Sonia Angloid, who had recovered from her shocked state, now stared in awe in the direction of Lakshman and his collapsed foe. She had her hands clapped together and wore a really happy smile on her face.

“Awesome,” she said in a voice filled with wild excitement and amazement. “He beat that monster or guy with one punch! That’s super awesome!”

Natasha, who had stepped in front of her to defend her, now stood to her side and nodded as she also stared at Lakshman.

“Yes. That is very impressive,” said Natasha with a single nod of the head with a serious expression on her face. “He is both powerful and dangerous to contend with.”

***

“Oh my goodness,” said Atem in an alarmed voice when he saw the conclusion of the battle. “He beat that thing with a single punch?”

He sounded disbelieving and Silvera verified his doubt by saying, “You aren’t the only one who saw that, stranger. My husband did, indeed, finish the battle with one punch like he told me!”

As Tetra nodded her head in agreement, Ondine spoke aloud with a confused expression on her face.

“That’s true, but I never expected that he’d finish it with one punch! Normally, he would let his enemy pull some punches in order to try and discourage them. After the chances are over, he goes into battle mode and attempts to quickly take the enemy down. Now, however, he’s gotten so strong that he can settle a battle without the need to draw it out!”

Emilia stared at her with a raised eyebrow and asked, “Ondine, are you by any chance, missing the show of battle that usually brought with him fighting any kind of opponent?”

“No!” Ondine replied quickly in a defensive voice. “I was just alarmed by how quick the battle had ended when I expected it to get drawn out like they usually do because of how strong the enemy was.”

“Ah…” Emilia said slowly and she nodded in understanding. “That makes sense, but he’s gotten so strong that any opponent, who were previously strong, is no match for him now! In a way, that is good because he can end battles quickly without causing too much bloodshed and destruction.”

This time, it was Ondine’s turn to raise her eyebrows in surprise, but she thought it was wise to not say anything. They knew of how serious Emilia was about violence and her strong desire to achieve peace quickly. So, stating that a quick end to a battle does not mean less violence is involved.

Cantia, who had been staring intently through her beast eyes using Zooming Force magic spell, breathed dramatically and narrowed her eyebrows.

“It looks like Lucky’s professional clothes are ruined-nyaa!” she called out in a carrying voice.

Ondine, startled by her words, quickly turned to the humanoid cat and asked, “Professional clothes? What professional clothes? Do you mean the ones that I gave that angel to take?”

“Nyaa!” Cantia said and nodded her head in ascent.

The nod of the head caused a shock of unbelieve force to zap through the mind and body of Ondine. She stared at her with a shocked expression on her face upon learning that the only clothes she bought him were ruined. In an instant, she fainted on the spot and as her legs lost strength, she almost collapsed, but Emilia quickly got over to hold her by the shoulders.

“Cantia! Use your head, stupid cat!” Emilia said in an annoyed voice as Tetra and Silvera quickly arrived to assist her.

“I didn’t think she’d faint-nyaa. Sorry-nyaa,” said Cantia in an apologetic voice and she scratched her ears unhappily before looking back at to where Lakshman stood over his collapsed enemy.

***

“Mmmm. Mmmmm. Mmm. Mmmmm.”

“Huh?” Lakshman said in surprise.

He looked down at Shenzen’s drastically weakened body, which was shaking slightly. Realising that his defeated enemy was struggling to move and speak, Lakshman lent him a hand by using the Levitation magic spell to make his body face upward. Shenzen breathed deeply for a few seconds before blearily opening his eyes to look straight at Lakshman.

“Very… impressive…” he breathed quietly in a very weak voice. “You… defeated me…”

Lakshman stared at him with an expressionless face as he asked, “How’s that impressive?”

“Of course,” said Shenzen with a slight hint of firmness. “You beat me… with one punch… That is… impressive…”

Shenzen tried to smile, but he winced from the effort and merely grunted in pain. Lakshman stared down at him with sadness in his eyes and shook his head to deny the compliment.

