His legaes at me with its enormous ping mouth. Using my speed, I meet it halfway and dodge, and then head for the man using it. As I am about to create i the ground to freeze him, I hear that the ball has turned and is ing back. Instead, I create i the floor, making a small pilr which I jump off of to dodge the attack.

  What the hell? I watched that man the whole time, and at no point did he make a motion to indicate it was going to attack. The first time it went for me, that man made a motion was all that just some kind of trick? Maybe his ball seeks its target. That must be it; otherwise, it would never have found me in the mine.

  As the ball attempts to attack me, I create a rge wave of ice to try and freeze the ball, but it just ps through it. As it es for me with its rge mouth, I use my legay hands ao keep its mouth open. As it charges forward, my right arm is in excruciating pain, but I tinue. I thee a rge amount of i its mouth.

  I jump on the ball head, then, using all the strength in my legs, lunge off it. I freeze the long as I move, but after I finish, I hear ping sounds ing from my right. Taking a moment to look over, I see that small mouths with faeeth have appeared on the and are eating my ice away.

  After taking in the sight to my right, I look forward to seeing the rge man in front of me. There is no way a man this big got here so fast. In my shock, the man gives me an uppercut knog my body into the air. That strength and speed, he must be using spirit arts.

  Hearing a noise, I manoeuvre my body in the air into a particur position so I face what I am hearing. In mere moments the rge ball crashes into me. I use my hands a like before to stop it from ping down as it pushes me into one of the buildings.

  While I try not to pass out from the pain, I feel the mouth starts to close. His legacy just got stronger out of nowhere. He must have sent spirit energy into it. As the jaws of his legacy begin to close in on me, I push away from it, allowing the mouth to close, but then the sear force of the ball hits me.

  As the ball pushes me through the building, we return to the ptform I was fighting on. His legacy then tried to crash me into the ptform, but I was able to create snow in front and behio soften the blow.

  Shit, that hurt. Without a doubt, I have broken some bones. I see his legacy move back, open his mouth, and then smash down again, but I move ba time. Then, as it came for me almost instantaneously, I decided to freeze the snow where I nded, and which bought me a few extra seds to dodge.

  I might have an idea, but I o py some mental games first. “HEY, YOU BIG PIECE OF SHIT, I WONDER HOW YUESTS WOULD FEEL TO BE FROZEN SOILD,” I say as I run into the bridges. With these words, he shouldn’t go off and attack Willow and the rest of the escapees.

  Basileia is a city surrounded by walls, with rge buildings all ected by a series es, with a sizeable ptform in the middle. Using my legacy, I am just going from building to building, fre te. I create Iy hand ao walk and hang in pces I wouldn’t usually be able to.

  I do all this while his legacy chases me. As I move from position to position, I leave little snos from pce to pce. My movements are done in ways that would iionally tahe . And after I see his legacy has reached max length, I move towards it and freeze all the snow I have phis won’t keep it locked up for a long while, but it will give me enough time to freeze his main body.

  So, after I return to the ptform, I head back to fight his main body. Just like his size would tell you he is strong. I ot seem to get any deadly hits on him. I am not using spirit arts, yet it seems he sense where I am going. Maybe his legacy has enhanced some of his senses, like mine.

  While going bad forth, I look for an opening to freeze his arms s since I am too tired to release an wave of ice. I ’t even refuse the ice I already made because his legacy eats it. So, I guess all I have left is mental warfare.

  “Why are you so loyal to such a horrible woman? She makes sves do horrible bour till they die, and she kidnaps people’s families and uses that as a threat for them to do whatever she wants.”

  “SHUT UP. YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT HER!”

  Good, he is getting angry. The info Atanta got is really beneficial, “The only reason you think such thing is because she has messed with your mind. Your thoughts are not your own.” As I nd a few blows on him in his eate, I say, “Think about all the lives that she has ruined and all the people she has irreversibly broken, she did all that for money.

  Not only to people but her family; her husband died one month after they were married under mysterious circumstances. Is that the type of woman you trust?”

  “What of it,” I hear a voice say. Looking at the source, I see an old woman in a rather fancy dress.

  Surprised, the man in front of me says, “Ma out of here.”

  So, she is the woman I was talking about, the old queen of Basileia, mother Man. While the man is shocked, I run up and try to freeze a vital spot, but to my dismay, the ping of the ball gets louder. I dodge his legacy as he repositions himself into a more defearying to protect that woman. If I attacked her, I could get an opening.

  So, as I ready myself, I say, “Why serve such a woman with at all.”

  “YOU KNOW NOTHING, YOU BRAT,” He says as he is about to swing his legacy.

  Man suddenly chimes in and says, “What an idiotic kid you are.”

  Bothered by her words, I say, “So what I have said isn’t true. Is that what yetting at?”

  Man sighs, saying, “Basileia crystals are one of the most valuable resources. They are the words more signifit energy sources. Just a small about of it grinding into dust be used t life to the most barren of soil, and it be used to enhance tless medies. Though there is a problem with it; the two pces where it is found have issues.

  The first pce hoards their supply for themselves, and the sed pce, Basileia mines, have potent toxins, killing all miners over time. So, since you will never get someoo work at Basileia, you have to force them.”

  “But your husband didn’t use sves to get the work done. He mined just what ossible and moved on.”

  “That same lie. My former husband used the same methods as me but on a smaller scale, to create false scarcity and raise the price for the rich to whom he sold it. The people he sold it to did not hem, unlike peasants, to whom a little bit of it could have revolutioheir agriculture.

