“Dammit! These bastards are f**king fast. Hurry up and cut those off too!”
Damon yelled at Kalian when he also heard the noises coming from outside the door.
Clank!
As he did for Damon, Kalian cut the attached chains and shackles binding Yuri.
Considering the situation, it seemed they had to ask Yuri for more details later.
Damon hurried walked over and held out his hand to Yuri.
She didn’t exactly need help getting out of a cut-open cage and if it were different circumstances, she probably would have refused and gotten out by herself.
But for now, Yuri was somewhat acting like an innocent and weak victim, so she took Damon’s extended hand. The moment their hands touched, Damon’s body flinched. Maybe he got static electricity because his reaction was oversensitive.
Yuri didn’t really care and got out of the iron cage. Her wrists and ankles had recovered a little in that time span so they weren’t exactly broken, maybe you could call them sprained.
Of course, a normal person would have found it hard to move around but Yuri didn’t have any difficulty moving at this level.
However, Kalian noticed her unusually swollen wrists and ankles and frowned. His mouth opened as if he was going to say something. But the sound coming from the hallway triggered his senses first.
“We have to hurry.”
Like before, Kalian swung his sword at the floor instead of the door.
Boom!
A loud noise rang out and a hole appeared in the floor.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
Kalian asked Yuri for permission.
Fwip!
Then he jumped down with Yuri and Damon in each of his arms.
“Aah!”
Damon screamed in agony.
As they fell down to the next floor, Yuri glanced up at the ceiling where Odin was. She didn’t say anything, but she knew Odin understood to follow her on his own.
Her hair and clothes shook in the wind and the chains on her wrists and ankles rattled alongside them.
When they got down, Kalian put the two behind him like they were troublesome goldfishes, then began to run holding them on both arms like baggage.
Damon’s physical strength had already reduced considerably, and Yuri was a seemingly ordinary woman. She seemed to have been hurt too so Kalian judged it would be difficult for her to follow him without falling behind.
Damon realized he looked quite pathetic right now and struggled a bit, but he quickly gave up and went limp.
“From the side…!”
Then suddenly, he screamed.
Kalian also felt something flying towards Damon’s side and moved out of the way.
Boom!
The moment Kalian changed direction to avoid it, the ground blew open.
“Attack! Don’t let them leave here alive!”
Unsurprisingly, some mutants also ran over to catch the intruder. Their appearances were all inhuman, so they were easy to spot at a glance.
However, Kalian avoided their dangerous attacks quite well.
The gleam in the silver-grey eyes grew even colder as it swept over the people attacking him. Still, perhaps due to the circumstances, Kalian didn’t jump out to attack them saying things like ‘I will eliminate the heretics immediately’ or something.
Swish!
Yuri tilted her head to avoid a fireball flying behind Kalian’s back.
It seemed there were only two mutants capable of ranged attacks. Most of the people who came to catch them were normal people instead of mutants.
According to what she heard from Odin, there were definitely a lot of mutants in this building so this was a little suspicious. Maybe they thought they could catch the intruders without having to use the ruin’s power.
“Uwaa, Ahh!”
Damon screamed loudly whenever attacks flew at them.
Even though his screams were enough to be distracting, Kalian was still able to avoid the enemy attacks using his astounding physical abilities. Even now, he jumped on a wall like he was climbing it, stepped on the head of an enemy, and moved forward.
With Yuri’s position, it was hard to see exactly what Kalian was doing but as he moved, many of the people nearby were quickly incapacitated and fell to the floor.
However, since the hallway wasn’t that wide and he was only defending and moving, there was a limit to how much he could do.
“Die!”
While Kalian was dealing with the people in front, a man got close to his back and brandished his weapon while screaming a cliché line.
Fwip!
Yuri moved her hand to intercept the flying blade, catching it accurately in the gap between her wrists and shackles. Unprepared for the sudden development, the man lost his knife.
“Oh!”
The weapon slid down Yuri’s wrist like flowing water and went into her hand.
Whack!
The man was smacked right on the head with considerable strength and fell back without making another squeak.