“No. It’s not impressive,” said Lakshman in a dull voice. “It doesn’t feel like a battle when an enemy is defeated so easily.”

Shenzen began to laugh, but he started to cough roughly instead, spitting blood out of his mouth. As his cough settled down, Lakshman stared at him with his clenched fists shaking slightly in anger.

“You know,” began Lakshman in a fierce voice, “I should be punishing and torturing you for killing my allies and most of all, deeply wounding the feelings of my wife, but… I can’t bring my heart into attacking a defenceless person…”

One again, Shenzen began to laugh, but it turned into a coughing fit and it made him spew more blood out. As he breathed rapidly to calm down, he made a small smile at Lakshman.

“Weakling,” he said slowly and he chuckled lightly. “You have so much power, but you waste it by using being weak hearted.”

“Mmm,” said Lakshman without caring about those words and he held out the Berserker Orb in his hand. “Anyway, tell me how you transformed into that monster and why do you have this thing with you?”

Shenzen blinked at him for a moment before forming a wicked smile on his face before he said, “Make me…!”

Lakshman, instantly, became infuriated and he held his hand out towards Shenzen and said, “Pressure.”

In an instant, the pressure around Shenzen increased dramatically and caused his weakened body to bulge. The intense pain from the increased pressure caused the man to scream in agony. He writhed in pain and he attempted to roll his body around, but he could barely move a muscle in his weakened state.

“Now…! Tell me what I want to know…!” Lakshman said slowly in a fierce voice a few seconds after putting the man through the intense pain.

As Shenzen writhed in pain, he brought enough energy to open his mouth and slowly said, “N-Never…! I’ll… never… help my… enemy…!”

Lakshman stared at the man’s writing body and the screams he was making before sighing deeply in resignation before deactivating the magic spell. With the pressure released, Shenzen relaxed on the ground while breathing heavily as if he had run several kilometres without rest.

“Very well. I will get the answers to my questions on my own,” said Lakshman and he held his hand out towards Shenzen before he said, “Memory Dive.”

Lakshman, suddenly, felt his vision dive into Shenzen’s mind and enter deep ocean of memories. He did want to do this right from the start, but he did not want to due to him wanting to be nice and get the answer out of Shenzen.

Scenes flashed by at high speed as he dived deeper into the man’s memories, going past the scenes that showed him what had already happened till that point. A few scenes later, the scene in which the man had swallowed something to transform into the monster and in a fraction of a second, Lakshman recognised the pill that Shenzen had taken.

“Berserker Pill!” Lakshman thought in surprise. “Where did he get the forbidden ancient pill?”

The memories continued to flash by and they showed a young Shenzen spending his time with someone, who was surely his mother. Then, a time came when she got very sick and passed away, but not before revealing the betrayal of the Sargold family. Shocked, Shenzen arrived at Floria Kingdom and tried meeting with Felix, but fearing the boy might bring danger to the king’s reputation, Felix attempted to kill him.

Shenzen barely escaped after fooling Felix into killing one of his illusions while he escaped with his life. Greatly angered and vengeful, Shenzen set out to the distant lands of Bazaraka Continent to train under strong beast warriors from the Simhara Beast Clan, who had lion heads for male and lioness heads for female. Shenzen trained in the art of slicing and blasting to destroy his enemy and that training took over ten years before he departed to seek revenge.

At that moment, Lakshman suddenly felt that a large amount of blankness had appeared in the memory. It was as if a small part of Shenzen’s memory after leaving the Simhara Beast Clan and arrival at Human Continent are missing. If the memory had been locked, Lakshman would have used Memory Breaker to unlock them, but he had no way of restoring a memory that did not seem to be there.

“Memory Out,” thought Lakshman and he instantly surfaced from Shenzen’s memory and found himself in his body again.