  The worst of it was when a pandemic broke out decades ago. The crystals here were the only way to make medie, and it only took a small amount, but my bastard husband sold all his crystals to the wealthy to increase prices to make a fortune. People were losing their lives bad forth. The only way they could survive was by giving their money and bodies away to afford enough moo buy them or find a way to persuade someone more prosperous thao give them just a little bit.

  During that time, people lost parents, siblings, friends and lovers. Even I couldn’t escape this, I had to give away my body to make enough moo help my siblings, but it was to no avail. They still died in the end.

  So, I chose to do all in my power to seduce that man, to bee his wife until the day I could end his life and take over. When I ged this pce, I bought more sves for mine. I sell mainly to the poor for minuscule prices; I only ever sell to the rich to appease them. What I might do is unsightly, but I make sure every worker’s death trao ten thousand lives helped and saved.”

  “That ’t be true.”

  “Since I don’t sell as much to the wealthy, they have go of their way to snder me or keep all my achievements off of any paper, so unless you have seen what I have doh your own eyes, you wouldn’t know about it.

  Little boy, let me tell you something right now, good people will and always have been supported by bad things. That’s how the world works, and I choose to save the many by killing the few.

  I decide to dirty my hands sino one else wants to. For that reason, most guards are loyal to me even after I break them because they see why I am doing this and choose to harden their hearts to help me. So, if you tih your foolish as, you will only hurt more people in the long run.”

  Looking at the woman in front of me with eyes full of determination, I falter and shake untrolbly. Is what I am doing right? If I mess up here and lives are lost, that wouldn’t be a mistake. That would be a sin. Capti told me to be a good person. Is it reasoo allow people to die for my reasons? Aren’t all lives equal? If so, I shouldn’t let my friends die here. But if I saw a million corpses versus one corpse, I wouldn’t say they’re equal. What the hell am I supposed to do.

  As I tio freak out, I remember Atanta’s words which calm me down. Right now in my heart the most important thing is to, “All of that is none of my business. I will rescue the people I care about. It is that simple.”

  Φ The brat’s hair turned a purple so light that it blended into the sliver in his hair, but more strangely, all the bluish-red crystal around Basileia pilrs turhe same colour.

  “Sht now, you have chosen to be a murderer. I guess ign reality is part of being a kid, but I ’t see you as ht now. Porto, kill him.” And with those few words, they start fighting again as I walk away.

  -Break-

  Φ As we all run towards the wall of Basileia as fast as we , a couple of guards find us and stop us. While we prepare to fight, I see four white arrows pierce the guards in our way, making them vulnerable for us to knock out.

  “What was that,” Buloke says.

  Perplexed by what had happened, I tried to find the arrows, but they disappeared. I have never heard of anything like that. Though I have no time to waste, “All those who fight, e with me. We are going to get the hostages. The rest of you should take these crystals and blow a hole in the wall. We have no time to waste, so everyoheir asses moving.”

  But as we start to move, all the crystals around Basileia glow a light purple. It is just orahing after aoday, but all this fusion will help us if roactive. “Let’s GO, EVERYONE, WHERE ALMOST THEIR!”

  “YEAH!” They all shout in unison.

  Φ Willow looks so good in his new clothes. Maple, stop, you o focus everyone is in a very make it or break it situation. I have helped Willow so I look to Orb’s fight against that giant man.

  I fire multiple around the man while his ball chases Orb, but he dodges them. Since I am using spirit arts, he could sehem as they e close. This is bad, but I have to keep trying, so I stantly keep shooting arrows, but it is to no avail. Eventually, I started to feel exhausted, followed by extreme pain. I noticed they my nose was bleeding rapidly. Atanta told me there is a side effect of overuse of spirit energy. As the bow starts to get heavier, I look at Orb, who has been hit again by the giant ball.

  No, this isn’t good. At this rate, Orb will be killed. Looking from here, I see how batter and bruise he looked. But I take a sed to stare at his face, and I see he hasn’t given, so her I. If he is staking his life, I will do the same so will all my strength.

  I pick up the bow and ready myself to fire ten arrows simultaneously. Atanta said this bow could be used to fire multiple at once, but the max I ever did was four, but I must push myself; As I am about to fire the arrows, I see the bow ge, and I feel a burning under my right eye.

  Φ The boy is finished after that st blow. His body is undoubtedly done, for even if he gets up, he won't have enough strength to fight against me. It would have been o talk to a legacy like me, but my loyalty lies with Man. Back when I was an or her husband collected, I suffered abuse every day, but she saved me and gave me this home and family for her. I would do anything.

  As I am about to ask the man in front of me to resider, the look he gives me shows me his determination won’t ge. So, I say “Don’t hold this against me”, as I send my ball towards him.

  Suddenly I seen of those spirit arrows, but as I am about to dodge them, I notice they swerve around me and then suddenly stop in motion. Looking at the arrows, I notice they’re golden ahey didn’t stop but as just moving so slowly that it seems like they stopped.

  Using my enhanced sense of smell, I smell the boy approag me. But even if he dodged my ball’s first strike, it would always e back around, so as my ball was about to bite him front the back, he jumped toward one of the arrows and nded on it. Then immediately kicks off to another one.

  He moves between all of them at insane speeds, using the arrotforms. He is moving so fast that my Orthrus automatic trag is fused. So, I manually sent it where I predicted he would be , but I was too slow and missed him.

  I lose track of the boy until I smell him behind me on the right side. Before I attack, he freezes and shatters my right arm. This is bad, now that my physical e to the vessel I was using is broken my legacy turned off. I try to use my gift on my left arm, but before I get that off, the boy punches me in my mask, freezing and shattering it whiocks me to the ground.

  While on my ba the ground, I see the boy let out a victory cry right before I fall unscious.