Bu Sha Volume 5

Chapter 1 : Anise’s Possessions Chapter 2 : The Real Ordinary Chapter 3 : Auntie Chapter 4 : Well Deserved Pride Chapter 5 : The Broken Seal Chapter 6 : Storm of Blood Chapter 7 : Aura Roasted Barbecue Chapter 8 : Declaration of War

This volume is brought to you by AnmesicCat, Masadeer, and StellarAshes.

Chapter 1 : Anise’s Possessions

Seeing Lancelot's judgmental look, Daylight, Kaiser, Meinan, and Purity all seemed to move in unison in front of Liola. The four of them acted like four mothers trying to protect their young, fearing that Lancelot might do Liola more harm.

Kaiser was the first one to snap, he opened his mouth and cursed.

"Bastard! What the hell do you want again? I don't know how many times Liola almost died because of you, and you still came here shamelessly?!"

Though others did not curse like Kaiser did, but judging from the anger on their faces, they all agreed with what Kaiser said.

Lancelot, however, completely ignored Kaiser. His eagle-like eyes held their gaze at Liola. His deep and with a solemn voice, he repeated his words.

"Hand over your Dragon Cross Necklace."

Liola's heart was pounding rapidly.

'Hand over Anise's necklace? No!' Liola's right hand held tightly onto the Dragon Cross Necklace in front of his chest.

"Never!"

Lancelot seemed to have known Liola wouldn't hand it over readily. He waved his arm impatiently.

"Hand it over, you don't have any power to resist, and I don't want to harm you."

Liola knew that right now, he couldn't even win against Daylight and others, let alone a rank-X person. But he could hand over everything and anything… except the necklace Anise had left behind.

Liola laughed bitterly in his heart. Even if he wasn't willing to give it up, if Lancelot were to take it forcefully, other than giving up the necklace, even if he were to give up his life, the necklace will still be taken away from him.

Despite it all, Liola still wouldn't allow himself to hand over Anise's necklace. His face remained calm and cold, saying 'if you want the necklace, then take my life with it'.

Lancelot did not bother to waste any more of his breath. The unicorn ignored the presence of Daylight and others, and beelined towards Liola.

While charging towards Liola, Lancelot's powerful aura pushed Daylight and others out of the way. Carrying Liola, Baolilong wanted to fly away, but its speed was no match for the unicorn.

In an instant, Lancelot had already jumped onto Baolilong's back. Baolilong was angry and anxious, but it wouldn't dare to move too much to try to throw Lancelot off. Baolilong didn't want papa, who lost all his Kung Fu, to fall out of the air.

Though Liola could sort of make out Lancelot's movements, his body could not respond in time. Without much efforts, Lancelot's hand reached the Dragon Cross Necklace on Liola's chest.

However, the strange thing was, as if he had been electrified, Lancelot's body shook violently, and he even cried out in pain, then quickly pulled his palm back.

Liola's eyes reflexively looked at Lancelot's palm. He saw a burnt mark appearing on Lancelot's palm, in the shape of the Dragon Cross Necklace.

Liola was a little baffled, and instinctively reached for the necklace on his chest, but the necklace felt like it was at room temperature, so why did it leave such a burn mark on Lancelot's palm?

Seeing his palm had been burnt, Lancelot immediately used the healing magic unique to holy Knights. An intense white light gathered in his palm. After the light faded, the wound did indeed disappear, but a scar in the shape of a cross remained in the center of his palm.

Even though he used his healing magic again and again, the scar would not disappear. Lancelot's face was filled with rage.

"What the hell did you do?"

Of course, Liola couldn't say anything, because he didn't do anything at all!

Lancelot saw Liola, himself, was baffled, so he had no choice but ignore the scar in his palm. His hand reached towards Liola's neck, trying to threaten him with his life to hand over the Dragon Cross Necklace.

"Stop! Paladin, are you really going to harm a helpless ordinary person?"

Seeing Lancelot's hand was about to reach Liola's neck, but being pushed back by Lancelot's Ki and therefore having no way of rescuing Liola, Kaiser anxiously and tried to use the Paladin's name against him, hoping Lancelot the Holy Knight would remember, the code of honor for Knights forbid them from harming weaklings.

However, Lancelot ignored Kaiser's yells. His large hand wrapped around Liola's thin neck. But another strange thing happened: as soon as Lancelot touched Liola's skin, he jumped back as if he had been electrocuted again.

This time, both Lancelot and Liola looked towards his palm. The cross mark looked like it was newly made again. It was bright red then it turned black, as if it had never been healed.

Lancelot finally understood, perhaps he couldn't touch Liola at all, so maybe he can't snatch the necklace directly.

Lancelot felt his rage rising, and he cancelled the Ki blocking Daylight and others. Daylight, Flames, Purity, and her Angel Mecha, Nana, charged in.

Lancelot glanced around them, and finally settled his gaze on Kaiser.

Kaiser felt terrified from Lancelot's stare, and a thought flashed across his mind.

'Crap! This guy probably couldn't touch Liola for some reason, and can't grab it directly, so he's going to threaten him with a hostage!'

Though Kaiser knew what Lancelot wanted, but he couldn't find any way out of it.

Lancelot hopped onto the unicorn, and a white shadow flashed past Flames. When Daylight realized something was wrong and turned his head, Kaiser was already gone.

"Hand over the Dragon Cross Necklace."

Lancelot's cold voice could be heard from afar, accompanied by Kaiser's moaned in pain.

Liola felt a chill, and he looked towards the unicorn. Sure enough, Kaiser had already fallen into Lancelot's hands.

Sitting on top of the unicorn, Lancelot's right arm was holding Kaiser's neck, and his entire body was dangling in the air, struggling.

"Don't touch him!" Seeing Kaiser's life in danger, but he was an useless person who lost his Kung Fu, Liola felt a spinal shiver.

"Y-you damn bastard, y-you went as far as using me as a hostage?!"

Kaiser desperately squeezed out curses at Lancelot between his teeth.

Lancelot furrowed his brow, and applied more force into his hand, which made Kaiser's face turn red, and at the same time he continued to ignore the yells of everyone else.

However, Kaiser wasn't someone who would sit idly waiting for death. He pulled out the giant gun hanging from his hips. When Lancelot's attention was back on Liola, Kaiser murmured a few incantation, and a white light emitted from the gun, with its barrel pointed directly at Lancelot's handsome face.

Lancelot sensed a power coming from the hostage, and he immediately responded. With a wave of his other hand, Kaiser's gun fell out of the sky, and disappeared into the clouds.

The situation had turned for worse!

With a red face, Kaiser couldn't believe he might die before reaching the age of twenty. Could it be that the Gods were really jealous of his talents? Damn! But he didn't want to die yet.

Kaiser gritted his teeth, and held Lancelot's hand with both of his own, and squeezed out the incantation between his teeth.

"… Napalm Bomb!"

Lancelot had never thought the hostage in his hands would have any powers to resist. He was caught off guard and Kaiser's bomb landed on his hand.

In reflex, Lancelot opened his hand, letting the hostage in his hand lose…

"Ah! Damn you, it was just a small bomb, and you actually really let go~~"

Without the support of Lancelot's hand, Kaiser fell straight out of the sky.

Accompanied by Kaiser's screams, two Dragons and a Mecha flew towards him. However, since they didn't expect Kaiser to use his magic. They were slow at start, so they could do nothing but watch as Kaiser headed to kiss the ground.

Kaiser desperately struggled to turn in the air, and held his head in his arms. He thought that even if he broke his arms and legs, there would still be good healing Maxun he could use, but if instead he hurts his gifted head, healing Maxuns would be useless on his head if it's opened like a broken water melon.

While turning in the air, Kaiser's sharp eyes spotted Barbalis, along with his rarely seen solemn yet deep in thought face.

"That guy is murmuring incantation?"

Kaiser acted as if he had forgotten he was free falling. He stared at Barbalis' mouth, trying to make out the spell.

"It seems to be… group teleportation?"

After thinking about Barbalis' spell, Kaiser saw images flying past his eyes: from a circle stadium to an open grassland, followed by a forest, and finally a barren plain.

"Aiya!" Kaiser finally hit the ground, and he immediately started screaming, "Oh my god, it's over, I must've broken my arms and legs, crap! My head, is my precious brain okay?"

Kaiser immediately started patting different parts of his body, and then finally sat baffled and cross-legged on the ground, wondering why he seemed to be unscathed?

It couldn't be, he obviously fell from a very high place…

The confusion the others had was not any less than Kaiser's.

They were still in the sky above the stadium, so why are they suddenly on a barren plain?

Other than confusion, Liola and others saw nothing wrong with Kaiser, and he could still pat his body in different places and calmly scratch his face, so it seemed Kaiser was completely unharmed. They could finally relax.

"Lancelot, how could you attack a students above the stadium? Aren't you afraid you will harm your fame as a Paladin? Look, I especially used a group teleportation for you so we can fight somewhere else!" Barbalis laughed as he explained.

"You old geezer!" Kaiser jumped up.

"Did you purposely take us out here in the middle of no where so that guy Lancelot could kill us and you wouldn't have to bury us?"

Barbalis acted surprised, and asked, "Kill you? That couldn't be, could it? Why would a righteous Paladin kill a few students and an ordinary person who couldn't fight back?"

Hearing this, Lancelot's face turned cold, and with an even colder voice he said,

"Barbalis, don't mock me. Killing them is not my goal, but if killing them will reach my goal, then I will not hold back."

Barbalis showed a clown-like smile, and jokingly replied, "Really? These guys are innocent, are you seriously going to kill them? This isn't like you."

"Unless necessary, I wouldn't kill anyone. As long as that Assassin hands over the Dragon Cross Necklace, I will never make things difficult for him again." Lancelot impatiently waved his arm and said.

"Are you a robber now? It's an alright profession. Did you finally have an epiphany, and decided to stop being a righteous Holy Knight?" Barbalis face was full of smiles, but his speech cut deep.

Lancelot roared, "I am righteous. That necklace belongs to the Dragon Emperor. I am simply following orders to retrieve the necklace."

Barbalis's gaze was fixed in Lancelot's palm, and he reflexively held his fist to cover up the mark left behind by the Dragon necklace, but Barbalis had already seen the entire process of Lancelot getting burnt by the necklace.

Seeing Lancelot was trying to cover it up, he lightly laughed, "Following orders? Whose orders? Was it the Dragon Emperor's?"

Lancelot went silent, and his silence made Barbalis even more skeptical.

If it was the Emperor's order, Lancelot should have admitted without any hesitation. So it's not the Dragon Emperor's order? Then who else could there be who could give orders to the dignified Paladin?

Barbalis' curiosity was not satisfied, but he better handle this situation well. Even for him, he couldn't be sure that, in the event the Paladin attacks, he could ensure the safety of all five of them and two Dragons.

But the Dragon Cross Necklace was very important and too many mysteries were behind it.

Barbalis heard a voice inside his head constantly telling him, the necklace must not be handed over. But how can he make the Paladin give up without giving him the necklace?

Barbalis laughed bitterly, 'Mizerui, you are great. You are hiding far away and throwing all the problems to me.'

Lancelot also thought, he couldn't touch the Dragon necklace or Liola. Barbalis was obviously siding with Liola, so taking back the necklace looks like a difficult task, but he did promise his good friend. Lancelot furrowed his brows.

"Liola!?"

Daylight's yell made turn and look at Liola.

Liola's face was getting paler and paler by the second, his body was fumbling around, and even his breath was irregular.

"I…"

Liola didn't know what was going on either. He felt his breathing was getting more and more labored, and his body getting weaker and weaker.

Finally, he blacked out, and fell off from Baolilong's back. Luckily, Daylight had already noticed something wrong with Liola, and commanded Flames to fly over, allowing Daylight to catch Liola.

When Daylight lowered his hand to examine Liola, he noticed that something was very, very wrong. Liola's face was drained of blood, and his breathing was so weak, it was barely noticeable.

"Liola? What happened? Wake up!" Daylight was anxious.

Liola's body was almost like a dead corpse. He was just fine, so why would this suddenly happen?

Flames landed on the ground. Kaiser and Barbalis hurried to Flames, and Purity jumped out from the cockpit onto Flames' back before the Mecha even securely landed.

She desperately shook Liola's body while continuously calling Liola's name.

Kaiser looked at Liola, and immediately yelled.

"Damn! It's Black Rose's poison. Feir said he could only suppress it, and looks like Liola's poison is recurring."

The moment everyone heard, and their faces turned pale. Barbalis said while crouching.

"I'll go bring Feir here…"

But Kaiser reached out his hand and covered Barbalis' mouth.

After throwing a look at Barbalis to tell him to be quiet, Kaiser took big steps toward Lancelot, and stopped a few feet away. He said to Lancelot.

"Liola was poisoned because he lost his ability to defend himself, and his current predicament was caused by you and you alone. You have the responsibility of curing him."

Lancelot's face froze. The balance of good and evil kept swaying in his heart. He thought if the Assassin was dead, then a lot of problems would be gone, and at the same time he could take away the Dragon Cross Necklace…

"Paladin!"

Daylight's roar awakened Lancelot from his thoughts.

Without any hesitation, Lancelot took a few steps towards Daylight and Liola. A dense and bright white light emitted from Lancelot's palm. With the illumination from the light, Liola's otherwise corpse-like face gradually filled with color, and his breath became normal. Seeing this, everyone sighed in relief.

Daylight lowered his head and looked at Liola, then raised his head again; a pair of firm eyes looked at Lancelot.

"Paladin, isn't Liola your apprentice?"

Everyone felt their heart skip a beat, especially Kaiser, Meinan, and Purity.

They had spent a lot of time lately with Daylight, and even risked their lives in the Dark Street to save Liola. Daylight had already been a part of the gang, and the three of them had completely forgotten Daylight didn't know the truth about the issue.

"Although I don't know what is going on, but Paladin, can you promise me you have a righteous reason for taking away the Dragon Cross Necklace, and not for any criminal reasons?"

Daylight's solemn and righteous speech, along with his unswerving eyes, almost reminded Lancelot of himself when he was younger.

Lancelot laughed in his heart, but his face remained solemn like before. Lancelot answered with hesitation, with the same righteousness as Daylight.

"Who do you think I am? I am the Paladin Lancelot!"

Seeing Lancelot not hesitating, and did not show any signs of guilt, Daylight's face relaxed. He lowered his head to look at the unconscious Liola.

He grabbed Liola's Dragon Cross Necklace, and when everyone thought he, too, would be burnt, Daylight tugged and took the necklace from Liola, and held the necklace towards Lancelot as if nothing was wrong.

Lancelot hesitated as he reached out his hand out, but when his hand was near the necklace, Lancelot clearly felt that the temperature in his palm was rising. Lancelot's face sank, why would this child be unharmed by the necklace?

"Daylight! The necklace is Liola-dage's treasured possession, you can't give it to someone else!"

Seeing Daylight was about to give the necklace to Lancelot, Purity took the opportunity and grabbed the necklace before Lancelot had a chance to.

She held onto it tightly in her chest, then backed up behind Kaiser and Meinan. Meinan had the same expression as Purity; filled with discord. However, Kaiser's face was filled with hesitation.

Daylight sported a serious expression and asked Purity, "Which is more important, the necklace or Liola's life?"

"But…" Meinan and Purity clearly knew which was more important; if Liola's dead, who would care who has the necklace?

"Up to this point, how many dangers did this necklace bring to Liola? Liola already doesn't have his Kung Fu. If he were to continue to wear this necklace, he will most likely die because of it."

Daylight lowered his head to look at the unconscious Liola, trying to remember how many times had Liola been on the verge of death.

Hearing what Daylight said, Meinan and Purity's faces both sank.

Indeed, ever since they've known Liola, he had suffered countless wounds, and almost lost his life many times.

Kaiser calmly said to Daylight, "Wrap the necklace in a rag and give it to the Paladin."

While everyone else was stupefied, Kaiser turned to Lancelot again,

"Sir Paladin, are you satisfied now? You've already sealed Liola, and now the necklace is yours too. Can you promise us neither the Dragon Emperor nor Miluo would cause us any more trouble?"

"I can promise for the Dragon Emperor. But as for Miluo…"

Lancelot lowered his head for a short meditation, then said, "I will tell the Knight Association to assign patrols and guard towers around the academy."

Kaiser grabbed the wrapped necklace out of Daylight's hand, and said solemnly,

"This necklace is yours, and we won't beg you to release Liola's seal. But if Liola still gets kidnapped or gets poisoned, or even dies, it will be your obligation to save him, or seek revenge for him. It's not too much to ask, right?!"

Lancelot calmly received the wrapped necklace, jumped back onto the unicorn, and said one word, "Sure"

Then the unicorn flew up into the sky, and the little white shadow flew off into the distance.

"Hmmph!"

Kaiser watched with cold eyes as Lancelot flew away. But instead of relief, he seemed to be more and more worried.

"Kaiser, what's wrong?" Purity asked.

Lancelot was gone, so what could make Kaiser seem this worried?

Kaiser turned around to look at Daylight and the unconscious Liola, and his body started to tremble and his face looked like he was in pain. He said while cold sweat ran down his face.

"I forgot to tell Lancelot to protect me too. If Liola finds out I handed over his necklace, would he forget about the promise to Ani-something, and kill me in one blow?"

"Waahhh, Daylight you must take good care of me, and don't let Liola hurt me!"

… … …

* * *

Barbalis also watched as Lancelot left. He couldn't believe Kaiser would hand over the necklace, and Kaiser's sudden actions left him no choice but to simply watch.

'Hmm, what should he do now?'

Barbalis began to think about how he could retrieve the necklace for Liola… He suddenly noticed someone looking at him, so Barbalis alertly raised his head.

He saw Kaiser, who was moaning in pain because he thinks Liola might kill him, was glancing at him from the corner of his eyes, and Kaiser's eyes seemed to be trying to warn him something.

Barbalis was shocked. When he looked at Kaiser again, Kaiser was laughing stupidly, with no signs of any warning. But his stupid laugh made Barbalis feel even more numb than his warning eyes.

"Other than being raised in the Dark Street, could this little runt have other…" Barbalis murmured to himself…

'Oh, crap!'

"Damn! The ranking matches! Aklan Academy's first place! My position as the best academy's principal!"

