I could clearly feel the other’s depression about the whole situation. I wasn’t that accurate at reading and understanding other people’s feelings, but I knew at least that much.

We still had to face it. We weren’t left with another choice.

“We have to prepare some traps and magic attacks.” (Me)

Even though they were really sad about our previous companion’s deaths, most of them understood the situation and immediately helped me set up countermeasures.

While Lucy and I prepared some magic attacks, Hiro and Hayate spread traps all over the island. Even though Lucy and I were to prepare large scale attacks, in the end I was left to do the magic part alone.

She was quite surprised about some of my ideas. I taught her how to activate some of them when needed.

It took about half an hour to draw some runes and another half to prepare other important types of magic, which could become handy during our battle.

After we finished, we went back to check on Takeshi. He was still in pools of tears. I already predicted as much. I even went as far as to think we had to fight without him. Normally it wouldn’t be a problem, but with only five other people to count on at the moment, one was a rather big loss.

“Sigh. Are the traps ready?” (Me)

“All set up.” (Hiro)

“Good. Ryukai, you and Takeshi should stay here. Hide yourself and if anything happens, run away. It’s better not to lose even more manpower.” (Me)

One nod from Ryukai was enough for me, because I knew I could count on him.

“Everyone else follow me. Let’s give them a warm welcome.” (Me)

We went to the coast to await the army of hundreds of thousand soldiers. We didn’t have to wait long until I caught sight of some ships aiming at this island. The few became many and the many got even more.

Unfortunately, they weren’t as stupid as to sail next to each other. Otherwise one huge magic would have been enough. They went in many groups, all keeping a safe distance from each other.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“How should we deal with them?” (Hiro)

It was an appropriate question to which I didn’t have a clear answer yet. I didn’t want to release my dark form yet. It was like an ace, and I wanted to use it at the last moment.

“Let them come a little bit closer. I’ll try to hit as many as possible. Afterwards it will be up to you to cover some time.” (Me)

“You can count on us. We won’t disappoint you.” (Lucy)

I hoped so, otherwise, even I was at my wits end as to what to do. We had to deal with them as fast as possible, so we could focus on the real enemy.

“Step back a little. I have a good idea.” (Me)

When they were at a safe distance, I started focusing a lot of my mana into one point. After a few seconds, a blue ball of pure energy was formed inside of my hand. My attack wasn’t grand, nor did I really think about it. I boldly attacked with overpowering strength.

A single streak of mana left the ball and directly headed for the closest ship. It didn’t even take a second and it exploded. The whole ship was destroyed in one go. Afterwards, one after another, the same thing repeated over and over again.

If I can’t take you all out at once with a big attack, then I’ll just have to do so with many smaller ones.

My method was simple, but effective. It didn’t focus on killing, but rather on destruction, which was way easier. Due to that, I managed to endure until the very last ship was destroyed. Afterwards, I had to retreat and recovery for quite some time though.

The ones that were able to survive my barrage of attacks, were a lot stronger than the ones who didn’t, but I trusted Lucy, Hiro and Hayate to fight them off for as long as possible. As long as I was able to recover, we would win the first part of this war.

Unfortunately, they appeared, as soon as I started to retreat. I roughly counted about one hundred in total. I did expect a few to survive but that number was a bit too much. It more or less showed me how prepared our side was from the beginning.

“Kill those traitors!”

They said the exact same as Sepp and Sakura, which confirmed my assumption.

Lucy, Hiro, Hayate and I started to spread in four different directions. The five kings each took the lead of a small elite troop consisting of all five races and started to advance as well. Two teams followed behind me, while the others only had one trailing them each.

Due to my excessive usage of magic, I was extremely exhausted and they could follow behind me with ease. Sometimes, I heard a small magic attack like a fireball flying at me from behind. I could barely dodge them in time.

The hunt soon came to an end.

When we were in the middle of some of my bigger rune magic attacks, I finally stopped and caught my breath.

“Sigh. I finally made it here.” (Me)

The forty or so people trailing me came to a halt as well.

“Have you finally decided to hand yourself in, villain?” (Arthur)

Arthur was one of the two kings trailing me. His bold question only made me smile.

“Ha. Shut up. I’ve had enough of you.” (Me)

With a snap of my finger half of my traps activated. I was really creative while setting them up, so the end of every one of them varied for each trap.

Some were mashed into pieces by their own weight, because I set up a super gravity trap. Another was near an explosion rune, while another one received my sneaky earth spear coming from the ground.

The result, out of 40 people, 37 died, and the last three, consisting of Arthur, his close aid Shadow and the beast men king Sam. While all three of them were heavily injure, I was almost back to half of my full strength.

“I’m asking nicely because you were a really good ally, but do you have any last words?” (Me)

“I don’t need mercy from a...” (Arthur)

I stabbed a sword into his head and he died right on the spot. It was really cruel, but it was the fastest way. I looked at the other two, but I didn’t wait for any last words, I just killed them afterwards.

I didn’t feel anything when I killed them. The same thing could be seen on my featureless expression.

-Clap- -Clap-

As soon as I hear the first clap, I turned into the direction it came from and was on guard. I took a fighting stance and had a serious expression. I didn’t even notice someone sneaking up on me and he was only a few metres away from me.

“Well done. I didn’t expect you to be this strong, boy.” (Man)

The root of all evil stood right before me. The final battle was about to start.