Darkness was covering the sky, however, Notre Dame was brighter than ever. That was because the city’s Temple, once the proud symbol of the city and its people, was now on fire. Loud noise of something big and strong hitting the walls and pillars of the Temple could be heard even from the outside.

“What the hell is going on in there?” Allan asked.

“Not our priority right now ! right now, we need to get Liam to a safe location.” Maria said.

Allan and Luna tried to carry him up, but his wound was too serious and he could not change position without risking further damaging his arteries.

“Fuck, we need to secure his injury first. But I have no mana or medical tools to do so” Maria said. They were all in a tough situation, even though Liam's life was not at risk right now, around them, it was pure chaos, the guards and the people were fighting everywhere, no one knew what might happen next. Going was not an option and staying right there wasn’t safe either, while Liam continued to lose blood by the second. But then an unexpected help arrived. The former cursed child, now a warrior in armor, got to them and said,

“Please, let me help him”.

The team did not know what she meant by that but well they really didn’t have a choice either. She reached down and touched Liam's stab wound and chanted her spell. And in a matter of seconds Liam’s wound got smaller and smaller until it closed completely.

“Now, let's get you out of here,” she said. The team had no time to be shocked as the young woman pulled them away. Luna perharp was surprised the most, she had no idea this was the result of the hidden quest. The cursed child now became not only a strong and fully armed warrior but also someone who had powerful healing magic as well, maybe even more powerful than Maria. “Who is she?” Luna asked herself.

****

Inside the main hall of the Temple, Kyle was facing his toughest opponent yet. The Minotaur seemed to be unbeatable, no matter how many attacks Kyle landed on it, his blade could not cut through its rough thick skin.

“Fighting it head on is clearly not the answer,” Kyle told himself. His attack did nothing while on the other hand, whenever the Minotaur hit something like giant stone statues or brick walls, they all cracked. Clearly the difference in strength was too great to overcome normally. All Kyle could do for now was to save his energy and continued to dodged the Minotaur’s attacks until he could think of a plan. After hearing the cracking noise coming from those giant stone statues of the Goddess of Healing that was hit by the Minotaur, Kyle thought of a way to put this monster down. It was so simple, all he needed to do was lure the monster near the damaged statue and make him hit them again until it falled down on it. And that was exactly what Kyle did, purposely slowing down and leading the beast to his trap. The Minotaur chased after Kyle without a second of a doubt and delivered its powerful attack, at such a close range, it was extremely risky for Kyle, one wrong move and he would take the full force of the beast attack. But he narrowly dodged them everytime, making the Minotaur attack the stone statue instead. And then as a result, the statue crumbled and falled down onto the Minotaur.

After all the dust had died down, no sound or sight of the Minotaur could be detected. Kyle’s plan worked, the monster was crushed to death. He casually pulled out his short sword again and walked toward the High Priestess. However, he made a fatal mistake, the only way to be sure that someone was dead was to find his dead body. As Kyle walked by the rubble of the aftermatch, the ground under his feet started to vibrate. The Minotaur suddenly came out from under the rubble, standing tall and strong like it was nothing. It immediately retaliated Kyle with a back hand to his upper body. Kyle was standing too close to the monster this time to be able to dodge its attack. Kyle took the blow head on and got blown meters away. The beast did not let him any breathing time, charging in right away, Kyle barely dodged the monster attack by rolling to the opposite direction. But it did not look good for Kyle now, he was fighting a losing battle and he knew it. The Minotaur showed no signs of fatigue or injuries, Kyle on the other hand was only human, he would get tired eventually and now that he was seriously injured by the beast, time was running out fast. With no time to recover from the monster’s attack, Kyle was pushing his body to the limit. He knew very well that he could not withstand another direct attack from the Minotaur, so he had to keep moving, but his body was slowly shutting down and he could feel it. He needed to fight back, not just continue wasting his energy so he turned around and tried to land a few more hits with his blade. But the result was the same, he could not cut through its skin, but then he noticed something else, blood, a small amount of it on the monster's body. He needed to know where it came from but dodging the beast attacks and looking for its wound was no easy task, he could not focus both at the same time. However, luck was in his favor, as the monster turned its head quickly to see where Kyle ran to, a drop of blood came flying out from his ear.

“Bingo,” Kyle spoke. Now he knew where to attack the monster, its eardrum. The Minotaur’s skin was too thick and rough for Kyle to do any damage but there was one place that it did not cover, the eardrums. Kyle picked up a thin iron bar from the rubble and looked back at the Minotaur. Now the table had turned, the Minotaur and Kyle shared a stare at each other for a brief second before battling it out again. However, this time those were the eyes of two beasts ready to take the other down. The Minotaur was much taller than Kyle, he could not jump that high by himself in order to attack its eardrum. So he used his surroundings and the monster itself. With the iron bar in his right hand, he charged in, the Minotaur took it as an invitation and dished out a direct punch toward Kyle. Kyle dodged it with ease, the beast ended up punching the ground, Kyle quickly used the monster arm as a leverage to make his jump. Attacking with its right arm making the beast totally defenseless on his right side. Kyle jumped up high and pierced the iron bar right through the Minotaur’s ear.

The monster then screamed from the unimaginable pain he just received from Kyle, it took a few steps back and started to bleed out of its ear. Although that did not manage to take the beast down, the Minotaur was clearly disoriented. This was Kyle only shot to take it down before he would be too weak to do so. Kyle came right back in, not letting the monster heal back up. The Minotaur roared and attacked Kyle with everything it got left, but it was clear that the injuries had taken its toll on the beast as it’s attack accuracy dropped dramatically. Kyle now was just waiting for his opening, and he did not have to wait for long. The Minotaur tried to step on him, Kyle dodged the attack and used the monster’s knee as the leverage to make the jump. This time, Kyle kicked as hard as he could to the iron bar end, pushing it even deeper to the beast's head. As a result, the Minotaur dropped to the ground through the sheer pain it received. But Kyle got injured as well, doing a roundhouse kick mid air with full force to the end of an iron bar would do that to any human. Both the beast-man and the man-beast were now injured, however, Kyle was going to change that fact very quickly. Although it was painful for him to walk with what he assumed to be a bone injury on his foot, he walked right up to the Minotaur and continued his assaults. The Minotaur now was completely under Kyle’s mercy, it could barely defend itself, the injury was too great. The monster was under too much pain and was too disoriented to stand back up, rather it just let out roars and lay on the ground. But mercy was Kyle’s weakest subject.

Kyle walked up to the injured Minotaur and started to kick the iron bar deeper and deeper into the Minotaur head. Each time he did that, the monster roared and screamed out, like it was begging him to stop, but his face showed no intention to do so. Kyle just kept on stepping on it, even when the Minotaur was already motionless and visibly stopped breathing, he just kept kicking the iron bar deeper and deeper until it disappeared into the Minotaur’s head. In the end and all there was left was a monster lying on a pool of its own blood, pouring out of its ear. Kyle really made sure that the beast stayed down this time.

“And then there was one” Kyle spoke as he looked back at the High Priestess who was still standing in the room. She had used all of her mana in order to summon this creature but in the end it was all for nothing. Gone with the crazy laughters and taunting speech from before, now the table had turned, she was the one who was facing a monster instate and Kyle started to laugh like a mad man. With his short blade on hand, Kyle carried himself toward her. And even though his right foot was injured, somehow it did not feel like the High Priestess was at the upper hand here.