While the girls were fighting with Ellemy and the two armies, about one hundred kilometers the cages which contained the nobles of the Mermen and Elemental Seas, finally stopped moving due to the tsunami created by Karmandi.
The nobles started talking between each other, some cursed the man that sent them away without freeing them.
The armor Karmandi was wearing was somewhat similar to the one the neo nobles used, so they just assumed it was one of them the first one to arrive to this underwater space.
“What the hell are those savages thinking, why didn’t he save us first before starting to fight”.
Karmandi’s actions perfectly fit with the battle-starved way of doing things of the neo nobles, so the nobles started to complain about it.
“That armor isn’t the one we use”, said someone from the neo noble faction, which started a discussion, that only stopped when the voice of a woman interrupted them.
“Clang!”, the sounds of metal colliding drew everyone’s attention, the origin were a few girls in the cage for female nobles, the ones that comforted the others back when Garret dragged some guys as bait.
“If you have time to argue, start making some progress in breaking the lock of the cage”, said the girl from the Bamboo Forest sect, a green light covered her hands as she hit the lock of the cage.
The other girls didn’t have physical boosting skills but they were either kicking the lock or casting spells at the lock.
Since the Skelefiends didn’t brought potions to prevent their hostages to use mana, the cages were instead really durable, it was enough to imprison an Arch ranked.
The guys who were complaining felt humiliated that the girls scolded them, so they softly snorted before saying.
“Don’t listen to her, we can’t break the lock anyway, and when those guys find us, if they see the scratches on the lock they will torture us!”.
The people who were motivated by the action of the girls immediately hesitated, if the Skelefiends saw them trying to escape they will be the next ones to suffer, and if they couldn’t escape anyway it will be just a suicide.
“Humph, cowards”, the neo noble though was the only one insulted the others and started attacking the lock, a couple of other nobles stared at each other and joined the neo noble, making the other guys shook their heads.
“Idiots…”, their disdainful expressions froze as a they saw three figures appearing out of nowhere.
Mellie, Daphne and Chris arrived in time to see that ugly scene.
“P-Princess!”, shouted the nobles in disbelief.
Some of the nobles let out sighs of relief, while others had resentful expressions, specially because they didn’t bring an Arch ranked so the princesses appearing here was “useless”.
“So you two finally decided to appear, we were tortured because of you!”, shouted one of the male nobles.
Others followed the accusation, while a minority remained silent, on the other hand none of the female nobles said anything, though they had to watch bloody scenes, they were kept safe because the Skelefiends and pirates wanted to use their wellbeing as a token of exchange, so they didn’t suffer as much as the guys who were used as bait.
While Mellie and Daphne didn’t want to argue, the maid Chris did answer them.
“If you feel like that, then how about we leave you in that cage, I bet the Skelefiends will be more than happy to have someone to take their anger on, no one will know it and you won’t live to tell anyway”.
The nobles who were complaining and demanding an apology from the princesses, paled, their bubble of “safety”, was destroyed in this mission.
Seeing that they shut up, Chris snorted.
“Humph, cowards!”.
Of course, the nobles were livid to be insulted, but they valued their lives more than their dignity, so they gritted their teeth and didn’t say anything.
“Lady Delphini… do you know anything about our young miss?”, asked the girls from the Bamboo Forest sect, afraid of the answer.
Mellie nodded, in response.
“Yes, she as well as the senior who is stalling the Half Stellar ranks of the enemy, are cooperating with us”.
The maid Chris checked the cages and reached the same conclusion, they weren’t going to be able to open them, and the cages were too heavy for them to push them away.
Daphne patted Mellie’s shoulder, she was about to use her innate ability to see if she could damage the lock enough for them to escape, but then they saw Mellie’s shadow distorting before an bone leg cladded in green battle aura.
“That is…”, Mellie has seen Horals before, so she didn’t get scared, but she was indeed surprised by it.
The bone leg floated still in front of Mellie as if it was waiting for her instructions.
“You are Gabriel’s protector, right?”, mumbled Mellie.𝚘𝐕𝒍xt.𝗇𝓔t
The leg moved up and down as if it was nodded in confirmation, making Mellie laugh.
‘I was wondering why he left us join this time but not before… apparently he found a way to look for us at a distance’, she thought as she pointed at the lock of the cage that contained the female nobles.
“Senior Horals, please help me break that lock”.
“Booom!”, the leg exploded in green aura and with a kick the whole front side of the cage was blown away.
The female nobles were in awe right now, though the scene of a floating bone leg obeying the orders of Mellie was a bit strange, they just assumed it was some kind of treasure gifted to her the queen who is known for always having a plan b… and for being a bit eccentric too.
Mellie thought about it for a moment before she said.
“Thanks, senior Horals, that’s all for now”.
“Sister Daphne, Gabriel was right, we can’t know who is on our side right now, we’ll still take them with us, but they will be kept in that cage”, said Mellie.
Daphne nodded and the male nobles put on resented expressions, but they remained silent still, as long as they were able to escape this hell everything was fine.
The female nobles only left the cage but didn’t move too much, only the girl from the Bamboo Forest sect and a couple of girls who believed in Daphne approached them.
“Princesses, how can we help?”, they asked, but Mellie simply shook her head as she took out a small red bed from her pocket.
“Stay close and grab onto the cage, we’ll be making our exit in a moment so be prepared, if anyone doesn’t follow our indications and is left behind, we can’t do anything”.
