Elias, what’s wrong with you? Leo stared back in shock. Is he about to attack us? You’ve gotta be freakin’ kidding me!
Unable to accept what was happening right before his eyes, Leo froze midrun. Aki’s shaky scream pierced the air as if to kick some sense back into him.
“Elias, don’t…!” She frantically grabbed Elias’s raised arm, trying to stop him from swinging his sword down. By the way she was acting, she was still in her right mind, but the same couldn’t be said for Elias.
The catapulting beat of his heart acting as a warning, Leo loudly asked, “Aki, what’s goin’ on?! What’s wrong with Elias?!”
“I don’t know! I don’t know why, but Elias isn’t in his right mind! He doesn’t respond to me no matter how much I talk to him!”
Her voice isn’t reaching him? Can he not hear us?
“What’s that supposed to mean?! Does it have somethin’ to do with that funky crest on his forehead?!” he bellowed. Aki vehemently shook her head.
No point in drowning Aki in questions when she didn’t understand what was going on after witnessing the whole sequence of events from beginning to end.
The only thing any of them knew for sure was that Elias wasn’t in his right mind. Had he lost his sense of self? Was it best to assume he couldn’t tell the difference between friend and foe?
If he doesn’t know who we are…is he about to attack us for real right now?! Leo studied Elias, ice dripping from his unreadable eyes as he raised his sword despite Aki yanking on his arm. I’m screwed!
Leo tried to run toward Mina and Louis—but he was too late. Elias knocked Aki’s hand aside and mightily swung down the Holy Sword as if he were trying to crack the earth in half with it. Platinum wind blades burst forth, slicing through the flowers like a lawnmower as they raced across the field.
Oi, oi, oi! Is this for real?!
Throughout their years of adventuring together, Elias hadn’t once unleashed a long-distance attack. Did the crest give him access to magic?
I’d better make sure he doesn’t land a direct hit!
Leo thrust his hands out and chanted an incantation so fast it was nearly incomprehensible, summoning thick gusts of wind to create a barrier between him and the incoming attack.
Lunar Magic didn’t have any skill trees for barrier creation like Solar Magic did, so Leo was stuck creatively making use of offensive spells as defense. He blocked the slashing blade attack with his wind magic.
Damn! The slashes didn’t stop on impact?! It just keeps hittin’ my barrier as if he’s actively wailing on it with the Holy Sword!
Sinking his teeth into his lip, he poured his magic into maintaining his barrier against the relentless slashes slowly pushing him backward.
Mina and Louis are behind me! I have to block the attack or it’ll hit ‘em! Desperate to hold out, he dug his feet in, but he wasn’t strong enough. The platinum blades cut through his barrier, knocking him off balance. Recoil from his disrupted spell sent him flying until his back slammed against the blue flowers.
The slashing blades he failed to block flew over his head at torrential speeds.
Crap! Leo sprung to his feet despite his rattled bones. It’s gonna hit the others directly behind me! He whirled his bruised body toward them.
“Mina, Louis, run!”
“MINA…!”
“KYAAAAAAAAH!”
Louis’s shout and Mina’s harrowing scream sliced through the air. The air blades hit them head-on, flinging them hard against a nearby rock mountain. Not stopping there, the platinum blades slashed the rocks to pieces, hailing heavy rubble on top of the pair collapsed on the ground below.
“Mina! Louis!” Leo cried, his panic-stricken voice drowned out by the crash of tumbling rock as he helplessly reached for them.
What the…what did he just do?!
Dirt and gravel kicked up by the collapse gradually settled to the ground, revealing Mina and Louis knocked unconscious under a pile of rocks. Louis had thrown himself on top of Mina to protect her at the last minute.
Leo thought he saw Louis activate a Lunar Magic spell seconds before the blades tore into them. He sincerely hoped the spell deflected the blast enough to protect them from fatal injury.
“—Elias! You bastard!” Leo seethed and shot Elias an unforgiving glare.
The Elias I know would rather die than attack his friends. I’d better think of my opponent as someone other than Elias. I won’t hold back.
Leo reached for the dagger sheathed in a leather belt fastened to his right thigh.
I’ll just whack the gentleness back into him.
There were some things in the world that magic had no effect on, hence why he always kept a dagger on him, but he never expected to fight Elias with it.
I’ve trained fairly hard, but I seriously suck at swordsmanship compared to magic. I’m skeptical I can hold my own against Elias…
The hero possessed attack and defense stats unsurpassed by other Adventurers, and his agility outclassed most level hundred monsters. So he wasn’t going to leave any openings for Leo to chant a powerful spell capable of dealing massive damage to him. About the only strategy that stood a chance was to blast him with magic after cracking open a hole in his defenses with the dagger.
How many minutes will I last? I really want to avoid an instant KO.
Leo slid the dagger from its leather sheath with his right hand and held it in the reverse grip with his left hand positioned on top of the guard. Then he assessed the enemy before him.
Rescuing Aki from Elias comes first. Her health points might hit zero if I don’t heal her injuries soon. But how’d she even get that badly injured in the first place?
Keeping a good distance from Elias, Leo inspected Aki’s status. Even from this distance he saw blood streaming from a long slice in her cheek and her clothes soaked red from what seemed like a deep stab wound in her right shoulder.
Who the hell would do that to her? Elias is protecting her like a mad guard dog even in his psychotic state, so he’s off the suspect list.
…Did the monster turned into chop suey get her? Where’d it even come from? Was it from the Quest boss? But what’s it protecting here?
Leo gave his head a hard shake. Now wasn’t the time to speculate. He should only think about rescuing Aki and beating the sweetness back into Elias. He didn’t have the room or time to think about anything else—he was about to take on the Hero who had full bragging rights about being the strongest man in the world, comparable only to the Dark Lord.
Holding his dagger behind him in the downward position, Leo bent his knees and propelled himself off the ground. He had to fight his way into grabbing range of Elias if he wanted to rescue Aki.