Chapter 68 [Bonus ]Escaping



'Not this again.'

I tried to catch the air, the oxygen, but it was useless.

Something blocked my throat, I couldn't properly inhale and exhale. On top of that, my head was throbbing in pain.

Slowly, my vision was getting blurry. I wriggled like a worm. And before my consciousness was cut off, I heard a sound inside my head but I couldn't quite put what it said.

***

A few minutes ago…

"Are you the mysterious man's accomplices or are you with the villain?"

Lux pointed his sword at the man's throat, his eyes as cold as ice even though his eyes color were gold like a sun. The man looked up at Lux with fear in his eyes, shivering as if he was shrouded by the cold weather.

Though, a moment later, his eyes widened as he finally recognized the boy's face.

"Ahaha…haha…!"

He laughed.

"So… you're that Lux Virtus."

Lux raised his eyebrows, but his sword now touched the man's neck. Blood streamed down slowly from there.

"Shut up and just answer my question," Lux said coldly.

The man's laughter did not stop even when the sword pressed against his skin. His eyes were as round as a ball, his smile like a maniac. He was crazy!

"You think I'll tell you?" he said.

"Oh sure you will."

Lux tightened his grip on the sword, making the man wince in pain.

"I'll ask again. Are you with the mysterious man or are you with the villains? And why did you want to kidnap Lumi?" Lux asked through gritted teeth.

The man closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he spoke again.

"Alright, alright, boy. I'll talk. Just please don't kill me," he said as his eyes gestured toward the sword pressed against his neck.

Lux lowered his sword and stepped back.

"Talk then. But make it quick," he said, his voice still cold.

The man took another deep breath before he began to speak.

"I don't know who the man you're talking about is, and I'm not obligated to answer the dead man's question!"

Instead of giving a proper answer, the man surprised Lux with an attack.

'Predictable.'

You could never lower your guard to the villain, even when you saw they were pitiful. The moment you did that, it was you who would be dead in the villain's hand.

Those words were said by Lux's mentor, Grace Callaghan.

Lux was always a kind and gentle, naive-looking young man when he was around his friend. That was his facade, that was the role he was playing in the academy, a kind and innocent boy yet strong and sharp enough to not let people make use of him.

But, his true personality was the complete opposite of what people called kind and gentle.

Cold-blooded.

As the man thrust his sword at Lux, he deftly dodged it and stab the man's neck quickly.

Merciless.

"Gruak–!"

He pressed the sword until it penetrated the man's neck.

Brutal.

Blood gushed out violently, coming from the wound and through his mouth. He was suffocated by his own blood.

But…

Twisting his sword as if the man's neck was spaghetti and his sword was a fork, Lux then pulled it upward, splitting the man's face into two.

Those true personalities of his were nothing more than a passing twisted personality that occasionally 'woke up' when he was fighting the villains.

As the man's body wobbled, Lux seemed to be in a trance. Then, when the body hit the cold floor with a loud thud, Lux looked as if he was just waking up from sleep.

"Huh? What happened?"

He looked around and found his sword and clothes were covered in blood. Not only that, his hand and face too.

As his eyes found the man's body, he realized what happened to him.

Pressing his head with both hands, Lux tried to calm himself.

"I can't believe I lost control over my mind and let him overtake my body."

He sighed.

"I need to train my mind again after this…"

Suddenly, the room shook violently.

Lux was confused at first but then he remembered what Zio said.

"Is this what he meant when he said I need to get out of this place in 10 minutes?"

Looking around, Lux hesitated. He wanted to take the gold in this chamber, but if he was to do that, he might not have time to safely get out of this ruin. 

But, if he did not do that, he thought that this exploration might not be fun and just wasting time. He should at least get something for the clubmates, to compensate for the gone wrong activity even though he wasn't a club leader.

In the end, he took whatever he could take in 3 minutes and stored them in his magic bag, an inferior storage-type artifact than the storage cube.

He spent a minute running from the hidden chamber to the ruin's surface.

