“Emilia!”

“Vena!”

“Ondine!”

“Sumara!”

The rest of the women screamed their names and hurried to their side, kneeling down on the grass and clutching them. After managing to turn them around, they gasped in shock and covered their mouth in horror upon seeing Emilia, Venezuela, Ondine, and Sumara bleeding profusely from the hole in their chest. Despite moving them, the girls still responded by managing to move their body a little but it was all that they could muster due to their severe injury and loss of blood.

“Hang on, you four! We’ll heal you!” Tetra said quickly.

“No, we can’t! Our control over our powers are disabled!” Sonia stated in an alarmed voice.

“Dammit!” Tetra replied angrily. “What should we do now?”

“At least, let’s try to close up that wound before they lose any more blood!” Erza advised quickly.

“Good thinking!” Silvera responded in satisfaction.

Acting quickly, the wives of the Phoenix Titan ripped off lose ends of their clothes and tied them around the injury sustained by the four women. This made the others look ragged and dishevelled, but they did not care as the lives of their family members meant more to them than their apparent appearance for the sake of dignity.

“Vodinalu…!” Indira called out sadly with tears in her eyes to the four women lying unconscious on others’ lap.

“W-W-Will they be fine?” Priya asked anxiously, holding her twin sister at her side tightly.

“No. Their injuries need to be healed soon,” replied Sonia, who was checking on the four women’s vitals with sweat forming on her face. “They’re in a serious condition!”

The two girls widened their eyes in shock and began weeping silently, only to be comforted by Erza and Tetra. These two wise women knew that, despite them growing up, they were still very much kids at heart. So, they massaged their backs or rubbed their heads in an effort to comfort while reassuring them.

“They’ll be fine. We’ve been through far worse than this,” said Erza, trying her best to sound reassuring.

“Yes, and I am confident that they’ll make it through this!” Tetra said in a firm voice, doing her best to convince them.

The twins continued crying silently into their hands, but slowly nodded their heads in understanding. While that was happening, Lakshman watched silently with a look of utter despair on his face at the sight of his beloved wives lying down in the pool of their own blood. He was shocked that he could not stop the lasers, and was horrified what had transpired due to his incapability to handle the situation. It made him feel very ashamed of himself for failing to protect the very people he had sacrificed so much to obtain.

Just then, he, like the others, heard someone saying in a loud carrying voice, “Oh? Would you look at that? I missed, but at least, I got four birds with two shots!”

As he finished, he began to let out a cold mirthless laughter that was echoed by his comrades, who all saw his attack connect with four of the women they had been fighting recently. All of them enjoyed seeing the pain and suffering the group of women were experiencing at the sudden loss of four of their family members, who obviously meant a great deal to them judging from the women’s reaction.

“Damn them to hell!” Tetra said, letting go of the twins and moving forward while holding both of her swords at the ready.

“They deserve to die!” Silvera shouted, holding her own two swords to do battle.

“Yes! They all should just go to hell!” Priya burst out angrily, glaring menacingly towards the group of enemies.

Lakshman, upon hearing the voices of his family members and understanding their meaning, slowly rose to his feet. The laughter of their enemies continued to ring across the open land, and it lit a rage inside of Lakshman that he had not felt in a very long time. It was the very same rage that he felt when he watched his wives get decimated right before his very eyes by the Calamity Titan.

“Anyway, we’d best get going before we get caught by the Dragon Titan and the Sword Titan,” said one of the men, which everyone agreed to immediately.

So, with grins on their faces, they turned around and began walking away from them. Lakshman was kneeling on the grass when he closed his eyes, visions of the men that scorned the injuries that his wives had sustained. He could feel them leaving and it only aggravated him further because of the cold-hearted attitude of these men, who did not feel an ounce of remorse of what their actions had caused.

As such, the rage inside of Lakshman’s heart quickly rose to the surface like a volcano, causing him to suddenly surge with power.

“You…!” He said slowly, still in the same kneeling position with his eyes closed as he continued to say the same word.

“You……!”

As he spoke, the wind began to pick up speed around them and soon was blowing rapidly in all directions. The men were surprised as they looked up to see dark murky clouds forming in the sky.

“You………!”

As he repeated saying the same word, the ground began to shake slightly by the small tremor that shook the entire place.

“You…………!”

He clenched his fists so tightly that they shook from the strength he was applying while, at the same time, lightning began emitting from him. It began to dance around randomly in a wild manner, causing everyone to become surprised by the sudden lightning that was discharging from out of nowhere.

