Agnes made quick work of the people guarding her and charged down the long passage. She turned left then right, then jumped down, then left, then left, then left….

Noet had thought Marshall just took him in circles to make him unable to understand the road to Agnes’s prison but he was wrong.

This place was an actual maze and Agnes was impressed with her ability to remember the road. Perhaps feigning that she was unconscious was the right thing. They didn’t blindfold her because of that and she was able to register landmarks.

She looked down at her hands which were currently bound with Ki suppressors and then at her feet with had mana suppressors. She honestly couldn’t feel the weight Noet complained about. Her demonic transformation had probably caused some changes to her internal structure.

And her outer one too. She looked down at her once elven looking hands. They were now sharp claws that she could actually retract but they still looked monstrous. It was as though the now permanently transformed hand was a warning. That the more she became a demon, the more she’d lose her other self.

She ripped up any guards she met before they could do anything. Even without Ki or mana, the Agnes now was stronger than any average fighter. As for mages, she hadn’t met any mage so there was no way to test that out.

She soon arrived at a dark hallway and she felt movement at the corner of her eyes. She quickly hid and heard a familiar voice.

“Aileen get your fat butt out of my face”

“Excuse you?” another familiar voice shrieked.

“Oh don’t start bickering you two. We are literally in the middle of trying to escape”

Once Agnes heard that voice, Agnes revealed herself but they seemed to not notice her. Of course, they didn’t. They were deep into the dark hallway and were trying to squeeze out through a hole surrounded by darkness.

“You know, I thought you got the keyword right Noet” Harvy’s angry voice could be heard.

“I did. Aileen probably said something wrong” the boy scoffed.

“Of course, the blame is on me” Aileen snarled, “Be grateful it at least worked”

“It worked so well we’re trying to squeeze out of a hole that can’t take your butt” Harvy replied sarcastically.

Aileen finally fell out of the hole where she had actually been stuck for a while and hmphed, “I’ve literally been sleeping and eating the past few days. Only. I’m more appalled that you two didn’t gain any weight”

Harvy squeezed himself out, falling to the ground too.

“Alright, let’s get a move on” Noet ordered once he fell out.

“I can’t see shit” Harvy cursed.

“I know. Same here,” Noet replied, “That’s why Agnes is supposed to meet us here”

“Wait, Agnes?! I heard nothing about this” Harvy was surprised.

“You didn’t. Cuz I didn’t tell you”

“What---” Harvy’s words were cut off when the sign of a torch could be seen from the edge of the hallway.

“Agnes?” Noet called but placed his hands ready to attack.

“Yes” she replied and walked closer. The trio were able to see the familiar face of the girl they’d known for years as she walked closer.

“Why is she here?!” Harvy practically growled.

“Oh please Harvy. Don’t tell me you really didn’t realize she was part of this plan” Aileen rolled her eyes but nobody saw because it was so dark.

“No!” he retorted angrily.

By now, Agnes was close to them and it was obvious he was restraining himself from lashing out.

“Well, I can see you still have some brains left” Agnes couldn’t help but say.

He fixed a glare at her at that sentence, “What?”

“I mean, you can attack me if you want. I don’t mind” Agnes dared him.

He grit his teeth but did nothing. He wasn’t a fool. He was mana and Ki bound and her demonic strength would overpower his.

Agnes shrugged, “Hi Aileen”

The girl in question gave her a quick glance and turned away, “Sup”

Agnes smiled. When she’d met Aileen some days ago, the girl had immediately attacked her with all she had. If not for there being a cage between them, Agnes would have ripped the girl to pieces.

“Alright, now we’ve exchanged pleasantries, Agnes, did you do it?”

“Yes. All clear” she replied stoically.

Noet’s eyes fell on her suppressors, “Why do you still have that?”

“Huh?” she tilted her head confused. Noet and co, still had suppressors on them so she knew nobody had come to take it off.

“You could have broken it…” the edges of Noet’s mouth twitched.

“Really?” Agnes exclaimed then proceeded to widen her hand and the thing cracked into pieces from the pressure, “I thought something bad would happen if I broke it”

“Nah, not these ones” Noet replied and stretched out his hand towards her.

Agnes swiftly broke the ones on her legs and crushed his, “What are these? Sand?” she couldn’t help but say. They broke too easily.

“No” Noet rubbed his wrists, “Bonafide metal”

“Oh” Agnes let out an amazed gasp.

Noet spotted a line of blood on his wrist and grimaced, “You cut me”

“Ah, sorry” Agnes cringed, “I’m not used to these” she waved her claws in his face.

Aileen pointed to her legs with her only hand and gave a sweet smile.

“Are you planning my death right now?” Agnes couldn’t help but ask but broke the binds on her feet anyways.

“No. That was a long time ago” Aileen replied and shook her legs. Finally.