As soon as he arrived at the surface, he immediately ran toward the exit by following a smell– a trace of mana that intermittently every few hundred meters.

He knew the trace was belong to Zio, though he was not sure that the trace would lead him to the exit but at least it would lead him to Zio who was probably already outside, yeah that had the same meaning that it would lead him outside.

But, as he reached halfway to the exit, he spotted a group of people.

"That…"

The robed men. 

Five of them surrounded a boy with jet-black hair who stood like a motion doll, his eyes were gold in color, and the sword in his hand also glowed the same color as his eyes.

Three of the robed men were lying on the ground, and each of them had the same wound. A hole in their heart.

As Lux focused his eyes on the boy, he instantly recognized him.

"Zio…"

Not far from him, a girl with dark violet hair was lying on the ground.

"Lumi!"

As Lux fastened his pace, the battle between Zio against the five men continued.

With his sword, Zio launched various forms of attack such as slashing, thrusting, and spinning his sword, and every time he did, the air around him would distort.

'What is that swordsmanship?!' Lux said inwardly as he ran.

One of them was chanting a magic spell skill. Lux noticed that and wanted to disrupt the man's chant, but he was too late.

By late, Zio was already shifting his attack toward the man. He swung his sword but missed his attack.

Weirdly, though his attack didn't hit his target, Zio didn't try to launch another attack but instead shifted to another target.

When Zio stepped away, the man suddenly coughed up blood and found his chest had a hole. When he realized his heart was gone, he fell to the ground, dead.

"What?" Lux exclaimed.

Zio's attack left his enemy and Lux in confusion. They didn't understand what was happening.

The only thing they would know was after Zio's sword made contact or made a swing, they felt as if something was distorted. The space. The time.

Miss attack became a killing attack. Slashing the right side became the left side. Blocking the sword, but suddenly found themselves dead.

As the last one of them fell to the ground, Zio sheathed his sword.

Lux carefully approached his friend who had a different aura around him just as the battle ended. He ended up not helping anything.

"What just happened? What was that earlier, are you always this strong?" Lux shook  his head. "No. Who are you? Are you really Zio?"

Zio just glanced at him blankly, his golden eyes gradually disappeared and returned to their original black color.

After that, he suddenly fell to the ground.

"Zio!"

Lux knelt beside Zio and checked his pulse. He did the same to Lumi. They were alive but unconscious.

"Thanks, God."

As he sighed relievedly, a female voice rang in his ears.

"Hey! You! Hurry and leave this place!"

It was the female B-rank hero, she ran toward Lux as she shouted.

"Oh my! Are they okay?"

When she arrived, she immediately checked the two unconscious students.

"They're okay. Can you help me bring them?"

"Of course!"

Then, the other heroes appeared.

"Yo! What the hell, this is a bloody battlefield."

The A-rank hero exclaimed as he looked around the place, finding the corpses of the villain. His eyes slightly widened as he saw Lux.

"Kid. Are you the one responsible for this?" he said with a smirk.

"Uh, n–"

Before Lux could say anything, another voice cut him off, it was coming from the B-rank hero.

"I think so. I heard some shouting voices and they suddenly turned their attention toward this direction."

When the A-rank hero was about to say something, the shaking in this cave became more violent that the floor started to break and fall to the depth.

"Shit! Let's talk about this later, we need to get out from this place first. Hurry!"

The A-rank hero ran first, leaving the other who helped the three students. 

"That guy!" One of the heroes cursed him.

Lumi was carried by the female hero and Zio was carried by the reserved-looking hero. Together, they all ran toward the exit gate.

Though it was not an easy run. The shaking ground would occasionally make them lose their balance and trip, not to mention the falling floor devoured by the depth of the underground and the falling debris and rock of the cave's ceiling.

"Fvck! Just what is happening?!"

"Keep running!"

As they burst out of the cave and found themselves alive on the outside, greeted by the cold weather and the sunlight, they breathed long relieved breaths.

"What is happening?"

"Look, the ruin…"

The cave was completely gone. In its place, there was a massive, unfathomable hole that seemed to stretch down into the earth forever.