Shenzen looked up at him with bleary eyes and weakly said, “You’re… quite rude… Phoenix Titan… I never expected that… that you’d enter into someone’s memory without… invitation…”

Lakshman glared at him with great anger and said, “Politeness didn’t work, so I used forceful means to get what I wanted, but I found more questions than the ones your memories answered. Like, the missing memory you had of the time between leaving from the Simhara Beast Clan and reaching the Human Continent.”

“Oh…” said Shenzen slowly and he breathed heavily. He weakly shrugged his shoulders and said, “Well… I doubt I can tell you when you… couldn’t find it for yourself.”

Lakshman glared at him fiercely when, all of a sudden, heard a fierce voice telepathically say, “You served your worth and now, die.”

His eyes widened with shock and at the same time, he sensed a powerful build-up of energy from somewhere high above. Quickly looking up, he saw a massive wave of destruction get fired from what appeared to be the floating Heaven Continent. It surged towards the ground in which they stood at high speed and caused powerful shock waves to be sent in all directions.

Natasha, quickly, darted forward and cast several layers of barrier spells and fought hard to defend she and Sonia. The Angel Princess, stared at the massive beam cannon fried from her home continent in disbelief.

“What are they doing?!” she exclaimed in a horrified voice. “They’re going the Phoenix Titan!”

Atem, who was watching the massive wave of destruction flying towards where the Phoenix Titan stood, reacted wildly and exclaimed, “What the hell are they firing Angel Drive Cannon?! Why?!”

“Oh no!” Emilia and Sumara shouted in shocked voice while Cantia hung her mouth out in disbelief.

Tetra and Silvera turned and they looked towards each other before coming to an agreement with a single nod of the head. They, instantly, transformed into balls of light and flew off towards their husband at high speed.

Lakshman stared up at the incoming attack with clenched fists and thought, “I don’t know what they’re thinking, but they’re clearly trying to kill this guy, but I won’t let that happen! He’s the main witness to the strings of manipulation that happened behind our backs and we need him alive!”

He raised both of his hands into the air and shouted, “Maga Distrab!”

In an instant, a powerful wave of energy was released from his hand and it flew off towards the incoming attack. There was a moment of pause before a loud explosion of glasses could be heard and his eyes widened in shock as his counter magic spell got countered by the anti-counter magic spell placed over the massive wave of energy.

“Damn!” Lakshman said in a frustrated voice. “Perhaps a Phonikalachalara!”

He took a step back and took on the form as he prepared to fire the attack that he commonly used in the ancient times. As energy began to gather, he began to perform the drawn out scream of the attack name as the power got built-up.

“Pho-nik-ala-chala-ra!”

He brought both of his palms upward and released a massive red wave of destruction towards the incoming attack. His attack flew upward for a few seconds before clashing heavily against the massive wave of destruction that descending from the sky. Upon impact, a powerful clash of forces occurred and sent shock waves in all directions, causing wind to blow wildly and the ground to shake violently.

“What?!” he exclaimed when his attack began to be pushed down by the enemy attack. Gritting his teeth firmly, he shouted, “Very well! Time for full—!”

He was cut off when two glowing balls of light flew towards him and encased him in a large ball of light. They carried him away from the wave of destruction at high speed to protect him.

“Wait! Tetra! Silvera! You left him behind!” Lakshman shouted at the two Sacred Spirits as he struggled to break free from the ball of light encasing him.

“Your safety is more important than his!” Silvera telepathically said in a firm voice in his mind.

“Besides, he deserves to get destroyed from something like that,” said Tetra telepathically in a fierce voice.

Lakshman understood the hatred they have towards the man, but needed the man to be alive. Shenzen was the main victim and witness to things that have happened in the memories that were removed. If interrogated further, he might be able to make him forcibly remember the events that were missing from his memories.

“Wait! Stop!” Lakshman cried out, but his two wives continued to take him as far as possible from the blast radius.