As the tremors in the ground intensified, and the wind blew wildly in all directions, Lakshman slowly rose to his feet and turned around to face them while screaming, “YYYYOOOOOUUUUUU BBBBAAASSSSTTTAAAARRRRDDDSSSSSSS!!!!!”

His scream was the trigger that unleashed the full wrath of his power, causing lightning to get wildly discharged in all directions. Everyone was shocked by it as the lightning attack danced around randomly and zapped against several of the enemies with incredible force. At the same time, the murky sky sudden began to shoot lightning down on top of them, scorching the land where it fell while frying anyone that were in its path.

While being buffeted by the wild wind, Jagav shouted, “What the hell is this?!”

“It’s not a natural storm, boss!” The man next to him shouted back, realising something was making this happen for such a wild storm to suddenly be upon them.

With rage guiding him, Lakshman surged with immense power as he prepared to deal the ultimate judgement on these men that had hurt his wives without remorse. He clapped his hands together before placing them down on the ground while shouting the technique name out loud.

“Familiar Summoning!”

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In an instant, two large magic circles formed in front of him before there was a flash of light that nearly blinded everyone. Once the light subsided, it revealed two different massive creatures that were the Eternal Phoenix, Phylex, and the Spirit Dragon, Draga. The men widened their eyes in shock at the sight of such massive creatures that were summoned in front of the women that they had recently attacked. As for Lakshman’s family, they were amazed to see the two familiars of their husband suddenly being summoned in front of them.

“You summoned us after quite some time, master,” said Phylex telepathically to his master.

Draga turned his large head towards his master and was surprised as he telepathically said to him, “Huh? Is that your Astral Form? What’re you doing using your Outer Spirit?”

Being a Spirit Dragon, it enabled Draga to see the difference between a Ghost and someone using an Astral Form top project themselves at a faraway place. At the same time, he was aware of Lakshman being able to use the Outer Spirit spell because it was actually him who had taught it to Lakshman in the first place.

Lakshman, his eyes focused on only on the enemies in front of him, pointed his finger at them and shouted in an angry voice.

“Phylex! Draga! Destroy them!”

Draga was a little surprised by such a strong order and telepathically asked, “Isn’t it a little rude to giving such dramatic order as soon as you summoned us?”

Phylex turned to look down at Lakshman’s wives that were kneeling on the grass or standing around them. He could tell that they were badly injured, with four of them lying motionless on the ground with their spiritual force quickly depleting. As such, he understood the nature of the situation, but he questioned the morality of the order that his master issued him.

“But, master, it isn’t advisable to destroy an enemy when you’re the merciful type.”

“Mercy?!” Lakshman exclaimed, revolted at the very word. “They don’t deserve any mercy after what they’ve done! Go, you two! Destroy them all! Now!”

With the orders issued, they can only act upon them without any hesitation. In fact, Draga even smirked with pleasure at the sight of the humans before him as he relished the thought of decimating such creatures.

“Destruction is what I’m born to do!” Draga said telepathically, flapping his wings and soaring into the air. He flew towards the men, opened his mouth and telepathically shouted, “Ice Laser!”

In an instant, a powerful beam flew out of his mouth and hit where the men stood, freezing a few of them in the process. Phylex also joined the fray, surrounding himself with immense flames before unleashing them upon the warriors on the ground. For those that it touched, the flames scorched away their flesh and caused them a great deal of pain, so much so that they fell on the grass and writhed in agony.

“It burns! It burns!”

“Please! Stop it!”

While his comrades were screaming in pain and running around in the chaos, Jagav was taking cover on the ground while looking up at the monsters that were decimating his men.

“Where did they come from?!” He demanded with a furious look on his face.

“No idea,” was the reply he got from the man next to him, who did not leave his side even once. “They suddenly appeared out of nowhere from those familiar summoning magic circles.

“They must’ve been activated by that invisible fighter we assumed to be lurking around here,” surmised Jagav, thinking deeply about the current situation. “Which means that he is a very formidable opponent to be able to summon such powerful creatures!”

“Yes, but the problem is, this is the Spirit Dragon, and the Eternal Phoenix that were summoned!” The man informed Jagav, who obviously did not know who these creatures were or their origins due to his time in the prison. “They say these two are the familiars of the Phoenix Titan. Maybe his wives summoned them?”

Jagav shook his head and said, “No. Only the true owners of the familiars can summon them… which means… we’re fighting the Phoenix Titan!”

As his eyes narrowed at the conclusion that fit perfectly with what was happening, the person next to him looked alarmed and said, “What?! You mean… we’re dealing with a ghost?!”

Jagav shook his head, but he realised he had to think about this another time as the Spirit Dragon was headed towards them while firing his icy laser attack at them.

