master of the mansion, but he was already dead. Liam hadn't ever seen Lucas like this, so unemotional, but he knew that there wasn't any time for questioning it.

"Thank you for giving me another chance, let's go.", addressing his family they got a move on. Leaving as fast as possible, there were still some horses left, so they could run away. "Still so emotional, tch.", everything went according to his scheme, 'Just one more thing.'

Venion was still fighting the spiders, but the battle tipped into his favor, he managed to get rid of the legs of one of the spiders with an extremely powerful wind attack. He first froze the legs before using a sharp wind blade to shatter them into pieces. Now that one was practically useless in battle, he could focus on the caster, but they simply changed places. The spider on the ground started to cast spells and the previous spellcaster started to go for direct combat.

But that wasn't the smartest idea, the spider was in the back, giving Venion time to kill the legless spider while the other rushed forward. Using an ice pike he bore a hole into its head, "Now you're all alone, what are you going to do now?", Venion wasn't' expecting an answer, most beings with intelligence knew when to back off. Using his aura he tried to pressure the spider into submission or at least make it give up the fight.

Lucas exited the mansion with a backpack, seeing what was happening between the spider and Venion, he decided to help out a bit. "Hey, Venion! Catch!", he threw a stone ball, it wasn't fast enough to be considered an attack and Venion could sense the ball was empty. Catching the ball in his hands he simply crushed it between his fingers, "Is this what you consider an attack?", Venion started to show a smirk, but that disappeared quickly when he saw Lucas grinning even harder. "Not really, but my little friends want to play again.", Venion's instincts kicked in when he narrowly dodged a leg, it almost punctured his entire body, yet now it merely left a scratch on his sides.

"Hng, what did you do?", Lucas looked a bit unhappy that Venion dodged the attack so well. "Who knows? Anyway, good luck, I'm out of here.", Lucas started to use a bit of muscle strengthening to sprint into the woods, vanishing from Venion's sight. "Wait, get back here-", but he had to dodge another attack from the spider. 'I can't waste any more time on this stupid monster, that brat needs to die before he escapes my senses.'

Using a high energy consuming attack he created an enormous fireball that completely burned the spider to a crisp. 'That took a lot more than expected, but I still have enough to handle a single Rank 0 mage.'

But before he could chase after Lucas another horde of weaker spiders flooded towards him. Since they were beneath Rank 1, they were useless canon fodder. 'I used too much energy here, I need my potions if I want to deal with any surprises.'

After gathering what he needed to keep fighting, Venion started to use the same kind of muscle strengthening combined with a wind spell to boost his speed even further. His speed vastly surpassed that of Lucas.

"You won't get away from me Lucas! I'm faster than you, hahaha!", his crazed laughter echoed through the forest. Venion's sprint was a lot faster and it didn't take long before he caught up to Lucas. He was standing still in the middle of the forest, panting. "Hah! Your time is over Lucas, you've proven yourself to be capable of being an annoying thorn to a Rank 1 mage, be proud of that achievement. But it's better to give up now, throughout history, a lower-ranked mage has never won against a higher one. So just let your life be taken from you without making things even more difficult."

Lucas was still panting, he didn't have his backpack on him anymore, but Venion didn't care about that. Lucas looked exhausted, but Venion chalked that up to fighting the spiders inside the mansion or some other reason like healing someone that might have gotten hurt that he wanted to save, like that Lammy maid. Venion stretched his hand out to cast a single ice pike, he wanted to test the waters. In the end, lower-ranked beings had to fight twice as hard if they wanted to even survive. But before he completed the spell, Lucas interrupted him, "Now!"

With that shout, a stone spike grew from right behind Venion, targeting his spine. He stopped his spell to interrupt the ground spike, which merely gave Lucas time to close the gap. Venion saw an array on the ground, 'He planned this?'. Arrays take time to form and can be activated when a certain condition is met, but you can't move arrays.

Closing the gap with his enhanced muscles, he forced a lot of energy into his arm, he could've used a sword, but like Venion, he was scouting his opponent's strength. His arm bulged from the stress placed on them and hit Venion square in the chest with his full physical power.

BAM

His fist made contact with a light blue magical barrier, a shield created by non-elemental magic. The shield was like a bubble that surrounded Venion from all sides. "That was a great tactic, but as I said, Rank 0's can't beat a Rank 1, no matter how many there are. Lucas jumped back to create a bit of space and inspected the place he punched. A very slight crack had appeared, normally Venion could easily repair his shield, but that required energy, which he didn't have a lot of left.

