Tears streamed down Elizabeth’s face as her eyes drooped down, and she stared at the spot where her Mika once stood. She looked like someone had sucked her soul out of her body.

“...”

She couldn’t believe what was happening! No, she refused to believe it!

‘W-What happened to Mika? D-D-Did she…. di-NO! I refuse to believe that she’s dead! My baby girl can’t die! Not while I’m here!’ She repeatedly shook her head as she kept staring at the spot Mika had disappeared.

It took her a moment to calm down enough to think about the situation rationally. That’s when Mika’s confident expression and her last words rang in her mind:

“Mom! Please save Akira Raven! I don’t know where I’m teleporting to, but I love you, and we’ll see each other again!”

Those words didn’t make any sense at first, but now she understood why Mika said them

‘She said she was being teleported… Although I have sensed strange spatial fluctuations happening all around the castle, how would Mika know that? Did she know about this beforehand, and that’s why she said those words? So, I would know that she was still alive?’ Elizabeth wondered, and her eyes brightened considerably.

‘That’s right! My baby girl is a super genius who formed her Mana Core inside my womb! While it’s still weird that someone of her strength could sense erratic spatial fluctuations, it’s not totally impossible! If she sensed that and could still confidently say that we’ll see each other again, what kind of mother would I be if I didn’t trust my own daughter’s words?’ Elizabeth’s eyes regained most of their lost light as she tried to convince herself that Mika wasn’t dead.

However, her expression quickly changed when she remembered Mika wasn’t the only one here.

“Olivia!”

She looked over and saw that the girl had already fainted after just witnessing her little sister disappear right before her eyes.

Dozens of voidlings had already sensed her and were converging on her position right now, causing Elizabeth’s eyes to grow cold.

“Oh, no, you don’t!”

Within a second, Elizabeth dashed in and swiftly cut apart all the incoming voidlings until they were just tiny black lumps of flesh.

After killing them, she ran over to Olivia and scooped her up, scanning her body for injuries, before breathing a sigh of relief that her oldest daughter seemed fine.

“Don’t worry, little one. Mama’s here, so you can sleep peacefully.” Olivia’s body trembled in her arms as she muttered those words. Elizabeth squeezed her tighter but still held her gently so as not to wake her up.

Turning her attention away from Olivia, Elizabeth glanced at the other little girl on the floor, bleeding out with an appendage through her stomach.

‘That must be Akira.’ She quickly made her way over to the girl and kneeled beside her body. Touching the girl’s head with the back of her hand, Elizabeth frowned at how cold she was.

It was as if the girl was nothing more than a living corpse at this point.

‘Holy hell! It’s a miracle this girl is alive right now!’ Her eyes widened, and she reached down her dress and took out a small syringe strapped to her upper thigh.

‘Hopefully, this healing serum can at least prolong her life until we can get her to a hospital!’ Elizabeth thought as she jammed the syringe into her body and injected the serum.

Putting her hand on Akira’s chest, Elizabeth used her mana to help direct it to the spots that needed to be healed first.

As soon as the effects started to take place, she removed the voidling arm from Akira’s stomach, which caused even more blood to flow out, but within seconds, the holes in her stomach closed, and she stopped bleeding out.

She used the rest of the serum to patch up some of her organs, but it was a botched job at best.

Akira would still need to see a doctor after this, but at least she’ll live.

Elizabeth nodded, then picked up Akira and walked toward where she sensed other children.

‘Now that I’ve taken care of Olivia and Akira, it’s time to save the other children and find my boys!’

As she ran through the rooms looking for the children, she couldn’t help but feel her heart slowly crumbling as she witnessed some of the most horrific scenes she’d ever seen.

The voidlings had slaughtered droves of children and gathered around their corpses. Their sharp, sword-like limbs tore off chunks of flesh, which they devoured with frenzied abandon. The creatures made no sound as they fed; she could hear only the sound of flesh being torn and the crunch of bones being broken.

