27

"Get your slaves," I shoved him toward the door.

The elf that attacked me from behind didn't expect the death that came for him a moment later.

"You might want to call off your guards," I glanced at the body that was plastered to the wall as a red paste.

That might have been a bit of an overreaction. I kept him ahead of me as we crossed the room quickly. Blinking myself alone didn't cost much mana. Blinking the nobles with me on the other hand wasn't nearly as cheap. I knew about all the guards that were just around the corner.

The noble walked out first, and calmed his guards. Showing them the rune on his back. His life was in my hands.

"I don't have all the time in the world," I whispered into the noble's ear.

"Bring my slaves," He shouted nervously, "All of them."

The guards looked at me carefully. They seemed to want to kill me right here, and now. The fact that I had their leader as a hostage was probably the only reason they hadn't attacked me yet. The other reason they hadn't attacked yet was the fact that I was in control of all the mana surrounding them. They didn't have any mana they could draw from the environment, but they would get more daring as my mana thinned.

I was slowly losing mana to both my own use of it, and the elves that were trying to escape my barrier. The number of elves attacking my barrier had decreased, but they were working away constantly. That constant slow barrage would eventually break down my barrier. This noble didn't try to pull a fast one on me like the last one had. The people that were already in the cavern were all the encouragement this new batch needed.

I added more baskets of food. Making sure there was enough food for this new batch. The rest of the living nobles went similar to the first two. I went to the dead nobles houses afterward. Collecting all the slaves, and completely destroying their homes.

Killing all the guards. I went after the city lord's slaves last. I knew they would be the most trouble, and wanted to go after them with Sekka in step with me. It didn't take us long to get down to the lord's storage rooms where he kept all of his slaves. The head of the lord's guard finally showed up sometime halfway through stealing all the lord's slaves.

I guess he couldn't move around as freely as normal since I was blocking the spatial element to everyone but me, and Sekka. He rushed me with his blade drawn only for me to block it with his own lord's blade. The shock on his face when he saw the blade I was using was enough to make me laugh aloud. My next strike broke his blade. That was one of the nice things about this heavy blade.

I kind of wanted to test the sword's ability to use divine energy, but I knew this wasn't the time to give away that kind of ability. I was more willing to let them know about my many elemental abilities then I was about my ability to use divine energy. I was more aggressive when I fought this time. He wouldn't recognize me right now. The mask covered my entire face, and most of my hair so it wasn't all that surprising.

I put more effort into this fight then the last one we'd had. I'd used only my physical abilities the last time I'd fought him. Combining my waning mana, and my physical strength made me more then a match for him. He tried to use that same darkness spike trick he'd used the last time. I didn't bother to dodge.

I was reinforcing my body with enough mana to double all of my stats. His attack breaking against my body. I could practically taste his fear as I moved closer. I grabbed him by the throat on the narrow stairway that led down into the depths of the slave storage.

"It would be a waste to kill someone fun like you," I slammed him into the wall.

Knocking him out cold as well as denting his armor. I was strong enough to bend his armor before I enhanced my strength with mana. I could have absolutely destroyed both him, and his armor with ease. Without my mana we were an even match. With my mana I was far his superior.

I wanted to find out how much stronger the other city lord's were. This was one of the smaller cities. I could only imagine the strength that the stronger lord's might posses. I didn't have enough mana to play around much longer, and the night was ending. I could feel the barrier coming down slowly.

I pulled all of my remaining mana into my core. I had maybe a tenth of my core left of usable mana. Patience was no longer an option. I moved quickly. Taking the stairs two at a time as I rushed back to Sekka.

Soon every single guard in this city would be headed our way. I hadn't taken him with me to this room in the interest of saving time. Sekka could also create spatial portals so we didn't need to be together to get the slaves out. Sekka just wasn't nearly as good at creating spatial portals as I was. We'd already taken nearly all the slaves in the city.

This would be our first huge victory. We would need to do this three or four more times before the end of the year. My mana was running low. I knew there was a way that I could save all the slaves on this planet, but I was beginning to think that I might not succeed at getting them all like I wanted to. I would have to accept the loss.