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Chapter 2 : The Real Ordinary

"Gone…"

Liola was at a loss. His right hand kept touching his chest, where his necklace was supposed to be, but there was nothing. The Dragon cross necklace that had always been there was now nowhere to be found.

'Anise…'

"Gone!"

Barbalis shrank into the sofa, remembering when he got back to the stadium, the other principals all claimed that Aklan Academy ran away from the match, and therefore Violet Academy won by default. As such, his position as the principal of the first academy was gone!

Unlike the two depressed people on the sofa, Kaiser was in a celebratory mood. He crossed his legs, and said leisurely but roughly.

"Fortunately, my life is still here. Hahaha! I knew Liola would hold up his promise to Anise, psh, otherwise, why wouldn't he kill me now?"

"Kaiser!"

Purity quietly scolded him, and at the same time turned to look at Liola. A dark, depressed aura was gathering around the Assassin.

Liola's face looked like he was in despair, which made Purity extremely worried, especially with Kaiser gloating on the side, but she didn't know what she should do.

Kaiser heard Purity's yell, but not only did he not put on a sad face, he raised his eyebrows, and crouched in front of the Assassin to scrutinize him. He even used his index finger to poke the Assassin.

Liola was already enraged at the fact that Kaiser handed over the necklace when he was unconscious, but now Kaiser was rubbing salt in his wounds. Liola's eyes flashed with murderous intent, and he reached out and grabbed Kaiser's damn index finger tightly.

"What! Wanna kill me?" Kaiser acted as if he didn't know he already made the Assassin furious, and threw more gasoline on the fire.

Liola gritted his teeth, and desperately thought of Anise's promise so he could control himself from pulling out Broken Silver to slice his friend in two…

Kaiser pulled back his finger, and asked Liola. "Let me ask you. What's more important, Anise or the damn necklace?"

Liola was shocked, and didn't understand the purpose of Kaiser's question.

Kaiser patiently waited for his answer.
Liola said after furrowing his brows. "Anise."

"Then let me ask you again. Whose life had been lost in exchange for yours?"

Kaiser's question hit Liola like a bolt of lightning. His murderous aura had been completely washed away, and he was back to his depressed look.

However, Kaiser still wasn't willing to let it go, so he opened his mouth and asked again.

"You are living because of Anise, do you really think you could easily throw your life away?"

Hearing this, Liola lowered his head as far as he could.

Seeing Liola abnormal action, Kaiser finally felt a little bit of sympathy. He said awkwardly.

"Anyhow, this is what I think: Anise would definitely not want you to lose your life over her necklace. She saved you not so you can die later, but instead for you to live well, right?"

Liola's body shook again.

What would Anise say in this situation? It must be… for him live well, right? She had always said so in the past.

"I can't believe Kaiser would actually talk seriously like this." Purity widened her eyes, and even Meinan was in disbelief.

"What? I am serious sometimes." Kaiser immediately protested.

"Haha, but it's really rare to see Kaiser this serious."

Even Daylight laughed, which made all three of them turn around to look at Daylight. Six widened eyes made Daylight feel awkward, so he asked.

"What? Why are you all suddenly looking at me like this?"

Kaiser frowned, "Uh, about the fact that we told you Liola was Lancelot's apprentice… We didn't lie to you on purpose, the situation required it, you know, b-because… oh right! I almost forgot, it was to save Liola."

'Not on purpose? It was practically premeditated…' Purity and Meinan listened to Kaiser lying again and cold sweat started running down their foreheads.

Daylight sported a solemn face, "Lying is wrong, but let's forget about the past. I knew you guys were trying to save Liola and had to lie, but I hope from now on, you guys won't use lies to achieve your goals."

Daylight's righteous demeanor made Purity and Meinan nod immediately, and even Kaiser looked embarrassed, indicating he agrees, but nobody knew how sincere he actually was, and even Daylight looked skeptically at Kaiser.

Kaiser gulped, then waved his hands and said,

"I won't. I only lie when I have no other options available. Now that Liola already handed over the necklace, and his Kung Fu sealed, not to mention Lancelot said he would send people to protect us. I don't believe there will still be situations where I would be forced to lie…"

Purity immediately used her hand to cover Kaiser's big mouth, and looked at Liola worriedly, fearing Liola would be provoked by what Kaiser said.

When they were all looking at Liola worriedly, he raised his head, and said as if deep in thought.

"Really? So you're saying there will be no more trouble?"

After Liola heard what Kaiser said, he finally realized, from now onwards there wouldn't be a ton of troubles pressuring him into breaking his promise with Anise, and he wouldn't put his companions into dangerous situations.

A plain and boring school life? Isn't it how he had always wanted to live?

Kaiser answered lazily, "Yeah, no more trouble."

Liola's darkened eyes began to flash silver lights.

He turned to look at Kaiser and others, and the four of them looked worried. For the first time, Liola felt it wasn't such a bad thing losing Anise's necklace. At the very least he wouldn't have to worry about harming the four people around him, and not having to worry they would lose their lives because of him.

Liola remembered when he was in the Dark Arena Pyramid, when he realized four of his companions were risking their lives to save him from the Dark Street. That feeling of fear and pain was something he would never want to experience again.

"Hmm, papa?"

Baolilong, who was lying on its stomach on Liola's legs and sleeping happily, suddenly woke up. It rubbed its sleepy eyes and yawned, then it tried to reach for the necklace as a habit, but only felt Liola's chest.

Baolilong was baffled, then it tilted its little head and said, "Mama is gone… Oh, right, mama said she will be back."

Liola and others were confused by what Baolilong said, but it was not unusual for Baolilong to speak nonsense.

Baolilong's babbling seemed to have attracted everyone's attention… Except Barbalis, who was sitting on the side still depressed for losing his seat as the top principal, but a light flashed across his eyes.

Liola softly touched Baolilong's white hair.

Baolilong was a bit surprised, because it was rare for Liola to do something indulging. The only time he acted like this, was when Liola decided to run away from them, so such tender action actually made Baolilong feel uneasy.

Its little chubby hands and feet wrapped tightly around Liola, and its eyes looked were saying,

'I'm never letting go'.

Looking at Baolilong's cuteness and his companions, Liola thought, if he lost the necklace so he'll never endanger these four people and a Dragon, then Anise would forgive him, right?

"Excuse me, uh…" They all heard a timid voice coming from the door, and everyone's attention was diverted towards.

They all saw Lanski standing at the door with a frown.

* * *

They were still in the lounge of the stadium where the ranking matches were.

However, if they were to raise their heads, they could clearly see the blue skies and white clouds. Being able to do so from the lounge could only mean one thing — the ceiling had all but disappeared.

If they were to look around more closely, they would notice some of the walls were missing, and only two remained.

The only thing remained in the entire room was probably the sofa where Liola and Barbalis were sitting.

Among the dust and debris, having a complete sofa sitting in the middle was unspeakably strange.

Originally, the lounge had only a hole caused by Yizhou's Dragon, but when Kaiser and others carried the unconscious Liola back, Yiyu and others from the Violet Academy swaggered over, informing them of their loss because they had deserted the match. Therefore, all the other principals decided for Violet Academy to be crowned as the winner.

Other than Barbalis' yells for unfairness, Kaiser and others wouldn't care at all.

However, Yiyu started to mock them… Mocking would have been fine, but he decided to mock the unconscious Liola and a Dragon.

Then there was someone who couldn't stand it anymore, so a Sacred White Dragon and the Angel Nana started battling against them… As soon as the Dragon and Mecha start fighting, the remaining three obviously join the fray.

It wouldn't have mattered much if nothing else happened. At most, it would have been two teams finishing the match they were supposed to have, since the arena was just a few steps away.

But things weren't so simple.

Aklan Academy students were very unhappy of losing their title as being students of the best academy. In addition, Violet Academy had extreme hatred towards them, so then things escalated into a brawl between two academies.

But if it's just a brawl between two academies, it wasn't unprecedented, and normally wouldn't destroy the stadium…

The problem was, Barbalis had gone crazy. When he heard he had lost his title as the top principal, he froze on the spot.

Until the brawl started, and a student carelessly shot a fireball towards him (to this day, it is still unknown which side the student belonged to). Barbalis then lost it and became a human fireball launching machine.

And now, the entire stadium only had two walls left, along with the sofa where Liola was placed.

Originally, the ground was covered with students moaning in pain, but at this time they were all cleared out… Erm, sent to the infirmary for treatment.

* * *

"Sorry, I should've knocked first, but… there wasn't a door here, so…"

Lanski stood awkwardly at where the door should've been, but there was nothing left of the door.

An angry, puffy face surfaced from behind Lanski — Jasmine. She was not polite like Lanski.

As soon as she saw Liola on the sofa, she immediately ran up, and put her hands on her waist, yelling like a lioness,

"Liola, you were ridiculous. Did you know everyone was worried about you? How could you walk away without saying anything, what do you think your baby is? How could you abandon him so easily? You, you really are…"

Jasmine kept saying "you", but still couldn't say the following words. She sighed and her angry expression dissipated, replaced by worried expression. She then asked,

"What happened to you? Why did you leave without saying anything?"

"I misunderstood you, I'm really sorry."

Lanski lowered her head, because she was very clear she had done something wrong. Though she didn't know what happened after, but she knew everything started with her accusations.

Although Lanski was prideful and arrogant, she will never push blame onto someone else, and she will apologize if she knew she had done something wrong.

Liola's expression changed. However, as soon as he saw Lanski's familiar hair and face, he couldn't stop himself from reaching for his necklace, but there was nothing in front of his chest.

A feeling of guilt surged in his heart. He couldn't save Anise's life, and now he couldn't even save her last possession… Liola was starting to feel a bit relieved, but now sank into self-loathing again.

Jasmine saw that Liola's depressed face, and thought he wasn't willing to accept Lanski's apology, so she spoke for her friend.

"Liola, don't blame Lanski. You know she was just being her righteous self, and she meant no harm. Forgive her, okay?"

Lanski felt she went too far. She completely forgot who she was and did a 90 degree bow towards Liola, then said loudly,

"Sorry, please forgive me."

Liola, who was absorbed in his own world of self-loathing, was dragged back to reality by Lanski's loud voice. He was baffled as he looked at the bowing Princess, unsure what Lanski was actually doing.

"Liola-dage, you should forgive the Princess!"

Purity finally spoke. She shook Liola's arm trying to help Lanski, but her action made Liola even more confused.

He thought, they wanted him to forgive Lanski? But what did Lanski do that he needed to forgive?

Liola face remained expressionless.

'Sigh, this guy must not even know what the heck is going on.'

Kaiser scratched his head, and knew making a Princess bow to Liola for too long was never a good thing, but unfortunately Liola was unparalleled in being obtuse…

Kaiser couldn't stand it anymore. He grabbed Liola's arm and whispered into his ear.

"Hey, a beauty is apologizing to you. You better coax her, say something like, 'Baby, I don't care what you do, I forgive you' and it will be all good!"

Liola glanced at Kaiser, and then diverted his attention back to Lanski.

Liola hesitatingly did as Kaiser asked, "It's fine, I forgive you."

As for the word "baby" and rest, he thought it was best to leave them out…

Lanski immediately raised her head. She carefully examined Liola's expression, and sure enough, she found no signs of him being angry with her. Liola seemed like he didn't really cared.

Lanski was very surprised, and thought Liola's tolerance was much higher than she had originally thought, and she was the one who seemed childish and naive.

Lanski couldn't help but blame herself. She said earnestly.

"Liola, I'm really sorry about how I treated you before. Can we forget about what happened, and I sincerely ask you, will you be my friend?"

After saying so, Lanski reached out her right hand to try to shake hands with Liola.

Kaiser immediately used his shoulder to push Liola, trying to tell Liola with his eyes to be friends with the Princess immediately.

Being friends with a Princess must have a dozen pros and no cons, so how could Kaiser let this opportunity go? Though the person being friends with a Princess wasn't him, but Liola's friend was practically Kaiser's friend too!

But what Kaiser and Lanski didn't know, was how much of an effect Lanski's actions had on Liola.

What Liola saw was Anise's smile and friendly hand. This scene looked as if Anise herself came out to tell Liola it was okay to lose the necklace.

Liola didn't need Kaiser's reminder, and he had already reached out with both of his hands to grab Lanski's right hand tightly.

Lanski was surprised at Liola holding her hand tightly, or it should be said that everyone was shocked by Liola's abnormal actions. But Liola himself found nothing wrong as he swam in the joy of Anise forgiving him.

Lanski uncomfortably glanced at her good friend Jasmine.

Jasmine was also staring at them with wide eyes. Lanski was worried about her good friend misunderstanding the situation, so she desperately withdrew her own hand, and said with emphasis.

"Then Liola, we will now be good friends. Oh, I hope we will always be good friends."

Liola raised his head to look deeply into Lanski's eyes, and his face was smiling.

The original cold face actually showed a rare warmth and kindness, which made Kaiser and other bystanders drop their jaws.

Kaiser even murmured while trembling.

"A smile is horrifying enough, and now his whole expression… Could it be, the world is going to end tomorrow? Waaahhh, I still have to earn a lot of money, and taste a lot of good food!"

Lanski was also somewhat surprised, but since she wasn't familiar with Liola and she didn't act exaggeratedly like Kaiser, she only felt strange that the ice cold eyes actually felt as soft and warm as the moonlight.

Liola's soft smile accompanied his clean and beautiful demeanor well. Though it was weird to describe a man this way, but Lanski still couldn't help but think,

'Could this man be a fairy under the moonlight?'

Though Lanski was worried Jasmine would misunderstand, but at this time she couldn't even take a glance at Jasmine with the corner of her eyes. It seemed her eyes… couldn't move an inch away from this silver-eyed man's face?

At this time, Jasmine's situation was near identical to Lanski's.

Her eyes stared at Liola greedily. Other than letting this moonlight fairy consumed her mind, Jasmine did not realize Liola's smile was currently directed at another girl.

Two girls staring at the same man, the atmosphere was very romantic…

Yeah right!

One man and one woman would be romantic. Two women one man is trouble. Kaiser held his head with both hands and shook it vigorously.

God!

Finally becoming friends with the Princess, but from what he could see, this entire debacle would more likely become trouble instead! No, he couldn't let this thing continue…

"NO!"

Everyone was stunned, and then they all looked at the person who yelled "no" — Barbalis.

They saw his messy hair, his blood-shot eyes, and his wrinkled Sorcerer robe. He didn't look anything like a principal (but did he ever?).

Everyone was confused while looking at Barbalis. Barbalis went crazy, and then pointed at his students and ordered.

"I must get back my position as the top principal! If you don't get it back for me, you are all expelled!"

"Damn! That's not even reasonable, how could we do that?"

Kaiser fought back without hesitation, but Barbalis didn't flinch like he usually did, but instead moved his terrifying face in front of Kaiser's, and said word for word.

"When I tell you to get it back, you get it back. If you can't get it back, then prepare to be buried alive with the dead!"

Though surprised by Barbalis' words, Kaiser wouldn't rest until he made a comeback.

"What do you mean buried alive, there has to be someone dead before you can bury us with them."

Barbalis ignored Kaiser, and then started murmuring and dancing again.

"Ahaha, right, let's do that. I will send students to assassinate all of the students in Violet Academy. Without any students, there won't be an academy, hahaha!"

Seeing Barbalis' crazy look, Kaiser coldly dragged Meinan over.

"Hey, go talk to your dad, otherwise you will have to be an Assassin soon."

Meinan weakly nodded. Though he didn't want to look for the father with whom he was in a cold war, he also didn't want to become an Assassin or be expelled after years of suffering in the academy.

"Do you like Lanski?" A question surfaced out of the blue.

While everyone's attention was on Barbalis, they were shock to hear such as question.

Who was it that brought up this question?

Everyone looked at the three people in a love triangle, only to realize the person who asked was someone part of the triangle.

Jasmine stared at Liola with wide eyes, awaiting his answer without hesitation.

Lanski immediately waved her hands and said, "Jasmine, why are you talking like this? You should know it's impossible for me to like Liola, didn't you already know?"

Lanski's face had turned completely red, and her speech stuttered. But she saw Jasmine was still stubbornly staring at Liola as if she had to have an answer. To prevent her friend from misunderstanding, Lanski said loudly,

"The person I-I like is Silver Mask. Jasmine, didn't you already know?"

'Isn't she practically confessing to Liola?'

Everyone looked at the Assassin with dropped jaws, waiting to see how Liola would respond to Lanski's love confession.

"I know you like Silver Mask, but I just want to ascertain whether Liola likes you is all. If the person he likes is you, then at least I would be emotionally prepared."

After saying so, Jasmine held her gaze at Liola, and asked again, "Do you like Lanski or do you like me?"

'This is really fun to watch…'

Everyone's eyes returned on the male lead of the love triangle, waiting to see if he would choose the Princess with unparalleled beauty, or the affinitive girl next door.

'Of course he should choose the Princess!' Kaiser and Purity both yelled in their mind, but their reasons were far different from one another.

Princess equals money, and Liola's money was also Kaiser's money, so of course Kaiser wanted him to choose the Princess!

Kaiser's eyes glowed. Lanski, in his eyes, was like a breathing gold mine.

A handsome hero Silver Mask being with the beautiful Princess would be the perfect ending to the fairy tale.

Purity looked sympathetically at Jasmine, 'Too bad you're not a Princess, sigh…'

"Jasmine is definitely 100 times better than Princess!" Meinan seriously protested for his good friend.

If Liola would score a perfect 100 on his Kung Fu, then his score for romance would be negative 100.

The Assassin who didn't understand love answered directly, "I like you more, Jasmine."

In Liola's heart, Jasmine was easier to be with than Lanski, so he answered he liked Jasmine more, but that was the full extent of his feeling for her.

To the Assassin, love was still a mystery.

However, this answer not only allowed Lanski to sigh in relief, it also made the straightforward Jasmine blush.

She answered with a stutter, "O-oh, is t-that so?"

The atmosphere finally seemed to return to normal.

Other than Barbalis, who was pulling his own beard and murmuring some strange ideas to himself, everyone was lazily enjoying the afternoon sun, to the point where they almost want to thank Yiyu for breaking the ceiling.

