“Hum?”

Gerard was confused when he saw the soldier fall that quickly. And although he had confidence in his strength as a captain, he’d survived many battles by being cautious and would not stop relying on being so now.

“Call the others, now!”

“Yes, sir!”

One of the soldiers ran towards the depths of the mine, without questioning Gerard’s order.

Gerard looked towards the mine entrance, where the deep voice had come from. Gerard knew that whoever he is, now was his enemy, and he would not hesitate in order to achieve victory.

“Ya girl got into something she shouldn’t have. Now, she is gonna stay. You can stay too, but not alive.”

Lucien didn’t like that at all. He still didn’t have a good relationship with Marie, but he already considered her as his. So, how could he let someone talk about his girl like that?

“Well… Let’s see how long you keep the brave attitude.”

Lucien softly spoke as if he was talking to himself, instead of threatening Gerard. Then, he leisurely walked towards the dead soldier to retrieve the dagger.

He did not fail to comfort Marie as he passed her.

“Leave everything to me. I’ll get this over quickly.”

When he passed her, Marie felt really good. It was nice to have someone who would stand ahead of you in a dangerous situation.

It’s not like she was falling in love with him, she was still very weirded out by his ways, but she didn’t feel negative about him anymore… Maybe she even thought well of him…

She nodded as she looked at his back and then fell, sitting on the floor. She was far too exhausted after channeling all that mana at once.

“Mm.”

Lucien felt changes to his body again. It was very subtle this time, but he could still feel his body moving faster than before.

He picked up the dagger and ran towards the nearest soldier. In fact, all five were together. He aimed his attack at the leftmost one, who had a sword in hand.

The mine was very dark since they were far from the entrance.

Some torches, which the soldiers brought, illuminated it up a little, but Lucien could see pretty well. His senses were getting better and better. He had to thank Lust and the girls later for that.

Gerard, too, had excellent sight and ordered his men into formation when he saw Lucien running towards them.

“Shield up!”

Two of the soldiers quickly raised shields in front of the left-most soldier. They were already used to making moves together to defeat their enemies.

The shields were large and round with a yellow sun engraved in their center, like their armor. Lucien knew it would be difficult to jump straight over, but he had a quick thought.

Instead of attacking with the dagger, he held out an open hand towards the great shield. Aiming at the center of the shield and not at the edge.

The soldier holding the shield is surprised by the swift movement. And before he realized, the stranger used his shield to propel himself towards the wall.

And the most surprising of all was… Gerard and his soldiers didn’t believe what they saw.

“”Why the hell is he naked?””

Lucien put his hand on the shield, and the soldier pushed against him. He used that force to walk along the wall, horizontally.

As the soldiers were very close to the mine wall, it was not that complicated, and as such he passed above the soldiers’ blockade.

Gerard was not a simple peasant. He was a weathered and mighty captain, and although he could not completely follow Lucien’s speed, he could still predict some of his movements.

When he saw the stranger going over the shield-wall, he didn’t think twice before thrusting his spear in the direction that the naked man was going to fall.

Lucien was in the middle of his wall-running when he threw his dagger, which spun in the air and spiked the eye of a soldier behind the shielded one.

Before he landed behind the shield-bearer, he saw a man who appeared to be the leader, thrusting a spear towards him.

He had already lost the impulse he received from the soldier with the shield so he couldn’t do naught but continue falling.

If he continued in that direction, he would be impaled by the spear, so he tried to roll in mid-air.

As he had nowhere to support the movement, he did not dodge the direction of the spear, but he did not allow the blade to pierce his body but only give a shallow cut to his waist.

The pain of being pierced by the spear was great, and Lucien’s blood flowed out. But he held on and prepared for the next move.

He realized that the man with the spear would be the most problematic. So, when he landed, the first thing he did was try and take Gerard’s spear.

Trusting his strength and speed, he kicked in the direction of Gerard’s head. He expected him to try to block with the spear, but he blocked with his forearm while holding the spear on the other hand.

Lucien didn’t think this would be a problem and tried to pick up the spear while he was still kicking.

“Ha!”

“Damn!”

To Lucien’s surprise, Gerard blocked his kick without a problem. But this wasn’t the worst part, as Lucien was unable to move the spear an inch from Gerard’s firm grip.

He can’t help but curse Gerard’s high strength. The fact that all his movements failed was terrible because now he was not in motion and was vulnerable for a split second.

Gerard couldn’t help but smile before pulling up the spear, which Lucien was holding too, in his direction. This made him pull Lucien’s body in his direction and headbutt him.

“Argh!”

This blow was powerful, and Gerard wore a metal helmet, causing a lot of damage to Lucien’s face. His nose broke, causing a lot of blood to flow out.

Lucien fell back and had to roll to the side immediately, as one of the other soldiers tried to hit him with an axe.

