Caught in Time

Chapter XIV: The Issue

After the shockwave from Antonio's attack hit the 'hunting party' and everyone else in the dining hall, Antonio stood straight back up and glared at their direction. The party helped each other to get back on their feet. They had expected him to come and attack them immediately, but he just stood there before he finally opened his mouth.

"Bring my daughter back to me", he demanded to them.

"Well she doesn't seem too interested with that idea, so... no!", replied Kyleas.

"Fine, you've forced my hand. Men, attack them!", said Antonio.

The guards who were also got struck by the shockwave, stood back up and started charging at the 'hunting party'. Irina started shooting their legs one by one, causing most of them to fall to the ground.

"Nice work, Irina! I'll finish them off", said Adran.

He easily killed the downed enemies while Irina tried to attack the other men.

"Rosa, kept them away from Irina. I'll try to attack Antonio", instructed Kyleas.

"R- Right, l- leave them to me!", she replied in a not very convincing tone.

Kyleas charged at the Duke of North Castillo and shot his mana bolt at some of the guards while dodging their attacks. He leapt at Antonio with a concentrated mana bolt on his right hand. Antonio tried to punch Kyleas before he could reach him. But Kyleas blinked behind him to dodge his attack.

Kyleas whistled at him to get his attention and mock him. Antonio quickly turned to attack him but Kyleas blinked above him and threw the mana bolt. The concentrated mana bolt exploded on his armor causing him to fell on his back and created a hole on the armor, revealing a Gvazian device on his chest.

As he was about to continue his attack before Antonio could get back up, one of the guards tried to attack him from behind and distracted him. Kyleas blinked behind his attacker and pulled his neck using mana shackles he conjured. He then sent him to the illusionary prison to help him self-reflect. Just as he did this, Kyleas can see more and more of Antonio's men arriving.

"Where did all of you even came from?", he asked before starting to deal with them.

Rosa and Irina continued to dispatch Antonio's men one by one, while Adran was confronted by Jorge. Right now, Kyleas was also being continuously swarmed by Antonio's men that just won't stop coming. As everyone was distracted, Antonio simply got back up without anyone disrupting him.

Antonio then stomped the ground and caused a massive war hammer to burst from the ground. He faced towards Kyleas and slammed the war hammer towards that general direction. This created a concentrated shockwave that was tearing everything in front of it, including the palace floor and the ground beneath it.

Kyleas barely noticed the incoming shockwave but still managed to blink upwards and dodged it. The shockwave hit the guards that were surrounding Kyleas and sent them bursting through the walls. Kyleas threw a concentrated mana bolt at Antonio and blinked back down, he then launched a barrage of mana bolts while running straight at him.

Antonio placed his hand on top of the device on his chest right before the concentrated mana bolt hit and exploded directly at his location. The explosion pushed Kyleas a few steps back, he expected that it should be enough to at least threw Antonio back to the ground. Antonio immediately stood back up with his war hammer at hand, but now he was protected by a rock essence armor.

"How stupid of me, I just realized that you are actually the mage that those Gvazians have been looking for", said Antonio.

"What do you mean? Aren't you also a part of the Gvazians?", asked the confused Kyleas.