It wasn't strange, considering this group of late teens and early twenties went into the Dark Street just a few days ago with the thought of dying there, then ran into the Paladin, and fought with Violet Academy. The series of confrontations was too much even for the Aklan Academy Troublemaking Squad.

Everyone looked a bit lazy, but Lanski seemed like she had something to say. With the encouragement from her good friend Jasmine, Lanski finally said with a blush.

"Excuse me, do you know where Silver Mask is?"

Everyone froze, and they all looked towards Kaiser, including Silver Mask himself — Liola.

Lanski thought Kaiser knew Silver Mask's whereabouts, and a pair of beautiful and hopeful eyes stared at Kaiser.

'Bastards! What does this have to do with me?' Kaiser cursed in his mind, sported a smile.

"Silver Mask? He left with his master, and probably won't be coming back anytime soon."

Lanski looked like she had been hit by lightning. After the shock, her whole persona seemed to sink into depression, and her face was filled with sadness and despair.

The gang almost wanted to push Liola into her arms to try to comfort the Princess, but Kaiser's fierce eyes made everyone decide otherwise.

Kaiser had planned to make Silver Mask disappear from now on so he wouldn't cause them anymore trouble.

Kaiser had already forgotten the reason why Silver Mask appeared in the first place, and forgot it was because someone was greedy for Purity's brooch, therefore forcing Liola to become the man to fight the Dragon.

"T-then when will he be back?" Lanski tried very hard to hold back the fluster in her heart, but couldn't cover the trembling in her voice.

Everyone looked at Kaiser, trying to stop him from provoking the Princess.

Although Kaiser will often take pity on a girl, but if this girl were to bring him more trouble, he'd be the first one to push her into a fire pit.

Kaiser said without any hesitation, "He won't be back for a very, very long…"

"He will be back, soon."

Liola interrupted Kaiser's sentence, and even said this to Lanski. Kaiser's jaw dropped and looked at Liola,

'T-this guy just said he likes Jasmine more, and now says this to comfort Lanski… When did he become such a playboy and putting his feet into two doors*?'

[*: Chinese proverb for two timing.]

Liola, who didn't understand emotions, definitely didn't know anything about being a playboy.

The only reason he said it was because he didn't want to see Lanski… and by extension, Anise… having a sad expression on her face.

Lanski clearly sighed in relief, but still said in a worried manner,

"If Silver Mask is back, please tell me immediately."

Ignoring Kaiser's glare, Liola calmly nodded. Satisfied when he saw Lanski's smile resurfacing, he felt as if he saw Anise smiling at him, and Liola felt warmth in his heart.

Perhaps this time… he could really live a quiet and calm life?

Back to top

Chapter 3 : Auntie

The days after losing the ranking match had not been easy, especially when the reason was due to their absence. Even if Kaiser were to come up with random excuses, such as the Paladin was in need of rescue, etc, it was of no use.

"Nonsense! Why would the Paladin would need rescuing? Even if he did, he would look for the Dark Knight or the Dragon Emperor. He would never look for you unless everyone else in the world was dead."

Some Knight ignored all the chivalric codes and started swearing.

That's… because we all got food poisoning, so we all had to go to the bathroom.

Kaiser thought about it, and the Knight was right. If the Paladin was in trouble, the situation couldn't be handled by a couple of students, so he immediately changed his excuse.

"So you're saying the principal was so kind, he used a group teleportation spell just to move all of you to bathrooms?"

All the Sorcery students present said with a sunken face.

Uh…

Everyone who knew Barbalis would know he would rather force the students to poop in the stadium than let for them to give up on the match, let alone being kind enough to teleport them to the bathroom.

Kaiser also understood it was impossible to fool the Sorcery students whom Barbalis had tormented for years.

And the result of all the failed excuses was the Troublemaker Gang being chased by students from all three schools for a week.

Every place they could possibly hide, Kaiser had been there at least once, and now Liola and Kaiser were hidden in a very secretive place.

"Liola, come a bit closer." Kaiser's voice could be heard in a pitch dark place, together with some tinkling noises.

Liola quietly moved a bit closer.

Kaiser continued to say, "No no, I can't hold myself back anymore. Liola, I have to hug you."

Liola hesitated a bit, but he himself also couldn't restrain himself. He thought about it, and Liola actually reached out and grabbed Kaiser, who also hugged back. As they did, they felt their bodies getting warmer…

"AHH?!" Along with a scream, the dark place was suddenly lit up. Under the bright light, Liola and Kaiser couldn't see who it was.

"W-what are you guys doing in the freezer? Haha, even your hair has frosted. Even if you guys are willing to die for love, did you really have to commit a lovers' suicide by freezing yourselves in the freezer? Ahaha…"

The person who opened the door rolled on the floor laughing at the two frozen human popsicles.

"M-Mi-zerui." Shivering, Kaiser called out the person's name, and then he looked around to see if there were any other students.

Kaiser was freezing to the point where his blood almost froze, or rather, it had already frozen. He wanted to jump out of the freezer… but then he was shocked to he realized that…

"Damn it, my hand is stuck on Liola's shirt!"

Kaiser desperately struggled, but his hand really felt like it was part of Liola's shirt, his hand was firmly glued onto Liola's shirt.

Liola frowned as he tried to move his hand; unfortunately, he was in the same predicament as Kaiser. Thus, in the freezer, there were two people who were stuck together, and outside was a man rolling on the ground laughing so hard he almost suffocated.

After struggling for quite a while, Kaiser and Liola finally escaped their "bondage" predicament. Kaiser looked at Mizerui, who was still laughing, bitterly.

Had it not been Mizerui; someone who Kaiser couldn't mess with, he would have already chopped the man into minced meat and thrown him inside the freezer, so the kitchen staff could make dumplings out of him.

"When did you come back?" Kaiser grunted, and decided not to trifle with this wanted criminal. Instead, he was curious. Why did Mizerui suddenly come back after being gone for so long?

Hearing the question, Mizerui finally got off the ground and stood up, and seriously answered Kaiser's question. Although the corners of his mouth would occasionally tilt upwards, especially when he looked at the freezer with the corner of his eyes.

"I've been back for quite a while, but I've been busy. When I finally had time to look for you, I searched the entire campus but couldn't find you…"

"Duh, we hadn't done anything this week other than hiding desperately. Didn't you know? All three schools are hunting us. If they find us, I think we really would end up being chopped into pieces and thrown into the freezer."

Kaiser continued to murmur with dissatisfaction, "Why do we have to be hunted while that guy, Daylight, is completely fine. He's still walking around the School of Knight minding his own business. He was a part of the M.I.A. group too!"

"Daylight is very strong." Liola said bluntly.

Compared to the protective shield user Meinan, the Mecha-less Purity, the seemingly useless Kaiser, and Silver Mask…

After some thought, Liola suddenly remembered something.

Strange, he didn't even go to any of the matches, and everyone didn't know he was Silver Mask… So why… would he have to hide with Kaiser?

Could it be he didn't need to hide at all? Liola suddenly found out the shocking truth.

"Liola, you lost your Kung Fu and your dragon cross necklace. What do you plan to do now?" Mizerui asked with a smiling face.

Liola said after a moment of silence, "Live peacefully."

Mizerui's eyes flashed with interest, and his smile seemed to carry a bit of mockery, but Mizerui didn't say anything in response. Instead, he took out a silver mask from behind him, and held it up to Liola's face,

"Looks like this will be useless, then?"

The moment Liola saw the silver mask, his heart trembled a bit.

Seeing the intact mask Mizerui held up, Liola felt the mask was calling for him, hoping it would be worn again.

Liola saw it as a dilemma. However, he had planned to live peacefully, and therefore he wouldn't need the mask, but for some reason, Liola felt a strong desire to get the mask again.

Wavering between two choices, Liola reached his hand out, but froze before touching the mask.

Mizerui seemed patient, held the mask without moving, and watched the Assassin's every move of indecision.

Mizerui was practically laughing coldly as he thought, 'How could it be so easy for an extraordinary person to live an ordinary life?'

Kaiser grabbed the mask, and looked at it while salivating.

"Shiny, hehe, this mask must be worth quite a lot of money! I'll just keep it then."

Kaiser quickly put the mask inside his coat, giving neither Mizerui nor Liola any time to grab it back.

"You…"

Mizerui was shocked, the mask can't possibly be sold to others. He immediately wanted to retrieve the mask from Kaiser, but Kaiser mischieviously hid behind Liola, and even poked his head out from behind Liola's back with a shameless expression.

Mizerui grunted, how could the sealed Liola stop him from getting the mask back?

However, Kaiser's eyes suddenly looked wise, and his joking blue eyes suddenly turned into a deep, ocean blue.

The look in Kaiser's eyes made Mizerui stop all of a sudden, and suspicions filled his mind:

'Is this guy putting on a disguise, or…'

A million thoughts ran through his mind, but the last one he thought of was one pessimistic thing Barbalis said: "If it's meant to be, it will be, if it's not meant to be, no matter what you do, it won't be."

Mizerui glanced at Liola, whose cold Assassin presence was now completely gone, and the only thing left behind was a pessimistic big boy who wanted to live day-to-day.

Mizerui sighed. Everything he had done before sank into the sea like a big rock, just as Barbalis had said…

'Perhaps one day it will resurface again?'

"Well, whatever. Up to you then." Mizerui sighed again as his body faded away, but before he was completely gone, he said,

"Liola, when the world is no longer at peace, how would you live a peaceful life?"

Liola felt his heart skip a beat. But before he had a chance to ask Mizerui what he meant, his body already completely faded, leaving behind only a shadow imprinted in Liola's heart.

Could it be… the peaceful life he had just started was already ending? Could it be he can never live in peace? Liola thought, and his mood was at its worst.

* * *

"Ahhhh, Liola, save me!"

Kaiser suddenly cried in pain. Liola was surprised, had his peaceful life passed by already?

Even though he was sad, Liola still tried to do what companions do, and immediately turned around to try to save Kaiser.

As soon as he turned, Liola's silver eyes saw a strange scene: Kaiser was held in the air like a little kitten, and the "person" holding him was about 180cm tall (~5'11") with a body full of muscle, and the Arnold Schwarzenegger-like face was complemented by a head full of curly hair.

The strange creature wore a white apron along with a long skirt with little pink flowers.

'What is this creature? Even the seen-it-all Assassin Liola couldn't help but take a step back.

"Why did you two little pretty dolls come to play in the kitchen? Are you hungry?"

Though this unknown lifeform looked vicious, the statement it made didn't seem ferocious at all. Instead it said with a smile and spoke gently… that is, if the arc formed by the muscles on its face counted as a smile.

Although the voice was as deep as nails on a blackboard, someone with such a deep voice talking about dolls would already count as soft.

"Liola, save me…" Kaiser's hand and feet waved around for a while to no avail, so he ended up simply helplessly hanging in the air, and used his tears to beg Liola, who was slowly backing away.

Liola's Assassin instinct was guiding him. Judging from what he saw, this unknown lifeform didn't seem hostile. But being foreign, who knew if normal instincts applied with them?

While Liola was examining his potential opponent, and Kaiser thought he was going to be eaten alive, the unknown lifeform grabbed Kaiser like a doll and set him on a chair. Then a big hand grabbed the thin Assassin, and placed him on another chair. The unknown lifeform then patted both Liola's and Kaiser's heads.

"Don't move around, Auntie will now make you some food." After saying so, the unknown lifeform, calling itself Auntie, grabbed a wok big enough to fit both Kaiser and Liola, and then used a shovel like a spatula.

Auntie muttered a few lines, and then intense flames suddenly appeared on the bottom of the wok.

Although Kaiser lacked magical strength, he didn't lack any magical knowledge.

While trembling, he said, "It's actually a Firewall spell. Is this Auntie going to use Firewall to burn us into corpses?"

Liola looked at the wok and explained calmly, "It's not going to be burnt, because then it can't be eaten."

"Damn!" Kaiser jumped up from the seat.

"I'd rather be burnt than eaten, especially if I'm going to be made into the same dish as you? Should it be called Kaiser Fried Liola or Liola Fried Kaiser? Hmm, the former one sounds better."

'That's really not what's important here.' Liola thought quietly.

The reason why Liola sat calmly on the chair instead of using his speed to escape was… he had already saw Auntie tossed in whole chickens, fish, bowls of vegetables, salt… and other large quantities of ingredients into that super-sized wok.

The wok that was large enough for two people was already 80% full, and there was no more room for a whole person. Therefore, Liola guessed, neither him nor Kaiser would be one of the ingredients.

Bam! Bam!

After two loud noises, two pails were placed in front of them… Liola realized the pails were filled with food.

'So these are… bowls, right?'

"Little children, eat more. Look at how small you are, you must not be getting enough food."

Auntie laughed as she used her hands to pat Liola and Kaiser on the back, which made them almost faceplant into the pails.

'Is this edible?' Liola looked at the whole chicken and fish inside the pail.

'It does smell quite delicious…'

"Delicious! Tasty!"

Kaiser already started chewing on the whole chicken. At the same time, he verified that, despite the horrific appearance of the food inside the pail, the taste was unexpectedly good.

Liola hesitated, but Auntie patted Liola's back again, hurrying him to eat. Liola then grabbed a fish and started to eat, so Auntie would stop patting him on the back and pushing him head-first into the pail.

After fighting with the food for a while, Kaiser's pail was actually only half empty! But the result was Kaiser holding onto his stomach and couldn't move an inch while sitting on the chair.

As for Liola, his pail looked practically untouched, he hadn't been hungry, so the Assassin stopped after eating a fish and some vegetables.

The Auntie was clearly unhappy. She held the kitchen knife and the shovel, and stood behind the two like a mountain, as if she was saying no one was allowed to leave if they don't finish.

Even for the eataholic Kaiser, he was so full now that he wanted to vomit whenever he saw food, so how could Liola possibly finish his own pail of food?

Auntie narrowed her eyes and asked. "If you guys aren't hungry, then why are you in the kitchen?"

"Hey hey, maybe Liola wasn't hungry, but I ate half a pail, doesn't count as hungry to you? Unless you usually cook for Dragons? Crap, I said too much… ugh."

Kaiser coughed a few times. The food reached his throat and almost came out of his mouth along with his speech.

'Dragons?'

Liola saw the mountains of food, and an idea dawned on him. He immediately called for Baolilong using telepathy.

Compared to the pathetic situation of hiding constantly for a week, Baolilong, who was loved by everyone who saw it, was comfortably sleeping in the dorm, until Liola called it.

Baolilong rubbed its little eyes and responded to papa's calling.

A little magic circle formed underneath the table, and little Baolilong appeared from it, then crawled out.

Before Liola mentioned anything about why Baolilong was summoned, it had already started reducing the mountains of food inside the pails as well as the ones in the wok.

Auntie, who was originally dissatisfied Liola and Kaiser had left more than half of the food, started to show a satisfied smile after seeing Baolilong eliminating the food by eating a whole chicken with every bite.

"You sure eat a lot and fast. Such a good baby." Auntie sighed with satisfaction, but the air produced by her sigh messed up Liola's shoulder-length hair.

"Holy cow, I only knew of an interdimensional bag, but now I know there's such a thing as interdimensional stomach. Hey, Liola, looks like you would need several stadiums worth of food to feed that little runt of yours."

Kaiser looked at Baolilong clearing the food like a tornado as he rejoiced in the misfortune of the penniless Dragon's father, Liola.

'Making money.'

Liola remembered something he couldn't forget. For him, making money would have been simple. Although different worlds had different needs, the Adorning Flowers' Assassin organization clearly showed Liola that every world needed Assassins.

As the best Assassin, what stopped him from making a lot of money? Unfortunately, he made a promise not to kill, what was worse was he was completely sealed…

"How do I make money?" Liola whispered.

Though Liola murmured quietly, Auntie heard it clearly.

The giant body suddenly moved from beside Baolilong to behind Liola's back, and Liola found himself engulfed in a giant shadow.

The shadow could belong to nobody but that unknown lifeform named Auntie, but why would Auntie stand behind him? Liola began to wonder if his battle power was enough to beat Auntie.

A pair of heavy hands landed on Liola's shoulder, and a face three times the size of Liola's got close to his ear and whispered,

"Little baby, are you the little little baby's father?"

Liola's ear rung for a long while before he could answer, "Yes."

Auntie's giant head shook.

"Look at how much this baby eats. It probably needs three cows per meal before it would be full. Little baby, you would probably have to make a lot of money to feed little little baby."

Liola and Kaiser were both stupefied. 'T-three cows? Can it be?'

Although Baolilong ate a lot, but not to the point of having three cows per mean, right?

Burp~~ Baolilong finally licked the wok clean, and then let out a long burp.

Baolilong patted its slightly protruding belly, and yelled, "Baolilong is now full, full~"

Hearing Baolilong's declaration of being full, Liola felt bad. Baolilong had never said it was full before, but instead simply continued eating without stopping.

'Could it be… Baolilong had never been full before?'

Thinking about the subject, Liola felt disappointed. He turned to Kaiser, who was sitting beside him and asked, "Kaiser, how much is a cow?"

"A cow? Let's go with the cheapest one, so probably at least three Gold coins."

Kaiser had probably also guessed Baolilong's real appetite. Thinking of Liola's money as his own, Kaiser's heart started to feel a pain because of money.

Three cows per meal, nine cows for three meals, three gold coins for one cow, so that's 27 gold coins per day…

Liola remembered that being Purity's bodyguard, they would only get one Silver coin per day, and ten Silver coins equals one Gold coin, so how was he to get the remaining 26 gold and 9 silver?

Sigh, Kaiser sighed and patted Liola's back, "Looks like you should raise your baby by being a duck."

[T/N: Duck — In Mandarin it's the same as being a male prostitute or a host.]

"Being a duck?" Liola frowned.

'How would being a duck feed Baolilong? Unless ducks were worth a lot on this world?'

"Hahaha, come to Auntie. Auntie has nothing here, except a lot of meat."

Auntie hit Liola's and Kaiser's back with her large palms. Liola's face turned pale as a result, and Kaiser lied face down on the table, and blood could be vaguely seen from the corner of his mouth.

"Meat meat!"

After hearing about meat, Baolilong seemed to forget who its papa was. It jumped onto Auntie's back, and yelled with sparkling eyes,

"Meat meat!"

"A lot of meat? For free?"