As the massive wave of destruction descended towards Shenzen, the man stared up at it with a small smile of sadness formed on his face. He was disappointed because he was unable to fully fulfil his vengeance due to Venezuela being alive.

“Forgive me, mother… I couldn’t kill the only remaining member of the Sargold family…” said Shenzen in a disappointed voice. “I, also, failed to take the life of the Phoenix Titan… Wait… Why do I want to kill him again…?”

He seemed mystified for a moment before shrugging his shoulders weakly as he let go of it.

“I’m deeply sorry, mother…! I… have... failed you…!” Shenzen finished with a finality in his voice.

He closed his eyes as the massive wave of destruction descended down and smashed into the ground where he lay. There was a, sudden, flash of light and it was soon followed by an enormous explosion, which completely consumed the land and him along with it. A great wave of wind and dust was sent in all directions along with powerful shock waves that were released from the explosion.

It took a few minutes before the clouds of dust cleared to reveal a great gaping hole in the ground. Lakshman and his two wives, Tetra and Silvera, hovered above the ground and stared at the huge hole with disbelief on their faces.

“Ah! Dammit!” Lakshman cried out in a frustrated voice and surprised his wives. “A key witness to a puzzling mystery had been killed and I couldn’t do anything to stop it! Goddammit!”

“W-We’re sorry, Lucky… It’s our fault...” said Silvera slowly with a sad expression on her face.

“If we just didn’t act rashly to save you, we wouldn’t have gotten in your way…” said Tetra in an apologetic voice.

Lakshman waved his hand aside as if to deflect their apologies and said, “No. You’re not in the wrong. Any respectful wife would’ve acted that way to save their husband, whom they think was in imminent danger. You’re not at fault, so don’t blame yourselves unnecessarily. Okay?”

They looked at him for a moment with surprised looks on their faces before nodding silently in understanding. They were always amazed by how defensive he is whenever the fault is on their end, which made them love and respect him even more. This caused Silvera to shed a small tear, which Lakshman saw and he quickly moved to wipe it off her face before smiling reassuringly at her.

“I may have lost one witness, but I just received another in the form of that attack,” thought Lakshman thoughtfully and he looked up at the floating continent that was hovering high in the sky. “Judging from the voice I heard in my mind, they were clearly trying to kill him and me at the same time. Going by that, I can easily suspect that the angels had some link to the vanishing memories of that guy.”

“That reminds me, there are two angels over there…” muttered Lakshman and he turned to look towards where Sonia and Natasha stood. “I, seriously, did not expect to find the last Destiny Queen arriving at my doorstep without me having to do anything.”

Silvera, who heard his muttering, widened her eyes in alarm and said, “The last Destiny Queen is here?! Where?! Where?!”

She began to look around frantically to see where her future sister would be and Tetra grabbed her by the shoulder as she said, “Calm down, Silvera.” She pointed towards Sonia and said, “She’s over there.”

“Wow…!” Silvera said in an awed voice. “She looks so beautiful…!”

Without stopping to think, she flew off in her direction and Tetra sighed before flying after her. Lakshman remained floating in mid-air as he placed a hand on his chin with a thoughtful expression on his face.

“It’s easier for the girls to get closer to her, but what am I supposed to do? She’s an Angel and I’m a Phoenix, not to mention of the recent attack her continent fired on me! Mmm… Even so, is it mere coincidence to find her at my doorstep or is fate playing a prank on me? Ugh… What am I supposed to do in this current situation…?”

Unable to make up a decision on what to do, he remained floating in mid-air and continued to think through his options.

Author's Note

Hello readers and thank you for reading this chapter. This one took me a few days to write, not because I was busy, but because my brain just did not have the motivation to write it. The difficulty I faced with writing this was tough because my brain kept having some sort of block. So I, finally, reached my limit with this chapter and just wanted to post it away. So, I hope that you liked it and will read more as the story continues!