“Ready?” Lucien asks as he looks at Angela and her daughters. Mira and Kamala have already entered the protective barrier to observe the fight.

“Mm.” Marie nods, followed by her mother and sister. Somehow, she looks like the leader of the team even though she’s weaker than Angela. Yet, that makes sense due to her clearly being a better strategist.

Lucien flaps his wings and gets out of the protective bubble, stepping into the water while looking at the beautiful blue-haired trio. The way the girls swing their fish-tails is very seductive and makes it clear that it is part of Marie’s strategy. But even knowing that, he can’t take his eyes off their tails.

“Hehe…” Maire can’t help but giggles at Lucien’s gaze. [Even if we fail here, I won’t fail to drive you crazy in bed with this tail!]

“You have two minutes.” Lucien comments, starting the fight for real.

*Burble*

The girls shake the water, each going a different way, and surrounding Lucien. He stands there, just watching them as he makes his barrier visible.

The girls swim fast but don’t seem real rushed. Though they don’t need to, they don’t stop swinging their tails, drawing Lucien’s full attention to that.

The trio also maintains seductive expressions and gentle smiles, which hits Lucien hard. He can’t stop thinking how beautiful Lena and Marie look working together with their lovely mother; that seems just perfect.

Even Mira and Kamala are impressed by the way the trio act. She and her daughter quickly realize the big difference between them, a real mother-daughter strategy.

As the trio swims around Lucien, he just watches. Although the sisters seem very seductive now, as Marie expected, his eyes are more attracted to Angela; she looks like a majestic Queen, a lovely mother, and a hot mature Mermaid-wife.

‘Are you imagining how Nea will look after you make her fall for you?’ Lust can’t resist teasing him by whispering in his mind.

He smiles as he mentally responds to her with another question. ‘Why would I think about another woman when I already have such amazing wives?’

‘Because your cock is insatiable!’ Lust quickly responds and starts laughing.

‘…’ He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t want to feel that way, but sinful desires grow inside his heart out of his control. Part of that is because of the Bloody Rose, but he knows those desires have always been there, waiting to be awakened.

But before he can think too much about that, he notices Lena making the first move. She makes a naughty expression before swimming quickly toward him.

“Here I go, hubby!” She comments while creating ice blades with her mana and trying to attack him.

Lena’s speed shocks Mira and Kamala. Even knowing how awesome Lucien is, they didn’t expect his wives to be so fantastic. There’s nothing special about Lena’s body, but she can still move as fast as anyone from the peak Sky Realm while in the Mid Earth Realm.

Yet, her speed is far inferior to Kamala’s, and Lucien doesn’t even need half the capacity of his senses to see her movements in slow motion.

He smiles as he is proud of her current power but easily dodges her attack, using less than half his agility.

*Burble*

More water is shaken, creating a lot of air bubbles. Lucien doesn’t notice that at first, but Lena used her mana to create more bubbles than her moves could do alone.

As soon as Lucien dodges Lena’s attack, she attacks again, causing him to turn his back on Marie, who quickly launches her attack as well. Just as she planned, he focuses on dodging her and her sister, lowering his guard to Angela.

Marie’s movements are a little slower than Lena’s, but the sync of their attacks is very high. It’s amazing that even though they have so much rivalry, they can still work as a team so easily.

*Burble* *Burble* *Burble*

More and more bubbles are generated by Marie and Lena’s constant attacks, but of course, the main reason for so many air bubbles is their magic.

Lucien’s senses are still more impressive than his strength and speed, but his mind has limitations. Even though Marie is trying to confuse him so that Angela can make the main attack, his eyes and focus are drawn to the sisters’ graceful movements and their sexy Mermaid-tails.

Amid a cloud of air bubbles, he dodges all of their blows, and then when the moment seems perfect, Angela makes her move. She doesn’t attack with melee weapons but cast blasts of ice spikes that cross the water at high speed.

That attack looks like Mira’s great spell, but instead of chaotic bolts, Angela cast ice spikes. However, those ice spikes are much weaker and slower than Mira’s shadows, and they only move in a straight line like a normal attack and not living magic.

“They won’t make it…” Kamala can’t help but think aloud. But instead of looking happy that Angela’s team looks like they’re about to fail as they did, she’s sad.

Mira, on the other hand, is increasingly impressed by the blue-haired trio. She understands well the difference between Realms and how that makes Angela and her daughters look amazing. “It’s far from over.”

Even with his focus divided between so many things and his vision obstructed by so many air bubbles, Lucien dodges all of Angela’s ice spikes, still keeping his agility capped at the half.

Angela tries her best to create more and more ice spikes, as well as increase their speed. But nothing seems to be enough to hit Lucien, so she pushes her body beyond the limits, creating a new barrage of ice spikes, bigger and faster than any before.

Lucien can no longer dodge the ice spikes due to their number and size. Without using his teleport ability, all he can do is raise his arms and block the ice spikes directly.

