In the darkness, a swirling wind suddenly blew, before a hole, the size of a ball, opened up. It cast a dark swirling energy all around it and remained in the same position as it opened at. From the hole, small particles of light soared out that quickly took the Astral Form of Lakshman.
He looked around his surroundings and smelt the familiar smell of the world that he belonged to. Instantly, he felt he had come home after a long time and smiled happily.
“I made it,” he said cheerfully. He looked around at the swirling hole and said, “I’ counting on you, Asura. Now, where am I?”
He began observing his surroundings and found that he was hovering over an open field that stretched for kilometres before it reached a dense forest.
“Great!” He said happily, recognising the scenery. “Sevedant did a great job restoring everything. I owe him one. Anyway, I better go and check on the situation.”
With that, he soared into the sky and flew over to the location where his house was situated at. Once he arrived there, he was shocked to find the land to be damaged as of a battle had occurred not too long ago.
“Dammit! It's as I feared!” He muttered apprehensively.
While floating around to observe the scene with apprehension on his face, he turned and glanced at his house. In an instant, he looked shocked to find that a large hole was placed on the first-floor wall of the house.
“My house!” He exclaimed in shock.
He quickly flew over to the house and entered through the main entrance. Expecting to find someone, he was disappointed to find no one was there. He flew through the wall, scanned the place and flew over the house to see if anyone was there but to no avail.
That was when he remembered something and muttered, “Wait a minute. Could they have used the secret tunnel that I and Emilia built underground?”
He immediately flew over to the side room on the ground floor and located the hatch that blended in perfectly with the rest of the floorboards. For a moment, he paused as he thought that the hatch appeared as though it was untouched. Still, he flew over and passed right through it down into the underground tunnel that was several metres below the house.
“Not here as well?” He asked with a sigh.
Lakshman soared back up the hatch and then out of the house with a desperate look on his face. There was the scene of struggle and battle and that was it. He could understand that his wives put up a fight against an unknown enemy but what happened after that was the part he was having difficulty piecing together.
“Where they kidnapped? No. My wives are not the type to get easily kidnapped form the look of this battle,” he muttered, crossing out the possibility of kidnapping. “That leaves the possibility of them escaping but… why?”
He knew all of his nine wives were King Ranked Magicians and despite them not experiencing actual combat in a long time, he knew there shouldn't be anyone strong enough to hurt his wives or even make them consider escaping.
“Unless something forced them to,” he muttered as the realisation slowly dawned on him. He glanced around and did not see anything, but he knew he needed to look beyond the normal and said, “Elemental Sight.”
In an instant, everything lost their colours and became grey in colour. As he swirled around in the sky, he spotted several particles of yellow lights floating around, which was the colour associated with energy or magic.
“Energy? No. It feels more like magic … and a large quantity at that. Whoever they were, must've used an enormous amount of power… and possibly disabled capabilities of my wives in controlling the force!” He said, arriving at a conclusion that made sense, considerating the information he had from just looking around. Instantly, his anger flew up and he said, “Bastards! They'll pay for this but… where are they now?”
He looked around for any clues of where everyone went and spotted large footprints of a large animal and it was headed in the direction the capital was located at. Behind it, smaller footprints belonging to those of human were spread everywhere to show that a group of people were chasing the animal.
“A large group were chasing after Cantia, who must've grabbed everyone and escaped as fast as she could but… not without injuries,” he muttered, seeing the sight of blood soaking the grass here and there. He cleaned his fists and said, “Those… people… will pay for this!”
With anger mounting, he quickly soared into the air and flew off into the distance while following the trail of footprints left by Cantia. He was sure it was her because in these parts, she was the only one that could leave such large beastly footprints on the ground.
He was flying for several minutes in silence while following the trail until he started hearing the sounds of battle. The sound of swords clashing against each other following by explosions caught his attention and widened his eyes in shock.
“There!” He yelled and quickened his flying to reach them.
Once he reached them, he was alarmed to find Silvera and Tetra fighting a defensive battle against several men at the same time. Beside them, Venezuela, Sumara, Emilia, Ondine, and Sonia were fighting similar to them with either the weapons they wielded or their fists with the battle techniques they knew.