He rolled until stopping near the soldier’s body where the dagger was. He picked up the dagger while he was still moving and stood up to pierce another soldier who tried to attack him with a sword.

He slashed the soldier’s neck, and blood splashed on his face, which was already bleeding, making it a red mess.

Gerard took advantage of that moment to try to hit him with the spear again. But Lucien dodged and quickly retreated a few meters, maintaining some distance between them.

The soldier with the axe, who was the last alive along with Gerard, tried to run towards Lucien, but Gerard stopped him.

“Don’t attack him! He isn’t that strong, but he’s very fast.”

Lucien stepped back until he reached close to Marie, who was still sitting on the floor with Anne, who had arrived just ago.

He ran a hand over his face to clean the blood.

The girls were concerned about him because they did not think Gerard’s strength would be so high. Marie tried to say something but was stopped by Lucien’s words.

“It was nothing. It’s my fault for acting carelessly, I can still handle it.”

The girls wanted to trust him, but they couldn’t help feeling sad when they saw him wave his hand, dropping a lot of blood on the floor. His waist also had a cut that kept on bleeding.

Gerard stared at Lucien while he was in front of the girls and couldn’t help but laugh.

“Hahaha… You cannot protect these ladies with that weak strength of yours.”

The axe soldier was very angry for Lucien killing his companions and followed by insulting him as well.

“The captain will break this girl in front of you until you beg for death, bastard!”

Lucien knew that they were trying to provoke him to defeat him easier, but he could only get truly angry at their remarks. As he thought about how to defeat Gerard, he heard the other soldiers coming.

The soldiers were warned of the situation by the soldier that Gerard sent, and when they saw Lucien, they understood that he was the enemy.

Gerard was laughing while maintaining his brave pose, but inside he was a little concerned. The naked stranger was very fast, and even just with a dagger, he killed four of his soldiers.

That bastard could only hurt him because he had a total focus on strength. But now that his other men arrived, it would be easy to surround and defeat the stranger, or so he thought. Still, Gerard wanted to discharge his anger on Lucien before killing him.

“Soldiers, I’m going to give that wizard to the one who downs this bastard, of course, only after using her a lot, hehe….”

“Hahahaha…”

The soldiers started to laugh as they went toward Lucien and the girls. One of them gave Anne a strange look.

“Captain, can I use the dirty fox?”

Gerard wanted to end this fight quickly before losing any more men, so anything that made Lucien angry and took his concentration off would be good. All he wanted was to provoke him even more.

“Of course, you can play with that animal, but make sure you don’t give it good death afterward.”

Lucien never wanted to kill anyone as much as he wanted to kill Gerard now. He was furious, but he had to stay rational, or the situation would get even worse.

He prepared to face everyone while shouting at the girls.

“What are you waiting for? Get out of here! NOW!!!”

Marie and Anne were terrified; the situation only got worse, and Lucien was already injured, it would be almost impossible for them to get out of this.

But when they saw Lucien stand in front of them to hold the soldiers as they fled, they couldn’t help but hesitate to abandon someone who was fighting for them this hard. But if they all died, wouldn’t he have protected them in vain?

Marie came to that conclusion quickly and took Anne’s hand as she tried to escape. She felt that Anne did not think so and wanted to stay and fight, so she would have to drag Anne if needed.

But things would not be that easy. Some soldiers arrived at Lucien and quickly started attacking him. Others began to surround them, so it was easy to understand that they would not let anyone escape.

When Lucien thought that everything would go down a harsh route, he saw small red balls fly over them. The balls caused small explosions near the mine’s roof.

The mine started to shake instantly. It felt like an earthquake as the walls began to make cracking noises while rocks and dusty fell everywhere.

“Let’s get out, quick!”

Then Lucien heard Mia’s voice and knew that she had thrown the small explosives to cover their escape.

But he was already surrounded by soldiers and had to use all his concentration to dodge their attacks.

He knew that the mine could collapse at any moment and he didn’t think twice about shouting at the girls.

“GO!!!”

Mia quickly approached Marie and Anne as she took their hands to run. She wanted to help Lucien, but he was a little further, and the soldiers were coming from every direction.

She pulled the girls out, and a second later, a large rock fell where they had just been.

The rock did not cover the entire passage of the mine, but other smaller rocks begin to fall next, stuffing the whole passage with rocks and earth.

While the rocks closed the passage in the mine, it was still possible to see Lucien fighting the soldiers, and the girls could not help being depressed to see him stay behind.

Tears began falling from Mia’s face, same as from Anne’s.

“He…”

“Why…”

Marie couldn’t feel any worse, but she still had to be rational because they were still inside the shaking and collapsing mine.

“We have to go. He stayed to cover us.”

Mia and Anne did not want to leave, but Marie pushed them out while more rocks fell, covering up the entire tunnel.