The Syer went flying and tumbling across the air for a considerable distance with its fttened head.

  “What will you do without me?” Rayne sighed. It was none other than she who drove her feet into the Syer.

  “I would probably look for you,” Henry retorted with a warm smile. He didn’t sense her approaching. Then again, he had reigned in his senses to focus on the battle ever since it started. He didn’t sense or see her approaching from afar before the battle began. Which meant Rayne had run all the way here as fast as she could and she was fast enough to run for tens of miles in just a few minutes.

  “...Your flirtatious words won’t garner any pity or favour from me,” Rayne scoffed.

  “Rayne, you’re alright!” Ani excimed in relief.

  “Of course I am. What do you take me for? I should be the one saying that, but it looks like you all have managed well without me.”

  “Of course,” Yu beamed with her head held high. “What do you take us for? We’re not helpless damsels.”

  Rayne shrugged and her gaze wandered from the Syer. “I see we have an unexpected guest” It nded on the vampire.

  “I bear no ill-will towards Lord Henry or his consorts,” said Aqui.

  “...We shall see,” Rayne replied coldly.

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t cast so much of your focus on me. Our enemy has yet to perish.”

  The Syer rose to its feet. Its head was crushed but it was still moving. It even went as far as to remove its entire head from its body. It simply tore it off itself and tossed the crumpled part aside.

  “How pragmatic. It utilises its tenacity well.”

  “They certainly are a tenacious bunch.”

  “This one ain’t that tenacious,” Rayne noticed. “I didn’t put that much strength in that kick but I fttened its head.” “Well, Henry, what are you waiting for? Turn that junk of metal into molten steel already.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t. Whatever has been done to this Syer, it’s immune to my fmes and even to my… spells.”

  “That’s a huge honour.”

  “Huge honour?”

  “Your nemesis has a high opinion of you, considering all the preparations it has made. It acknowledges you as a huge threat. And—”

  “It’s coming!” Henry cautioned.

  Rayne clicked her tongue and saved her words for ter, not that she would actually continue them after this.

  The Syer charged at them. Even without a head, it was moving well, Henry observed. The Syer dodged a flurry of shadow tendrils. It practically danced around the shadows. Ani was next. She went up close and personal. She had thrown away her broken sword and picked up an arm-bde of a fallen Syer as her new weapon. It was surprisingly lighter than she expected. It was a tad lighter than the sword she was using. She could swing her weapon faster. Still, the Syer was more agile than she could handle. Her sight could follow the Syer’s movements but not her body.

  “Get away!” Henry shouted and threw Aura Bdes at the Syer.

  It twirled and spun out of the way of the Aura Bdes.

  “It’s not entirely immune to my attacks,” Henry muttered and charged at the Syer in his full form. He swung his cws down on the Syer with all his might.

  Suddenly, the Syer was enveloped in a red glow and in the next second, it disappeared.

  “What the hell?” Henry blurted out in confusion.

  “Henry! It’s here,” Yu shouted.

  Henry spun around and saw the Syer had somehow made its way right in front of the princess. “Teleportation?” This Syer was smarter than it looked; only now did Henry realise this. It held such a useful ability under its sleeve until the very st moment.

  Aqui had stayed close to the princess. It was a silver lining. She drew a deep across her arm and scattered her blood at the Syer.

  Yu’s shadows had also surrounded the Syer from behind.

  It seemed like the end for the Syer. However, it teleported away again.

  “Short interval?” Aqui excimed under her breath. Teleportation itself was already an incredible and versatile spell. For it to be used in such short intervals was simply unheard of. Yet, it happened.

  “Princess!” Ani shouted.

  The Syer was right in front of the princess. Its arms reached out for her.

  Instead of crying for help, Lucian spyed her open palms at the Syer. Murux converged on her palms and a rge fireball was unched from the convergence. The fmes struck the Syer. It was immune to fire but the force behind the fireball knocked it off its course and it tumbled to the ground.

  As the Syer scrambled to its feet, Ani leapt at it with her bde raised. The Syer picked up a nearby broken body of its fallen peer and used it as a shield against Ani. It immediately lunged for the princess again once it was out of immediate danger.

  “Sloppy,” Rayne muttered as she dove into the Syer’s path. She threw a straight fist at it

  The Syer twisted its body and avoided a punch that could have shattered its entire body into pieces.

  “I can’t believe we are having this much trouble over a single Syer,” she grunted.

  “This one’s special,” Ani responded.

  “Special, not invincible. We have wasted enough time on this… singur hunk of junk.” She went for a kick but the Syer teleported once more. She didn’t know where the Syer went but being the machine that it was, it would and always obeyed its primary directive, which was the princess. Rayne immediately turned around and hurled herself towards the princess.

  The Syer reappeared right beside the princess with arms that were already reaching out.

  “Farewell,” Rayne uttered. The Syer was right beside the princess but Rayne was right beside the Syer, right where she expected it to be. Her fist was already swinging and the Syer was too close to dodge the attack. It had nowhere left to run. The Syer exploded into hundreds of pieces with that single punch.

  “T-thank you… k-kind dy…” Lucianna managed to squeeze out her gratitude despite her stupefaction.

