Lakshman opened his eyes and found himself kneeling on the broken battlefield, where the ground had taken quite a beating. In the next moment, he widened his eyes and clutched his arms and legs, squeezing them from the pain they were causing him.

“Ouch! Ow! Damn…! I’m this beaten up?” He asked himself in a surprised voice.

“Sorry, but he did a beating on me by keeping me defenceless using Force Control and all,” responded Asura in his mind, sounding annoyed. “I wish I could do the same thing to that bastard, but—!”

“Now isn’t the time for that,” said Lakshman, cutting across him with a serious tone.

He sighed and glanced around, noticing that a large curtain of smoke was drifting around. At the same time, he could feel and hear the explosion occurring all around him while the God of Calamity was laughing from the thrill of the hunt.

“Elemental Sight.”

With that mutter, his vision changed, and he began seeing through the smoke entities coloured differently. There were seven bluue coloured people that were scattered around the area while a massive red coloured entity stood several meters in front of them. He watched as blasts after blasts coloured in yellow were being discharged from the enemy in different directions.

“Why are there just the eight of us?” He muttered in confusion.

He began using Elemental Sense to detect and identify each and every person without the need to check them with visibility. That was when he realised that Gram was missing from there, which caused him to expand his Elemental Sight and finally notice him crouching down somewhere nearby in a hidden place, far away from the battle. In addition, his body was coloured in green, which meant that he was in a neutral state of mind.

“What the heck is wrong with him, sitting this one out like that?”

Focusing his Telepathy, he made contact with Gram and asked him, “Hey, prince from another world, what are you doing, hiding at a time like this?”

Gram, who was hiding behind the rocks, was taken by surprise by the sudden voice he heard speaking to him in his mind. He instantly recognised it to be the voice of the Solaris Hero, but he did not give any kind of reply while he remained sitting there with a sour face.

Lakshman waited for a few seconds for some kind of reply, but still nothing happened. This made Lakshman realise the obvious much to his chagrin.

“Are you serious?! You’re scared at a time like this?!”

Those words caught Gram by surprise, and made him become infuriated by them.

“I’m not scared!” The reply came immediately where the other person sounded angered. “I’m just sitting this one out because I realise that there is no point in fighting when we have zero chance of winning.”

Lakshman was momentarily stunned before he said telepathically, “Wow! Wow! I can’t believe I’m hearing this from a prideful idiot who keeps prattling on about being the strongest in his world! What a coward he turned out to be!”

“I’m not a coward!” Gram replied telepathically, becoming enraged at the prospect. “Weren’t you hearing what I just said, or is your telepathy magic defective?”

“It’s not my magic that’s defective; it’s you!” Lakshman retorted fiercely. “You keep going on and on about you being the prince from another world, you possessing powers greater than anybody else, and then your constant prideful disdain towards others, even going as far as spitting in their face! It’s truly remarkable that you’re scared and in hiding with such ridiculous pride and ego!”

Gram, who was initially surprised by the telepathy that the Solaris Hero was employing on him, was shocked beyond belief. It was the first time in his life that someone had doubted his own courage and preached him in such a manner. It made his blood boil and made his temper rise to the surface like a volcano.

“Bastard! I’m not scared!”

“Actions speak louder than words! Take a look at what you’re doing right now and tell me about it.”

“I… I’m…” Gram began hesitantly, feeling as if something had caught in his throat.

“I don’t need excuses; what we need is to work together and win this battle!”

“But… is there any chance of winning?” Gram asked, his fists shaking as he knelt behind the rubble.

He was disbelieving of such a chance of winning this fight, so he was surprised when the voice returned and sounded very confident.

“Yes! I have a plan, but we all must work together and it certainly won’t work out if you stay hidden like that.”

“Damn you! At least, sound nice when you’re asking for help,” Gram shouted in his mind. A few seconds later, he asked in a calmer voice, “Will it work? Can I trust you?”

Lakshman hesitated for a moment, thinking of the chances and feeling that it was fifty-fifty. Still, there was no point stating that and went with the flow of giving the other person his full confidence.

“Yes. You can count on me.”

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

There were a few seconds of silence, which Gram disrupted by replying, “Alright. I’ll come.”

“Okay, but don’t engage with the enemy. Just come to where I am. You can sense where I am, I take it?”

“D-Don’t underestimate me, fool! I’m a price after all!” Gram said, trying to get back his old confidence and arrogance.

Lakshman chuckled, and he saw that Gram’s body colour change to blue, indicating that he had become his ally. At the same time, he watched as he seemed to surge with power and charge into the sky before heading towards them.

“That worked,” muttered Lakshman with a sigh.

“That was awfully rude of you to provoke him like that? I thought that was my speciality?” Asura asked curiously.

“What are you talking about?” Lakshman muttered with a chuckle. “You, and I are one and the same, and before you woke up, I did use such a method only a few times to provoke my enemy, although I mostly used it on Lagron.”

“He hated me for it,” replied Asura with a laugh. “Anyway, get the other heroes to come to you now.”

Lakshman nodded, and he activated Telepathy to speak to the remaining seven heroes.

“Hey, everyone. It’s me, Lucky. Can you hear me?”

All seven of them were startled, surprised, or confused by hearing the sudden voice in their heads. However, they quickly recognised the voice belonging to the Solaris Hero despite Lakshman identifying himself by his nickname.

