“Hahaha. You are not only interesting but funny as well. War you say? You and which army?” (Man)

He laughed like crazy. I had my pride, but his mocking wasn’t enough to dirty it at all. It was better that he thought I was alone. This way we’d had the surprise effect on our side.

“I don’t need an army. I’m more than enough for you.” (Me)

“Ho. I see, self-confident as well? Are you really his son? Primus would never do the dirty work and always had someone he could take advantage of.” (Man)

It felt like we were talking about two completely different people. The one I know was more of a kind and clumsy person, while the Primus he was talking about was ruthless.

“I haven’t seen your abilities yet, but as far as I can judge you are already pretty strong. Not on my level yet, but if you’re given more time, you’ll surely surpass me.” (Man)

He returned to his friendly side. His mood fluctuations were irritating and it was hard to predict when he’d change.

“Unfortunately, I can’t let you have that time to grow, or you’ll interfere with my plan.” (Man)

I don’t know from where he took it out, but he suddenly held a white crystal ball in his hand. It started to shine and I immediately put my guard up. The light was extremely bright and I even had to close my eyes because of it.

When the light dispersed I opened my eyes again and to my surprise, nothing changed. My defensive measures were still up and nothing got destroyed. I was confused and thought his attack failed.

“Sigh. You said this is war, right? Fine I accept your declaration of war. My army will be here soon.” (Man)

“So that light was a communication spell?” (Me)

“Not exactly, but something similar. You’ll see soon enough.” (Man)

He created a stone chair out of nowhere and sat down like an old man.

“Sigh. Now all I have to do is sit back and watch.” (Man)

He was mocking me on purpose. He was probably stalling for time as well. I wasn’t sure why he did that if he was that confident in his victory, but I had to be careful.

“Ah! Right. Before I forget it, you should probably help your friends. They are facing quite some trouble at the moment.” (Man)

Not only did he know that they were here he also pointed in their direction. I looked at him in disbelief. The surprising part wasn’t that he noticed them, but he even advised me to help them? Everyone would be confused.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be waiting here for you. As long as the last seal isn’t broken I won’t be able to leave from here anyway. Hahaha.” (Man)

I wasn’t naive enough to believe his words. I didn’t move an inch and kept watching him.

“Seriously you should go before something bad happens.” (Man)

“Are you making fun of me?” (Me)

“No.” (Man)

“Then…” (Me)

Boom.

…

I heard an explosion from about where the others were hiding. The instant I heard it I was even in more disbelieve.

“I told you. Perhaps now it’s too late.” (Man)

I looked at him once more before I turned around and left to look for my allies. I didn’t even have to search for them, I just followed the explosions. Shortly afterwards I found them. They were spread all over the place.

“What’s wrong Hayate?” (Me)

Hayate was the closest to me, so I asked him. He was having a serious expression, which was already close to a miracle. Something definitely happened.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with them, but Sakura and Sepp started to attack us out of nowhere.” (Hayate)

“What?” (Me)

“They said something about kill the traitors, or something like that and started to throw magic attacks at us. If Ryukai didn’t notice their change in behaviour in time, we would have taken a serious blow.” (Hayate)

It was pretty bad. Not because they couldn’t defeat them, but because Takeshi was obviously still in love with Sakura, so it wasn’t possible for them to fight her.

“Wait a sec… Since when did you say they changed?” (Me)

“A few moments ago. I didn’t even notice it until it was too late.” (Hayate)

“So that’s what it was then…” (Me)

“Huh?” (Hayate)

“Fuck.” (Me)

I didn’t even care about the confused Hayate. I took out my sword and without even thinking twice, I jumped at Sepp. He trained well and he reacted in time, but it was far away from my level and an earth lance was already shooting out from the ground.

He also tried to defend with magic by creating a shield made out of darkness, but I also predicted that and cladded the spear in light magic, which nullified his shield.

The spear stabbed right through his heart and without feeling much agony he died on the spot.

The others couldn’t even react. They were making big eyes and afterwards they all looked at me. Even Takeshi who tried to fend of Sakura’s attack to distract her, noticed what I did and stopped.

“W… “ (Lucy)

She wasn’t able to bring out any words.

“We don’t have much time they are not the only ones who were brainwashed. Don’t waste time by trying to bring them back, it’s useless.” (Me)

Immediately after I said that I ran at Sakura. Takeshi’s face went blank when he noticed it. He wanted to stop me, but luckily Ryukai understood what I meant and held Takeshi back.

He was screaming and crying, but Ryukai did his best to restrain him. It didn’t seem easy to me and he did a good job.

It was a lot easier to kill Sakura, because I knew she wasn’t as experienced in battle as Sepp. Especially melee combat was her weakness. A few swings of my sword and a small fire explosion were enough to finish her off.

I received the same reaction as last time. Ryukai still restrained Takeshi, while the others waited for an explanation.

“The situation turned around. We underestimated his abilities and now we must pay for it. The army we thought would help us, will soon arrive and everyone will try to kill us.” (Me)

They understood the meaning behind my words, but they didn’t want to accept them. It meant that except for us six, everyone in the world was our enemy now.

“Why aren’t we affected then?” (Ryukai)

“I think it has something to do with our lineage. Gods weren’t created by the key and if my guess is correct, he used the key to brainwash all of them.” (Me)

I only had to combine what I saw with what I heard and it was logical.

“We have one advantage. He is still trapped and won’t be able to get out until the last seal is broken.” (Me)

“A seal?” (Hiro)

“I don’t know either?” (Me)

I was relieved that four out of five understood the graveness of the situation and that they adapted fast. As for the last…

“What should we do with Takeshi?” (Ryukai)

“Stay with him and restrain him until he’s calmed down.” (Me)

We had the advantage that we could fight both sides individually. First, we had to take care of the army and afterwards we could fight of the root of our problems. The worst situation would be if the seal got broken before we could finish up on the other side.