‘Is this it?’ Theo wondered. ‘I haven’t felt this much pain since…’

Theo’s mind flashed back to the time when he had previously been in unbearable pain.

“Dad, please… stop – AAHH!” a young boy cried while lying on the floor. A large man stood over the boy, pressing his foot on his hand.

“What are you doing!? STOP!” a woman cried, rushing into the room.

The man was caught off guard at her sudden appearance.

She pushed and he fell back several steps, releasing the pressure on the boy’s hand.

The boy immediately started shaking his hand as he sat up and pushed himself against the wall.

However, the man quickly recovered and was overcome with rage. He stared daggers at the woman as if he wanted to rip her apart.

The woman’s face paled but she firmed her resolve and stood between the man and the boy. She raised her arms on either side to block him from moving any further.

“Please…” she begged timidly, her voice turning weaker as she saw the man becoming angrier. “He’s just a boy… let him go…”

But her words didn’t even seem to register with the man.

“How dare you push me YOU BITCH!” he screamed and punched her in the face. Her jaw twisted at an unnatural angle and she fell sharply.

“MOMMMM!” the boy cried.

The woman hit her head on the corner of a table before landing heavily on the ground. Blood started flowing out of her head and filling the area underneath.

The boy’s eyes widened in fear and tears welled up in his eyes. He crawled to her and started screaming.

“MOM! MOM!” the boy cried, shaking her body back and forth, but she didn’t move.

“NOOOOO! MOM! Please, wake up! Somebody, please help me!”

“Please!”

Please… help me… what am I thinking about right now?

Theo’s mind returned to the present as he felt the crushing pressure of Blaze’s dragon arm on his head.

‘If I die, would I get reincarnated again?’ Theo wondered.

No! I am not going to die here! That’s right, I can still use that technique…

Blaze continued exerting pressure on Theo, expecting him to give up and surrender. However, something unexpected happened.

Theo stopped flailing around and his body began emitting a cold aura.

Everyone felt the air around them suddenly drop by several degrees in temperature. They subconsciously turned to sense thick, dark mana gather around Theo. His injuries began healing rapidly and he started oozing out a chilling killing intent.

As the closest to him, Blaze could sense what was happening.

‘He’s… burning his own life force!?’ Blaze gasped.

“KILL HIM!” gasped the Silver Crane Sect disciples. However, Blaze hesitated. If he killed Theo now, he wouldn't be able to use him to exchange hostages with the dark grand mage. He just had to beat him till he surrendered.

As everyone watched dumbfounded, dark mana continued to gather in his body, increasing his aura by the second.

However, a loud and powerful voice suddenly echoed from the distance.

“STOP!”

At the same time, everyone felt a huge aura rapidly approaching the battlefield.

It’s him!

Blaze and Drake recognised the aura at the same time, while the Silver Crane Sect disciples realised that a terrifyingly powerful individual was approaching.

It was the dark grand mage!

All the dark mages became elated and fell back.

Theo smiled. He stopped his technique and his aura quickly returned to normal. He opened his eyes and spoke mockingly.

“Looks like you’ve… run out of luck,” he chuckled, but Blaze responded by increasing the pressure on him.

“AH!” Theo yelped, and became quiet again.

Drake and the rest of the Silver Crane Sect disciples, as well as Jordon who had now recovered to an extent, gathered by Blaze’s side.

Within a few seconds, the dark grand mage arrived in front of everyone. He had his hood lowered, revealing his appearance as a man in his late twenties.

Behind him, several vulture spirits were carrying the body of an unconscious, red-haired woman.

He stared at Blaze coldly.

“Let him go,” he spoke authoritatively.

Blaze chuckled, staring back at the dark grand mage fearlessly.

“Why don’t you try to take him from me?” he increased the pressure on Theo causing him to wince in pain again before continuing, “If you wait too long, I might accidentally kill him.”

The dark grand mage didn’t speak for a few moments. For a second, it seemed as if he was considering abandoning Theo, making Drake and Blaze slightly worried. However, his next words proved them wrong.

“Let him go and I’ll give you your girl,” said the dark grand mage.

As soon as he said that, the vulture spirits dropped Helen and she landed on the ground. The impact shocked Helen awake, and she opened her eyes weakly.