“I don’t know, but we got a bigger problem to content with!” He shouted, taking the man and leaping to the side as the place he was on previously became an icy pillar. After landing, they focused their attention on the monsters and said, “We first need to take care of these things!” He began to rally his men while shouting, “Come on, everyone! Blast them from out of the skies! Shoot them down!”

Finally, after receiving concrete orders to follow, the men began dodging the monsters’ attacks while return firing whatever spell that came to their head. This resulted in Draga being forced to shut his mouth and flap his wings to fend off the attacks while Phylex let out a roar that created a gust of wind that deflected the incoming attacks. Like this, the battle between two familiars and a large group of humans raged on with either side not backing down from the fight.

Meanwhile, Lakshman’s wives watched the battle between monsters and humans unfold with great surprise and confusion. They instantly recognised the two monsters being Phylex and Draga, but they were unsure how the two of them were summoned.

“H-How the heck did they show up here?” Silvera asked in confusion.

“I don’t know,” replied Erza, looking as confused as her.

From the studies they did at the Astral Academy, they knew that only the true owners of their familiars were capable of summoning them. This was a fact that even Sonia was aware of as she spoke in a calm shrewd voice while narrowing her eyes to make a sharp expression on her face.

“The only ones capable of summoning the familiars… is only their true owner!”

“What does that mean?” Priya asked, sounding puzzled.

Sonia did not say anything, just looked seriously down at the four wounded women lying on each of their laps. She easily figured out the meaning, but she did not want to believe it because she felt she was heading towards the wrong conclusion. Like her, Tetra, Silvera, and Erza also realised the same thing, but it was Erza who said with a great amount of hope in her voice.

“It must be Lucky!”

Indira looked shocked while Priya exclaimed, “What?! Annayya?! How?! How can he—?”

“He must be using one of his magic spells to reach us all the way from—,” she said and hesitated, realising she was about to divulge the information regarding her world to the twins that had no idea about it. Acting on instinct, she changed the direction of her words and said, “—from wherever he is at.”

“Really?” Indira asked, widening her eyes in amazement.

“A-Annayya can do that?” Priya asked, a look of awe on her face.

Behind them, Cantia in her beast form appeared to be surprised as she let out a low growl in wonder.

“Of course! Never underestimate your brother!” Erza said with a wink while wearing a confident smile on her face.

“Ah! No!” Priya said quickly, waving her hands in rejection. “I didn’t mean that I’m underestimating him. It’s just that… I never thought it was possible to do something like that.”

Tetra, Silvera, and Sonia, on the other hand, appeared to be disbelieving as they asked, “Lucky projected his spirit here to come to our rescue?”

“What? He has a spell called Outer Spirit? You know? Cast himself like a ghost out of his body and do whatever?” She asked them with a raised eyebrow. Sensing something off, she narrowed her eyes and asked, “You don’t know he has such a spell?”

“Uh… I never knew that he did,” admitted Tetra, looking surprised.

“He really has such a spell?” Silvera asked uncertainly, not sure whether to believe her words fully or not.

Erza looked at them for a moment before saying, “I have no reason to lie to any of you to sound convincing and make up something that isn’t an actual thing.”

Her words bore deep into them and made them realised she was speaking the truth. It caused them to widen their eyes in surprise and begin looking around, hoping to see their husband if he was even there. Erza, on the other hand, knew that when Outer Spirit is active, he essentially can touch others but cannot be seen, heard or touched in return. Still, she smiled as she thought back to the day when he rescued her without her realising it and then later probed the truth out of him.

“Lucky… Where are you?” She asked in a quiet voice, holding her hand up as she hoped that he would touch it to confirm her theory.

Lakshman, who had heard their discussion and saw her hand, moved slowly to touch his hand on it. He even extended his hand out to touch her hand, however, he paused at the last second with a guilty expression on his face. The thought of not knowing anything about her background coupled with not bothering to soothe the misery she lived through for all her life fell heavily on his guilty conscious. Also, he did not like for them to see him in such a miserable state of having to extended his spirit out to come to their rescue only to find that he was, at the end, useless.

“I’ll make it up to you girls… when I sort myself out,” he muttered, turning around and floating away.

At that moment, he sensed a strong energy coming from above just as the others also felt the same. They looked up as two large balls of energy flew through the air and down on top of the two familiars, smashing them down to the ground, causing it to shake violently. Everyone was surprised before they heard a voice coming from the sky, making them turn to look up to see who the speaker was.

“What the hell is going on here?” Lagron asked, wearing a serious expression on his face.