Kaiser's eyes shone as well, because then he wouldn't have to worry about food again. Besides… hehe, the extra meat could be sold, then he wouldn't even have to worry about money.

"Of course not. The meat this little baby eats will be paid by the two of you working." Auntie opened its mouth and laughed out loud, and her shaking muscles made Liola and Kaiser cringe.

Kaiser, who was powerless to escape, heard the word 'working', and suddenly felt his knees were alive again.

As he screamed something like "not me", he beelined toward the kitchen exit. Auntie easily swung her big hands, and dragged Kaiser back. Even Liola, who sat on a chair, was picked up like a cat.

"I can walk by myself." Liola said calmly while suspended on air. At the same time he was not used to having nothing but air under his feet.

Auntie raised her head and laughed, "Don't be shy, little babies, just go with Auntie."

Having said so, her feet began to rapidly move forward. Each step she made, three meters flew by. Despite the fact that the pace of her footsteps were slow, the people being dragged by her felt like their surrounding sceneries were flowing by as if they were on a train.

"I knew it! I knew it! Nothing good ever happens with you. Damn, I should've gone with Meinan." Kaiser snapped.

Liola quietly thought,

Who was it who said nobody would ever find them inside the freezer, and dragged him along…

Back to top

Chapter 4 : Well Deserved Pride

Purity and Meinan, who were also being pursued, made the right decision — found someone powerful to back them up!

As a friend of the strongest female Blue Knight in the school, Meinan wisely decided to grab Purity and ran to the School of Knights, and followed Jasmine wherever she went.

However, if it was just Jasmine, perhaps it wouldn't be enough to suppress all the angry students. Luckily, Jasmine always had Princess Lanski next to her.

"Sigh, you didn't do it on purpose, and everyone shouldn't pursue you like this."

Jasmine helplessly looked at the surrounding Knights who were looking at them maliciously but didn't dare to come close to them.

Purity and Meinan both nodded desperately with tears in their eyes, but unfortunately the crowd around them wouldn't let them go so easily.

If Purity or Meinan got any more than three feet away from Jasmine and Lanski, someone's sword will immediately accidentally" slip and fly towards them, or magic projectiles would curve around towards them.

These accidents made Lanski and Jasmine extremely tired.

Lanski, with her not-so-good temper, stared at the people angrily, and then said with a prideful voice,

"This is outrageous. Are Knights only good at fighting the weak and helpless? If you guys really are brave, then seek justice with Knight Daylight!"

The surrounding Knights' faces sank, and some walked off unwillingly, but there were quite a few who stubbornly stayed behind.

The School of Mecha Fighter students completely ignored Lanski's speech, because they weren't Knights, so of course they didn't have to obey the Knight's code of not harming the weak.

"Hmmph!"

Lanski saw there were many people who remained, and her mood worsened. She grabbed Purity by the hand and dragged her,

"Ignore these people, let's go eat."

Seeing Lanski's actions, Jasmine laughed and also she grabbed Meinan's hand. Meinan smiled at her gratefully. They had been good friends ever since they were young, holding hands wasn't anything strange to him.

"Though people probably wouldn't dare to confront Daylight, but…" Meinan was seriously worried about his companion as he walked,

"I haven't seen him for a whole day. I hope he didn't run into trouble he couldn't handle."

Jasmine let out a resounding laughter.

"No one would dare to cause Daylight any trouble… Ah, correction, no Knight would dare to trouble him. A few days ago, there were a few idiotic Mecha Fighter students who plotted against him, but after being beaten to the ground by Daylight, he gave them a two hour lecture about how 'plotting to harm someone is against the Knight's code'. Since then no one has ever dared to mess with him, or even look at him in disdain."

Lanski nodded in agreement. "Sir Daylight's Knightly Spirit is quite exemplary."

"But still not as good as Silver Mask, right?" Jasmine interrupted with a smile, and her statement immediately made Lanski blush.

"Sigh, if Lanski and Jasmine end up finding out Liola-dage is Silver Mask, then…"

Purity felt sorry for the two girls who were best friends and, though they didn't know it yet, rivals in love.

* * *

"Barbeque, the most delicious and most outlandish meat are all here in 'Delicious Barbeque Restaurant'. Pretty miss, don't leave, inside we have the most handsome and pretty man who would cook for you. Not only will you get the best meal of your life, you can also satisfy your eyes. If you're brave enough, you can even go touch the handsome cook's hands!"

"Really…."

"Hehehe, of course it's real." That is, if you could move fast enough to touch that man's hand.

"I'll let you in another secret, this handsome guy used to be an Assassin, so he looks cold yet arrogant, definitely not something many people would see in their life time. Listen to how many girls are screaming inside, just seeing the beautiful man would make girls blush and scream, if you don't go in to take a look, you'd be missing an opportunity of a life time!"

'Cold, arrogant, handsome, and used to be Assassin…'

Meinan and Purity started to feel those adjectives were becoming rather familiar, and the guy who advertising had an even more familiar tone of voice and choice of words.

The two reflexively looked towards the voice, a head of green hair and a face that made people want to punch him the moment they see him, appeared in their sights.

"Kaiser?!" Meinan and Purity both yelled at the same time.

Purity continued hastily, "Kaiser, what did you do to Liola-dage? Don't tell me… To make money, y-you told Liola-dage to sell his body…"

After Kaiser heard the familiar voice, he turned his head to look at Meinan and Purity, then said in a laid back tone,

"Aiya, you guys are finally here? I thought you two were hiding to the point where you weren't even going to eat. But you guys were clever; you hid behind the Princess and Jasmine."

Kaiser babbled on and on for a while, but said nothing about Liola.

Purity raised her voice a full octave and yell, "Kaiser, what about Liola-dage?!"

Kaiser smiled, and his flashing white teeth made Purity and Meinan shiver.

Kaiser pointed at the 'Delicious Barbeque Restaurant' behind him, "Inside, but if you guys go in and don't order you guys will be damned."

"Kaiser, why are you advertising for this restaurant?" Meinan was shocked. It would be fortunate for them if Kaiser didn't destroy the restaurant, but he's actually helping them advertise?

Hearing this, Kaiser's face sank again and again, and then said a word that sounded like a mystery.

"Auntie…"

"Auntie?" Meinan was stupefied. He began to think of who they would call "Auntie". Furthermore, how was the person able to compel the lazy Kaiser to stand obediently at the door and advertise?

"Liola is inside?" As soon as Jasmine heard Liola's name, she ignored everything else, dragging Lanski and Purity to charge inside the restaurant.

The moment she walked in, like the other girls in the restaurant, she stared blankly at the center of the barbeque stand where Liola was.

Liola stood inside a circular barbecuing station. He had a shovel in each of his hands, and the clothes he wore were the same one from when he and Jasmine had a date.

On his upper body, he wore a tight shirt, and the middle of which had a pentacle sewn on it with gold lining. On his lower body, he wore a pair of undecorated, tight-fitting pants. Along with his black boots, his black outfit accentuated Liola's night-like temperament.

In one moment, Liola looked like an unmoving constellation in the dark night sky, in the next he started to move at the speed of a shooting star. The simple act of turning the meat to cook the other side looked like a sword dance in the hands of Liola.

Liola used the shovel in his left hand to toss the meat, and the beef lightly flew and spun in the air. His right hand didn't sit idle either. After lightly putting the vegetables into the cooking station and a few dexterous moves later, the vegetables were cooked and lined up perfectly.

At this time, Liola paused briefly, and the crowd's breath seemed to have paused as well. The real show was just about to start.

Liola's hands moved quickly, sometimes they would cross one another and sometimes they would draw circles, and the food on the station seemed to happily dance in the air. Then even the seasoning joined the dance atop of the cooking station.

The food dance not only looked elegant, it even had a fatally delicious scent drawing everyone closer to the station.

Finally, Liola flung his finger, and a clean, white plate crossed paths with the dancing barbecue, catching the dancing food one by one.

Liola swung his hand around and securely set the plate on the table next to the cooking station.

Next to the table sat a Knight with a clean white uniform. Judging by the lining of the uniform, the person was actually a Blue Knight. He used his silverware and grabbed a bite from the plate. After chewing slowly for a while, he turned and gave a thumb up towards Liola.

"This is practically the most colorful, most delicious, and best smelling dish, Liola."

Liola smiled at Daylight, and then started the barbecue dance again and again. Because the restaurant was completely packed, it didn't allow him to have even a little bit of time to rest, and waiters beside him also anxiously waited for him to cook, so they could bring the meals to the customers.

"Daylight, why are you here? And what is L-Liola-dage doing?"

Purity was so shocked; her mouth was hanging wide open. Liola being so busy, he had to greet them with nothing but with his eyes after hearing their voices. Thus, Purity could only throw all her questions at Daylight who was eating leisurely.

"Are you guys here for dinner too? Come sit with me, let's eat together." Daylight heard Purity's voice, and beckoned everyone to eat together.

Purity sat down next to Daylight, and a pink face got closer to closer to Daylight, to the point of almost touching his face.

"Tell me! What the heck is Liola-dage and Kaiser doing?"

Seeing Purity's face almost on top of his, Daylight felt rather awkward, and tried to back up, but Jasmine's fist was on his back, and she looked like she was saying "get away":

"Sir Daylight, could you explain why Liola is here selling meat, please?"

[T/N: 'Selling meat' is a double entendre here, it could mean literally selling meat, or it could mean prostitution]

Though Jasmine had been satisfied after seeing Liola's performance, and even excited because she saw Liola's smile.

However, the moment she saw Liola surrounded by blushing and screaming girls, it made her unhappy, as if her personal belonging was being shown off in a museum to the rest of the world.

Under the pressure of these two girls, Daylight had no choice but looked at Purity's big glasses and said, "Liola and Kaiser are working here, I heard it's for Baolilong's meals."

"Liola-dage perhaps would work for Baolilong, but the lazy bum Kaiser would never do that!" Purity grabbed Daylight's shoulders with her hands and started to shake him.

Daylight hurried to explain. "I-I don't know either. That's what they said. I was just walking by, on my way to get dinner, and I saw Kaiser advertising outside, so I walked in."

Purity stared at Daylight, trying to figure out if he was lying. But as soon as she remembered Daylight's exemplary Knightly spirit, she thought it would be impossible for him to lie.

Purity moved her face away, and settled her attention on the plate before her. It was then when she realized Meinan was zealously munching away. Seeing Liola's food being quickly exterminated by Meinan, Purity hastily joined him. She completely didn't notice Daylight sighing in relief, but also seemed to be blushing.

"You're working to feed the baby? Okay."

Hearing Liola's reason, Jasmine thought of the last time she and Liola went out to eat and the bill from all the steaks Baolilong ate… She had to live off of Lanski for a whole month after that.

Although she didn't like Liola attracting other customers, and thus getting her countless love rivals, but since it was all for the baby's terrifying appetite, Jasmine pouted and joined the barbecue extermination squad. Since she couldn't get Liola to bite, she could only take a bite of his food as way of comfort.

"Why does this look… very familiar?!" Lanski looked at Liola's dance with shovels and food, and felt his moves looked very familiar, as if…

Everyone (except Jasmine, of course) heard Lanski, and almost choked on the barbecue in their mouths. All of their eyes widened, worried that Lanski might have discovered Liola was the same person as Silver Mask.

In fact, telling Jasmine and Lanski about the truth wouldn't have mattered much considering they had been well-acquainted with Liola, and these two people could keep secrets well, but just as luck would have it, they were both in a love triangle they weren't even aware of.

This situation made Daylight, who told everyone not to lie, choose to temporarily play dead, to try to avoid the deadly love question. But Lanski became more suspicious, and things made a turn for the worse.

"Of course it would look similar. This barbecue move was taught by Silver Mask himself. That idiot Liola had to train for ages before he could do this. Had I not been too cute and thus lack an imposing aura when I do it, I would have told Liola to move over and let me do it."

Kaiser sat down next to them, forgetting his job as a waiter in the restaurant, and actually started to grab silverware to eat the meat meant for the customers.

Lanski was shocked for a moment, then she hurriedly turned her head to ask, "Silver Mask is back?"

"No, he taught Liola before he left."

Kaiser continued to lie without flustering at all.

As for Daylight, who was strongly against lies, did nothing except frown, then lowered his head and continue eating. Even for him, someone who didn't understand feeling and love, it would be difficult to have an ideal outcome for all of this.

"Is that so?" Lanski couldn't seem to cover her disappointment.

"Silver Mask has an important order, and for a long time will be traveling around the world. He wouldn't have any free time to himself, let alone time for a girlfriend. I think he probably wants to be single for the rest of his life."

Kaiser purposely sighed and shook his head, and at the same time trying to hint at Lanski.

Sure enough, Lanski's body briefly shook intensely. Her otherwise bright face looked darkened.

She remembered that, ever since meeting Silver Mask, she hadn't actually been with him many times, and Lanski's heart felt even more bitter. Her eyes began to water, and Lanski immediately stood up to say goodbye,

"S-sorry, excuse me…"

Before she even finished, her voice started to choke. As a Princess, she would never allow herself to cry in front of others. Before she actually completed her farewells, she rushed out the door.

Jasmine, who saw her good friend being heartbroken, and immediately left to catch up to her. Before she left, Jasmine turned around to look at Liola one more time, and at the same time feel happy the man she loved was as ordinary as him, and didn't need to run around the world because of some important orders. At the same time, she also felt a heartache for her friend Lanski, who loved such an extraordinary person; Silver Mask.

Having seen everything, Liola frowned and thought, could the barbecue he cooked taste so bad that Lanski had to rush out the door?

"Hey, Kaiser, you made the Princess feel bad." Purity felt the need to correct the injustice done to the Princess.

"Hmmph, feeling bad now would be better than turning those two good friends into enemies in the future, right?"

Kaiser grunted, and then continued, "Especially now that Liola lost all his Kung Fu, and would never disguise himself as Silver Mask again. It would be better for the Princess to give up on her hopes. The longer it drags on, the more heartbroken she will be."

When Kaiser finished talking, he realized everyone was staring at him strangely.

Kaiser felt an itch in his back and yelled, "Why are you looking at me like that? Are you all in love with me? Let me say this out straight, I'm not interested in any of you three! But if big boss Purity is interested in providing for me, then I might be a little bit interested in you."

"Kaiser, don't be rude to the customers."

Alongside with the deep soft voice and a giant shadow, Kaiser was picked up like a kitten.

The others raised their heads to the point where their necks were forming a right angle with their body before they were able to see the face of this person.

When they saw the person's face, their eyes widened, and their mouths became "O"-shaped, plus their bodies felt petrified. They all looked like they were little clay dolls.

"Auntie, I was wrong…"

Kaiser performed a 180 degree turn in the air he seemed to have gotten used to, and then looked at Auntie with his sparkling eyes.

"Auntie, I will go help immediately. Ah, look over there, I think they don't have enough waiters. Auntie, let me down, I have to go over there to help."

As if he was trying to convey his willingness to help, Kaiser's arms and legs were waving in the air, and Auntie nodded with satisfaction.

She put Kaiser back down on the ground, and Kaiser planned to run back to the restaurant door to continue the easiest job: running his mouth.

Who knew the back of his collar would be grabbed by Auntie, and Kaiser's escape plan failed.

He let out a bitter laugh, widened his eyes innocently, and asked, "Auntie, what else do you need from me?"

Auntie cracked open her mouth with a smile, "Remember to free up some time next weekend. Auntie will bring you guys to a grand occasion."

"Grand occasion?" Kaiser asked hesitatingly.

Ever since he had known Liola, hadn't he seen enough of those? He was afraid that with Liola and himself there, they might end up in the history books.

"Yeah. The leader of every world will be gathering at Aklan Academy. Our restaurant was asked by the principal to provide 30 dishes. You two can act as accompanying waiters~."

Auntie's elongated syllable at the end with her deep voice gave everyone goosebumps.

"Papa/Mama will be here?" Meinan and Purity both stood up and asked in unison.

"Hmm?" Auntie's big eyes looked towards the two, and questioned loudly.

Meinan and Purity looked at each other uneasily.

Though the two had no interest in their parents' position or power, but at least they knew that unless something important affects the world had happened, they would never meet each other like this. After all, their relationship wasn't the greatest, but now they are actually going to meet?

"Something's up, I have to go ask papa."

Meinan felt uneasy, and immediately ran out the restaurant without saying anything else, leaving Purity behind, who felt just as uneasy, but couldn't run back to the Commerce Alliance.

Kaiser, who understood the world's situation, frowned as well, but instead he wondered if he should attend?

If he goes, Kaiser was honestly worried he and Liola might mess up the meeting, then they really have to run to another world to hide. If he doesn't, Kaiser secretly felt they would eventually be caught up by whatever the issue was…

"Auntie, can our classmate come with us?" Kaiser calmly pointed at Daylight, and thought if he's going, at least he will be dragging along a bodyguard.

"Of course he can." Auntie smiled as she touched Daylight's head, and it almost pushed Daylight's head into his neck like a turtle.

Daylight was slightly stunned by Kaiser's request. But when he thought of Liola who lost all his Kung Fu, letting them go by themselves was indeed not the best idea. Daylight therefore did not protest to Kaiser (ab)using him as such.

Kaiser suddenly laughed with his teeth showing, "Then to not make a fool out of yourself, Daylight, come here and enjoy the feeling of being a waiter."

"Hmm?" Daylight suddenly remembered what Kaiser said to advertise…

'He's not going to add something about a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to see an Aklan Academy Blue Knight being a waiter or something like that, right?'

* * *

Jasmine finally caught up to Lanski, but she saw the string of tears on the ground. Knowing Lanski's stubbornness, Jasmine could only grab Lanski and walk her to the only quiet place she could think of; the place where Jasmine met with Liola for the first time.

After it all quieted down, the only thing Lanski saw with her head held down, was a blurry field of grass. She probably understood Jasmine must've brought her to somewhere deserted.

Lanski finally gave up caring about Princess' etiquette. She knelt down on the grass, and put her head between her knees, with her shoulders twitching.

Jasmine knew it was rare for Lanski to cry, and decided not to stop her. Jasmine thought it was time for Lanski to let all the tears out.

"Jasmine… a-am I hated by everyone?"

Lanski didn't even raise her head, and her voice grew quieter after each word, fearing the answer would be "Yes".

Instead, Jasmine burst out laughing.

