Chapter 698: Hope They Survived

As soon as Derek finished speaking and had the attention of the remaining enemies—two of whom were already disabled from his draconic void flame that he'd channeled into Harbinger—he gave Silvi a quick command. As soon as he did, the area around them instantly heated.

A look of confusion, then dread, appeared on the leader's face as an explosion of draconic flame rained down from above. Again, the leader and the woman who had spoken previously dodged the flame easily. The healer was also able to move out of the way fast enough to avoid any real damage. A large man holding an even larger shield wasn't as lucky, though.

Apparently knowing his slow speed, instead of even trying to dodge, the man turned and rushed over to the two enemies who were on the ground shriveling up. He braced himself and held his shield up to protect them. Multiple layers of energy shields created a thick dome around the three just as the flame hit.

"Ugh!" the remaining member of the group shouted in agony. He carried a greatsword as he tried to run, but he was caught just inside the splash radius of Silvi's attack. The force of the blast sent the man flying, with both of his legs aflame.

The trio that had made it out unscathed stood across from Derek on the other side of the fire. Every once in a while, Derek caught a glimpse of the leader and could tell that he was seething with both rage and uncertainty. Like this, they probably don't even know what kind of affinity I used for my attack. The fact that it was fire, on top of Silvi using her draconic flame, probably has them pretty confused.

Soon, Silvi let the flames disappear so she could keep some of her mana. There was no point in continuing since none of the main fighters had been caught up in it. When the smoke settled, a light weight landed on Derek's shoulder, then he and Silvi looked at the scene she'd just made.

Derek had to hand it to the shield warrior. He was still standing. He was panting, pale, and most of his equipment had seen better days, but he was standing. Unfortunately for the two guards he'd tried to save, they did not have the mana to block Silvi's attack, nor the vitality and endurance to survive once the shield warrior's dome gave out. All that was left of them was ash. The same was true of the eighth member that Silvi had taken out at the very beginning of the fight.

"I hope they survived," Silvi suddenly said as she looked over the destruction she'd created.

"You do?" Derek asked, confused.

"Yes," Silvi said. "The storage rings and bracelets. I hope they survived."

"Oh... me too," Derek replied. Though he wasn't sure what these kinds of people would be carrying in their storage devices. With their strength and apparent age, it couldn't be too valuable. I've been surprised before, though, he thought.

"Might have ingredients," Silvi said. "Need ingredients after being in boring space with dumb lizard."

"I'm sure you do," Derek said with a light chuckle. "Now..." he muttered, then disappeared. It was time for him to take the initiative, and since he didn't have to worry about casualties on his side after sending Alex away and keeping everyone other than Silvi in his space, and he wanted all the casualties on the enemy's side, he had just the plan.

He reappeared behind the shield warrior, then stabbed Harbinger into a gap in his near-ruined armor. The man was extremely durable, so the blade didn't go far into his sternum, and he grabbed the haft. That only made Derek smile.

Derek activated Material Drain. It was the first time he'd really tried it out since the weapon was upgraded from legendary to Mythical rarity. Not only had the weapon gotten an intrinsic repair function, but Material Drain had been upgraded, too. Before, Derek could only activate the skill if there was durability for Harbinger to recover, but now the weapon had the ability to store the 'material' it drained for later use.

That was something the unfortunate shield warrior found out too late. The sphere appeared on the end of the blade and suddenly ate away at the man's sternum. He quickly released the glaive and backed away, but Derek was on him the next moment. The drain wasn't eating fast enough for Derek's liking, but it was good to know the speed at which it was able to drain on a clearly very tanky level 305 warrior.

'My turn!' Silvi suddenly shouted inside Derek's head, then appeared in front of him before charging the shield warrior head-on.

Derek quickly deactivated Material Drain just as Silvi reached the man's chest. Then she activated Charge and shot straight into the man's already softened chest. A bunny-sized hole appeared in his body as Silvi exploded out the other side. The man spat out a mouthful of blood, then fell to one knee—clutching at the hole.

"Please... I'm just a..." the shield warrior started, but Derek held out his palm and placed it on the man's head. He was too hurt to move, and he could barely speak, so when Derek placed his palm on him and used Spatial Collapse, there was nothing he could do to keep his brain from being destroyed.

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Silvi reappeared on Derek's shoulder and spat, "Big man taste yucky."

"That's probably what elves taste like, too," Derek said as he looked around. With parts of the battlefield still burning, he locked eyes with the leader once again. He and the woman were standing there, staring at Derek and Silvi while the healer worked to heal the greatsword user's legs. "And then there were four," he said loud enough for them to hear.

"W-what are you?" the woman suddenly blurted out, her eyes narrowed.

"What am I?" Derek snorted. "I'm pissed. That's what I am. Here I am, just trying to travel peacefully with a friend from one place to another, and we've been attacked twice." Technically, he and Silvi had initiated the first attack, but who was counting?

"We just wanted..."

"Alex," Derek finished as he took a step toward the group. The leader took a step back at that. "Because he killed your brother, right?"

"Exactly!"