  “I’m no dy and I’m certainly not kind. Your gratitude is unneeded.”

  “Still… you saved me. Gratitude is in order.”

  Rayne snorted. “Think what you will. Just don’t expect anything of the same nature from me.”

  “You have done well, Rayne,” Henry said as he assumed his human form. “Things would have gone awry if you weren’t here.”

  “Save your fttery. Things would have gone well regardless of my presence.”

  “I disagree. I was… inept in most parts. I was… slow.”

  “Well, I disagree. You were not slow. You were too accommodating. Given your size, the Syer’s speed wouldn’t have mattered much. You only needed to swing your tail and that Syer would have become a heap of scraps. But you didn’t, because you feared for our safety. You are afraid that you would hurt us.”

  “I’m afraid because I would definitely hurt you all if I had—”

  “No, we wouldn’t.” It was Yu who responded. “You still don’t trust us enough, Henry, but I suppose there is some progress.”

  “I-it’s alright, Henry,” said Ani. “Next time, just give us a shout when you want to let loose.”

  “I agree with Ani.” Yu was giggling. “Just give us a shout when you want to ‘let loose’. We definitely won’t mind.”

  Henry couldn’t help but frown. The conversation was slowly drifting off into a strange direction.

  “So, what do we do now?” Rayne asked, staring at Henry.

  “We will take the princess back to Ulrum for the time being,” Henry answered.

  “I’m still here,” said the vampire. “The princess will be coming with me.”

  “Are you absolutely serious right now?” Rayne questioned with a face of scorn and disbelief. “Do you believe you can just whisk her away under the noses of us four?”

  “I don’t intend to be furtive. I may not be able to win in a fight against all four of you but winning the fight is not my objective here.”

  “I may have a solution to this,” Henry said, walking over to the princess slowly. “Do you mind hearing it?”

  “Whatever scheme you’re pnning, you won’t fool me. If you are thinking about swooping the princess away, that will not be happening.” Aqui was already drawing blood by digging into her palms with her fingers.

  Henry stopped right beside the princess. “I’m not pnning something like that. I know that you are far faster than I in terms of agility. I would be a fool to try something like that.”

  Aqui narrowed her gaze. The dragon was definitely pnning something but she just couldn’t figure out what. It didn’t look like he was about to attack. Much like Henry, she could roughly determine one’s intention by their scent and none of their scent suggested that they would go on the offence, except for the Zeva. She was brimming with hostility, itching to fight.

  “I’m not gonna fight you unless you make the first move.” Henry smiled but his smile did not reach his eyes. “That said, you’re not gonna get the princess.”

  Suddenly, a rift in the space was torn open, just right behind the princess. With a light shove, Henry pushed the princess into the rift. Before anyone could utter their surprise, the rift closed up by itself— or rather, it closed up by Henry’s will.

  “What did you do!?” Aqui snarled.

  “I guaranteed her safety, that’s what I did.”

  “Release her!” she hissed.

  “You have a better chance at making the sun rise from the west than making me comply. Or we can fight this out. Rayne here is really holding herself back.”

  Rayne grinned. “For once, you are right.”

  “Damn you, Lord Henry,” Aqui growled. “Damn you.”

  “You failed your quest here— whatever your name is.”

  “Aqui,” she scoffed.

  “Well, Aqui, you have failed your quest. So, run back to your mistress and tell her that if she wishes to have a discussion, she knows where to find me.”

  “Her Majesty will not be pleased and there’s a limit to how much she can tolerate.”

  Henry sighed. “Her Majesty this, Her Majesty that. Oh, bitch, please. It is always this rhetoric. Fuck off with that. She ain’t the empress of the world and she’s no god. She can’t always get what she wants. And do you think she’s the only one with a limit to her patience? Wake the fuck up, you arrogant sod. She’s not special. So, run the fuck back to Verugo and tell your mistress exactly everything that I have said. Understand?”

  Aqui was staring at Henry with her eyes wide open. This was unlike what she expected from him. She was briefed extensively by her mistress on the kind of individual Henry was. Having the mouth of a sailor was not one of the many traits she was told. She was completely caught off guard. Moreover, she was still in disbelief over how she was just spat on with a flurry of profanities and insults. She had no words to retort. She had plenty to say but no words would be able to compete. She could reprimand him for his crude and harsh nguage but that would get her nowhere. She was not educating a child; she was negotiating with a beast that could easily level an entire city if it so wished.

  As unsavoury and crude it was, Henry had made his stance clear. The foot was put down. There was no room for discussion. If Aqui continued to force the topic, a battle would definitely ensue and she would not be the victor. She doubted she could even win against the weakest one among the four.

  “Do you understand?” Henry repeated.

  “I-I do…”

  Henry broke into a smile. “Splendid. Now, make yourself scarce. We'd best take our leave before more of those… machines show up.”

  Aqui nodded and disappeared into her shadow.

  Henry could finally take a breather. “Fucking finally…”

  “Couldn’t you be like that more often?” Rayne muttered.

  “Why? Did you like it?”

  “Dream on.”

  Henry smirked. “If you like it, you only need to tell me. I’ll happily oblige, especially in bed.”

  “I certainly don’t like this,” Rayne grumbled.