'A few more hits and this shield breaks, we need to kill him in the next exchanges.', Venion got serious about the fight now. His situation wasn't optimal to fight in, he already wasted a lot of energy on the Rank 1 spiders and the canon fodder, so he needed to optimize the following spells. The shield could hold out a few more of those punches so he wasn't worried.

Lucas waited until he recovered a bit of his energy, he also didn't have a lot of energy left, but that was because of a different reason. Venion conjured a bunch of smaller wind blades, one couldn't kill, but all of them together would be impossible to survive from. Lucas stomped on the ground revealing that part of it was already loose, it flew upwards, creating a small dirt wall. It stopped most of the blades until the dirt wall got too brittle.

BOOM

The wall exploded in an explosion of dirt and roots before, but that was not because of Venion, Lucas leaped through the explosion to close the gap once again. Venion was still casting the wind blade spell, one that was low in consumption but useful for tiring your opponent.

Lucas got close to the shield again, but he didn't punch but created a small ball of darkness that could completely destroy the shield. Yet the moment the darkness came into being an equally big light came from Venion's hands. The two touched each other and nothing changed. They canceled each other out. "Hahaha, did you think I didn't know you could use dark magic or something?"

But while his one hand touched the shield and left no damage, his other had been infused with darkness, thinking that Venion couldn't get rid of the darkness within him. Punching the shield did have an effect and created a hole. "What! How is that possible, you shouldn't be capable of infusing darkness into your veins!"

Venion needed space and easily did so, stomping the ground and a few runes later. He created a wave in the ground, dragging Lucas backward. If he went along with the wave, he would be forced to close the distance again, since his only advantage was his physical strength.

Lucas jumped in the air, which did close the distance, but it also made him vulnerable since he couldn't move in the air. Halfway through his jump, he was faced with a lightning snake. It flew towards Lucas and in that split second, he thought of an idea. Instead of blocking the snake or creating a shield he merely attacked first, grabbing the snake with his hands.

AAAAAAAAH

"HAhaha have you gone senile!?", Venion's victory was assured with that attack.

But Lucas didn't answer, as he fell with the lightning coursing through his veins, he landed right beside Venion and simply grabbed his coat.

AAAAAAH, they were both covered in the rain, so the electricity had no problem weaving its way around the both of them.

AAAAAAAAH

Lucas eventually let go when he himself couldn't handle it anymore, but his resistance to pain was a lot higher than the normal mage, Venion was drained. The electric shock had forced his body to automatically protect him, using energy in the process, he was practically depleted, but the same could be said for Lucas.

"Ah, ah, you,.., you really know how to fight don't you?", they were both still standing, but their knees were bending from the pain. Their bodies screamed to rest, but both knew that couldn't happen unless one of them died.

Lucas fell to his knees, panting, he didn't have an ounce of energy left, he was done for. Venion stood straight; "You have done well so far, getting me to experience so much pain as a Rank 0, you could've written history. But now, no one will ever remember you, you will die a horrible death. We both don't have any energy left, but you know what's so special about being Rank 1?", he started to get a creepy smile on his face. He wanted to show his superiority, "Rank 1 mages have a mind sphere. We can manipulate the energy in the air without needing any in our core, I can still fight, but you are done for, HAHAHA"

Lucas stayed quiet, he was on his knees, but he was secretly meditating. "WITNESS THE TRUE POWER OF A RANK 1 MAGE!!!", he started to speak certain runes Lucas had never heard of before, and even if Venion didn't have any energy left, the water from the storm started to take form. A giant head of a dragon was starting to form from just water.

'Resist! Resist! Explode! Explode!'

'Calm down, you need to stay focussed on the target!'

The dragon hadn't taken complete shape yet, but it started to shake a bit. Venion wasn't sure of what was going on, but since he was using purely his mind, he expected there would be some issues creating such a big spell. "This is a spell that has been passed down from generation to generation within my family. I couldn't even access this unless I performed a ton of work. You will be the first to witness the might of this spell!"

The water dragon head looked extremely imposing in the storm, but before it was about to go down to swallow Lucas it started to fall apart. Venion's mind was starting to break, this spell was made with his willpower, now that it was being destroyed, it lead back to his mental sphere breaking it. "AAAAAAAAAH", Venion started to scream his lungs out before a stone sword pierced his stomach. Lucas was standing in front of him with a big smile on his face.

The dragon's head fell apart in a big splash of water and Lucas felt a weight fall off his back. Venion was completely flabbergasted, how did he break his own spell? "It doesn't make any sense..."