‘W-Why? W…Why is something like this happening?’ Her mind unconsciously wandered toward depictions of these creatures munching on her children like that, and her blood ran cold.

Shaking her head to get rid of those depressing thoughts, she swiftly killed all of them and moved on to the next room.

‘All I can do for these children now is leave their corpses intact so their parents can give them a proper burial.’ She silently prayed for the deceased and left to find the other children in the castle.

With her speed, it didn’t take her long before she found a group of kids huddled together, running away from the creatures chasing them!

“Help! Help! Somebody! Please help us!”

Tears and snot ran down their faces as they ran and screamed. Many of them had just watched their friends or acquaintances get mauled to death, and with no way to protect themselves, they could only run away as the monsters feasted on the corpses.

‘Dammit! Where are all the knights in this fucking castle?! Why aren’t they helping the children?!’ Elizabeth clicked her tongue in annoyance but still dashed toward the kids, killing everything in her wake.

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After saving the children, she appeared in front of them like a ghost.

“AHHH!”

“W-W-Who are you?!”

“WHAT?!”

Some of the kids panicked and fell on their butts when they saw something suddenly appear before them, but a few calmer ones breathed a sigh of relief.

“S-Someone finally came to save us!” One shouted, causing the other kids to turn their heads and get a better look at Elizabeth.

“A… A woman??”

“Is-Is she here to save us??”

While Elizabeth would love to sit here and try to calm them down and slowly explain the situation, she didn’t have the time for that.

Instead, she looked at the dumbfounded children and said, “I’ll kill all the monsters; you kids just need to follow me. As long as you’re around me, I’ll make sure not a single one of you gets hurt.”

Elizabeth turned around and walked toward where she sensed more children without waiting for a reply.

The children blankly nodded at her and followed Elizabeth. It’s not like they had any other option. They either followed her and lived or didn’t and died.

From then on, Elizabeth ran through the castle, protecting any children she encountered.

After only a few minutes of running around, Elizabeth now had a large group of children following her.

Her senses told her only one more group of children was left in the castle, but this one seemed larger than the rest.

‘I still haven’t found Nathan or Adam yet, but I’m sure they’re in this next group. Those two wouldn’t die to the likes of these monsters.’ Elizabeth was extremely confident in both her son’s abilities. Having grown up under her and Cain’s care, they were more than capable enough of surviving this situation.

Still, she knew these monsters were abnormal, and as a mother, she still worried for her children’s lives.

Not long after, she rounded a corner and saw a group of 50 teenagers fighting for their life against hundreds of monsters.

She breathed a sigh of relief when she noticed that Adam and Nathan were doing just fine. They had a few light injuries but nothing that wouldn’t be healed in a few days.

In fact, they were doing more than alright as Adam was at the helm, leading the other kids, with Nathan standing beside him, providing support.

“Team A, there are a dozen monsters on your right!”

“Team B, support Team C! They are getting overwhelmed!

“Team D and Team E, continue to push the monsters back to give the others some breathing room!”

Elizabeth was inwardly impressed by their teamwork but didn’t dwell on this for too long. She didn’t want another child to disappear right before her eyes again, after all.

‘Maybe I hadn’t stayed to watch Mika fight, I could have reacted fast enough to stop her from disappearing,’ Elizabeth thought to herself regretfully, and her resolve to save the other children intensified.

Elizabeth dashed in and, within seconds, took out all the monsters surrounding the children. Her movement and dual daggers were so fast that all the other kids saw was a blur.

After she had finished them all off, Elizabeth turned to her two children and gave them a light smile, “It’s good to see you kids doing fine.”

“MOM!!”

“MOM!!”

Adam and Nathan both ran up to their mother, embracing her.

“I came as fast as I could, but the other Nobles and I got caught up with some real nasty monsters, so I’m sorry if I’m a bit late,” Elizabeth briefly explained as she returned the hug.