Mellie threw the bead upwards and then with a snap of her fingers the bead exploded in the air liberating a small cloud of red smoke.
At the other side of the battlefield, Aisha and Karmandi saw the smoke and they both did what they were supposed to.
Tiberius and the two Bottom Shredders suddenly had a bad premonition, as Karmandi sinisterly laughed, his mana exploded out of his body creating a huge black cloud.
“Stop him!”, shouted Tiberius, unfortunately he was a second too late.
“Rain Dragon Hurricane!”, Karmandi’s blue mana created a high-pressure whirlwind that trapped both Tiberius and the Bottom Shredder king and queen.
The water was rotating at such a high speed that a deep hole was drilled into the ground, the air trembled as a 50 kilometer tall, water twister forced Tiberius and the Bottom Shredders to put everything into defense, while Karmandi stayed in the eye of the hurricane coldly staring at them, whenever they tried to break free he accelerated the rotation of the hurricane.
‘Hurry up lass, I don’t have my while power, so I can’t suppress them for too long’.
Aisha whose face was a bit pale due to the large amount of mana she has used listened to Karmandi’s voice directly at her ears and she nodded, the Risha sisters were in the same position, they have used their wings with their own mana to keep the Skelefiend army in check, so they were tired as well.
‘Everything ready darling!’.
Even from afar Ellemy was able to see the huge hurricane, but he could notice that his allies were enduring it pretty fine, they were just trapped so that didn’t make him panic, what did make him feel a bad premonition was the smile on the face of the silver haired girl which he ordered his subordinate to capture earlier.
‘Why do I feel so unease…’, he thought, but then his eyes widened, the mist that functioned as clouds evaporated.
“S-Sun, why is the sun appearing underwater!”, shouted Ellemy.
That’s right in the middle of the air, a fire sphere appeared out of nowhere, the only difference is that instead of the yellow/orange tone of the sun, it was completely white, also at the center of it there were a pair of figures, a silver haired youth and a blond girl who was tightly holding onto the young man.
It was none other than Daimon who was playing the last part of the act, Jasmine was taken by surprise because they appeared midair so she held onto him to not drift away by accident.
“Breaking Dawn!”, with Daimon’s order then sun contracted and then descended upon the Skelefiend army.
While the three Arch ranks were being stalled by Horals’s, they powerlessly witnessed the moment where the white sun made contact with the ground and the next thing, they knew was that a blinding flash forced them close their eyes.
“Booooom!”.
A loud explosion followed by the horrified screams of the Skelefiends flooded the battlefield.
Then Horals’s parts returned to the girls sides and they were brought away above the explosion, which was still ongoing.
“Don’t let them escape!”, this time Ellemy did react on time, he and the other two Arch ranks flew towards Daimon and the others, just to be forced to back off by a water blade that nearly cut them in half.
Karmandi who suddenly jumped out of the hurricane flashed towards Daimon, and he grabbed Daimon’s shoulder at the same time as the girls held onto him too.
“No!!!”, Ellemy hysterically yelled as he saw them disappearing.
Almost at the same time Tiberius and the Bottom Shredder king and queen managed to escape from the hurricane, just to see Daimon and the others disappearing.
“You fucking useless idiot, you couldn’t capture a few little girls in front of you!” barked Tiberius at Ellemy.
Ellemy gritted his teeth, as he yelled back.
“Shut up, we can discuss later they can’t be too far away from us so move your ass”.
The Skelefiend general misjudged thinking that Karmandi used a high ranked movement spell to escape from the vicinity.
…
At the same hill where Daimon took a rest with Jasmine early, he, the girls and Karmandi appeared.
“Are you okay ladies?”, asked Daimon seeing their slightly lethargic expressions, but the girls nodded.
“Mm”.
Then a couple of large cages also appeared next to them, Mellie, Daphne and Chris were holding onto them, luckily switch had range of fifty meters, where everything touched by the one with the mark could be taken back with them, so they just grabbed the cages and were able to transport everyone inside of them, it still costed Daimon about 20% of his stamina though.
“Karmandi, if you do us the honors”, mumbled Daimon.
“Finally, I was starting to feel uncomfortable in this little form”, said Karmandi as he returned to his beast form.
Of course the nobles in the cages felt intimidated by Karmandi’s aura, also the fact that he could talk meant he probably was a Half Stellar ranked.
“Calm down, senior Karmandi is our ally”, said Jasmine and Mellie to the citizen of their respective seas.
Some of the nobles were troubled seeing that a magic beast was helping them, there were subordinates of the old noble houses who believed in the propaganda of the White royal family, and Karmandi was clearly not from one of the races of the Mermen Sea, because there were no Half Stellar ranks beasts there, besides the guardian beast of the royal family.
In contrast the people of the Elemental Sea, who were mostly girls as the guys apparently didn’t end in this underwater space, didn’t have a problem with it.
Ignoring what they thought about him, Karmandi grabbed the cages and then Daimon naturally rode on Karmandi’s back, the girls sat next to him, while the princesses and Chris grabbed Daimon’s shoulders.
And then they disappeared, not without one of Karmandi’s scales glowing.
‘Time to go Kamir’, he sent a short order to his subordinate as they left this hill, there was just about half an hour before the end of the beast hunt, meaning the Trident Marshal and the other adults should start feeling suspicious that no one had returned, so hell was about to break loose.
The end of this event was approaching, but at the same time a major event which would change Neptune forever was about to begin.