Agnes’ eyes floated over to Harvy and she looked at Noet, “I’m not going to free him”

Noet shrugged, “That’s your business but he’ll slow us down”

“We can just leave him here then” Agnes suggested with a hearty smile.

Harvy glared at her then relented stretching out his hand, “I’ll behave”

“I don’t believe you” Agnes snapped at him.

“Just release him. I’ll watch him” Noet offered. When he saw Agnes was still unwilling he said, “We need all the hands we can get. You’ve killed many of the guards around here but if we’re leaving here, the guards will be much more” he then leaned into her ear and whispered, “Remember what I said? We need all the power we can get”

Agnes thought it over and used her thankfully normal looking legs to crush the Ki suppressors on Harvy’s leg, “Can we leave his mana sealed?” she gestured to the mana suppressors on Harvy’s arm.

Noet thought over it then said, “Ok sure”

Agnes nodded at that while Harvy grit his teeth.

“We’re wasting time here” Aileen said.

“Yeah” Noet agree and propelled himself forward, dashing away. Agnes followed swiftly behind him. Harvy followed and Aileen lagged behind until she finished reciting her lightning burst spell after which she shot to Noet’s side.

The quartet soon arrived at a peculiar white archway that contrasted with the ash colored walls that surrounded it. They stopped as they saw the shadows of people.

Agnes offered to take a look, after which she came to report her finding.

“It just had to be an elevator” Noet cursed, his voice very small to avoid being heard.

“What’s wrong with those?” Agnes asked, her lack of experience showing.

Aileen had a face that asked the same question. She was just as inexperienced.

Noet gave the two of them a peculiar gaze and looked over at Harvy. The boy was the same. Noet wondered for the xth time why he was escaping with idiots.

“Forget it” Noet sighed, “Those guards, how many were there?”

“I don’t know. They seemed about to notice me so I bolted” Agnes replied.

Noet nodded, “Then, approximately?”

“30?” she said after thinking thoroughly.

Aileen inhaled fiercely at that number.

Noet bit his lips and mumbled, “That’s huge”

“I think we can take it” Agnes seemed unworried.

Noet gazed at her for a while then narrowed his eyes and drew very close to Agnes’ face, whispering so the others couldn’t hear him, “Are you okay?”

Agnes stared into his eyes and shook her head.

“Shit” he cursed, “Can you last?”

“I think staying too long in the other form had some side effect” Agnes whispered back.

“Why so secretive” Harvy sneered.

“Shush” Aileen snapped at him. His voice could be overheard! … Not like hers was low either.

“Hmm” Noet pondered ignoring Harvy’s remark, “Will it impede us?”

“Not really?” Agnes said a tad unsure.

Noet nodded and said louder for the others to hear, “We go in”

“Well, it’s either I’m dead or a prisoner. So why not” Aileen remarked.

The quartet took a simultaneous deep breath and charged. The guards reacted instantly brandishing their spears and a fierce battle began.

Agnes had a vicious grin and she crushed metal and snapped bones. The sound was simply delicious.

Many of the guards attacked her because it was obvious she was doing the most damage.

Noet and co didn’t fall back much. They employed whatever they could ending the lives of whatever guard they could lay their hands on.

Of course, they didn’t come out unharmed. Aileen especially was unused to fighting with one hand and got stabbed in the side. Luckily it wasn’t a deep stab. Harvy had his hands restricted but was working fine with his legs. His arm did get pierced though.

Noet on the other hand was completely fine. Agnes had her stomach punctured but it healed up almost immediately so that didn’t count. It would seem that with this complete demonic transformation, everything that made demons, demons…

Agnes suddenly felt the impact of something hot and flew back.

…was finally manifesting in Agnes.

Noet stilled at the sudden appearance of a mage. Or maybe the mage had been there, just hiding. He dodged a spear which was thrust at his head and hoped to finish fast so he could check up on Agnes.

Agnes boost in strength was a major key to escaping this place. But Noet was actually more worried of the fact that he didn’t hear the mage chant. Were his senses dulling?

Aileen didn’t waste time, immediately conjuring a lightning ball at the mage to which the mage was unable to dodge.

Mainly because this mage was dressed in armor just like the other soldiers but mages aren’t supposed to wear armor because they don’t have their bodies fortified like fighters do.

The mage downed a blue liquid while he was on the floor and tried to take off his armor.

He saw another lightning ball flying at him and quickly rolled cursing inwardly.

Lightning was a rare affinity and Aileen just had to have it.

He flung a fireball at her to which she swiftly dodged. She probably could tell what spell it was from the chant.

The mage changed tactics and bolted away. Aileen ran after him and looked towards her team to see if anyone could lend a hand. They were all busy with one spearman or the other and Agnes was still down.

Well. She’d taken a third circle spell head on. She’d be lucky to still be alive.

