Chapter 82: Quick actions

The high commanders began to organize their subordinates, who in turn were reorganizing the armies. At that moment, I quickly teleported behind one of the Blood Moon members who had been keeping watch since they began to move. 

Art of Eternal Night, Second Stance: Murderous Slash. 

Without any noise or warning, I separated his head from his body. Without an extra breath, I teleported behind what appeared to be the leader and repeated the same thing. His head flew off without him realizing what had happened. 

And so a nine-star awakened, a being near the apex died at the hands of a mere four-star awakened. But that only happened because we are in one of the eight labyrinths. 

Without a second's respite, I took his corpse and at full speed stored the second one in my inventory, hoping it would work since it was the first time I had done it. This is a method created by the blood moon itself and was discovered many years later. 

The fact that no items can be brought in from outside means that all storage bags are unusable until you leave. But someone in your organization, skilled in creating artifacts, used the resources in the scenario to recreate it and give them bags to gather resources more easily. 

 During the scenarios, they killed and one with weird fetishes happened to retrieve a corpse. Upon leaving, they realized that the person never came back out. It was at that moment that they began to take advantage of these labyrinths, to eliminate people without arousing suspicion. 

 No one could explain the disappearances or find a connection between the missing persons who did not return from the labyrinth. It was only after a long time that they discovered the methods by catching and interrogating one of them. 

Now I used that same method on them, as the inventory served the same function. I teleported again to the next location, where the demonic humans were beginning to be chased and scattered. 

Still, I located the ones I was looking for, who had already hidden themselves with earth concealment spells and were moving silently along the ground. 

I guess one is especially good with the earth element, and because of the color it emits, it has a trait that allows it to move on the ground with ease while hiding. 

 But it didn't work on me. I immediately teleported behind one and silently cut it down. Before he noticed, I also cut down the other one and finally the earth mage who was concentrating on escaping. I put the bodies away and teleported back before the tunnel collapsed. 

My last target was the one Lili was guarding. At that moment, I teleported to where Lili was and could see that they were already on the outskirts of the city. Apparently, there was one with lightning magic and one with wind magic, giving speed enhancing spells to each other, so their escape were the fastest. 

I left them last because they were least likely to be caught before I arrived, plus I had Lili always with them so they wouldn't escape from reach. The same as with the previous ones: before they even noticed me, I approached their backs and made a quick and silent cut. With the last one as well and put their bodies away in storage. 

"Whew... that was intense." Since I teleported for the first time no more than ten seconds had passed, but I spent a lot of mana. I had already set up some enhancement spells before I started, but teleporting so many times in a row, plus the fact that I had set, with the fusion skill, all the attack-enhancing traits and via setting a considerable amount of mana in case their defenses were strong, demanded a lot of mana from me. 

 The mental operations I have to do are so many that will and passively circulating acceleration are not enough, especially since I have to put traits like break, holy and will, which are light, in an art that works only with dark mana. 

 I couldn't afford to fail and fall behind with a fight, so I gave my all in every single cut. They may only be three stars right now, but their experience and traits can give me a lot of trouble, as I myself am proof of how strong you can become even with reduced rank and stats. 

"Now you can't say I gave you the worst part, can you?" 

I spoke to Lili, who climbed on my shoulder when it was all over. 

[Humm... Serves you right for always leaving everything to me]. 

"When we get out of here I'll treat you to all the food and sweets you can eat." 

[Tell me the truth, you just want to go back to eating cakes, don't you?] 

"...." Do I look like someone who is obsessed with sweets? 

[Yes.] 

Lili answered me as if she could read my mind, although I'm sure she hadn't made a mental communication. 

[You know, now that you don't have the face of an old man with dead eyes, I've noticed that you're easier to understand.] 

"So that's why you think I like sweet things?" 

[Not that I notice it from your face, but because every chance you get, you sneak off to the bakery to eat mountains of sweets]. 

"..." 

How did she know? I'm sure I leave you watching TV in my room every time I do. Did she follow me? 

[See, your face is telling me you're thinking about how I knew. I'm going to ignore the fact that you didn't invite me, but you made the grave mistake of taking me with you once. There I saw how the vendors looked at you, as if they were looking at a being from another world. Also, I saw how you had a VIP membership of the highest rank]. 

"ahem.... Lili, this is no time for idle chatter Soon the final fight of this scenario is about to begin, so we must hurry." 

 I decided it was better not to continue this useless conversation with Lili and concentrate on the labyrinth. It's not like I was running away because I had no way to refute her. 

 Now that you mention it, I was never good at hiding what I think with my expressions. In fact, I had always heard it from my acquaintances in my previous life, but after they all left, I never heard of it again. Also, all my emotions at some point seemed to die, or so I thought until Lili who was the last person who was with me died. 

 But it seems that those emotions and things from my younger self from my previous life, started to come back, or rather my future self. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing, but as long as I don't lose myself again, I'm okay with it. 

In fact, I'm thankful that my personality isn't the same as it was when I was older. That version of me wasn't something I wanted to go back to and I'll make sure I never have a fate that makes me become like that again. 

 On the way back I took recovery potions to get back to my optimal state I returned to the fortress and apparently all the demonic humans had been captured or killed. The troops were getting organized; things were not over although the armies might be a bit tired. 

 It was now or never: the cannons were attacking more intensely than ever, wreaking havoc along with the mages and archers inside the second wall. I approached Hayato, who looked at me and smiled. 

"Lucien-dono, sorry about earlier. I panicked a bit," he said with a bit of embarrassment on his face. Well, it's my fault for not telling them what would happen, but I knew that no matter how much trust they had in me, if I told them I was going to let them perform a ritual to destroy the wall, they would tell me I was crazy and try to stop it. 

That's why I had only told him that I would let them know the perfect time, as I knew they were planning to cause chaos in the back of the army and it was a perfect time to have them all together, which was no lie. 

Looking at the embarrassed Hayato I couldn't help but think, Honestly, I've always wondered if people or this scenario are somehow real, since you can bring anything you want except living people from inside the maze. 

Not to mention how they behave so humanly that it makes me doubt it's just a scenario, but an answer could never be found, at least not in my previous life. Putting that thought aside, I went along with Hayato, charging towards the end of this maze.