Chapter 417 - Escape

Having ripped Ludwik's soul from his dying body, Marcus began absorbing the great knight's soul into his own.

But along with the intense struggle to remove Ludwik's soul, Marcus now had to deal with the backlash of devouring it.

The man's strongest memories and emotions rushed through Marcus, and he saw many scenes and felt intense emotions from the man whose soul he had just eaten.

It was an almost maddening event as many years of another person's time played out in his mind and soul.

Ludwik had been a noble prodigy since birth, being born miraculously with two blessings and a natural talent for the staff and the uncommon smoke magic.

Marcus felt all of his early memories of joy and pride as his abilities as he was able to grow to the point of being stronger than his instructor by the age of twelve.

But after that came the envy and feelings of inadequacy, as he left his small bubble and found people that were stronger than him no matter how hard he tried.

He had been only a year younger than Cibor, but he watched as he could never beat this man, and how after he became a great knight his rank which had once been nine was pushed back as the younger generation's geniuses outshined him.

However, the biggest blow was as he lost to Marcus and Lyra, people that he felt he should have had no difficulty in beating.

For Marcus all of these things and more seemed to flash through his mind as the hundred and twenty-six years that Ludwik had been alive played out before him.

It was painful experience as a powerful and long-lived soul merged with his own, and for a few moments Marcus almost completely lost his sense of self.

'I have to defend Tralenstein. No, I am helping Lyra. Kill the traitors! AGHHHHH!'

Clutching his head Marcus began spasming around going in and out of ethereal and solid while also having his appearance flickering between Ludwik and himself.

It was an unsettling scene to watch for Lyra who had no idea what was going on.

Eventually though in what seemed like decades to Marcus, but was only actually a dozen seconds he pushed down Luwik's soul and integrated it into his own, once again regaining his dominance.

Ding!

'You have leveled up to level forty-five.'

'You have leveled up to level forty-six.'

'You have level up to level forty-seven.'

As soon as he did, a number of level up notifications came to him, but Marcus was feeling way too wasted to even care about these.

Roxene then jumped out of his companion storage feeling that Marcus was in trouble.

She had been keeping a low profile since while she was strong, these fights were currently beyond her.

But with Marcus in this state, she could not sit back and let anything bad happened to him.

'You there, Lyra. Help me get him inside. Your and his parts are already over.' Roxene said to the still stunned Lyra.

Shaking her head and coming out of it, Lyra help prop Marcus who was in a catatonic state up and along with Roxene and carried him towards the tower.

Yet as they were about to enter another figure approached, and in his hands was the head of his enemy who he had just defeated.

"I won." Francis said as he threw Wicus' head on the ground as a morbid trophy.

Though even though he had won, Lyra and Roxene were able to tell the battle had not been easy as Francis was missing his right arm and eye, while his left ear was cut in half.

Along with that he had cuts that were bleeding all over his body and he looked like he had just survived being stuffed into a large blender.

"Come on let us get inside the preparations should be almost complete." Francis said as he saw Lyra and Roxene looking at him.

He was curious about where Roxene had come from, but disregarded the matter for now since he was in rough shape, and they were still in a precarious situation.

Cibor was still nearby and while that random vampire that had appeared was holding her own, Francis knew that things could take a turn for the worse at any moment.

Walking into the tower some of the lower ranking rebel soldier came up and started applying potions to Francis and Marcus.

However, this was not enough to fully heal Francis, and Marcus' damage was to his soul not his physical form.

And anyone that could have truly helped either of them was busy supplying their mana to the tower to give it the massive amount that it needed to warp all of the away.

Luckily it was only around half a minute after Marcus and company entered the tower that a message was heard in every rebel's head.

'The tower is ready. Everyone who does not want to be left behind make sure you are inside in forty seconds.'

The tower then seemed to make a whining sound and glowed with a vibrant light as the complicated formations on it activated and it began to process of teleporting away.

"Looks like that is my que." Marek said while fighting against Armand and Felcia.

He then unleashed two powerful attacks from his amethros tonfas pushing his opponents back and forcing them to defend.

In this time, he sped back towards the tower, as Armand and Felcia, blocked his attacks.

The two of them tried to catch back up running after him, but the instant after he jumped into the tower it disappeared teleporting far away.

BOOM!

Just after the tower teleported away, Relia smashed into the ground and began skipping across it like a flat stone on water.

When her body finally came to a stop it was noticeably broken and turned in unnatural directions.

And she was also missing about half of her torso, along with her head having a hole bored into it.

Still, this was far from enough to kill her, but she was certainly beaten and incapacitated.

Nevertheless, even though she was the one who had lost, when Cibor landed in front of her it was him that was seething in rage and her with the smug smile.

"I hope that it was worth it to you. You helped them escape but I am making sure you die." 

Cibor readied his six daggers and was about slice Relia into a thousand pieces before exposing what was left of her to the sunlight, when a dark shape rose up around her and the visage of a cape surrounded her before sucking her in.

Cibor seeing this slashed with all of his might, but as he hit this darkness his attacks were deflected and Relia was dragged into this unknown void and vanished.

With the target of his rage now gone, having escaped alive. The veins on Cibor's head could be visibly seen throbbing and he began sending out wild slashes in a frenzy destroying what little was left of the mountain that used to cover the rebel base.

"Cibor that is enough, that will not help us." Armand said as he carefully approached.

Turning towards him Cibor was visibly quite angry, and it was understandable why.

He had sacrificed the mountaineer brigade so that he could track the rebels, but they got away.

And not only did they get away, two of the five other great knights he had brought with him had been killed.

"Where are Felcia and Edek?" Cibor said the wrath in his tone apparent

Gulping Armand said, "Edek got knocked away by a powerful attack from that unknown that killed Ludwik with Jadzia's help. Felcia has gone to check on him, but I doubt that he was killed by one attack."

Unfortunately hearing this did not give Cibor any piece of mind as everything had gone horribly awry.

He had come here himself to put an end to this stupid rebellion, and he had brough what he thought would be more than enough backup to do so.

In the scenario he imagined, he figured he would take on Marek and after around five minute he could beat the old man, while the other great knights slowly overpowered the rest of the rebels.

Other than Marek and Tesia, though she did not really count since she could not openly fight, none of the combatants in the rebellion should have been strong enough to take Armand and Felcia head on.

Instead, two unknown variables got in the way, causing what should have been a victory to end in a complete defeat.

"Armand when we get back, I want you to mobilize the whispers. Have them find out who that man was that killed Ludwik. That is the top right now. Also, have them on the lookout for vampire activity. That woman was not some rogue vampire.. She has some sort of connection to a powerful being that I can only assume is a progenitor."