“There they are but… where's Cantia?” He asked in confusion. Then he realised the obvious and muttered, “I see now what you're doing. Sending the twins away with our babies on Cantia to get help and in the meantime, you stall these scumbags long enough for your reinforcements to arrive. Oh…”
A great amount of affection and love surged within him for his wives at their willingness to put their lives on the line for the sake of their children. It made him think back to the time in the ancient times when they attempted to contact Chandra to convince him to change because they did not want to see the two brothers fighting like this. Even though that stunt back then cost them their lives, they're doing it again but in a different way this time.
His thoughts were cut abruptly when one of the men fired off a shockwave that blasted the eight women off their feet. They flew through the air for a few seconds before crashing down heavily on the ground while their enemies roared with laughter at their feeble attempts at putting up resistance.
Lakshman could not stand it anyone and shouted, “I've seen enough!” He clenched his fists tightly and shouted, “Astral Circuits!”
In an instant, his Astral Form glowed brightly for a few seconds before it died down. He let out a sigh and felt his arms and hands experimentally, feeling satisfied with the result. Then, he soared towards the enemies with a serious expression on his face.
While flying down, he saw a few men approaching his wives with clear malice shown on their faces. His wives were sitting up while wincing at the pain they felt from their injuries.
“Get away from my wives!” Lakshman yelled, coming down and smashing his fist against the closest one on the side of his face.
Normally, the technique Outer Spirit casts the user's soul into an Astral Form that makes it difficult for them to touch anything. Lakshman, however, was able to make contact due to the effects of Astral Circuits magic spell that gave him the abilities similar to a Ghost. As such, his attack connected and blasted the man off his feet and sent him flying through the air for several meters before coming to a crashing stop.
The attacking men froze in their spot, shocked and confused at seeing one of their comrades being sent flying from out of nowhere. To make matters even more confusing was that they could not see any apparent attacker that was responsible for their comrade being launched into the air with such tremendous force.
While they stood there, feeling puzzled, Lakshman flew forward and attacked the next closest, this time pummelling him in the stomach before unleashing a powerful uppercut. Like the previous attacker, he too blew off his feet and soared high into the air before coming to a crashing fall that caused dust to rise high into the air and the ground to shake slightly. Like that, Lakshman continued to beat enemies one by one with relative ease as they stood there looking confused.
“What the heck is going on here?!”
“We’re being attacked!”
“From where?!”
“Dammit!”
Several of the magicians began firing their attacks randomly and began inflicting damage onto their unsuspecting comrades. Lakshman watched with satisfaction at the chaos that was happening due to his interference without them knowing about him being there at all. Taking this change, he quickly flew over to his wives with concern on his face and began speaking with them.
“Hey! How are you? I’m here! See?” He said excitedly, waving his hands with a big grin on his face.
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Lakshman was expecting them to look very surprised, rise to their feet and rush to hug him like they always did whenever he returned from a long journey. This time, however, they simply sat there rubbing their wounds while querying each other of how the others were feeling. Seeing the less than expected reaction, his spirits plummeted for a moment before a thought struck him and made him realise the obvious.
“Oh! Of course! They can’t see or hear me! Yeah…! That makes… sense…” he said, his words faltering in sadness.
That was one thing that the spell Astral Circuits was unable to grant that a Ghost possessed; the ability to be heard and seen by others. Knowing this fact made him feel briefly sad but he quickly shook his head and wore a bright smile on his face.
“I know you can’t see or hear me, but know that I’m here now,” he said with a smile, crouching down next to them.
“Huh?”
The girls said in confusion, feeling a familiar sensation in their chest but were unable to figure out what it was due to the situation they were in. Ordinarily, they would instantly realise this was the feeling they get when they know their husband was thinking about them, but due to the dangerous situation they were in, it made it difficult for them to realise it. Still, feeling such an odd feeling at that time made them feel surprised and wonder what it was.
At that moment, they heard a loud shout of, “Enough of this!”
Lakshman soared up into the air and turned to face the enemies as he heard the same voice command his men into action. He spotted a long-bearded man with a long magic staff, who appeared to be the leader of this group, not knowing that he was one of his old enemies.
Jagav was glaring at his men as he yelled in an amplified voice, causing their ears to sting with pain and making them focus on their leader. “Don’t panic! It’s obviously an invisible attacker. Bring him out and take him down! Go!”
With that, he aimed his staff towards the women sitting down and shouted, “Flames of Fury!”
In an instant, a magic circle appeared in front of him before several fiery balls of destruction came out of them. They flew towards the women at super speed but not fast enough for Lakshman because he soared forward and smashed his fist against each of them, destroying them in the process.