Lucas looked triumphantly at Venion, the fight was practically over, Venion was deeply hurt and Lucas had superior muscle strength. "I have to say I never expected to be forced into such a corner."

"What is it? Did you finally realize that you're doomed, destined to fall!?"

"Hahaha, don't get cocky kid, you might've hurt me, but I'm not dead yet!"

Lucas lost his happy expression, replacing it with a serious look. "You are strong, smart and clearly have what it takes to be a mage, but you should've never fought someone above your Rank. Not only do we have the advantages of power, bigger reserves, and knowledge. We have experience and items you couldn't even dream of.", his hand reached for a satchel. Within it were a few potions, grabbing one he unscrewed it and started to drink it down in one gulp.

"HAhahaha, you see Lucas, this potion will revitalize me, and fill part of my energy, you are doomed! HAHAHA"

Yet Lucas simply stood there with a massive grin plastered on his face. He couldn't help but giggle at what was happening. Venion lost all his enthusiasm and quickly searched for any backup.

"Don't bother looking for another mage, we're alone here, I never had any help."

"What, bu- AArgh", Venion started to writhe in pain, he started to have spasms. Lucas rushed at him and created a few more stone spears that punctured different body parts in order to deal as much damage as possible. Between the spasms and the attacks of Lucas, Venion was about to lose consciousness. After his fit was done, he was a walking corpse. He fell down against a tree, looking up at Lucas who was standing there with a massive grin.

"I did it, I DID IT, HAHAHA, finally, the great Rank 1 Venion has been slain by a simple, weak Rank 0 mage. How do you feel?", Lucas felt incredibly happy, like he had never felt before. His apathetic shell was destroyed and bloomed into pure bliss. Conquering this challenge brought him a feeling of accomplishment he never knew he wanted so much.

Venion was dumbfounded, he was so confused he didn't have the words for it, "How?", was the only thing he could ask.

Lucas was so happy, that he didn't mind indulging in some of his questions, "How did I do it? Strategy! A plan! No, a scheme!"

"How did you break the contract?", Lucas started to lose his high, he still felt the happiness in his heart, and he knew he would never let go of that.

"I didn't."

"What, no that's not possible."

"I was bound until now, why did you think I needed to kill the baron?"

"But that doesn't make any sense, you had to follow his orders if you were bound to the contract."

"Didn't I kneel at first? Isn't the mine cleared of monsters? As far as I know, they're all here, hihihi.", the smirk on his face made Lucas seem like the devil.

"But then how did you destroy my spell?", Venion wasn't done with his questioning.

"Simple, you used my magic to create a spell, it was difficult to make it collapse with willpower. Hmm, your face is telling me you still don't understand what's going on. Let me explain it like this; Who do you think created this weather?"

"And the potion?"

"Can you not recognize your own potions?"

'Potions? Multiple?', Venion didn't know what to say, Lucas had used his training potions and the milky white potion in combination to create an odorless potion and simply replaced his healing potions. The training potion had an awful smell, but the white potion canceled it out, then by replacing all the potions on his belt with fake ones, he was destined to die the moment he drank even a single potion. If he dared to drink one before the fight, it would've ended twice as fast.

Venion was in shock, 'How can a child think of all this? Tricking the baron into thinking his orders were useless, he kneeled but after he kneeled the order was done, there was no need to stay on the ground! He lured the monsters to this place with some invisible scent or something, clearing the mine. The potions, the rain infused with his willpower, the arrays. This entire battle, all of it was planned out!', a sense of doom and despair started to come over Venion

'We were all walking on the palm of his hand! We were nothing more than pawns! He is a monster, a devil!', the menacing grin didn't improve his image any further.

The lightning and the storm continued to rage, making the scene even more imposing. "Now then, in order to reach Rank 1 I need a lot of energy, and your core happens to have most of what I need, so please excuse me."

"ARGH", a hand pierced his torso, it was so unexpected, the action was ruthless. Venion was planning on asking him to spare him and he would become his servant or butler, but Lucas was too fast. A bloody fist was pulled out of him, "Thank you, with this I should at least have half of what I need.", Lucas' childlike demeanor was completely removed, all that was left was a scheming monster. All the times he seemed desperate or out of energy and unconcentrated were all an act to lure them into a false sense of security.

Venion was extremely pale, almost like a corpse, he was at death's door.

"Be happy Venion, you might die now, but you'll perish with the knowledge that your experimental subject will now go out and tell every one of your family's evil deeds."

Venion's face started to contort a final time, a face of anger and despair combined before the life left his eyes. "Tch, already dead, we could've had so much more fun.", with a smile he left the scene, leaving behind a burning body.