"Well, tough shit," Derek said. "Your brother was given the chance to leave, but he wanted to make his clan proud and kill a member of House Loomis. And he thought he would be able to easily accomplish that with that Nikolai guy on his side."

"Nikolai! What happened to him? How did he let my brother die?" the man asked, rapid-fire.

"Oh, I killed him," Derek said nonchalantly. They didn't need to know that Derek had to use a bunch of tricks to beat the man, or that if the man hadn't gotten cocky, he would have kicked Derek's ass. "He was like... level 330 something, right? That's, like, stronger than all of you. And he'd also evolved and had one hell of an affinity. Are any of you evolved?"

"Lies!" the man shouted. "You must have had help!"

"Yeah, I did," Derek replied, then with his thumb, pointed at Silvi on his shoulder. "My companion here is very, very helpful." The reaction from everyone on the other side let Derek inwardly release a sigh. With those reactions, there was no way that any of them had evolved, and it also meant that none of them was of Mythical rarity like Nikolai was.

At this point, Derek wouldn't chase if they tried to escape, so if he overly intimidated them, that was okay. During their short battle, he hadn't done anything that would make them think he had the void affinity—well, other than the void flames, but those two people were already dead, and the flames had barely been visible. Silvi also hadn't shown any signs of the void.

Yes, she had physical features that could have been void-related, but other than those, she had used Telekinesis, Charge, and Dragon Flame. Other than their surprise, the enemies seemed pretty confident that he was using some kind of spatial affinity because of the space he stored Alex in and his Void Shift usage. His transfer of his void energy to Harbinger had been done in an instant as well.

Speaking of Harbinger, if the enemies were only going to stare and hesitate, then Derek would make another move. He slashed out with Harbinger in a big arc, then activated Spatial Rend. The two leaders jumped back—the male grabbing the healer as they did. But Derek wasn't aiming at any of them. He was aiming at the partially recovered man who had been burned severely by Silvi.

With the anti-healing properties, a ripple in space formed in front of the man, and he could only slightly roll to dodge as the rend came and sliced through the side of his neck. The warrior clutched at the wound, trying to staunch the bleeding, but with the inability to regenerate because of Spatial Rend, the effort was useless.

The healer tried to rush over to heal, but the leader stopped them by grabbing their robe, then shook his head. However, the healer still tried to help by casting a couple of longer-range skills at the man. But, to his dismay, it didn't help much.

Derek used Active Void Shift to appear directly in front of the downed man, then finished him by putting Harbinger's blade to his head and activating Material Drain. After that, he looked up as Silvi landed on his shoulder once again. Staring directly at the three remaining enemies, he held three fingers up, then mouthed the word, "Three."

The action made the healer shudder and the male leader take another step back. However, the woman furrowed her brow, then reached over and slapped the man on the back of his head. "Boy!" the older woman shouted. "Have a little dignity. The Ascendants gave us a mission. If we fail, there's no point in going back to the clan. So, we either bring Alex Loomis back, or we die. Those are our only two options."

"Yes, Aunt!" the man whom Derek had assumed was the leader the whole time muttered.

This caused Derek to look the woman over once again. Nikolai was level 337 when Derek defeated him, but he was also evolved and Mythical. The woman was the highest level of the bunch, at level 350, but she didn't give Derek the same feeling that the other man had. Still, though she had seemed shocked a few times, she had never seemed overly scared like the others. The only thing that had given her real pause was when the two guards started shriveling before being turned to char by Silvi.

"And besides, if we can just hold him here, the Ancestor Ascendants will be here soon enough after taking care of whoever the boys' escort was," she said, which caused Derek to chuckle. "Did I say something funny, boy?"

"You did," Derek replied. He was worried about Sheen, sure, but the old man had seemed pretty confident. Sure, his soul wasn't fully recovered after his spar with the vice patriarch, but he hadn't seemed that concerned about it. "The fact that you think YOUR elders are going to be the ones who come back alive is just about the funniest thing I've heard all day. They nearly shit their pants when they saw my escort."

The woman frowned, then said, "You're bluffing." She nodded. "Yes, you are bluffing. And you are not even from their clan—nobody even knows who you are. Why would they even want to help you? So, tell me, who is it? 'Your' escort?"

"Because I'm somewhat important," Derek replied. "Did you even learn about where we were headed before you decided to kill us?"

"What does that matter?"

"Because my benefactor is waiting for me in Origin City," Derek said, which caused some hesitation to appear in the woman's eyes. "He has a permanent place there, after all." Finally, something on the woman's face changed. She searched Derek's own face, but he was as calm as ever—it was impossible to tell if he was lying or not, especially since he was actually telling the truth.

"Who... did they send to escort you?" the woman finally asked.

"I don't know," Derek said with a chuckle. "Your elders said something about a Grinning Maniac." The woman's eyes finally turned into saucers. Damn... it's no wonder most of the young nobles turn into good-for-nothings. Having an old monster as a backer and seeing reactions when people find out is kind of addicting, Derek thought. "But none of that matters, anyway." Silvi jumped high into the air off Derek's shoulder. "Because you have to survive us first," he said, then vanished.