"Bam!"

The gunshot, albeit only shot toward the sky. A voice of a woman echoed, "This is what he means by the last second… And what he meant by 'don't trust anyone' was to never let your guard down. It seems you need more experience."

Michelle appeared from Evan's shadow, deflecting Risa's gun to the air while slicing her neck.

"Michelle Graham…" Risa was too surprised by her appearance. She thought Michelle disappeared to handle another mission. To think she only came inside Evan Young's shadow and appeared at the last moment, no one could predict it, especially with that stunt from Kai Carter.

Her head was flying as she looked at Ayaka, saying. "Take this knowledge to your head. You need to grow faster since we can't always protect you…"

She turned back again, glaring at the four terrorists. "Well, we need to remove four of them first."

"!!!" Ayaka realized what she said. "Follow me."

She took a few turns, trying to escape from their eyes. The four were surprised when they saw Risa dying just like that, but they still needed to acquire Evan Young, so they had no choice other than to go after them.

Sadly, the moment they took the turn and saw them. A magic circle suddenly appeared right below them, glowing bright red.

"Sh*t!" They realized they just walked into their trap.

"Boom!" Ayaka's magic bomb exploded, blasting them to smithereens.

Michelle was the first to react when she saw all four of them managed to make a magic shield, protecting them from the explosion. Although they took a quite amount of damage, they were still not easy to beat.

That was why she decided to at least cut two of them down by using this precious chance. She waved both of her short swords that had been covered by a dark fire, releasing a kind of sword attack.

"Shadow Slash!"

Because of the momentum, they could not dodge this attack. Despite using a magic shield, two of them did not manage to block an S rank magician's attack.

The attack cut through the shield and split them into two. She said to Ayaka, "Good job."

Although it looked like Ayaka was in the wrong, there was actually no complaint about her performance. She only let her guard down for an instant when they entered the woods, trying to think about their plan. However, that instant was what would cost her life.

"Evan Young, move back a little and Ayaka would protect you from any other potential enemies," Michelle ordered before turning back to the two enemies in front. "I will handle those two."

"Are you sure? I can support you." Ayaka worried as the two enemies seemed to be elites. They could take the two because of the surprise attack, but this time, they were prepared.

"It's fine. Because Night is my territory." Michelle smirked as a black magic circle, appeared on her back, giving her a certain power.

"Moonlight Shadow."

There was this strange fire that kept gushing out from her body, giving others anxiety. Just like Ikeda Kenzo's light element that could give him a boost of strength and speed under the sunlight, Michelle's Dark Power also gave a power-up in this dark night.

Another magic circle appeared on her eyes, giving her the ability of night vision. She clenched the two short swords, making the two enemies alarmed.

"She's coming!" One of them shouted as she took out her gun. Her comrade also took her sword and charged at Michelle as the vanguard, but she miscalculated her new speed.

Michelle appeared in front of her, swinging her sword on her neck.

She ducked down to avoid the swords, but Michelle immediately turned her body around and swung vertically from above.

Out of reflex, she dodged to the side, but she suddenly realized that dark fire was gushing out from her sword. It was at that moment, she knew her target was her comrade. "Alisha!"

"Shadow Slash!"

The sharp dark fire charged at breakneck speed, trying to cut a person called Alisha into two. However, because of the call, she somehow managed to dodge to the side and avoid death.

"Ah!" Alisha screamed in pain, watching her right hand cut by Michelle's attack because she was late for a split second.

"Tch!" Michelle clicked her tongue as she tried to attack the sword user again, who was creating a blue magic circle on her hand. At the same time, Michelle's magic circle appeared right beneath the sword user's feet, manipulating its shadow to rise from the ground and grab her.

"Water Jet!" The sword user shot out high-pressure water, trying to blow Michelle's away. Unfortunately, her attack shot toward the sky, because the shadow pulled her wrist.

Michelle then swung her right sword, trying to attack her heart.

Despite being restricted by her own shadow, she somehow was able to change the grip on her sword and pulled her hand to block this attack.