*Bam* *Bam* *Bam* *Bam* *Bam*

The ice spikes break on contact with his arms, but they do minimal damage to the barrier due to Angela’s mana being drained quickly. That way, it would take millions of ice spikes to crack the barrier, something Angela is far from able to do.

Lucien can’t see the sisters and Angela, but he hears when she stops casting more ice spikes. He thinks she’s reached a new limit and can’t do anything else.

‘You did well… my love.’ He talks to Angela mentally.

‘I’m not done yet… honey.’ She responds in a tired but confident tone.

[Huh??] Lucien is confused when he sees a large ice spike pass by his body, making him feel a familiar sensation.

*Smash*

That ice spike breaks, and Angela emerges from the fragments, with a smile on her face and two ice daggers in her hands. She acts quickly and tries to attack him with both blades.

*Burble*

But Lucien acts quickly and holds both her wrists. His touch is gentle, and his smile is proud, which makes Angela smile even more.

“Hahaha…” He starts to laugh as he holds Angela’s arms. “You really surprised me!”

Angela is really happy with her performance, but she puts on a fake disappointed expression and even pouts. “But I failed…”

Maybe it’s because Angela never acts like a spoiled girl or because she looks too cute pouting, but anyway, Lucien really lets his guard down when he thinks she’s disappointed in herself.

He doesn’t think twice about pulling her body towards his and kissing her lips while talking to her mentally. ‘You did great, for real!’

Angela first closes her eyes to enjoy the kiss, but then she opens them and looks at him with a confident expression. ‘I think it did.’

Lucien realizes something is wrong, but it’s too late to do anything. Angela creates a layer of ice around their bodies while Lena and Marie appear behind him, already attacking with ice blades.

He could escape that attack with his teleport ability, but without it, it’s impossible to get rid of Angela’s ice in time to avoid Marie and Lena’s attack.

The sisters use all their strength and magic to strike his back in a cooperative attack.

*Bam* *Bam* *Bam* *Bam* *Bam*

The ice blades break in contact with his barrier, but the sisters create new ones and keep attacking.

Lucien takes time to get rid of Angela’s ice without hurting her, which allows Marie and Lena to attack his back dozens of times. Although both of them don’t have the same strength as Kamala even together, so many attacks do a lot of damage to his barrier, precisely half the damage needed to crack it.

He finally breaks free of Angela’s trap and quickly swims away from the girls. After checking his barrier and finding nothing wrong with it, he smiles at the girls with an impressed expression. “Whew… you girls almost did it.”

Angela sighs as she is really exhausted. “Yet, we failed…”

“This isn’t over yet.” Marie quickly comments while being proud of herself that her strategy worked.

Lena smiles and holds her mother’s hand. “Yeah, we can do it one more time to break his barrier once and for all!”

Angela feels just as proud as Lucien because she knows that having managed to do any damage to his barrier has already been an incredible achievement for them.

But she’s realistic and makes a sorry expression. “We won’t be able to make him fall for the same trick again, besides I don’t have the energy for it anymore… and there’s the worst part…”

“Which part??” Lena is confused.

“His thirty seconds…” Marie comments.

“Exactly.” Lucien makes a naughty expression as he gazes at the trio. “Your time to attack freely is over; now, you must flee from me if you can.”

“Damn!!” Lena exclaims as she remembers that. But she doesn’t waste another second before heading for the mountain. “I dare you to catch me!!”

Lucien smiles as he notices her attempt to draw his attention to her, giving her sister and mother room to escape. He can’t help but mentally praise her, but he doesn’t pursue her at first.

He looks at Angela and Marie. “Aren’t you going to run away? Lena is trying her best to give you this chance.”

Angela looks at Lena with a loving smile. “She’s really sweet.”

Even Marie praises her sister mentally. It’s evident that Lena is faster than her and her mother, so that’s the most efficient way for them to have a chance of escaping Lucien, at least half of the team.

“Let’s go!” Marie exclaims as she holds her mother’s hand and tries to swim away from Lucien.

But Angela doesn’t move; she actually pushes Marie away. “I’m too tired to run; you should go with your sister while I use the rest of my energy to hold him.”

Marie hears a voice in her mind telling her to let go of Angela’s hand and swim away from Lena’s direction. That seems like the best way to get away from Lucien during those thirty seconds, and only then can their team have another chance to damage his barrier.

That’s the rational part of her mind talking. But for some reason unknown to Marie, she can’t do that. She wants to win the challenge, but she wants to do that without having to sacrifice her mother and sister.

[If this was a real fight, I couldn’t abandon them…] She thinks as she holds Angela’s hand tightly.

Angela and Lucien’s expressions are the same again as they are proud of Marie for acting that way. Regardless of the situation, staying together is what they would all do.

But even so, Lucien can’t go easy on them, which would be unfair to Mira and Kamala. Then he quickly swims toward the blue-haired mother-daughter pair.

“If you won’t run away, I’ll catch you, both of you!” He smiles at them.

“Oh!” Marie makes a surprised and concerned expression. But Lucien quickly notices that her look is completely fake, which shocks him.

[She also planned it??] He can’t help but wonder as he’s excited to see what comes next.