It all happened in the blink of an eye, spanning just a few seconds. Damon, who witnessed all this while hanging from Kalian’s other arm, sucked in a breath and his eyes went round. But he looked like he didn’t immediately understand what happened even though he saw it with his own eyes.
Kalian also seemed to have noticed something strange happening, but he didn’t have time to pay attention and had to quickly move out of the way again.
Eventually, Kalian seemed to decide this wasn’t going to work if he didn’t change something, so he roughly tossed Damon to the side, pulled out his sword, and swung it. Actually, he could have thrown Yuri instead but maybe his gentlemanly nature applied even in this kind of situation because he made the choice with no hesitation.
Clang-Clang-Clang!
The gem embedded in the sword flashed and a devastating wind stormed through the area.
“Ahhh!”
The people approaching were thrown back like leaves before a storm, sweeping along the people behind them.
Kalian once again picked up Damon from the corner and began running again. Damon’s mind was already a mess and he couldn’t even say anything to Kalian about being thrown away out of the blue.
Kalian quickly found the exit.
Of course, he couldn’t see the door yet, but his very attuned senses were telling him the location of the exit. His running pace in the hallway grew faster.
Yuri’s ears were picking up the sounds of a lot more people approaching. She tried to assess the situation while hanging uncomfortably from Kalian’s arm.
Just by the fact that Kalian was moving so swiftly even though two people were hanging from his arms, he was indeed a superman.
“This way!”
“Kill them!”
However, at this rate, she didn’t think he could get to the entrance while avoiding all the people swarming towards them.
Earlier, Kalian cut the chains around her in a hurry so the shackles on her wrists and ankles were still there. Hence, she still couldn’t use her ruin’s power.
Of course, even if she didn’t have the shackles, it would be difficult for her to use her powers without being noticed when she was so close to Kalian. So she wouldn’t have been able to move around easily.
However, right now, she didn’t even have the ability to make a choice, so she felt this situation was a little frustrating.
Swoosh!
“Hk!”
Right then, a white thread flew in from somewhere and coiled around Damon’s neck. The familiar attack technique caused a sharp light to flash in Kalian’s eyes.
For the first time, Yuri saw her own ability from an objective point-of-view, and her expression couldn’t help but crumble.
Even for Kalian, it was impossible for him to cut the thread around Damon when both his hands were occupied. However, Yuri still had the weapon she stole from that guy in her hand.
Clang!
But as expected, the thread was no ordinary thread, so the blade in Yuri’s hand was broken instead.
‘So he was telling the truth when he said he can steal my ability?’
Yuri’s gaze sank icily.
Fwip!
“Khh…!”
In the end, Kalian lost Damon. Perhaps it might be more accurate to say that he had let go of Damon. Because he felt like the thread would choke Damon if he kept holding onto him.
Instead of immediately chasing after Damon’s body which flew back, Kalian chose to find cover first.
Although Yuri couldn’t see the face of the person who appeared and used the thread, she could easily guess who it was. To be able to use her abilities, it must have been the fake Lakis who showed up.
“You incompetent fools. You’re making so much noise, and you can’t catch a mere rat.”
As Yuri expected, a familiar voice soon rang softly in her ears, giving her goosebumps.
It was hard to know exactly what was happening when she couldn’t see but soon afterward, she could feel the air shaking with violent waves and multiple screams rang out at the same time.
The number of people she could sense around them suddenly decreased. It seemed Kalian felt it too because Yuri could feel his muscles contracting.
Yuri felt the air around Kalian grow sharper.
Somehow, the energy around Kalian right now was similar to how he felt when she ran into him at the exhibition ground and it suddenly made her doubtful.
‘Wait, don’t tell me he mistook fake Lakis for me because he saw him use my ability just now?’
Somehow, that seemed very possible and it made her feel a little odd.
‘Now that I think about it…the timing of Kalian’s appearance here is a bit coincidental. Did this guy follow me from the exhibition?’
And at the same time, she began to feel something was fishy.
It was just a suspicion for now and Yuri had no proof, but she was right. Either way, now wasn’t the time to argue about that.
–