Aileen’s eyes widened as she suddenly realized she didn’t know what spell the mage was casting now. She paused her chase waiting for him to finish.

Something she instantly regretted. He wasn’t attacking, he was buffing the soldiers.

The bodies of the remaining guards glowed a pale golden and the intensity of the guard’s attacks increased.

A soldier immediately attacked her and she claimed his life with her lightning spear. It would seem the guards were finally concentrating their attacks on her to free their mage.

With Agnes out of the equation, the group had much more to face at a time. The battle continued with both sides seemingly having a stalemate.

One would think that with Aileen there, things would go much faster but a mage is not truly effective until they are a magus. As a magus, they can dual cast, use spells that hit multiple enemies at a time and not really need to chant the whole spell.

Agnes shook her head to regain her vision and patted her burnt chest. She heard sound of fighting a few meters away and realized that she had been knocked away by a fire spell.

She didn’t have time to think about why she wasn’t dead after getting hit, immediately joining the fray.

The situation changed again. The main problem with the guards was the armors they had doing nothing against Agnes’ claws unlike the others so she killed them easily. Of course with their buff, it was harder to simply claw through their stomachs but it wasn’t impossible.

Soon enough all the guards were dead, including the mage.

“Oh my Bermia, that was exhausting” Aileen exclaimed.

“Meh” Agnes shrugged.

“Don’t even compare me to you, Agnes” Aileen scoffed.

“How are even ok after that?” Aileen asked incredulously.

Agnes looked down at her scalded chest, “I’m actually curious too”

“Perhaps because demons are innately resistant to mana?” Noet offered squatting to pick something.

“They are?” Agnes’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Ow, my sides fucking hurt. I was poked with a spear” Aileen complained

“I can see that” Agnes deadpanned.

“Harvy please”, Aileen ignored her and pointed to her injured side.

Harvy gave her a look and gestured to his mana cuffs. He had tried to get a guard to break it for him during the scuffle but they were smart enough not to.

Agnes suddenly felt something move and her eyes widened. She immediately dashed forward, distressed.

Noet noticed her sudden movement and followed her eyes sight after which his eyes widened too.

Aileen groaned oblivious in her exhaustion “Can’t we release hi---”

Stab

Aileen’s words were stopped by the searing pain she felt in her chest.

She slowly looked down to see the tip of a spear poking out through her chest. She opened her mouth to say something and she fell down lifelessly to the ground.

“No, no, no!!” Agnes shrieked. She didn’t make it in time!

She immediately pounced on the guard that had faked his death ripping him to complete shreds.

Noet and Harvy were frozen in shock. Noet was shocked because even though he knew some of them or even all of them would die, he didn’t think so early.

Agnes got up, her face bloodied and crushed Harvy’s mana suppressor, “Heal her!”

Harvy stumbled over mechanically, still in disbelief and cast his healing spell.

He tried over and over again but the stab had pierced her heart directly. And a 2nd circle healing spell wasn’t going to do shit against that.

“What are you doing?! Heal her!” Agnes shrieked hysterically.

“Heal her” she broke down into sobs.

Seemingly deciding sobs weren’t enough, she charged irrationally at Harvy, grabbing him and shaking him, “Heal her!”

Noet finally got a hold of himself and charged at Agnes. He pulled her away from Harvy as she struggled aimlessly, “Agnes”

She kept struggling.

“Agnes!” he roared.

She cried harder and struggled.

“Raena!” he screamed fiercely.

She stiffened for a second which was enough for Noet to pin her down.

“Calm down!” he yelled.

She struggled, and was definitely going to use her claws if he kept holding her down.

And Noet didn’t want to test how sharp her claws were.

“Please calm down” he practically begged.

Seeing as she was somewhat listening he continued, “Don’t let your emotions go wild. You know what can happen”

She was obviously struggling less now.

“And” he began then whispered the rest into her ear “She’s not Luken”

Agnes stopped struggling at that and the tears rolled freely from her eyes.

“That’s it. Calm down” Noet nodded and let go of Agnes.

Her body trembled as she cried and she muttered incoherently amidst sobs.

Apparently, the events of that day affected her more than it looked. And Aileen’s sudden death was a terrible reminder.

On the other hand, Noet seemed barely affected by Aileen’s death. Sure, he was sad and thought it was too bad but that was it.

He glanced at Agnes and shook his head. That could have turned very bad if she went all demon on them. Even if Aileen was alive, taking Agnes in her demon form was an impossible task. Sadly, the girl couldn’t willingly transform or she’d be a very effective weapon.

He waited for Agnes to finish her episode and thought of his previous evaluation of her.

He’d thought he could use Agnes prowess in battle effectively when they finally escaped but after her performance today, she was proving to be more of a liability than an asset.

She was strong, yes. But if she broke down this easily then, she wouldn’t last long.