"What is there to hate about you? If you act obnoxious and everyone hated you, why would I treat you as my best friend? Unless you think I'm using you to increase my status?"

After saying so, Jasmine even sported an angry face, and Lanski hurriedly raised her head to deny,

"Of course you're not. Jasmine's nobility is not any less than Sir Daylight's Knightly spirit."

"Hahaha… nobility? Lanski, you make it sound like I'm a hermit. Should I go take a string and live in the mountains?"

Jasmine started laughing, and Lanski could finally let go of the uneasiness she felt.

Lanski heard Jasmine's compliment and her face blushed. Since she had just cried, Lanski's long lashes supported a few droplets of tears. She seemed a far cry from the cold, prideful Princess she usually was. She was now an adorable, delicate girl.

Jasmine tenderly wiped away Lanski's tears as she said,

"Tsk tsk, if you run into Silver Mask in your current state, even if his heart was made out of ice, you would be able to melt it."

"I don't think I could. If I am in his heart, then why would he never look for me when he had gone to the academy several times?" Lanski laughed bitterly.

Thinking every time she saw Kaiser and others, she was asking them about Silver Mask, to the point where she felt shameful every time she opens her mouth to talk to them.

A girl asking about a man every time she opens her mouth, "I must be… very obnoxious, right? I must be an arrogant and self-centered Princess."

Jasmine seemed to disagree and said,

"Are those the rumors spread by those girls who were jealous of you? Lanski, I've been around you for almost ten years, and nobody understands you better than me. You are absolutely the cutest girl I've ever seen."

"Really?"

Whenever Jasmine spoke to her this way, Lanski would usually smile. But now, she started to wonder, was she really as adorable as Jasmine claimed she is?

Jasmine nodded again and again, and she started counting Lanski's merits on her fingers,

"You have the perfect Princess etiquette. Though I don't really like your cold face, but if you were a spoiled Princess, it would be even more obnoxious. Even though you act arrogant, it actually suits you. Your arrogance is well-deserved, not like some spoiled brats from some rich families."

After having said so much continuously, Jasmine tried to catch her breath. She smiled as she remembered the sparring between the two of them.

Though Lanski lost more than she won, but which of those times did she give up easily? And then she thinks back at the time she spent improving herself. And as for taking revenge, she believed Lanski had never even thought of it. To the Royal, arrogant Lanski, losing was because she wasn't serious enough, or she didn't try hard enough. If she were to hate anyone, Lanski would probably only hate herself.

"And you are very kind, don't deny that. Don't forget, the reason that I'm still alive is because of you." Jasmine earnestly looked at her good friend Lanski.

Lanski quickly rebutted, "No, it's because of your own hardships."

Jasmine laughed bitterly, remembering what had happened once upon a time during a snowy day…

Because her parents died as a result of being in debt, and those people whom her parents owed money forced her into a corner. Just as she was about to be caught and sold off as a slave, Lanski, who walked by coincidentally, was like an angel… no, more like a Goddess of War.

She took out a thin sword, a sword so delicate but was unexpectedly tough, just like Lanski herself. She used a few delicate sword moves to drive off the debt collectors, and her thin body walked arrogantly towards Jasmine.

What was unexpected was Lanski actually took off her expensive white mittens, and then said as she put those on to Jasmine's frozen hands,

"You have to take care of your hands, because you are going to go with me to the beginner's Knight School, and be a maid for me in the school. However, if you can beat me, then I will pay off all your debts and tuitions. I will also treat you as equal and a friend. Otherwise, you will be my maid for the rest of your life, and I will forever look down upon you. Do you understand?"

The two grew closer and closer to each other, but Lanski had never gone easy on her during their duels.

Jasmine had even complained about Lanski was merciless, thinking she would never let her win. But when Jasmine was finally able to win against Lanski using her own strength, Jasmine's tears immediately rolled down her face. However, Lanski smiled as she walked to her and said,

"I lost, and from now on, you are truly my friend."

Jasmine finally completely understood the person in front of her was a real Princess, and her best friend in this life.

"Jasmine?" Lanski woke Jasmine up from her recollection.

Jasmine turned around to look at Lanski, then climbed up on Lanski's back and yelled, "Lanski is the person I like the most."

"Hmm?" Though Lanski was baffled by the action, but she still felt warm in her heart.

Jasmine said while smiling,

"Lanski, since the person you like is Lancelot's apprentice, and you are practically the closest girl to him. Remember, Lancelot is a Knight for the Dragon Empire, and you are royalty. Wouldn't it be easy to go ask him where his apprentice is?"

"But… what if Silver Mask doesn't like me at all?" Lanski quietly replied.

"Then just keep pestering him, and never give up until he's yours. Just like when you were learning Kung Fu, never give up until you've mastered it! The Lanski I know is the most persistent person in the world!"

Jasmine jumped up and yelled in excitement.

Lanski smiled as a result. She raised her head to look at the star-filled night sky.

The dark night looked like Silver Mask's black hair wavering in the sky. Lanski reached out her hand toward the sky, as if in doing so, she could control the night sky in her hand…

Back to top

Chapter 5 : The Broken Seal

In a typical morning, all the Aklan Academy students planned on going to class as usual. All except a few Sorcery students, who had no choice but stay in a place called 'Delicious Barbecue Restaurant'. They did however, receive a week’s worth of lessons on How to be a barbecue restaurant waiter.

"Luckily you guys know Auntie, otherwise we would have to constantly stay with the Princess and Jasmine-jiejie*."

Jiejie is the counterpart of the Japanese word 'onee-san'.

Purity lazily lay down on the table. Because it wasn't time for lunch yet, there weren't many customers, and therefore Purity could afford to idle about for a bit.

"Yeah, though it's safe to be with them, but whenever I go to class with Jasmine, all the Knights seem to be staring daggers at me…"

Meinan thought about the week when he had to attend a week's worth of Knight's lesson, and the instructor almost called him up to demonstrate how Knights can quickly defeat Sorcerers. Correction! It wasn't how to defeat Sorcerers, but how to do it in the fastest way possible.

"Hmmph, Auntie is invincible. It… he… okay fine, she could use her hand and grab her enemies like a kitten."

Kaiser crossed his leg and comfortably lain on a chair, while laughing at the students, who wanted to harm them, being kindly thrown out of the restaurant by Auntie. Of the number of students thrown out, students who were sent to the infirmary on an account of cracked tail bones were not in the minority.

As for Liola, he calmly sat on a chair as he always did. He had been satisfied with the calm life he had been living for the past two weeks, and at the same time secretly wishing his calm academy life would continue.

"Little children~"

Speaking of Auntie, her soft voice was immediately heard. Since they had spent a long time (two weeks) together, they could tell her tone of the voice had a sense of worry.

'Could troubles be brewing again? Can't be.'

According to their experiences, the students from other schools wouldn't dare to skip class, so most of them would only come to cause trouble after classes have ended.

Auntie walked over, and her heavy body caused the ground to shake slightly as she did so. Auntie's muscle-filled face seemed to form a frown.

According to Kaiser's guesses, it should be a face of worry. Kaiser immediately used the best of his bootlicking skills. With sparkly eyes, he jumped in front of Auntie, and yelled with a high pitched voice.

"Auntieee, what's wrong, what has you worried? Tell me, and Kaiser will definitely do everything for you… (-r payment of a gold coin a day) even if it means death!"

"Kaiser-bun is a good boy."

Auntie sighed, and the air coming out of her mouth blew Kaiser's hair and made it look like weeds, then she said,

"Turn on the TV and look at today's news."

Purity obediently turned it on, and the holographic host continuously reported the biggest news of the day.

"… about the Dragon Emperor wanting to have a meeting between the three Kingdom leaders, Aklan Prime Minister had given a response, and hope for the meeting can take place in the Aklan Academy. Regarding this, Violet Academy had been in serious protest, citing that, in the previous ranking matches, Aklan Academy had formally lost its position as the top academy, and was replaced by Violet Academy. Therefore, this meeting should be held at Violet Academy. We have sent reporters to get both principals' statements."

The holographic host disappeared, and the image of the Violet Academy principal with his mustache appeared. After touching his own Dali mustache and clearing his throat, he said,

"The fall of Aklan Academy didn't happen overnight. Every principal on Aklan Continent decided on the ranking matches, and using it as a confirmation on which academy is the best. The representatives from Aklan Academy ran off during the final match due to fear, and it's the biggest insult in the history of academies! Aklan Academy had already lost the its reputation as the top academy, therefore I strongly suggest to Prime Minister Qiusi, for this meeting to be handled by us Violet Academy!"

"All I hear is you talking shit!"

Barbalis' large face suddenly appeared on the screen, "F——ing Qiusi, if you dare to take away my name as the top principal, then don't blame me for spilling your secrets!"

Everyone turned to look at Meinan, and Kaiser asked curiously, "Meinan, what are you dad's secrets?"

Meinan laughed awkwardly.

"My dad used to be Aklan Academy Sorcery student, and I heard he was classmates with Barbalis, so… it's possible for Barbalis to have some hold over my dad."

Now the screen was suddenly divided into three regions: the one on top was the solemn Aklan Prime Minister Qiusi. Although he had a vague smile, he had an indescribable imposing presence emanating from him.

His appearance was far different than when he was in the Dark Arena Pyramid. Had Meinan not acted normal during all this, everyone would almost believe the Qiusi on the screen was an imposter.

And the two screens below were Barbalis and the Violet Academy principal. Both of them were angry to the point of their faces being warped.

Perhaps they were cursing too much for public television so they both were muted. Nevertheless, their mouths kept moving, regardless of no sound being heard.

But it was obvious Qiusi could hear those two people talking, evidenced by his face continuously sinking, and his smile getting colder and colder.

Finally, he waved, and announced, "You two academies fight for your fame then! A week from now, the winner will obtain the right to hold the leader meeting!"

Finally, the Prime Minister walked off angrily, and a murmur could be vaguely heard, "With deary baby's protective shield, no one should be able to harm him…"

Barbalis and the Violet Academy principal heard Qiusi's announcement, and then yelled in unison, "Watch me destroy your rubbish academy!"

* * *

After seeing the report, the restaurant was in complete silence.

Knowing Barbalis' personality of wanting chaos in the world and his stubbornness to his title as the top principal, there would definitely be a fierce battle…

Just as they thought, the restaurant door was suddenly kicked open. Barbalis charged in with his warped face. The surrounding powerful magic force actually formed a series of rainbow-colored light and surrounded Barbalis' body.

Barbalis looked around, and after seeing Liola and others, he charged at them like a bullet train!

"Auntie, quick and save your Kaiser-bun!"

Kaiser yelled and hid behind Auntie. Meinan hurriedly put up his protective shield, Purity desperately screamed, while Liola… still calmly sat where he was.

"Meinan!"

Barbalis first called out Meinan, and scared him to the point of putting away his shield and shrank into the sofa, while desperately yelling, "Nooo! Don't use me to threaten my dad!"

"Huh?" Hearing this, Barbalis suddenly stopped, and thought carefully, "Right, you are Qiusi's only son. Using you to threaten him would be a good idea, why didn't I think of that…?"

Meinan was scared out of his mind, and waved his hands to say,

"It would be useless to kidnap me! Though my dad looks a bit mischievous, but he would never go back on his words. Principal, you should know that well."

Barbalis tilted his mouth, and he knew full well Meinan was telling the truth. So he fiercely said to Meinan,

"You better use your ancestral protective shield to its best, otherwise I will kidnap you, and see if Qiusi really doesn't care about his son's life!"

Meinan desperately nodded.

Barbalis then set his attention on Purity, whose face was already covered with tears.

"PURE-RI-TY! You better get out that ultimate Mecha you have stored in the academy storage unit. Otherwise, even if your mom is the Red Leader of the Commerce Alliance, I will still expel you!"

Purity, whose tears were falling like water out of a facet, nodded like Meinan.

"Kaigleser, stop hiding." Barbalis suddenly turned his head to look at Kaiser, and called out his full name. He then stated his threat,

"Kaigleser, you better use your real power, otherwise… you know what will happen!"

Unexpected to everyone, the thing Barbalis used to threaten Kaiser wasn't the usual money, expulsion, or Mizerui, but instead, a baffling phrase.

When Purity and Meinan were both scratching their heads, Liola glanced at Kaiser and saw his eyes flashing with danger the moment he heard what Barbalis had said.

At that moment, Liola thought he saw Kaiser's eyes seemed to have change colors?

Looks like his identity as an Assassin might be simplest out of the group. Liola suddenly felt curious: 'What's the story behind Daylight?'

Barbalis seemed satisfied with the response he got from Kaiser. He completely ignored Kaiser and then walked towards the last person, Liola.

Liola, who had been acting as if none of this concerned him, raised his head to look at Barbalis.

With a frown, he said, "I've already lost all my Kung Fu."

Barbalis didn't respond, and instead he stared at Liola, as if he was making some sort of painful decision.

Barbalis' expression constantly changed for a while: worry, pain, helplessness, seemingly dawning on an idea… Almost every imaginable expression crossed his face at least once. Finally, he looked like a person who just lost the most important match in their life, and his old arrogant presence was completely gone.

Barbalis looked helpless as he said, "Maylee, what do you think I should do?"

'Maylee?'

Everyone wondered who he was calling, but Maylee used her deep voice and softly answered, "Give the future to these youngsters, Bartercup"

'Maylee was Auntie, and Bartercup was Barbalis?'

Though everyone was in disbelief, but Maylee and Bartercup were staring at one another. This terrifying truth almost made Kaiser and others vomit out the barbecue they had yesterday.

"Mizerui also puts his hope on the youngsters. This can be both good and bad. Good because it could cultivate new talents, and the world could no longer depend on us old geezers. But the bad part is, this world may end up being destroyed! This is practically a gamble in which the wager is the entire world!"

Barbalis' face suddenly looked older than usual, and those tired eyes seemed to reflect a deeper worry.

Maylee started to laugh, and as a result, even the on the ceiling began to rain down.

"Who was it who wagered the world against the Devil Gle, and bet on a Silver coin? Is he really going to be afraid to gamble?"

Barbalis felt a bit awkward at first when Maylee mentioned his mischief during his younger days, but then he also started to laugh with her. Their leisurely heroic laughter almost made the young ones feel inspired.

"Okay, Liola, I will help you break your seal." Barbalis said.

Before Liola had a chance to say anything, Purity already yelled out in shock, "Principal, you can release the Paladin's seal?"

"So why didn't you help Liola earlier?" Meinan frowned, unhappy with the principal lack of action.

Barbalis snapped.

"You really think Lancelot is weak?! The best Holy Knight's seal couldn't possibly be easy to break, and forcefully removing the seal will cost me 50 to 70 percent of my power, and I won't be able to get it back in years. What's worst is, even when I get it back, I'll only be at about 70 percent of my original power."

Hearing that Barbalis' sacrifice, Purity and Meinan scratched their faces, and could no longer say anything else about Barbalis' lack of action.

"Okay, I will release Liola's seal here. With Maylee here, it's the safest place, uh well, not counting under Qiusi's perfect protective shield."

Barbalis adjusted his magic power as he walked towards Liola. When he was about to put his hand on Liola's forehead, Liola suddenly raised his right hand to block Barbalis' arm.

Everyone was just about to ask Liola why he blocked Barbalis' arm, they noticed Liola's silver eyes were burning with a cold flame.

"Liola-dage?" Purity timidly called out to Liola.

"You guys discussed the situation happily, completely forgetting whether the sealed person wanted to be unsealed." Liola said unexpectedly.

What was even more terrifying was Liola had never spoken with this tone of voice before. Brimming with sarcasm, sounding cold but it was actually filled with rage.

Barbalis was not surprised, but said lightly, "Liola, did you plan on running away? Escaping the mission Princess Anise left you with?"

"I… don't use Anise's name to force me!" Liola yelled furiously, but in his head, Anise's face and words kept flashing.

'Don't run away from our fate, don't run…'

"This was originally Princess Anise's responsibility, but now everything is on you, or did you plan on pretending it has nothing to do with you?"

"Shut up!" Liola covered his ears.

"Shut up!" Kaiser also jumped out from behind Auntie, and stood in front of Liola.

Kaiser said with sarcasm, "If taking the necklace requires him to save the world, then I… as the son of the Devil Gle, who wanted to destroy the world a few hundred years ago, am I to inherit the will of my father to destroy the world?"

Barbalis didn't expect for Kaiser to admit the truth of his own identity. As an old geezer who lived a few hundred years, even Barbalis didn't know what to do now.

"Devil Gle's son?" Meinan lightly yelled out.

Anyone who had lived in this world would have heard Devil Gle's name, but no one would dare call out his name.

Legend has it, if you call out his name, he would hear your voice…

* * *

It was the dark age of this world. Even history lessons in school would completely skip those years, and they were effectively blank in history.

It was also a world where tremendous gaps existed, and a world where Knights and Magicians could not co-exist.

Because of the appearance of the strongest Sorcerer, Gle, Knights and Magicians took opposing sides. It wasn't until later, some magicians noticed Gle's crazed ambitions, and it was him who started the propaganda of opposing the Knights, with the goal of destroying the world.

Once the Magicians realized this, they in turn helped the Knights to destroy Gle.

The real battles started then.

The knowledge of what exactly happened during those battles was now long gone, but the final result was Gle's obvious failure. However, most of the high ranked Knights and Magicians died, and therefore the Knights and Magicians as a whole had weakened.

Legends had it, the current strength of the Gold Knights was only comparable to a low Silver Knight back then. The weakening of Knights and Magicians also allowed the appearance of Mechas.

The Magicians' predicaments were especially bad.

All the Magicians on Gle's side were obviously slaughtered, but the Magicians who helped Knights also didn't have it much better. Many of them were still mistaken by the common folks as people who worked for the Devil Gle, and they would often be persecuted.

In those years, there was a wide witch hunt for Magicians. Until finally, the word "Magician" became archaic. Now all Magicians share a title with anyone who had special abilities—Sorcerers.

There had always been people who theorize Gle didn't die, but instead, was just waiting for the right moment, and as soon as his powers return, the world would sink into chaos once again…

* * *

"So what if you're Gle's descendent? Just because I was friends with him, don't think I wouldn't send you to the battle with Violet Academy!" Barbalis said fiercely.

