149 [Bonus chapter]Worse Than A Beast
Somewhere inside the dungeon owned by the Sky Sword academy, two blurs, one silver and the other bright yellow/blue, sped through the twisted pathways at breakneck speed.
They were travelling so fast that to the untrained eye, they were merely flashes of light, there one second, gone the next.
"Lillianna, keep your eyes peeled," Arvell advised.
While he was confident that his senses were far beyond an average human's, he wanted to ensure that Lillianna kept her guard up just in case.
"Yeah, don't worry." She lightly smiled in response.
The earlier revelations had shaken her to the core, but she had become noticeably better after Arvell offered her his support.
It wasn't as if she could suddenly come to terms with everything, but she could at least process the probability that Cyprian had laid a trap for her without her realizing it.
Lilianna sidestepped to avoid a rock before turning to Arvell, who was running at a similar pace next to her.
Inwardly, she was surprised at this.
She knew that Arvell was fast, but no matter how fast Lillianna tried to run, Arvell could effortlessly keep up with her.
Frankly, it was a humbling experience for Lillianna.
Her lightning-fast speed was a source of great pride for a lightning-based arcane warrior like Lillianna.
After all, not even the wind magic using Zen Silvercolt was able to match her in terms of speed.
Unlike Zen, who used the power of the wind to propel himself, Lillianna used her magic to send electric currents through her body on top of using her magic in a similar style to Zen.
Not only was she using lighting for propulsion, but she was also using it to stimulate her muscles to improve her reaction speed, making her run faster.
Despite all of this, Arvell was able to match her speed, that too without breaking as much as a sweat.
The more she learned about this silver-haired boy, the more she became curious.
She had spent the last month watching Arvell's fights, but aside from watching his bouts with Marcus, she did not have much chance to see him at his strongest.
Primarily because Kaera had done her utmost to keep the two separated.
Even though she had never known Arvell to be this fast usually.
'Wait… Doesn't Marcus be able to slow people by increasing gravity? No wonder I never noticed…' Lillianna's eyes widened in realization.
Since the purple and silver-haired boys, without fail, always teamed up during free-sparing, she didn't have much chance to see the two fight on their own.
It wasn't her fault that the two acted like long-lost lovers and preferred to stay in their little world every time they fought.
Thinking about this, Lillianna's smile grew slightly.
"Hey… Arvell?"
Turning his head in her direction, Arvell lifted an eyebrow in response.
"Yes?"
"I… I wanted to thank you."
"For what?"
"You helped open my eyes to the possibility of Cyprian's betrayal and went out of your way to help me."
Seeing her heartfelt thanks, Arvell's lips curved up slightly.
"I thought I already told you that you don't need to thank me. I only did what I had to to help a teammate. Not to mention… I need you to come back alive for me to get my 'reward.'"
Lillianna chuckled lightly at his words.
"Don't worry. I am a woman of my word; I will fully compensate you for your actions."
Her smile caused Arvell to feel a pang of nostalgia in his heart.
Arvell couldn't help but overlay the image of the girl right next to him on the little girl he used to know.
'Even without the compensation, I wouldn't let you suffer alone.'
Just as Arvell thought that, he suddenly felt his connection to Sepis become faint.
Upon checking his connection with Sepis, Arvell exhaled a sigh.
'Sepis finally fell….'
He had instructed Sepis to act as bait while holding onto the Tracking Pendant, but it seemed that after trying his hardest to run, Sepis was finally dealt a death blow.
But from the final moments before Sepis fell, Arvell noticed something weird.
No matter how intimidating the queen slime appeared, it never attempted to deal Sepis a lethal blow.
Instead, all of its attacks aimed to incapacitate him instead.
In fact, the queen slime wasn't what killed Sepis; it was a nearby beast that had attacked Sepis from behind while he tried to dodge an attack from the queen slime.
Arvell furrowed his brows in thought.
'So Cyprian or whoever is behind this wanted Lily alive… Is it to use her as a hostage? Or something else?'
Frankly, kidnapping Lillianna made far more sense for Arvell than upright killing her.
If Lillianna's aggressors were to get their hands on her, they could force the king into agreeing to all sorts of crazy demands.
Arvell's brain began to analyze the previous events as something confusing for him suddenly became crystal clear.
'Wait… That queen slime was positioned right below the hole… So if the two of us really fell, we would have had our fall cushioned to a reasonable extent if we fell. If anything, we would have a couple of broken bones, but nothing too serious.'
This meant one thing…
Since the queen slime didn't want to kill them… It most likely wouldn't fight them with the intent to kill.
If they could catch it off guard and deal a lethal blow while it was holding back, they could kill it and escape!
While Arvell wasn't too confident with fighting the queen slime on an even playing field, an advantage this big would indeed even the odds.
Even though it felt like he was cheating by using the fact that it was holding back against it, who told it to underestimate him?
Thinking this, a small maniacal smile formed on Arvell's lips, but fortunately, Lillianna couldn't see this.
If she did, she would have most likely begun to fear him instead of the late second-rank beast…
Sorry for the lack of chapters! Thank you for continuing to support my work!
Sleepy_Slime
This chapt𝓮r is updat𝒆d by (f)reew𝒆b(n)ovel.com