10

My voice sounded incredibly confident, but the reality was that the stress of what I was doing was taking a serious toll on my body. My mind was running rampant as well. It was taking all my focus just to keep this massive chunk together as it fell. If they didn't hurry I would be leaving them here to die just as I promised. Luckily I'd teleported the arena a large distance off the ground so we had about two minutes before it hit.

Many of them gathered in the middle arena since it was their only chance. The barrier was starting to break up so my ability to keep the massive chunk in one piece was quickly failing. Many of them gathered around me as the barrier started to fail. The two wyverns took that opportunity to leave us behind. Claiming freedom while I was too busy to stop them.

Not that I would. I really didn't care. I had no intention of bringing them under my control right now in the first place. I was just glad they didn't volunteer to join the crew after seeing my strength. I was still getting used to having one pet.

I didn't need more. Not that I didn't have a crazy plan for them later. I wouldn't be able to do anything about it for now. I needed to worry about leveling up first. The systems calculation speed had gone down a good amount while it was working on purifying my core.

It was a little annoying, but the delay was helping since I didn't have to worry about the high I got from leveling up until I was out of danger. Not that it helped with the situation I was in now. I grabbed the hand of the closest slave.

"Hold onto each other," I shouted over the howl of the wind.

They listened without needing more persuasion. I spread my remaining power to the rest of them, and blinked us all out of here at once. There were too many of us for me to move them straight into the complex so I teleported them outside of the complex. We all slammed into the ground at once. Blinking didn't get rid of all of our downward momentum so we hit fairly hard.

Many of the slaves had broken bones, but none of it was lethal. My sudden presence alerted all the people within the complex. Ethan's mental connection slammed into me like a truck. I'd been so far from him for so long that I wasn't used to his constant intrusion like I used to be. It actually hurt a little to have his whole mind slam into mine once again.

I was out of mana, and my core was crying out with pain. The amount of time I had before my core was purified shortened again now that my core was empty. I was nearly out of divine energy as well. I didn't know how much time I had left before my core would be completely purified. I could check the system, but I didn't want to obsess over my stats right now when it was clear I didn't stand a chance against the elven queen.

I'd only caught a glimpse of her full stats when I scanned her with appraisal earlier. Her mana alone was in the millions. That meant she could amplify her stats into obscene numbers as well. I was actually kind of surprised that my appraisal had worked at all. I mean I did spend a good amount of time trying to scan Letty's stats, but the system always told me I was too low level to scan him.

That, and I kind of needed to get used to not having the system. The whole thing would forcefully uninstall once I reached level fifty so it didn't matter what I wanted. Eventually I wouldn't be able to use any of the system benefits. I'd have to figure out how to do all of this stuff manually anyway so might as well start now while I still had a crutch to help me with it. I grimaced to myself as my mentality adjusted to Ethan's presence.

I didn't plan on separating from him again for a long time, but first I needed to get Sekka back. His mother might be with him by now. The queen would have figured out rather quickly that he was a slave, and that his mother was trapped within her clutches. I estimated that Sekka had three days before she'd be able to wring all the information she wanted out of him. That wasn't a problem for me as long as he didn't tell her about my true form.

A large number of people rushed out of the complex to greet us. They were still a ways off so it didn't really matter to me at the moment. I stood up slowly. Cracking my stiff limbs as I did. I had a lot to do in the next three days, and the first was clearing out this complex.

Ethan landed next to me a second later. It seemed he'd stayed behind just long enough to issue orders before rushing my way. Ethan lifted me off the ground in a tight bear hug. His strength was a bit of a problem for me. He had all of my physical strength, and the fact that I was physically exhausted meant his bear hug actually hurt.

My lip curled up a little in irritation. Ethan let me go. Realizing he was hurting himself about the same time I realized I was hurt. Our bodies were connected through the part of my soul. My pain was his, and vice versa.

Ethan would live nearly as long as I would because of that fact. He already had a hard time talking to people now without being centuries older then them. That would be a problem for the future. While Ethan wasn't willing to converse with people willingly he was willing to give orders, and he wasn't nearly as stiff or nervous in conversation as he used to be. I went through Ethan's memories to update him on the status of what was happening here while I allowed Ethan to do the same to me.