“There he is! Attack!” Jagav shouted, waving his staff towards him, and magicians began launching their attacks at him.
Lakshman snorted and extended his arms out to either end before bringing them forward and clapping them together. On impact, it created a violent shock wave that surged forward and deflected all the attacks before moving towards the casters. The enemies were shocked that their numerous attacks were deflected so easily and watched in horror as the shock wave swept towards them at high speed.
At the last moment, Jagav stabbed his staff into the ground and shouted, “Protector Discharge!”
In an instant, a shock wave from his end surged forward and smashed against the oncoming shock wave, causing the other end to vanish while it continued to sweep towards the place Lakshman and his wives were at. Looking momentarily surprised, the spirit of the Phoenix Titan pulled his hand back and waved it to the side, unleashing yet another shock wave at the oncoming enemy’s shock wave.
Once again, his shock wave was obliterated while Jagav’s shockwave continued soaring towards him with increasing momentum. Lakshman gritted his teeth as he knew he could very easily destroy it using Maga Distrab, but he also knew it would undo the Outer Spirit spell and return him back to his body in the Alzard World since he does not possess a physical body to avoid a backlash.
The ones that reacted were actually his wives, mainly Tetra and Silvera as they rose to their feet, gathered what little energy they could muster into their swords and unleashed slicing waves of destruction towards the shockwaves. This time, the attacks connected and succeeded in destroying the shock wave and making it disappear from view. Only the wind blew towards them and buffeted them with its strong force before subsiding.
The two women sighed weakly and looked very tired from the difficult battle they had been involved in, especially after having used up what little energy they could muster. Lakshman turned and watched in sadness at how tired they all appeared and felt that him not being there was the primary reason for this happening. Once again, he was struck with a profound doubt that whether it was a good thing for him to remain in Astral World when his wives needed him, but he also knew there was no choice because Erza originally came from that world, and he had not made any progress towards her yet.
So, while feeling sad, he watched as Venezuela addressed the invisible person that they felt had come to their rescue.
“Whoever you are, thank you for helping us till now, but I think you should leave. You’ll only end up being in danger.”
“Yes,” said Emilia in agreement. “You’re brave, whoever you are, but I think this is high time that you leave. You’ll only end up in danger for our sake, and we don’t want that.”
“No way we’re having someone else take the brunt of the fight that’s supposed to be ours alone,” commented Ondine briskly. “This is our battle, and we’ll do what we can.”
“Or perish in the process if we must to take these bastards down!” Silvera said, to which all the women suddenly looked around at each other with sadness on their faces.
“I don’t mind. We all did die once before as far as our memories are concerned but…” said Sumara and faltered with an air of nervousness.
“Dying without seeing Lucky is…” admitted Ondine in sadness and paused as she did not feel to complete the sentence.
“Yeah… That’s not an appealing thought,” agreed Tetra with a nod of her head.
Emilia looked at them and sighed before saying, “We can all die later, but not today. For our husband, for our children, we have to live!”
“Yeah…! Yeah! We have to because we never got this kind of chance in our lives before!” Sonia said cheerfully.
“And we may never get again if we just suddenly give up and throw our lives away!” Sumara said, becoming firm with herself and looking determined.
“Yeah! We have to keep living for the sake of our family! It’s the right thing to do!” They said in unison and smiled at each other.
Lakshman watched from the side, silently shedding tears from his eyes at the heart moving scene he had witnessed. He felt sorry for them, and at the same time, felt angry at himself for leaving them in this kind of situation. Even now, even though he wanted to do a lot more, he knew he cannot due to the restriction of force usage in Astral Form. If he were to use a greater amount of energy than his Astral Form could muster in the Physical Plane, then he would quickly deplete his supply of energy and run the risk of vanishing permanently.
This made him come to a decision of what to do when he gets back home with his wives as he muttered, “I’m sorry, everyone. When I get back, I’ll start training you all! I had thought that it was wrong to get you involved in fights, but I didn’t realise I was making you weak by constantly relying on me and then get exposed to this kind of danger when I’m not around. It’s my fault! It’s my complete fault, but I will change that once I get back! I swear it!”
He was speaking to himself, but it allowed him to become determined and fill with a great amount of hope for the future. While feeling that, he saw the enemies begin charging their magic for one final assault when they heard a shout, and Lakshman instantly recognised whom the voice belonged to.
