“Really? I thought you would have recognized me by now.” He slowly said. Every second he took was providing girls with additional time to escape, “It is not a big secret, let me show you something and you’ll understand.”

Elder Sonor could feel in Nick’s voice that the young man was grinning widely behind the black mask, but didn’t care for that. He focused on how Nick bent his knees and half squatted as if making himself shorter, then raised his hands and half closed his eyes.

“Baal! Obey me!” Nick tried to say in a week and creepy voice. Of course, it didn’t sound like his first words in this world at all, but he noticed how elder Sonor’s pupils constricted in shock. Normally it was almost impossible to impact the mental state of such experienced Qi master with just a few words, but this information was too shocking for elder Sonor, and he reacted exactly the same way elder Dinar did back in the Lethe kingdom’s woods.

‘This kid is Belial? And he didn’t die? And grew up? And …’ In an instant dozens of questions spawned in elder Sonor’s mind at the same time and it caused his body to freeze for a split second.

This was the moment Nick hoped for since he couldn’t defeat the old Qi sword master in a fair fight. The whole performance was made for this and, while talking, he was already madly channeling Qi in his legs which were already bent.

As soon as he saw elder Sonor’s shocked expression, the rest happened in an instant.

Nick’s vision even blurred from the speed he dived at his opponent. After taking a step forward, he sidestepped to his left and, while rotating his body clockwise, evaded the sword elder Sonor threw at him out instinctively. This way he found himself behind elder Sonor’s sword arm and with two more quick, short steps he was already behind the elder. It might sound simple, but against such old monster it was anything but that.

From the Qi overuse Nick’s feet were already ruptured and bleeding although he didn’t notice it yet himself. At this moment he was already in similar trance he experienced during attack on Aurora’s palace when he jumped out to protect Ben. Luckily he didn’t need to think about his actions and could move on instinct alone.

An object in a size of a fist appeared in Nick’s right hand and, before elder Sonor turned around, it was already thrown in the elder’s hood. After the throw Nick didn’t stop and directly dashed away while elder Sonor finally awakened from stupor and registered there was something thrown in his clothes. He charged after Nick while trying to fish out the thing from his hood.

Elder Sonor already held his breath and protected his back with Qi shield, but as soon as he grabbed the object with his left hand, his facial expression changed and with a loud roar he slashed at Nick’s back. At this point elder Sonor already knew this was, probably, the last sword move he would perform in this world so he put all his strength and speed into it.

It took a long time to describe, but a regular person from the moment Nick acted to elder Sonor’s slash would barely manage to blink while these experts lived through myriad actions, emotions and thoughts in a split second.

On the other hand, the girls were already several hundred meters away and were still running without looking back when a huge blast wave threw them off their feet. Only when they landed face down on the ground the sound of a thundering explosion reached their ears. Despite being dazed from the sound and impact, both of them jumped back up and dashed towards the spot where the fight was just at.

There was no smoke or fire, but a huge cloud of dust and dirt in sky. Some rocks and pieces of soil continued to rain on their heads and shoulders, but they didn’t care. Few seconds later both of them arrived at crater over ten meters deep and almost fifty meters in diameter.

“You stupid idiot!” YunYun whispered with tears in her eyes and carefully stepped down in the pit. She anxiously looked around trying to find some trace of the person she mentioned just now.

She and Zia escaped to the opposite directions and thus her cousin arrived from the other side of this huge pit. Zia was not was as timid and directly jumped in the hole. Even though she could not see much, she immediately went to the very center of the explosion.

It was their first time seeing an aftermath of a detonated rank five beast core and neither had any idea if anyone could survive this.

Indeed, this was Nick’s plan. As soon as he verified the pursuer was elder Sonor, he knew their skills lacked too much to defeat him in a direct confrontation. Also, it was unlikely for an explosion from rank four beast core to seriously harm the old man, since Nick remembered very well how difficult it was to kill grand elder with minor cores. He barely managed to do it after inserting them in the grand elder’s ear orifices and then detonating. But even then it took several ‘explosives’ to get the job done – an expert’s Qi defense was just too formidable.

And now, a live and weary Qi sword master was unlikely to go down when a simple rank four core was thrown at him. The only way out was to detonate rank five beast core even if it posed a deadly risk to Nick as well. Other than getting both girls to escape and trying to protect himself at the moment of explosion there was nothing else he could’ve done.