After telling the truth, Kaiser lowered his head, and didn't dare to look at Meinan or Purity.

Liola didn't seem to care, although this guy must not even know who the heck Gle was, but hearing Barbalis' response, Kaiser was stupefied of Barbalis's strange declaration.

Barbalis looked at Kaiser's shocked expression, and he sported a deep-in-thought face and said,

"Son, legends are legends, the amount of truth in those is less than 30%. I agree for you not to tell anyone your real identity, since it'll only cause you nothing but endless trouble. You should never feel sorry or sad for being Gle's son. Gle was a hero, a failed one, and a failed hero would often be called the Devil."

Kaiser, Purity, and Meinan couldn't even be bothered to listen to all this. They were all shocked. And if what Barbalis had just said would be spread, it would be regarded as blasphemy. But since this came out of the old monster, Barbalis, it did seem somewhat believable…

"You… Auntie said you had a wager with Gle, what was that all about?" Kaiser asked with hesitation.

"Hehehe, it was a heaven shaking, earth shattering, never-before-heard, moving, sad but beautiful story that would drive gods and devils alike to tears…"

Barbalis shook his head and sighed, and then made a deal with Kaiser, "How about this, if you're willing to go attack Violet Academy, and successfully make them surrender, then I will tell you free of charge."

'That's not free anymore, right?' Kaiser held back the desire to grit his teeth, contemplating between trouble and knowing about his ancestor.

Suddenly, a thin strand of white light shot out from Barbalis' index finger, and the white light instantly disappeared into Liola's forehead.

Kaiser worriedly asked Barbalis, "What did you do to Liola?"

"Releasing his seal, of course." Barbalis smiled bitterly, and drops of sweat suddenly appeared on his forehead.

"What? That was it?" Kaiser said in shock.

"Shouldn't it involve a large magic circle, then gathering massive amount of magic element from the surroundings, and everything would look grand. And then principal, you would painfully concentrate your energy and transfer it to to Liola-dage, then say, 'It's all up to you now', and then the principal would faint. Liola-dage would then say solemnly, 'I will never let you down…'"

As she spoke, Purity sank into her own fantasy of a fairy tale.

"Uh, even though Purity's description was a bit exaggerated, but isn't a small light stream a bit too simple?" Meinan asked skeptically.

"What else do you want? Should I make a big bang for you guys to watch, and lure Lancelot here, then he and I could duel then perish together?" Barbalis snapped.

Kaiser laughed sinisterly,

"Principal, if you don't mind, then perish with him. The world would be far more peaceful, and everyone will thank you two…"

"Go to hell!"

"Hmmph!"

Liola, who was standing still in shock, suddenly started convulsing intensely. His normally calm face also seemed a bit twisted. He forcefully held back moans of pain, and cold sweat ran down his face. The blood vessels in his body felt like they were being forced through by a metal chain. Series of explosive pain forced the Assassin to lie on the sofa, and his face was scarily pale.

"Liola-dage? A-are you okay?" Having never seen Liola like this, Purity was scared and her tears came streaming down her face.

"I forgot to tell you, forcefully removing the seal is very painful."

Barbalis looked like he was saying "Be a man, don't mind such little pain".

After sported such expression, Barbalis' body began to fade, and at the same time he said,

"Now would be the time for me to run. In a while this Assassin will recover all of his strength, but I will only have half of mine… What a joke, I still want to live for a few hundred more years."

Barbalis actually ran away, leaving Liola in pain behind. Everyone else was worried but there was nothing they could do.

Auntie, who was standing there like a mountain, suddenly reached out and grabbed Liola by his waist, and then moved towards the kitchen.

"Okay, let this little child release his seal quietly. Boys all like to act tough, and he wouldn't want to show he's in pain in front of everyone, hehe."

"Is Liola-dage going to be okay?"

Purity was worried but couldn't do anything. She cried as Auntie carried Liola off, and stood there trying to get Kaiser to reassure her.

"Uh… as long as Auntie doesn't accidentally break Liola's waist, he should be fine."

* * *

Putting down the boy lightly from her hand onto a wooden bench in the corner of the room, Auntie looked at the quiet Liola. After a long while she finally began to speak,

"Liola, if you can't run away, then why don't you thoroughly take care of it altogether. Once and for all, wouldn't that be better?"

Having said that, Auntie seemed to vaguely hear some rumbles outside, so she took large steps and left to see what had happened.

* * *

Though his body was in extreme pain, Auntie's speech clearly echoed in Liola's mind. If he couldn't run away, then maybe he…

An intense headache suddenly came to Liola, and a large bubble in his head seemed to suddenly burst. His sealed Ki spread towards his arms and legs like a flood.

Liola felt his body warming up. He jumped off the wooden bench, and stretched as far his could. His arms and legs made a cracking noise as he did so.

Having stretched his muscles and bones, Liola gracefully jumped up and spun in the air. His thin, long leg easily pulverized the sturdy wooden bench behind him. He jumped up again and, after a backflip, stood on top of a single glass cup on the table on one of his legs. His body was still enough for people to mistake him for a statue, except his black hair still drifted lively in the air, and his star-like sparkling silver eyes.

When Kaiser rushed into the kitchen, and saw this strange scene, he couldn't help but open his mouth to say,

"You wasteful bastard! Do you think your son doesn't spend enough money? Why the hell would you dismantle a bench for no reason? This bench is enormous and must be worth a lot of money. Hey, hey, don't you forget, your money is my money. You're not allowed to waste my money!"

"… Understood." Liola turned around to look at that bench, and he felt a bit of regret for his money-wasting action… Wait, why was he thinking like a certain somebody?

"Oh! Oh!" Kaiser suddenly started to yell,

"Forget about the bench. Things are getting crazy outside, and it feels like the sky is going to fall!"

Liola elegantly jumped off the table, and asked nonchalantly as he stood in front of Kaiser, "What happened?"

'Sky is falling?'

Now that his seal was broken, Liola couldn't help but feel… 'So what if the sky was falling?'

"Ugh~ Violet Academy is attacking us!" Kaiser felt like he was going crazy.

"Those bastards are insane. They came here with several hundred Mechas, and more than a hundred Knights with mounts. Damn, what's even worse is the Yiyu guy brought a dozen Sorcerers and used some spell to blow up our academy gate."

"Purity and Meinan rushed out to help Daylight, Jasmine, and Lanski. Do you think we should… go and hide?"

Liola carefully examined the situation, then said to Kaiser, "Follow me."

Though Kaiser didn't know what Liola planned, but thinking about Liola's depressed state, he thought Liola would be returning to the most "powerful" dorm to sleep.

Kaiser followed Liola with ease, considering the latter had gotten his Kung Fu back.

Surely enough, Liola kept walking through shadowed corners and avoided all battles, and the direction he took was obviously towards the Sorcerer dorms. Before long, the Assassin took Kaiser back to their room, and Liola went into the room first.

In the room, there was a little White Dragon lying on the bed in deep sleep, and its nostrils were blowing bubbles.

Suddenly, the White Dragon opened its eyes, and after its pink little eyes rolled around to look at the room, the Dragon jumped up and rubbed itself affectionately against papa's leg.

Liola let Baolilong grab his leg, and walked to his dresser.

He opened the drawers, and there were quite a few sets of simple clothes: two Sorcery robes, one set of white clothes he wore to see Lanski, and he was wearing the black clothing he wore to see Jasmine. The rest of the clothes looked identical: they were all white, silver-lined Knight uniforms, which Liola often had to throw away every single time he wore them.

Due to the amazingly high rate at which Liola burnt through them, Barbalis decided to throw a couple of dozen more of these to Liola.

Being back at his beloved dorm, Kaiser already hurriedly wrapped himself in sheets. Thinking about being pursued for the past couple of weeks, he had no choice but to leave early and come home late, and his time spent with the sheets was drastically reduced, to the point where Kaiser began to miss his sheets.

As he lay there, Kaiser suddenly heard the sounds of someone changing clothes. He turned around to look, and saw Liola putting on the Knight uniform.

Kaiser was shocked, then he asked, "Why are you changing clothes?"

Liola was just about to finish buttoning his uniform, then he turned and asked Kaiser, "Where's the mask?"

Kaiser was stupefied, but he still took out the silver mask out of his pocket.

Liola grabbed the mask, and said as he put it on, "Let's go, Kaigleser"

"Huh? Where to?" Kaiser stared at Liola as he carried Baolilong, as if they were planning on jumping out the window.

A light smile appeared on Liola's mouth. He turned around, and the moonlight behind him reflected off the side of his face, which made his smile that much more mysterious.

If Liola was seen by girls like this, Lanski would certainly have quite a few more love rivals.

'Damn! The cursed smile again! Terrible bad luck is coming my way, and… it looks like it's going to be really bad this time.'

Kaiser's face was suddenly 30% whiter.

"Violet Academy, of course." Liola's smile grew larger.

Back to top

Chapter 6 : Storm of Blood

A giant White Dragon suddenly appeared in the night sky, contrasting the darkness. It stood out, especially since the giant Dragon seemed to fling and turn in the air like a wild horse.

Bystanders would get dizzy and wanted to vomit just from looking at it, not to mention the Knight on it. But strangely, not only did the Knight stay securely on the Dragon, he was even standing. This was only possible for one, and one person only—Silver Mask!

"Kaigleser, so you actually know Flying Magic?" Silver Mask looked at Kaiser, who was flying next to Baolilong.

Kaiser's face turned pale and snapped.

"Go find a few Sorcerers to ride Baolilong, and I promise you at least 8 out of 10 will perform better than expected, and learn the secrets of flying spells."

"Is that so?" Silver Mask maintained his smile, but he didn't pursue his inquiries further.

One day, he thought, Kaiser will be forced to show his true strength, especially since Silver Mask had already planned on tying the knots of many loose ends.

"Baolilong, fly towards the center of the battle."

Silver Mask used telepathy to give orders to Baolilong, who responded back,

"Okay, papa~"

* * *

Although everyone in Violet Academy knew Silver Mask belonged to Aklan Academy, no one dared to challenge him.

Last time, all the Violet Academy students suspected Silver Mask was an imposter, and not really the Paladin's apprentice.

However, during the ranking matches, the Paladin appeared and took Silver Mask, so practically everyone in the world knew the Paladin had an apprentice who wore a silver mask and had a Sacred White Dragon.

Silver Knight, Sacred White Dragon, and the Paladin's apprentice… who would dare challenge Silver Mask?

Silver Mask rode the Sacred White Dragon and was completely unhindered, as if no one was there, and they flew to the center of the aerial battle.

They immediately found Daylight, Jasmine, Lanski, and Meinan, locked in an intense battle with Yiyu and other Violet Academy students.

Meinan was desperately trying to keep up his protective shield, which blocked all the magic attacks from Yiyu's army of Sorcerers.

"S-Silver Mask?!" Daylight saw Liola heading towards him, and his heart was filled with both shock and worry. He didn't know Liola had already been unsealed, and he yelled anxiously,

"I-is your body okay? Silver Mask."

Liola smiled, "It's fine, I've completely recovered."

Hearing this, Daylight was at first shocked, but then excitement flashed across his face, and he gave Liola a thumb up.

'Silver Mask…'

Lanski practically forgot she was in a battle. Neither the explosions nor the swords of the opposing Knights caught Lanski's attention. The only thing she saw with her blue eyes was Silver Mask's long, slender body.

Suddenly, Silver Mask looked towards Lanski, leaped onto Flames, and grabbed Lanski by her waist.

Before a sword could hit Lanski's shoulder, Liola quickly whirled and moved her out of harm's way. Liola then spun around and kicked the Knight who attacked Lanski off his mount.

"Are you alright?" Liola frowned slightly, wondering why Lanski would suddenly be in a trance in the middle of battle.

Lanski had never been this close to the person she liked, and Silver Mask's hand was still on her waist. Half of her body was in Liola's arms, and she could felt the warmth from Silver Mask's chest…

"Damn! We work so hard to block the enemies' attack, but this guy is actually busy holding girls?"

Kaiser mocked Liola the best he could, but he still continued to shoot at Yiyu and other Sorcerers with his magic gun, in order to help relieve the pressure from Meinan who was maintaining his protective shield.

Daylight and Jasmine both had an ambiguous smile, but it was obvious to see they were both blessing Silver Mask and Lanski.

Suddenly, Silver Mask's feet left Flames' back. He looked back, and saw that Baolilong was grabbing him by his collar.

Baolilong said with dissatisfaction via telepathy, "Papa can't ride anything else except Baolilong!"

Liola smiled, and jumped back onto Baolilong's back with a flip. After letting Lanski stand still on Baolilong, Liola used his Ki to magnify his voice.

In the crowded battlefield, Liola's voice sounded like it was being delivered by gales into everyone's ears,

"Aklan Academy students, listen, we can't keep being on defensive! Please hear me out. Let the Mecha Fighters keep our academy safe, and Knights follow me to attack Violet Academy!"

The Knights all raised their weapons and yelled "Yes", but the Mecha Fighters were obviously not satisfied.

At this time, a strange Mecha appeared, and it looked near identical to a real girl. It had a circular disk underneath its feet, and the disk emitted air to propel the Mecha towards the center of the battle, the place where Liola and others were.

When it was attacked on the way, the Mecha used unbelievable agility to either duck or counter the attack. If it weren't for the fact the Mecha couldn't possibly be human, people watching would have thought it was a girl with incredible Kung Fu.

When the girl Mecha kicked Violet Academy Mechas one by one, the edge of the disk underneath showed blades on its rim, and it split another Mecha into halves.

The girl Mecha elegantly landed on the disk again, both Academy's Schools of Mecha Fighters were in shock. The girl Mecha's agility was unimaginable. If every Mecha had the same level of dexterity, they would have beaten the School of Knights a long time ago.

Not to mention, the person controlling the Mecha was actually controlling two different Mechas, and they were each performing their own attack.

How skilled must the pilot's be to be able to maneuver a Mecha in such manner? Could the pilot have two heads and four arms?

Both Schools of Mecha Fighters felt respect towards the pilot, but since the control panel was not visible from the outside, no one knew who was controlling it.

However, the following yell immediately answered everyone's question.

"Understood. Silver Mask, go ahead and don't worry. Purity and other Mecha Fighters will defend Aklan Academy with our lives!"

The girl Mecha even waved at Liola and others, and it practically looked like what Purity would normally do.

"The safety of the academy is in your hands, School of Mecha Fighters!"

Silver Mask yelled, and Purity responded with "Okay~".

Aklan Mecha Fighter students stared at each other briefly, but determination surfaced on their faces.

"Hey! This time we will leave the fun to the School of Knights, but the next time it will be our turn!"

Some Mecha Fighter shouted, then quickly headed back to Aklan Academy for defense, and other Mecha Fighter students followed.

The Knights, however, quickly gathered around Silver Mask, preparing their counterattack against Violet Academy.

"School of Knights, if you guys lose then don't come back!" The Mecha Fighters all yelled in unison.

The Knights didn't back down and yelled back, "School of Mecha Fighters, if the school is destroyed, then you guys better control your Mechas and be the construction workers!"

Silver Mask's mood was unexpectedly good. Hearing the threats between the schools, Silver Mask laughed out loud, which made Lanski, who was standing behind him, curiously observe his every action.

"Kaiser," Liola suddenly called Kaiser.

Flying by Baolilong, Kaiser snapped at Liola with a terrible tone, "What?"

Liola's finger pointed at the ground below, where a few Sorcerer students stood, waving their arms to try to catch their attention.

When Kaiser saw them, he frowned and said, "Fine, I'll go down and ask them what they want to do."

Kaiser flew down slowly. As soon as he arrived, and before he had a chance to say anything, the Sorcery students already began to talk.

"Wow, Kaiser, you knew Fly Magic? We didn't know…"

"Kaiser, let us go with you. We will definitely be useful, though we don't know how to fly…"

"What happened last time made us upset, and we learned various attack magics. I promise that we will be useful."

Drowning in the students' voices, Kaiser yelled loudly to stop them, "Fine, I know. All in all you guys want to come along. Fine, let me discuss this with Silver Mask."

Kaiser flew back to Liola's side, and explained that the School of Sorcery wanted to go along.

Liola found it was strange: the Sorcery students became timid after what the principal had done to them, so they would often hide whenever they see trouble, and they still wouldn't come out after the trouble was long gone. But this time, they actually took the initiative to say they wanted tag go, so it looked like they had the determination this time.

Liola paused briefly, then asked Baolilong to fly to Daylight. Liola said to Daylight, "The School of Sorcery wants to come along, can you find a few Knights who will carry them along?"

Daylight nodded, "No problem."

"And Princess Lanski, you should go with Daylight." Liola said to Lanski behind him.

"W-why?" Lanski asked anxiously. At the same time she thought, could Silver Mask think of her as a burden?

Seeing Lanski anxiousness and disappointed, Liola, who didn't know how to comfort people, said with a blur, "I still have something else to do in a moment."

Lanski's clear big eyes stared at Silver Mask, with her mind set on something. Unlike her usual demeanor, she said willfully,

"Only if you promise me that you will go with me to the dance after the leaders' meeting."

'A dance?'

Though Liola knew something of it, but seeing her familiar face, Liola couldn't resist. He nodded his head, and agreed.

Lanski sighed in relief after Silver Mask agreed to her wish. With an elegant jump, she went onto Flames' back. She then said after a moment of hesitation,

"No matter what you're going to do, p-please be careful. And, where do I go to find you?"

"Just ask Kaiser." Liola pointed at Kaiser, whom kept murmuring, "I'm a messenger again."

After everything was taken care of, Daylight was seen yelling at the Knights surrounding him.

Though those Knights looked unwilling, but after Daylight's persuasion, they agreed. They then flew to the ground and carried the Sorcerers back to their group.

"Hmmph, those Knights actually carried the Sorcerers? Looks to me like they got upset because of Daylight's lecture on chivalric codes."

Kaiser waved his hands, because he didn't want to hear such lectures from Daylight.

"Kaiser, do you think Violet Academy went full out? Or do you think some students would stay in their academy for defense?"

Liola frowned slightly. He was unclear on how strong Violet Academy really was.