Sadly, Michelle did not stop there as she swung her other sword, aiming to cut her from her head.

Because her sword was stopping Michelle's other sword, she had no choice than making a magic circle to block this, albeit she saw that Michelle's sword released the dark energy again, telling her it was her doom.

"Shadow Slash!"

The overbearing attack from an S rank magician shattered the magic circle and killed the enemy.

Michelle had no time to waste and immediately charged at her.

Seeing this, the enemy tried to shoot her a few times but kept missing her. As her last struggle, she made a magic circle right in front of her gun. The moment she shot her gun, it was converted by the magic circle, creating a very powerful attack.

Michelle cut her down and immediately turned around, shouting. "Ayaka!"

Knowing she could not hit Michelle, she chose to attack Evan Young with all of her power. However, Ayaka also saw this and two magic circles. One was her fire armor, enveloping her with fire and creating a big fire shield on her hand, while the other one was a magic shield.

Ayaka created two layers of shield and appeared a few meters in front of Evan.

"Kh!" As she had expected, the attack was powerful, destroying her magic shield almost instantly. Luckily, her fire shield was far stronger than her magic shield.

The force was pushing her three meters away before exploding, letting Ayaka take the full brunt of the explosion.

Luckily, she had covered her full body with fire armor, letting her receive the attack without any injury.

Michelle also could not help but raised her thumbs up, saying. "Nice."

She came back to Ayaka and Evan, "We will make a distance with the base first since it is the most chaotic place right now. And I think we can only wait for Kai to arrive."

"Not going to him?" Ayaka asked.

"Yes. If we keep moving, there is a possibility that the enemy might spot us. So, I suggest we search for a hidden place and stay there until tomorrow. I believe no one has difficulty in staying outside, right?"

Both Ayaka and Evan nodded. In fact, it was the basic ability they needed to have. "Any of you hurt? I can heal you."

"Nope. You can-!" Before she finished her words, she saw four people carrying someone and because they were not that far, the other party also noticed them. "Sh*t."

Michelle was surprised to see the general was the one who was carried by them. Kai said that General Cindy and Her Assistant Risa were on different sides. Seeing that Risa was the terrorist, the one who carried Cindy would most likely be terrorists.

"Run!" General Cindy shouted, uttering all the energy she had. On the other hand, the terrorist saw their team was wiped out and was enraged. The leader said, "Team A has fallen, I am sure leader Risa is also down. Call Team C and D to our position right now! We will kill them and take Evan Young with us!"

"Yes!" The others also started charging toward them.

"Run!" Michelle ordered, making Ayaka and Evan turn around and run. She used her Shadow Slash to buy them time.

Ayaka asked, "Are we going to kill them?"

"Didn't you hear what they said? If we are going to be surrounded by ten elites, it will be better to run. Our mission is just to scout the enemy base and become Evan Young's bodyguards, not to subjugate the terrorists." Michelle answered. "We might be able to finish them shortly if we can make another surprise attack, but seeing their comrades have been killed by us, they will surely be alert."

"Indeed, They can also use the general as their shield." Evan suddenly broke his silence.

"Yes. That's the problem. By the way, from the look of it, she is in a paralyzed state, considering she is awake but can't move. Can you heal her?" Michelle asked Evan.

"Yes. As long as they are not dead, I can heal them, but it will take some time since I need to dissolve the medicine... Unless they use a very potent one." He nodded.

"Your healing ability… Why don't you join our group?" Michelle suddenly asked an unexpected question.

"We are in this situation and you are asking that?"

"True… Well, Kai seems to be interested in you."

Evan was astonished at first before having a disgusted expression. "Is he?"

"No. Your efforts will be rewarded someday, even without doing that… is what makes him interested in you."

"!!!" Evan recognized that line and looked away. However, before he answered, Kai, the one who was interested in him, appeared right behind the enemy, alarming both friends and foes.

"Change of plan, we are going to strike them now and talk later!" Michelle stopped and turned around while creating her swords.