YunYun was carefully treading into the pit, when she heard Zia’s hysterical shout.

“Nicky!”

Zia obviously found him first and YunYun darted to the center of the pit towards her. But the view she saw almost made her faint.

A mutilated piece of flesh was lying on the ground. It looked like it was a body of a person, although it had no arms or legs. The only thing that reminded of the human origin was a head that was still partially connected to it. The face was not visible – apparently the body was lying face down, but there was a huge wound on its back. It was so deep even spine was torn apart and only few pieces of ribs were visible. Instead of lungs there were only mashed flesh at the sides, but in the very center there was a bleeding heart that for some reason was still beating, albeit slowly. With every beat small streams of blood flowed into the mutilated wound, making it look even more terrifying.

YunYun froze, tears flowed down her cheeks and her hand’s started to tremble. Even though Zia was shocked as well, she had an unshakable trust in Nick and thus there was not a split second when she would think that the half dead person in front of them was her friend.

She took a step forward and turned the almost dead half-human over just to see a hideous expression of elder Sonor. Both eyes were wide open and even though this person couldn’t speak, you could tell that he was blown into eternal state of disbelief. One could hardly recognize him and only red pieces of his robe that hung around the torso were proof of his identity.

“Nick!” YunYun exclaimed.

Below the spot where just elder’s torso lied, buried in the soil there was another body. A sword was sticking out from its right side and it looked like if it was not stabbed, but deeply slashed in through the right shoulder. The next moment YunYun regained her clarity and was already digging Nick out.

“He’s alive!” She whispered while taking Nick into her arms.

“Of course, he is.” Zia snorted.

“Deal with him.” YunYun pointed her chin towards elder Sonor and carried Nick out of the pit.

Zia sighed and grabbed the sword YunYun pulled from Nick’s shoulder. She weighted it in her hand thinking for a bit, but then the next moment the sword disappeared in her meteorite ring and a huge black sword that looked like a giant knife appeared.

“You should consider yourself honored to be the first Holy Order’s elder to die to my ‘Pig sticker’. I hope you never rest in piece!” Zia said and slashed down. It was unknown if elder Sonor heard her, but even if it was not a fair fight, she still felt great by removing this monster from the world.

After killing him, she carefully stored both head and body in her ring and started to look around for the other pieces. She knew YunYun would take good care of Nick and even though she also wanted to help, she persuaded herself to stay out this time. Nick might be clueless, but she wasn’t and knew how her cousin felt.

It took almost quarter of an hour for her to find two legs and the right hand, but no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find the left hand. But, since the precious ring was on the right hand, Zia soon gave up on her search and climbed out of the pit.

At this moment the dust had mostly settled and the aftermath of the explosion could be fully seen. It was obvious, that some weeks later there would be a small pond at this place – that is if there will be a rain in these dry parts.

“How is he?” Zia asked when she finally came over.

Nick was already washed up and fully bandaged, but there was blood seeping out from the bandages all over his body, especially feet, right shoulder and chest.

“He’s better than that old bastard, but not by much.” YunYun said in a serious tone. It seemed she finally regained her calm and only few tears that fell down her cheeks now and then gave away her true state of mind.

“We need to leave – others will arrive soon. Even if we lost them at some point, the huge explosion was probably heard tens of kilometers away. Will you carry him?” Zia said.

“Ye.” YunYun answered and put the unconscious Nick on her back.

“There is only desert to the north and east. Let’s go south and find a place where we can stay for a few weeks.” Zia looked at the ‘mummy’ on YunYun’s back and said.

“Even if it’s bad, me and him – we have a method to heal even this. When your mother beat him up that time, he was also in similar shape. Well, not as bad, but almost. But he still managed to heal up overnight.” YunYun sighed and ran towards the south while carrying Nick on her back.

Zia followed and asked with confusion all over her face, “My mom beat him up? Why?”

“She thought he was a pervert and abused me.” YunYun finally smiled. If one didn’t take Nick’s pain into account, it was an amusing memory, “I’ll tell you later. His breathing is getting weaker – we need to find a place to hide soon.”

“Hahaha, alright!” Zia let her imagination run wild and played out multiple scenarios in her mind on how her mother kicked and punched Nick around. Even though she was really curious, she had to hold it in for a bit till YunYun told her the full story.