"Hey, there were more than two hundred Mechas, and more than a hundred Knights with Mounts. Even for us, the best academy, we barely have three hundred Mechas and two hundred Knights. You really think these schools are easy to get into…? Uh, well, it was easy to get into the School of Sorcery. Anyway, even if these aren't all of Violet Academy's forces, it should be near 80-90%. Oh, right, we didn't see Yizhou, so perhaps he is on defense."

Kaiser finished with his saliva flying every which way, and then suddenly suspiciously asked the Assassin, "Why are you asking this?"

"I want to stay to prevent the Violet Academy students from going back to help. I think Daylight and others should be enough to conquer Violet Academy." Liola smiled lightly.

"Oh, hehe, then I will go with Daylight and others to Violet Academy." Kaiser smiled, and immediately started to run away.

However, Baolilong's big mouth opened, and it picked Kaiser up. Kaiser struggled and yelled,

"What are you doing, let me go! If you want to be an one man army, don't drag me into it! I'm just a little Sorcerer, and I can't really help you."

"I'm not good at long-ranged attacks, so that's up to you."

Liola ignored Kaiser's yells.

Since he was already tailing behind the Knight forces, he decided to turn around to face the Violet Academy students who were chasing them.

Facing the dozens of enemies, Liola really did feel like a one man army.

"Waaahhh, why do I feel like I'm about to become cannon fodder?"

Kaiser was practically weeping. He was even closer to the enemies than Liola who was on Baolilong's back…

'What the hell, Sorcerers should be hiding behind the Knight and provide support, why do I have be in front? Damn Liola must have not learned the art of war.'

Though he was complaining, but for the sake of not seeing his father before his time, Kaiser pulled out his gun to face his enemies.

"Kaiser…" Liola slowly opened his mouth.

"What? It's a little too late to discuss tactics now."

Kaiser looked at the opposing Violet Academy students. Though they were scared of Silver Mask because of his identity, but with the pressure of the Knight forces who were on their way to their academy, and their numerical advantage, many students looked like they were about to attack, and the only thing they were missing was a cue.

"How do I emit an aura?"

Liola thought, if he doesn't use an aura this time around, his identity may be questioned again. So he had to ask Kaiser on the spot.

"Damn you, let's forget the fact that you treat me like an encyclopedia, but why the hell are you treating me like a Kung Fu manual too?"

Kaiser tried to withhold his desire to roll his eyes. He was a Sorcerer, how would he know how Knights emit an aura?

'There was actually something that Kaiser didn't know?'

Liola was in shock, and he had no choice but to figure it out on his own. With his familiarity and talents with Kung Fu, he believed he could learn the way Knights emit their auras from the dozen of Knights who stood before him.

The cue for the start of battle actually came out of Baolilong.

As a Sacred White Dragon, Baolilong saw there were a few Dragons on the other side who dared to oppose it, and its Sacred White Dragon pride was ever so present.

Baolilong opened its mouth. After letting out a Dragon's roar, in front of its mouth,… and unfortunately, at Kaiser's back, a ball of lightning appeared.

The sparkles proved to be Kaiser's worst nightmare: his green hair stood straight up after he got electrocuted, and they looked like weeds growing on his head.

"S-Silver… m-mask, i-if you don't l-let me… get up, I-I-I will never forgive you!'

Hearing Kaiser's stuttering after being electrocuted, Liola grabbed Kaiser and placed him on Baolilong's back. When he turned his head, Baolilong already shot out the lightning ball, and the strong electricity charred some poor Dragon along with its master.

This lightning ball acted as a declaration of war. The Violet Academy roared in anger, and a dozen Mechas fired their cannons at once.

When more than twenty shots headed towards Silver Mask, Kaiser yelled,

"My God, my God! Silver Mask, why didn't you make Meinan stay too, waahh. Meinan, I was wrong, when you're not here I finally understand how precious you truly are! I only know how to use the most basic protective shield!"

The shots came towards them from all directions. Though Baolilong dodged as much as it could, and Kaiser opened fire to detonate the shots before it reached them, there were still a few shots landing on Baolilong.

Baolilong's continuous cries of pain via telepathy made Liola frown.

Usually, if it were just Liola, he wouldn't care about these shots, because they weren't able to penetrate through his protective Ki. But Baolilong and Kaiser didn't have Ki like him, so what should he do now?

Liola blocked the shots with his body whenever he could, but the resulting explosion still injured Baolilong and Kaiser.

Seeing the red and blue blood scattered throughout their bodies, Liola's fury inside was steadily rising. He decided to charge into the center of Violet Academy's Knights, so the Mechas wouldn't be able to fire at will. Unfortunately, though they didn't dare to fire the more powerful missiles, they then fired some weaker ones.

'Why are they like this? Do they not fear harming their own?'

As Liola was thinking, a missile missed its target, and headed towards a Knight with a giant eagle.

The Red Knight's body exploded with a red aura, and when the missile hit the aura, it exploded. The force of the explosion was completely kept outside of the aura, so the Knight and his mount were completely unscathed.

"Liola, before the next battle, I will definitely help you find out about how to emit auras." Kaiser's pale face had a few strings of blood oozing from his forehead, and he looked particularly pitiful.

'Emit aura… emit… emit?'

An idea flashed across Liola's mind. Liola's force inside him was called Ki, and the Knights' force came from aura, so if Ki was equivalent to aura, then wouldn't emitting aura be the same thing as emitting and expanding his own Ki?

'All right, let's try it!' Liola yelled,

"Kaiser, hold on tight to Baolilong's back."

Kaiser immediately lied face down on Baolilong's back, and held tightly to the spikes on Baolilong's back. At the same time, he murmured,

"Though Mizerui placed a bit of excitement magic on him, but isn't this guy a little too excited? I hope my life won't end like this."

Liola quickly exerted the Ki in his body, then he tested it by letting his Ki ooze through his palm. When he saw a red aura from his palm, Liola knew he had succeeded, and he felt the joy of success.

But, Liola didn't realized the surprise and belittlement from the Violet Academy students.

'Red aura? Isn't it the same aura from Red Knights?'

The Knight ranks were, from lowest to highest, Green, Red, Blue, Silver, and Gold. Red was the most common rank among the academy students.

Wearing a silver-lined uniform, Silver Mask actually emitted a red aura. This truth put the Violet Academy students in shock, 'Silver Mask was a Red Knight?'

Kaiser also raised his head to look at the aura in Liola's palm, but he wasn't as oblivious as the students around them and mistaken Liola to be a Red Knight.

In fact, being so close to Liola, Kaiser could clearly distinguish the red aura in Liola's palm from that of an ordinary Red Knight.

The usual Red Knight's aura was a very bright, fiery-red, but Liola's aura was a dark red, similar to the color of blood when it's almost dry.

That blood-like color pressured Kaiser. But Kaiser, who would talk even if he were about to die, said to Liola,

"Hey, your aura's color is quite strange. Are you sure you're emitting an aura and not just your own blood?"

Liola thought about it, "It's probably because my Ki is called Blood Fluttering Ki."

"Silver Mask! You are a Red Knight, but you're wearing silver Knight uniform. Cross-rank dressing is absolutely forbidden. Take off your Silver Knight uniform." Some Knight yelled angrily.

"Someone is rooting for you to put on a strip show. You might as well do it, and it would be beneficial to the females present." Kaiser laughed with his teeth showing.

Liola raised his brows, and didn't respond to Kaiser. At the same time, he began to intensely manage his Ki, and planned to let these Knights see the power of his red aura.

Gradually, an aura of Ki surrounded Liola. The dense Ki was true to its name: it looked like blood fluttering around in the air.

The surrounding Knights began to notice something was wrong. The blood-red Ki was far different from the aura of a Red Knight, and they've never heard of an aura with such color.

A strange idea floated in the minds of these Knights, could the man before them have his own unique aura like the Paladin and Dark Knight?

Liola toughened his body, and the blood-red Ki exploded.

The immense power enveloped the Violet Academy students. The dozens of auras from the Knights were fractured and pulverized, and even the Mechas' hulls began to crack.

Under such terrifying power, no one even had the ability to fight back…

Kaiser, who was on the Dragon's back, also felt the destructive force. He saw something was wrong, and he immediately reached out and grabbed Liola's ankle, while yelling on the top of his lungs,

"Liola, STOP!"

Hearing Kaiser's yell, Liola finally shifted his attention from emitting his Ki and noticed the situation of his surroundings.

Most Knights could not stop the power of Blood Fluttering Ki, and fell to the ground, with blood running out of their mouths and noses.

The Mecha Fighters who had to use escape pods to save their lives after their Mechas exploded were in a worse condition. Without the protection of their Mechas, the aura-less Mecha Fighters were almost all severely injured.

'I must not kill!' Liola felt his heart skip a beat.

The powerful blood Ki suddenly disappeared, and this sudden release and retraction of Ki also shocked Liola. He spit out a mouthful of blood, and dizziness overcame him. Liola fell on his behind on Baolilong's back, and couldn't move for a moment.

"What happened?" Kaiser asked with a bit of surprise.

Liola slowly opened his mouth,

"Looks like I still can't control this aura well. When my Ki returned to me, it even hurt myself. I'm afraid I won't be able to move for a while. Sorry, Kaiser, everything is up to you now."

"Hmm, up to me? Okay, then up to me." Usually, Kaiser would have thrown a tantrum if he heard anyone depended on him. But now…

"That is, if these guys who are about to pee their pants would even dare to come up again."

Liola looked left and right, and the situation was horrific.

He saw the ground was covered with bleeding Knights, and debris from Mechas. There were also Mecha Fighters who were sitting in their escape pods and, like what Kaiser said, looked like they were about to pee in their pants. What's more was, bright red blood soaked the earth around them…

Ignoring his own injuries, Liola forcefully used his other skill, Heart of Consciousness. After scanning through the entire field, Liola finally felt a weight being lifted from his shoulders.

'Luckily… luckily no one died.'

"Liola, how about we give a name to your new aura?" Kaiser sinisterly laughed and suggested.

"A name?" Liola thought helplessly, he seemed to have already said it's called Blood Fluttering Ki.

"Yup. Look, your aura's color is like blood, and after you use it, the ground really is covered in blood. Let's call it Storm of Blood, how about that? Fitting, isn't it?"

'Storm of Blood?' Liola laughed bitterly. Kaiser's naming sense seemed to always… hit the mark.

* * *

"What a terrifying Storm of Blood."

The scene of Liola naming his aura could be seen on a giant television, and Barbalis, who was sitting in front of the television observing the status of the battle, took a long sigh.

But the large office had more than just Barbalis. There also was a gold-haired man with glasses.

Mizerui frowned, which was unlike his normal demeanor. Lastly, there was a man with a warm and gentle smile pouring more tea into their teacups—the Aklan Prime Minister.

"This is nothing. If you guys were in the Dark Arena Pyramid, Liola's 'KNEEL!' was far more entertaining."

Qiusi smiled, but his eyes seemed even more sunken than Mizerui.

Mizerui frowned, "Ah, though I still hate him for being a Knight, but I'm starting to agree with him."

"Oh? Why?" Barbalis felt a bit tense, considering he had to waste his own power to release Liola's seal.

"Liola's power had always been strong, yes, but he coincidentally bonded with the Sacred White Dragon Prince. He had already learned healing magic, which means he could feel magic elements, and thus he will, sooner or later, learn Dragon magic. Now he learned how to use aura too. Perhaps even I am not a match for his powers anymore."

It was rare for Mizerui to admit he's weaker, but he believed that other two people present wouldn't dare to underestimate Liola.

"Ah, that's nothing. I'm more worried about the problem with the Dragon Empire succession. Out of the three sons and one daughter the Dragon Emperor has, none of them had become a Sacred White Dragon's master, but instead they let an outsider become the Sacred White Dragon Prince's master. You tell me, who should the throne of the Dragon Emperor go to then?"

Qiusi, being a Prime Minister, worried more about politics rather than Liola's strength.

Barbalis slowly stood up, looked out the window and said,

"Compared to the future, I'm more worried about now. My good friends, I have a feeling the leaders' meeting may not end on good terms, it may even be the start of turmoil for this world."

"I hope you didn't ask us to come here just to say that?" Qiusi slowly sipped tea.

Barbalis didn't turn around, but his stature seemed to indicate his perseverance in the matter,

"I just want to know, when this turmoil starts, whether you two would choose to support this son of fate, or choose to exterminate him."

Back to top

Chapter 7 : Aura Roasted Barbecue

"Damn! Could it be that our Sorcerers in the academy are tigers pretending to be pigs?"

When Kaiser heard from Daylight how they actually beat the Violet Academy, Kaiser's jaws dropped and he said in disbelief. Of course, his wide open mouth had another purpose. It's because they were eating in "Delicious Barbecue Restaurant", and Liola had just put down some barbecue.

Kaiser used this opportunity of opening his mouth to throw more meat into his stomach.

"It was great. I didn't know until now Sorcerers are so powerful. I was far too ignorant."

Daylight said in excitement, and began to explain the situation before.

"When we got to Violet Academy, we noticed they had already made foolproof preparations. Countless cannons were mounted on top of the whole academy, so they planned well ahead. Yizhou was indeed defending at Violet Academy, and wave attack of his water Dragon was very powerful."

"Enough! Get to the point, and stop complimenting others! You're just lowering our own prestige." Kaiser stuck his head out and yelled angrily.

"Uh… Anyway, because of those countless cannons, not only were our Knights not able to charge in, the number of people who could fight steadily decreased. When we were helpless, and could only struggle to stand our ground, the Sorcerers suddenly demanded for all the Knights who were carrying them to form a circle, and at the same time, let Meinan cast a protective shield to stop Violet Academy’s cannon attacks. Sigh. Meinan's protective shield is the best I've ever seen. Even 15 minutes worth of cannon shots did not make a dent."

Meinan who was standing on the side, blushed, waved his hand and said:

"If you did not stop Yiyu, he would have sliced me in half and it wouldn't have mattered how good my protective shield was."

Daylight laughed with modesty. Under Kaiser's urging eyes, Daylight hurried to continued.

"After 15 minutes, a magic circle appeared in the middle of the Sorcerers. 10 giant bolts of lightning shot out from the magic circle and they bombarded the Violet Academy…”

"And then? And then?" Kaiser curiously prompted Daylight to continue.

"And then we started the rescue mission for Violet Academy students." Daylight said honestly,

"Violet Academy was crumbling, and the students inside were moaning in pain, many of which were severely injured. Because their healing Maxuns were damaged by the lightning attacks, we had no choice but carry them back to Aklan Academy."

"So that's why Liola and I saw you carrying a bunch of Violet Academy students back to Aklan Academy." Kaiser was now satisfied having heard the whole story.

"Daylight has the kindest heart. Many Knights did not want to carry the Violet Academy students, and Daylight had to persuade them by citing the Chivalric Knight Code, only then did they carry the wounded back."

Purity stared at Daylight with admiration. Daylight felt embarrassed, and at the same time he said,

"Everyone who saw to situation would have done the same thing."

"Oh really? Why do I get the feeling I would have chosen to step on those bastards?" Kaiser muttered with a disdained expression. Why should he be courteous to people who brought nothing but trouble?

"Hey, Baolilong, are you a pig?! You just finished another plate filled with meat!"

Kaiser yelled in dissatisfaction. Baolilong, who was chewing a large piece of meat, ignored Kaiser.

Ever since Kaiser grabbed a piece of meat from Baolilong's mouth and gotten himself electrocuted, Kaiser deeply understood grabbing meat from a Dragon's mouth was definitely unwise.

"Liola! Another plate of meat… Hey, stop playing with your aura."

Kaiser turned to yell at the Assassin, who was staring at his own blood-red aura. His slight frown indicating he was confused.

Hearing Kaiser's yell, Liola raised his head to glance at Kaiser, and then quickly flung the largest piece of meat into the air. When the meat was falling, Liola raise his hand and enveloped the meat with his blood-red aura.

Now, it wasn't just Kaiser who had his mouth wide open. Everyone was beginning to suspect Liola had gotten an addiction with playing with his aura. He could not attack people, so he was using his aura to vent on the meat instead…

But what happened next made it clear to everyone that Assassins don't play around, especially Liola. He was only focusing on 'practical usage'.

A piece of meat, the size of a human head fell into the plate Liola had prepared. Unlike the charred piece of coal everyone expected it to be, it was a juicy piece of meat. Its alluring aroma consistently challenged everyone's restraint. Liola took the knife beside him. After a few flashes, the head sized meat had been cut into slices.

"Aura… barbecue?" Daylight was extremely shocked. As a Knight, he was proud of his aura. But who would use their own aura to roast meat?

Liola carefully examined the cross section. The redness of the meat indicated that it was not fully cooked, and it looked like he had to use a little bit more aura.

Liola quickly calculated the ratio between the size of the meat and the amount of aura he used. At the same time, he toss the slightly undercooked meat; but a Dragon's favorite kind of meat, to Baolilong.

"This is great! Holy cow, aura roasted barbecue! I've never eaten anything like it in my life."

Kaiser jumped up and yelled. "I want aura roasted barbecue. Liola give me some aura roasted barbecue."

"Purity wants some too!" Purity jumped up too.

Though Meinan cared about his image, and therefore did not jump up and down screaming he wanted meat, but with his flashing eyes, his desire for meat was practically written across his forehead.

Liola didn't disappoint his companions. He threw a few pieces of meat into the air, and started using both of his hands. A few flashes of red light appeared in the air, and the pieces of meat fell into the plates Liola had instantly placed on the table.

Everyone saw the delicious meat, and started yelling, "Long live aura roasted meat!"

Still, Liola didn't hand the plates to everyone, but instead he grabbed a handful of vegetables and threw them into the air.

"Oh oh, Purity loves veggies!" Purity cheered

"Veggies are good, they are healthy!" Meinan seemed to have forgotten everything about his image, and started cheering with Purity.

Likewise, a few flashes of red light appeared in the air, and the vegetables, like the meat, were also… Wait, no, the vegetables disappeared from the air.

Everyone looked and saw that a bunch of pitch black powder landed on the meat they were salivating over moments ago, and practically covered the pieces of meat, as if the pieces of meat were telling them,

"Eat me, do you want to eat me? Come if you dare…"

Their cheers froze.

Liola also silently looked at the pieces of ash-covered meat, and slowly stated the truth, "I failed."

