The Runic Alchemist

Chapter 490: Land or Water ? Part - 2

[In the middle of the ocean, Unknown planet, Lumi's POV.]

The two Highsword knights were right above them!

Lumi, Elias, and Reize exchanged hurried looks and kept listening.

"What..?" Another manly voice came from above. "What the.. Where are we? What happened?"

"I have no idea," the first guy replied. "Let's go check if there is land nearby.." he suggested.

"Huh?" the second guy said. "What is that thing? An elephant?"

Lumi's eyes widened. So did Elias's and Reize's. Toph! It had to be Toph. He was with them in the Dreamlight too when it happened! How could she forget that?

"Oh! It's the beast that follows behind Morph Vialist everywhere.. I thought it was a fish before and ignored it." The first guy replied.

"Are there others from the weird metal ship here too?" the second guy asked.

"We will take care of them later. Let's just go and see where we are first.." the first guy replied.

A few seconds later, the footsteps subsided, and the voices stopped. Lumi quickly moved near the steel door, but Elias stopped her, eyeing her. Then he whispered, "Let's use the control room hatch from where Maximus launches spells.."

"No, you two stay here. Unbind me. I will go save him. It could be a trap!" Reize spoke up suddenly.

Lumi and Elias exchanged glances before she asked, "What do you think?"

Elias looked at Reize with cold eyes and replied without hesitation, "Maximus is the knight we serve. Any betrayal to him is a betrayal to us. We cannot trust her. We will do this ourselves. We should take out some of the runic tools Maximus said were for defense and see if we can use them.."

Lumi nodded, and with one decisive look, she tightened the gag on Reize's face. The pitiful expressions on Reize's face made her feel like she was doing something really cruel, but it was the right thing to do. For them, Maximus should always come first—no matter how good Reize had treated them.

Lumi and Elias quickly checked the whole ship and only found the attack sheets that they could use with their mana. All other things were locked for only Maximus's own mana signature. Even the armory door was locked and could not be opened. In their spatial storages, Elias just had a runic sword Maximus had told him to take from his scrap pile since he had none. It was useful and good—but not up to Maximus standard good. In addition, Lumi had a whole set of potions she had won in her squire tests from Maximus. She had never used any of them and had saved them to be used in emergencies—just like this one.

Looking at her, Elias said firmly, "I will go. I have the sword. You just stay ready near the hatch in case they come back. If it's a trap, lock the hatch and protect yourself."

"No, you are taking all the risk. I should go." Lumi protested.

"Just Don't. I can survive better if it comes to fighting.." He replied simply. Lumi wanted to argue, but she knew it to be true. He was the stronger of the two and had much more mana than her measly mana pool. She would be nothing more than a burden in a fight without the support of people like Maximus, Samuel, Lady Lucian, and Einar.

Elias took his runic sword and braved on towards the hatch. Lumi gave him her few potions that could be used to increase strength and replenish mana as Maximus had written in the note that came with the potions. Elias just nodded and took them, climbing up the steel ladder to reach the hatch opening above. Lumi climbed behind and readied herself to attack, chanting a spell and holding it to defend herself in case it was a trap.

The second Elias opened the hatch, there was.. nothing. He bobbed his head up and looked all around. No one was there except the bundle of purple-black small elephant lying unconscious in the distance. Nodding at Lumi once, Elias made a run for it and quickly reached for Toph, picking him up in his arms and carefully checking up on him. He was still breathing—just unconscious. Both Elias and Lumi heaved a sigh of relief, but it didn't last long as Lumi saw the two knights flying back towards the ship at a fast speed in the bright sky far above.

"Quickly! They are back!" Lumi shouted, and Elias hurriedly ran her way.

The flying knights drew closer and closer, especially after noticing them. Elias finally reached near the hatch, Lumi took Toph and quickly jumped down. Elias hurriedly got in and closed the hatch behind him instantly.

Inside, they ran straight for the seating compartment, stopping near Reize. Soon the two knights landed atop Dreamlight, and one of them started chanting while the other started punching the metal with his powerful second-ranker strength. It was right above the seating compartment. Soon a blast resounded and a hole appeared in the solid steel plate, and the winged beastmen Highsword knight jumped in—his partner, the esper with flying ability, still struggling to come in.

The faces of the two men were anything but kind. The winged beastmen took out his sword, seeing all around, and quickly rushed towards Lumi herself. Elias blocked his way and attacked—but it was useless. Even with her strength potion, the beastmen grabbed his head along with the sword and threw him away effortlessly.

Still heading towards her as she launched the dark arrow spell and gulped another potion to fight, Lumi knew it was useless. However, the beastmen—with malice on his face and sword in hand—never reached her, as suddenly a powerful beam of laser was shot and went through the beastmen's head, blasting it open.

The beastmen fell face first. And Lumi saw Reize standing behind him with one hand stretched forward, some palm-sized metallic runic cube in her hand. She had saved her. Lumi teared up, while Reize just smiled warmly at her.

'Khachck!'

Suddenly, both of their faces lost color. A sword had pierced Reize from the back and through her chest. Blood seeped out of her mouth, her eyes wide with shock. Lumi could do nothing besides just screaming—horrified and scared out of her wits.

>.>