For a second she was confused and disoriented, but she quickly recovered. The last thing she remembered was being kidnapped, and now, she was here, next to the dark mage, facing Blaze holding Theo in his hand, with Drake and some strange men behind him. It didn’t take her long to roughly figure out what must have been going on.

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Seeing that she was okay, Drake and Blaze silently sighed in relief.

“You first,” said the dark mage.

“No way,” Blaze firmly and immediately responded. “First give us Helen if you don’t want your boy to die.”

Everyone became quiet again.

“Very well,” the dark mage replied. “We’ll release them at the same time.”

Blaze hesitated for a second and looked at Drake. Drake nodded, thinking that it was the best they could hope for, and Blaze looked at the dark grand mage again.

“Okay,” he agreed, and released Theo.

Theo fell to his knees and was about to fall face first to the ground but managed to catch himself at the last second. He spent a few moments panting for breath before taking out and consuming a few recovery pills.

At the same time, Helen sat up and took a few healing pills as well. As she felt her strength and stamina slowly return, she sighed with relief. Helen glanced at Drake who was still looking at her with worry and smiled.

‘Thank you…’ she mumbled to herself.

A few seconds passed as Helen and Theo recovered enough strength to walk. Afterwards, they both stood up and faced the other side.

The dark grand mage and Blaze looked at each other and came to a silent agreement. They placed their hands on Helen and Theo respectively and pushed at the same time.

Helen began walking towards Drake and the others. Initially, she couldn’t believe that she was being rescued. Or rather, she had expected herself to be abandoned. After all, she was supposed to be Drake’s knight, his bodyguard and protect him with her life. She was more than happy to do that.

However, Drake didn’t believe in a system where people’s lives were expendable. Blaze and Sylvia, coming from the dragon and dryad races, also didn’t have such a notion in their tribes. Hence, they all considered her as an actual friend. Helen had never realised that before, but, seeing now, the lengths they were willing to go to for her sake, she felt incredibly grateful.

But, that was soon replaced by a feeling of helplessness as she was reminded of her weakness again, and how much of a burden she was on the others.

While lost in her thoughts, Helen came extremely close to Theo, before they crossed each other.

Theo’s lips curled into a smile.

“I told you I’ll kill you when we next met,” he whispered.

At that instant, Helen felt an enormous killing intent back that pulled her back from her thoughts.

But it was too late.

Helen gasped as a sword pierced through her back. She looked down weakly in disbelief to spot a sword poking out of her chest. She felt her heart thumping loudly, beating with all the strength it could muster to keep her alive as long as possible, but it was quickly coming to a stop.

Theo pulled his sword, leaving a hole in Helen’s body, before kicking her in the back. With all her strength having left her body, Helen fell weakly to the ground after a few steps. Blood continued to pour out of her chest, quickly forming a pool under her body.

Drake and Blaze stared at the scene open-mouthed. They didn’t even understand what happened.

One moment Helen was alive, and the next, she was… dead?

“NOOOOOO!” screamed Drake.

Was she dead? Was she actually dead? This couldn’t be happening!

His brain wanted to deny it, but seeing Helen look at him with her lifeless eyes, lying in a pool of her own blood, he was forced to face reality. He wanted to scream again but his throat became heavy. His arms and legs turned numb and he dropped to knees.

“THEOOOOO!” screamed Blaze, finally registering what had happened.

In response to his scream, Theo smirked as usual and laughed.

Blaze couldn’t take it anymore. He released an enormous aura and charged at Theo.

“I’LL KILL YOU, I’LL KILL YOU, I’LL KILL YOU!” he screamed.

However, the dark grand mage intervened. He ordered his dozens of rank two vulture spirits to attack Blaze.

“Dragon claw!” Blaze yelled, swiping his dragon arm across the air. Almost ten vultures instantly died, but the others managed to evade the attack and surround Blaze, forcing him to defend.

By this time, the dark grand mage caught up to Theo and pulled him back. Even he hadn’t expected Theo to kill Helen so unexpectedly.

‘Guess the rumours I heard about him were true,’ the dark grand mage thought with a sigh.

He wasn’t interested in fighting them now, so he didn’t want to kill Helen.

‘But… the girl dying will make it easier to deal with the dragon’s party in the future…’ he thought, and realised that it might be a good thing in the end.