After a few seconds, they released their mother and looked at the children behind her. They searched and searched, but even after looking at every child in the group, they still didn’t find who they were looking for.

“Mom, where is Mika? Is she alright?” Adam asked.

Elizabeth choked up, remembering the scene of her baby vanishing into a spatial tear and ‘teleporting’.

Adam and Nathan’s hearts sank as their stomachs churned. Their minds immediately went to the worst possible scenario, and their bodies trembled slightly, unsure of how to react.

“D-Don’t tell me, she… she” Adam was the first to speak up, but Elizabeth interrupted him before he could finish that sentence.

“I… I don’t know. When I showed up, she was fighting the monsters with Olivia. Then all of a sudden, a spatial tear formed right on top of her, and she disappeared. Before it happened, Mika said she would teleport somewhere and be fine, but…”

She didn’t need to finish that sentence as they both understood her meaning.

How could the words of a child who knows nothing about the world comfort her? How could she trust them?

Still, just like their mother, they also breathed a sigh of relief as, at least, Mika was able to leave a few words behind before she disappeared.

‘Maybe, just maybe, she’s still alive out there.’ That hope was all they needed to regain their calm.

“It’s okay, Mom. You should know Mika by now. Whenever she says something, she means it. If she said she would be fine, I believe she’s fine… for now.” Nathan said in an attempt to make his mother feel better.

Elizabeth wiped away the tears forming at the corner of her eyes and said,“...I suppose you’re right. Mika never says useless things. Right now, all I can do is believe she’s alive and do everything I can to look for her.”

Adam and Nathan sighed but said nothing else. They had no idea what had happened, and now wasn’t the best time to discuss it. There was still an invasion from an unknown species going on.

As much as it sucked, the search for Mika will have to wait.

“What about Dad and the other adults? Where are they?” Adam asked now that his mother had calmed down a bit.

“When I left, they were busy fighting giant humanoid versions of the creatures you all were fighting. Although I don’t know what they’re doing now when I left, everyone was still in good condition,” Elizabeth explained, which caused the kid’s faces to turn grave.

They couldn’t imagine fighting tougher versions of those monsters. They were already a pain in the ass to deal with because magical attacks didn’t work on them, and their exoskeleton was strong enough that unless they had the minimum strength necessary to break past it, they wouldn’t do any damage to them.

However, not many kids today had that kind of strength, as most strive to be a magician.

Kids don’t want to be swordsmen, gunmen, spearmen, or anything like that. They all want to use mana and shoot magic! Not only is it flashy, but Mana Cultivation is seen as the “more noble” cultivation system compared to Body Cultivation.

Body cultivation is the act of destroying and rebuilding the body repeatedly until it exceeds its limitations and breaks into a new life level. Doing that hurts like hell and only becomes worse the further one progresses. Thus, nobles see it as a more barbaric cultivation system than Mana Cultivation, which doesn’t involve pain to become stronger.

Plus, Mana Cultivation does strengthen the body. It might be much less effective than Body Cultivation, but it still does.

The last reason Body Cultivation isn’t popular is because cold weapons like swords, spears, axes, polearms, daggers, etc., require years of arduous practice and training to become proficient. That’s on top of the years of training to become skilled in magic!

However, because nobody practices Body Cultivation among the nobles, these children are essentially useless against monsters that don’t take magical damage.

“Well, let’s not waste our time here in the middle of a battlefield!” Adam said, “Let’s get the children to safety and find out what’s going on with the rest of the city!”

Nathan, Elizabeth, and the other kids couldn’t agree more. All able-bodied young adults took up some kind of weapon or shield and stood around the younger kids to protect them as they moved through the castle.

On this day, due to the invasion of the voidlings and their resistance to magic, the nobles woke up and acknowledged that Body Cultivation, although painful and barbaric, might not be as useless as they once thought it was.