“We’re back, Vodinalu!”
Lakshman and his wives turned to see Cantia charging towards them with Priya and Indira riding atop of them. He smiled as he realised his assumption of them going away to call for reinforcements was indeed correct as the twins raced towards them. Once they reached them, Cantia stopped and lowered herself to let the twins get down with grins on their faces.
“Priya! Indira! Why are you back?!” Ondine demanded, looking thoroughly alarmed at seeing them return.
“We told you to inform and bring back reinforcements!” Sonia said, looking worried.
“D-Did no one want to come?” Silvera asked nervously.
While they were looking at them with concern, the twins looked back with excitement on their faces.
“We did it! Dom and Lagron will be coming here soon!” They said together cheerfully.
That single statement lifted the veil of worry from all of them and made them finally smile in return. It was something to be happy about, especially after learning that two of the Nine Pillars of Power would be coming to their aid.
“But Lagron? I did not expect that,” admitted Tetra with a smile.
“Yeah, and we can imagine what his entrance will be like,” said Silvera, trying to make an impression like him. “’Here I am, your saviour! Bow down to me!’ or something like that.”
Her statement made everyone laugh happily while Lakshman watched in happiness. Although the danger did not go away, at least they now knew they would be out of the danger soon enough. The spirit of the Phoenix Titan felt reassured that his best friend and rival, two of the four strongest of the members of the Nine Pillars of Powers, would be arriving to help his wives, although, he had to admit it felt strange for Lagron to come and help.
In the meantime, Jagav was using his magic to overhear their conversation and his face darkened at the news he received. He recognised the names Dom being Dominic Rutherford, the Sword Titan, and Lagron being the Dragon Titan. Learning that those two powerful warriors would be headed there soon made him feel a series of negative emotions; frustration, regret, anger, and hatred.
Watching his face become filled with such evil intent made the person next to him ask, “What is it, boss?”
“The Sword Titan, and the Dragon Titan will be coming here soon,” he replied through gritted teeth. “Obviously these women were buying time until they arrived.”
This alarmed his comrade, who shot a glance at the women before saying, “I think it’s best that we retreat right now.”
Jagav nodded, but he felt dissatisfaction in leaving without achieving anything, not even taking the lives that caused him experience the weight of his crushed pride for the last seventeen years while being imprisoned. That was when his focus shifted towards the twins that arrived with the news of the arrival of their saviours.
“Who are those two?” He asked curiously.
Following his gaze, his comrade could see that he was looking at the identical twins that were smiling and being cheerful around Lakshman’s wives.
“They are the Phoenix Titan’s sisters,” the man replied in a quiet voice.
“Siblings? As in, blood related? From the same mother?” Jagav asked shrewdly.
“Yes.”
“I see,” said the Mercenary Magician in a quiet voice. “Then, at the very least, I can take those two down before we go.”
He knew attacking Lakshman’s wives would be a waste of time as it would impede him from escaping, but taking out the siblings of the Phoenix Titan before leaving was very appealing. As such, he aimed his staff and began muttering an incantation under his breath, which created two energy ball of light out of thin air. A moment later, he exerted his energy and launched the attack by saying the technique name out loud.
“Laser Bugshot!”
In an instant, the two balls of light exhibited a red laser of energy out of it and soared towards the twins at super speed. Lakshman sensed the danger and turned around to see the two lasers flying at them at high speed.
Instantly, he extended his hand out towards it and began shouting, “Maga—!”
He stopped as soon as he realised what he was about to do, and forcefully stopped himself while gritting his teeth. Resorting to something direct, he flew towards the lasers and placed his hands in the flight path of the lasers. To his shock, the lasers just went through his hands as if his hands were not even there and headed straight for the twins. It was then that his wives saw the attacks flying towards them and reacted instantly to protect the twins.
“Look out!”
“Get out of the way!”
Venezuela and Sumara shoved Priya out of the way while Emilia and Ondine spun Indira out of the way at the last second. As they did, the lasers shot forward and struck all four of Lakshman’s wives at the same time through the chest, causing heavy bleeding. As the laser vanished, they momentarily looked down at the hole in their chests and looked up as if to say something. However, they suddenly lost all strength in their legs and, while closing their eyes, they slowly collapsing on the grass with their own blood surrounding them.