Thinking so, he regrouped with the other dark mages before turning to face Drake’s party again.

Blaze and the Silver Crane Sect disciples were kept busy by his vulture spirits. Drake, on the other hand, had walked up to Helen and was kneeling next to her, holding her hand.

The dark grand mage didn’t know or care what was going through his head, but even without Drake’s help, he thought his rank two spirits might not last long, facing Blaze and everyone else’s wrath. He decided to play it safe and consumed a mana recovery pill.

While the others were occupied, the dark grand mage quickly gathered his mana and formed two, purple balls of light. The lights flew forward and rapidly expanded into two large lightning beetle spirits, each emitting the aura of a rank two spirit.

After summoning them, the dark mage once again closed his eyes and summoned over thirty rank two vulture spirits again.

Just as he completed his summoning, Blaze and the others also finished off the remaining vultures and looked at the new lineup of spirits grimly.

The dark grand mage had no intention of fighting them now so he didn’t order the spirits to attack. Instead, he told them to stand their ground and only attack if they got close.

After giving his orders, he took Theo and retreated with the rest of the dark mages without a word.

“Stop!” Blaze yelled and charged.

However, his charge was quickly met by the dozens of vultures which flew towards him, forcing him to stop once again. At the same time, the lightning beetles began forming storm spears above their horns.

The Silver Crane Sect disciples looked at each other and hesitated. They wanted to help Blaze but, they were all exhausted from the fights just now, not to mention that one of them, Jordon, was still very injured. Even though Blaze was strong, they weren’t sure they could fight two rank three and so many rank two spirits in their current states. Even if they did, by the time they defeated them, the dark grand mage would be long gone, making all of their efforts a waste.

They looked at Blaze.

Blaze was exerting himself to the fullest, summoning firestorms and fire blades every second, releasing dragon claws on any spirit that came close while dodging the storm spears being released by the lightning beetles. Despite his strength, fighting so many powerful spirits at once on his own was not easy, and he was quickly racking up injuries.

‘How long can he maintain his dragon form?’ they wondered, but realised that Blaze was not thinking clearly and wouldn’t listen to reason.

Helpless, the Silver Crane Sect disciples turned towards Drake, who was still sitting next to Helen.

Drake had hoped against hope that there might be a sliver of life left in her; that he would be able to use his pills to keep her alive till they met Sylvia, who would then be able to heal her completely.

However, when he came close, he realised that Helen had already stopped breathing. Unlike before, this time, Theo had cut through her heart, killing her instantly. So now, she was lying in a pool of her own blood, just like how Holt was that day. Similar to that time, Drake felt a deep sense of loss and despair.

However, now, he felt something else as well.

‘This… is my fault. If only I had killed Theo back then…’

He placed his palm on the ground next to Helen and it became soaked in blood. Drake lifted his hand till it was in front of his face. The rays of red moonlight shone on his palm, highlighting the thick, fresh, blood.

‘Isn’t her blood… on my hands?’

A dark feeling welled up from the pits of Drake’s stomach. He had never felt anything like this before, either in this life or his previous one.

‘I’m responsible… for her death?’ Drake didn’t want to believe it, but it was true. Killing someone was the one thing he wanted to avoid after coming to this world. But, purely because he avoided it, he had become responsible for a person’s death.

Not just any person, but Helen. Drake thought about all the times he had spent with her.

From meeting her initially during his first battle with Elwin, to travelling with her for months where they spent so much time together, talking and laughing, while helping each other cultivate and fight off demons. They then arrived in Basindale and Helen continued serving him, helping him find pill recipes and information, joined a hunting party with him, and did everything that he asked.

She never thought about what she wanted or liked but found joy in serving him. Her face would light up anytime he showed her his appreciation, praised her cultivation, or anything else. In a world where Drake felt like he could trust no one, Helen was the one figure he could always count on, who was always loyal to him and put him above even herself.

‘Such a person is dead… because of me…’

Drake’s mind became quiet. All his thoughts vanished, leaving him with an overwhelming sense of gloom… and guilt.

Oblivious to his thoughts, the Silver Crane Sect disciples approached Drake, wondering if they could ask him to talk sense to Blaze.

As they came close, they suddenly froze in their tracks.

Drake began emitting a dark and icy aura.