“I’ve got a way to deal with the current crisis, but I need all of you to come to where I am. Hurry.”

They were momentarily confused, especially by the urgency in his voice. Still, they understood how critical the current situation was, and decided to converge to where he was relying solely on their senses. They felt lucky that they had managed to develop the ability to sense someone’s power level and their whereabouts during their training with Lakshman before his escape from the capital.

While they began quickly moving towards him, the God of Calamity suddenly felt as though something was off. Not ignoring such feelings, he immediately swiped his hand in an arc and caused the smokescreen to blow away to reveal everything. That was when he saw the other heroes quickly making their way towards where Lakshman was kneeling at.

“I don’t know what you’re planning, but letting you live would be a bad move,” he commented finally when he saw all that.

He raised his hand and aimed it at Lakshman, however, he was surprised when he heard a loud cry from somewhere above. Turning around, he saw Gram flying down with incredible speed and swung his sword with immense force against him. His sword came down and seemingly smashed against the invisible barrier that protected Climax from harm, but the unleashed force was so strong that the ground caved in, and he sunk down a little.

Lakshman was shocked to see Gram engage in battle against Climax and shouted, “What are you doing?!”

Gram leaped away from Climax and snarled, “I’m going to show you right now that I’m not the coward that you think I am!”

In that instant, he charged at his enemy and began swinging his sword around in a quick succession. But the barrier remained strong and kept every blow from him from reaching its caster. While in the midst of his attack, the Tempest Hero also unleashed lightning and fire magic attacks at him at close range, but none of them penetrated the barrier as well.

“This isn’t the time to be acting tough and brave!” Lakshman shouted, sounding desperate. “Vikram! Fetch him!”

“Got it!” Vikram said, who had reached him first, and he raced away to get Gram away from there.

“Stupid human, what are you thinking?” Climax asked as he continued watching Gram attack him relentlessly with a bored look on his face. “You’re not as considerably as strong as him, so why bother?”

“I rather die fighting like a true warrior than be treated like a coward!” Gram shouted, glaring menacingly at him.

This made Climax chuckle and say, “If death is your wish, then I will happily grant it.”

He suddenly materialised a small black ball of energy in his hand, and he aimed it at him before firing it. Gram watched in shock as the wave suddenly increased in volume within seconds and seemed to consume him into its depths as it soared away before exploding with massive force.

The God of Calamity smiled with pleasure, however, his smile faltered when he sensed that the hero was still alive. He turned around and saw that he was being hoisted over the shoulders of the Sonic Hero, who was racing away from him.

“Damn you! Let me down! I’m not some luggage!” Gram exclaimed angrily.

“Shut your trap, dumb idiot!” Vikram retaliated angrily. “You nearly got yourself killed!”

“Better than appearing to be a coward!”

“Yet another dumb phrase that I feel only idiots like you can come up with!”

“Damn you! Show me some respect!”

“I did by saving you!”

As they moved towards Lakshman’s location, the God of Calamity wore a serious look on his face. He had a feeling that there was some elaborate scheme of something going on behind the scenes for all the heroes to be converging together like that. As such, he was prepared to completely destroy them, and he made his move by raising his hand and taking aim at them.

Suddenly, an unexpected person made his appearance, and he was so shocked that he involuntarily exclaimed, “What?!”

There, standing in his line of fire, was Engraut, the God of Energy. He was eying the God of Calamity with a serious look on his face.

“Hey there, Climax. Fancy seeing you here,” he said in a cold voice while he thought in stiffly, “Please hurry up, Lakshman. I’m scared.”

While he was distracted by Engraut, the Nine Heroes of Legends got together and surrounded where Lakshman knelt on the ground. They looked back and were surprised to see another unfamiliar person appear so suddenly right before their eyes facing in their enemy’s direction.

“Who’s that?” Natsu asked curiously.

“A friend,” replied Lakshman with a small smile.

After hearing that, they were amazed before they turned to look down at him. Many of them were alarmed to see that he was bleeding profusely and wounded far worse than they had imagined in his current state.

“Wow. You’re pretty badly wounded, aren’t you?” William asked in amazement.

“Are you okay to fight like that?” Fred asked anxiously.

He nodded and replied, “Yes. There’s no choice, and it’ll take too long to restore myself.”

“I can heal you if you want,” Ward offered in a telepathic voice.

Lakshman shook his head and replied, “No. The amount of damage and energy I’ve taken and lost is too great for you to fix all that, Ward. Instead, let’s just focus on what needs to be done right now.”

“I agree,” said Gram, causing Vikram to glare at him for not showing the slightest hint of sympathy for his fellow comrade.

“It’s not like you have much to talk about since you’ve been hiding this whole time!” Vikram retorted irritably.

Gram glared at him angrily while Natsu said, “Drop it, you two.” He turned to Lakshman and asked, “What is this plan to which you spoke of, Lucky?”

“Yes, but I need everyone’s cooperation,” replied Lakshman with the hint of a smile on his face.

“Everyone’s cooperation?” Natsu asked, looking curiously at him while Gram furrowed his eyebrows. “Please elaborate.”

Lakshman momentarily hesitated before he smiled up at them and said, “Specifically, it’s to do with fusion.”