After a while, Kaiser finally recovered from shock. He pretended to be at ease and said, "How about another dish? Let me say this first, I don't want vegetables!"

Purity and Meinan also desperately shook their heads and yelled, "No veggies, no veggies."

Before Liola had time to explain he hadn't fully learned the technique, so the vegetables were a failure, and it wouldn't happen again next time, Auntie's thunder-like voice had stormed into the room.

"Little children~~ Hurry, hurry, leader from every continent had already arrived at your academy. Bartercup already called me and rushed me to deliver all the food over to the academy. For an entire week, everyone in your academy will be waiters and hosts for our guests. Bartercup says that every student must be an unpaid waiter."

"This damn old geezer, he must hide all the money used for waiters." Kaiser murmured.

"I've already told Bartercup he should send all of you to come here to be cafeteria workers."

Auntie anxiously stomped the ground, "Aiya, I don't know if this is enough people?"

"We're responsible to provide food?" Daylight asked curiously.

Though Liola's roasted meat was indeed good, it didn't seemed delicate enough to be presented to the leaders of every continent. To cater to all the leaders, it really didn't seem like Delicious Barbecue Restaurant would be chosen.

"Yes, okay, everyone follow me to fetch the best meat. We have to make preparations to go."

With Auntie's gong-like voice, everyone obediently followed her orders, and started to work like busy bees after following Auntie into the freezer.

They worked hard to move the meat from the freezer to the Maxun responsible for transportation. They went back and forth many times. When everyone was tired to the point of almost collapsing, Daylight felt a bit suspicious.

Although there were six or seven people present to help moving the meat, but Liola, Auntie, and he, moved far more meat than the rest.

Daylight could move more than 100kg per trip. Liola was even more amazing, had it not been the fact he had nowhere else to hold meat on his body, he probably could've moved more than 150kg per trip.

Auntie, on the other hand, moved an unimaginable amount of meat. Her body was massive, and the weight didn't seem to bother her at all. She probably moved as much meat per trip as everyone else combined.

When Daylight raised his head as high as he could to see the top of the meat mountain, he seriously questioned. 'Wouldn't this mountain-like pile of meat be too much?'

"Okay, I will drive the Maxun to your academy. You guys walk and rendezvous with me there."

Auntie jumped up to the cockpit designed for two people, but her large body made it impossible for even the thin Purity to squeeze in, so everyone had no choice but nod in agreement.

When everyone walked out of Delicious Barbecue Restaurant, they realized there was quite a rumble outside. There was a sea of people desperately pushing one another, and they were heading towards the Aklan Academy.

The crowd had gotten more and more crazy as what originally was a little dot in the sky slowly came closer, and became evident that it was a row of Dragons. Many people yelled,

"The Dragon Emperor is here!"

Daylight saw they couldn't squeeze through the crowd, so he sighed and called for Flames via telepathy. When the Fire Dragon, Flames, heard its master's call, it immediately flew out of the window of the dorm, and coincidentally flew past the row of Dragons that had just landed.

* * *

"What a nice Red Dragon. It's got nice colors, and its flying posture is beautiful. Looks like it has a good master."

A man with white, gold-lined Knight uniform jumped down from his Dragon as he saw Flames fly by. He smiled and enjoyed the scene of Flames passing by.

"Roar~"

The Dragon next to him seemed dissatisfied, and roared loudly, while desperately rubbing its head against its master. Coincidentally, this Dragon was also a Red Dragon.

The man couldn't hold back his laughter. He patted the Dragon's head and said, "I know, Little Fireball is the best Red Dragon, how is that?"

"Sovereign younger brother, please mind your etiquette." Another man wearing black, gold-lined Knight uniform, who looked majestic and calm, seemed to be dissatisfied with his brother's demeanor.

"Oh, understood, second elder sovereign brother."

The younger man immediately withdrew his smile after being criticized, but the corner of his mouth was still tilted, making it obvious his was only pretending in front of his brother.

Sure enough, as soon as his elder brother turned, he began to kick Little Fireball or used his hand to pull the Dragon's beard, making Little Fireball feel quite awkward at its master's childishness.

The dozen or so Dragon Knights quietly waited for the most important person. A snow white Dragon slowly landed from the sky. The Dragon's elegant posture eclipsed the other Dragons, and the person on top of awed every Knight below.

Though as a Knight, the person riding the White Dragon did not wear a Knight uniform, but instead wore a purple robe. He stood quietly on top of the Dragon's back, and his long silver hair was tied up behind him.

His purple eyes were even more beautiful than the robe he wore. His extraordinarily delicate face made everyone skeptical of his identity, but the Dragon crown atop his head would stomp any doubt of him being the leader of the Dragon Empire, the Dragon Emperor.

When the snow white Dragon slowly landed on the ground, all the Dragon Knights got on one knee. The two men with gold-lined Knight uniforms also quickly stepped up, bowed, and said at the same time, "Welcome, Your Majesty."

"Mm." The Emperor seemed to be a bit absent-minded. "You may rise."

After hearing the Emperor's permission, everyone stood up. The servants from the side immediately went up, and unrolled a white carpet. The carpet reached from where the Emperor stood all the way to the entrance to a large building.

Both sides of the entrance already had many people standing there: Qiusi and three people all wearing military uniforms of varying color. Barbalis also stood there, but a bit in front of the others to welcome the Dragon Emperor.

The Emperor seemed to have snapped out of his daze, stepped down from the white Dragon, and slowly walked on the white carpet. When he passed by his two sons, he glanced at his second son's chest, and saw a cross necklace with Dragon wings.

He looked at his son, but his son showed a stubborn expression. The Emperor slowly turned his head back, and continued to walk towards Qiusi and others without saying a word.

The second Prince smiled slightly, declaring his victory, and the third Prince curiously yet worriedly looked at his second elder sovereign brother and his cross necklace.

Barbalis and Qiusi also saw the necklace and the Emperor's reaction. At the same time they thought,

'So it really wasn't the Emperor who ordered Lancelot to rob Liola of his necklace, but instead it was the second Prince.'

Even though they were thinking this, but they would never present any neglect to the Emperor of the Dragon Empire.

There were five Gold Knights and ten Silver Knights. They were strong enough of a force to destroy the Aklan capital.

Barbalis immediately went up, and his face was all smile as he said,

"Your Majestic, welcome to our humble shop… no, humble academy, and it will be our honor to have your presence."

Qiusi withheld the desire to punch the smile out of Barbalis' face, and maintained his demeanor as the country's Prime Minister.

He said calmly, "Long time no see, Your Majesty."

The Emperor's gaze moved towards Qiusi. For the first time today, emotion surfaced on his face.

He smiled and said, "It has indeed been a long time, Aklan Prime Minister, and the three Leaders of Commerce Alliance."

A tall man wearing Yellow military uniform said heartily, "This is my first time seeing the Dragon Emperor, and he surely has the demeanor of a King."

The thin man in Green military uniform smiled shyly, and said with a stutter, "H-hello, Your Majesty."

Lastly, a woman wearing bright Red military uniform playfully smiled, "I've always heard the adjectives describing the Dragon Emperor were majestic and royal, but now that I see you, you look just like a pretty boy, and not at all like a father of several children."

Hearing this insulting mockery, a few Knights behind the Emperor seemed to have gotten furious, and put their hands on the handle their swords.

However, the Dragon Emperor smiled, and held up his right hand, indicating for his Knights to stop what they're doing.

"I've heard the Red Leader had always been straightforward, and now that I've met you, it seems like the rumors were true."

Hearing the Dragon Emperor, the Red Leader laughed like a silver bell.

"Okay, everyone, let's go in. Standing at the door is not how Aklan Academy treat their guests."

Barbalis beckoned loudly. The Leaders first stepped in the door, followed by the two Princes, then finally their respective guards.

Barbalis looked at the Red Dragon Flames circling at the academy gate, and thought in his mind,

"Maylee, Maylee, I hope you look after that silver-eyed punk. But honestly, if fate forces him to do something, how could you possibly stop him?"

* * *

On the other side, though Daylight called forth Flames and it would indeed allow them to enter the academy, but when they saw Barbalis was greeting the Leaders, they did not approach.

Had they done so, they might be swatted like flies by dozens of Knights, or stepped on like roaches by those rank-X Mechas. With their principle to keep living, they could only circle around in the air, while waiting for the Leaders to finish their salutations.

"Hey, Meinan, everyone else brought a ton of forces, why did your father bring nothing at all?" Kaiser asked curiously.

Meinan replied, "Oh, our strength lies with defense. Though my father probably couldn't beat anyone, but no one in the world could harm him, so he doesn't need any guards."

"Says who? Can protective shields block swords?" Kaiser said in disdain.

Meinan seriously replied, "Ordinarily, protective shields can't block physical attacks, but our ancestral comprehensive protective shield can, and my father sets this shield around him 24/7, so even ambushes are useless."

"COMPREHENSIVE PROTECTIVE SHIELD!"

Kaiser's face lit up with a blinding light, and at the same time Meinan seemed to feel he had said something he shouldn't have.

With Kaiser's habit of (ab)using everyone he could, he said with a smile, "Then from now on, my safety is entirely in your hands. If I were to lose so much as a hair, you will have to pay!"

Meinan's face turned pale, and waved his hands to say, "I'm not my dad. I can't maintain comprehensive protective shield all the time, and even if I were to use it, I can't hold it for long…"

Kaiser patted Meinan's back,

"Don't worry, don't worry. Liola is quite strong. All you have to do is hold the comprehensive protective shield until Liola finish off the enemies."

Meinan's face was quite bitter, and he felt like a lamb in front of a wolf's mouth…

Compared to Meinan and Kaiser's playfulness, Liola's heart was in turmoil.

Originally, he had no hope of ever retrieving Anise's necklace. He thought he could use the impossibly as the reason to not retrieve it. But now, had his powers had returned to him, and the necklace may very well be on the Dragon Emperor…

Liola's otherwise calm heart had been agitated again. He almost wanted to put on his mask to take back what belonged to him.

"Liola."

Kaiser's face sank as he called out to Liola. He probably guessed what Liola was thinking, but to grab the necklace from the Dragon Emperor? Kaiser wasn't blind. He saw the dozen of Silver Knights or higher, and the three rank-X Mechas.

When Kaiser yelled, Liola snapped of his daze and saw Kaiser's warning eyes. Liola sighed, and lightly nodded, indicating he wouldn't do anything ridiculous.

"Little children, hurry, Auntie will bring you to work."

Before Flames even reached their destination, Auntie begin to use her gong-like voice to beckon them.

Daylight ordered Flames to fly as fast as it could towards Auntie. However before they landed, something strange happened. The dozens of Dragons standing outside suddenly all turned towards them, and looked at the human-shaped Baolilong.

All of them seemed puzzled until the Dragon Emperor's White Dragon elegantly walked over, and then knelt towards Liola and others. The other Dragons saw its action, and they copied it and knelt along with the White Dragon.

"Hot damn, Dragons actually know how to kneel. Never seen this before in my life."

Kaiser was shocked. He thought about it, then turned around and said to Liola, "This is probably because of you. Are you some kind of deity of abnormality?"

Liola lowered his head to look at Baolilong and asked, "Why are they kneeling?"

Baolilong opened its innocent pink eyes and said, "Don't know, but everyone is kneeling at Baolilong."

Hearing Baolilong's useless reply, Kaiser poked its egg-like forehead and said, "Could Dragons have a habit of kneeling to the Dragon with the lowest intelligence?"

Auntie ran over to them and nervously said to Liola, "Little child, you better ask your Dragon to order the other Dragons to get up. If anyone sees this, things could turn worse."

Liola's calm eyes flashed with a sense of warning, 'This Auntie…'

Liola didn't raise any questions for Auntie, and said to Baolilong, "Baolilong, tell them to get up. Also, ask the White Dragon to come here and explain."

Obeying what papa said, Baolilong yelled a few times at the Dragons. Then, the Dragons looked at each other a few times, then turned around to look away from Baolilong. But the White Dragon's reaction was rather strange. It looked like it had received some sort of shock, and its mouth opened wide, completely devoid of its previous elegance.

Kaiser pushed his shoulder against Baolilong, "Hey, chowhound, what did you say? Why does this Dragon look like it's about to go insane?"

Baolilong said triumphantly, "Baolilong said, 'What are you looking at! Never seen a Dragon? If you haven't, why don't you look at yourselves!'"

"Aiya, little runt you sure know how to talk now, but why your tone sound so familiar?"

Kaiser tilted his head to try to remember where he had heard such a tone before.

Everyone's gaze landed on Kaiser, and only the culprit was still wondering whose tone it was.

Baolilong yelled again, this time at the white Dragon. Baolilong would always follow every word of what papa said. Though how things would end up by following papa's orders was never something little Baolilong would ever consider.

The White Dragon heard Baolilong's yell, and seemed to have snapped out of its daze and closed its mouth. The White Dragon nodded elegantly at Baolilong, and said with a soft voice, "Prince's master, what would you like for me to explain?"

The Assassin began to think. Prince's master was definitely referring to himself, and he had only been master to one Dragon, so his Dragon, Baolilong, was the Prince. The reason why all the Dragons knelt was because Baolilong was the Dragon Prince!

Liola's face sank. He had previously refused to be a Prince, but now he's the Prince's master…

"Does the Dragon Prince have any responsibilities or obligations?" Liola asked.

Comparing to find out one day in the future of him having responsibilities as the Dragon Prince's master, he'd rather find out now, at least… Liola couldn't lighten up his distressed face, so at least he could make preparations.

The White Dragon was stunned, and said hesitantly, "Ordinarily, only one person in the world would own one of us Sacred White Dragon, and that would be the Emperor of the Dragon Empire. Other than him, Dragons don't have any special responsibilities, and the same goes for the Prince, unless Dragons face the danger of extinction."

Great, Liola's mood dampened even more. His predicament actually changed from whether he wanted to be the Dragon Empire's Prince to whether he wanted to be the Dragon Empire's Emperor. With his luck, Dragons may very well face extinction soon.

"Aiya, anyhow, little child, cook these meat for Auntie. We have to feed their Dragons to full before the Knights come back out!"

When they saw Liola's expression, everyone had gotten more and more worried about him. But with Auntie's high decibel scream, Liola's attention seemed to be back on her. He asked with confusion,

"Feed the Dragons?"

"Yep. This week, we're responsible to feed the Knights' Dragons. Is there a problem?"

Auntie blinked her eyes, with her eyelids looking like they're as firm as her bicep. Her square face got closer and closer to Liola's, as if a Military Sergeant asking a Foot Soldier if he had a problem with her orders.

Even Liola had to take a step back. He shook his head expressing there was no problem.

"Great!" Auntie put her hands on her waist and yelled, "Liola and I are responsible for cooking the meat, and everyone else take the Dragons to the sport fields. Let them stay wherever they want there, but remember where they are. Come to the kitchen in a while, and bring the meat back to the Dragons."

Other than Daylight's spirited reply, everyone else gave a feeble response, then each started to determine which Dragon was more tame.

The Fire Dragon was something everyone avoided. If they're not careful and it breathes fire, then they would become the barbecue.

Kaiser circled around the White Dragon to avoid it. He had already had enough fun with Baolilong's electrocution, and he didn't want to taste the same thing from a mature Dragon.

Purity was already hiding behind Meinan as soon as she saw the Dragons larger than Flames, and wouldn't come out.

Meinan's mood was slightly better, considering he was the person who was able to stop the Black Dragon King Miluo's attack, but… he still kept his distance from the Dragons. Although he didn't fear Dragon magic, he was still afraid Dragons might flatten him into a pancake with their feet.

The only person who was truly not afraid, was the person who spent day and night with a Dragon—Daylight. He took Flames, who shrank into a small Dragon, to meet new friends.

To the Dragons, Flames was still a little boy, so they were fairly friendly with Flames. As Knights' mounts, the Dragons also seemed to respect Daylight, whose Knight etiquette was exemplary. Without saying much, the Dragons quietly followed Daylight to move to the sport fields.

Seeing Daylight handling the situation well, Kaiser and others didn't have anything to worry. They decided to follow the Dragons, so they could ascertain their position, then come back to the kitchen to fetch the meat.

Before Kaiser left, however, he suddenly stopped and turned his head to say to Liola, "Never leave the kitchen, and especially not to go to the meeting!"

Liola wanted to answer he would never go to the Leaders' meeting, but then thought about the accidents that had happened before.

Liola calmly said, "I… will try."

Although unhappy with Liola's reply, Kaiser did understand fate seemed to like to play games with them, and there were always accidents forcing them one way or another. What would happen this time?

* * *

Liola then turned around to follow Auntie, while with a thought in his mind:

'Anise was an important companion, and her possession is very important as well. But his companions who are still alive are more important, and I can't harm my companions because of Anise's possession.'

Auntie walked through a small humble door leading to the busy kitchen. The chefs in the kitchen allocated a small corner of the kitchen for them, it was a small room used to boil water.

The room was so small, Auntie couldn't even go in, so she had no choice but let Liola do the cooking. Auntie stood at the door to pass the meat to Liola, whom then cooked them into rare steaks (Dragons loved their food rare).

Originally, Liola planned to behave and use fire to cook. Problem was, every piece of meat was as large as half of Liola's body. Even for an exceptional cook, it would take quite a while to cook such humongous piece of meat. At this rate, when the others come here to fetch the meat, only one piece of meat would barely be rare.

Liola wanted to cut the meat into smaller pieces to cook, but Auntie stopped him because Dragons loved to tear the pieces of meat apart by themselves. The size they had was already rather small for Dragons, so they can't cut them into smaller pieces. But if Liola were to turn up the fire, the surface of the meat would definitely get burnt.

Liola frowned, and looked around him. He was in a very small, remote room, and there was only one window located fairly high up. Unless someone put their face against the window, no one could see what's going on inside.

Liola immediately turned off the stove, and threw the large piece of meat into the air. After a flash of red light, the half body-sized meat had been cooked to rare.

Liola threw the meat out, and started to work on a new piece of meat. This kept going for a couple of pieces until Auntie poked her head in with suspicion, but after watching, she didn't say anything to stop him. Thus, Liola felt relieved, and then continued to use his aura to cook meat.

During this time, only Kaiser would dare to poke his head in and say, "Liola, cook one to well done, I want to eat."

Liola threw a piece of well-done meat out, and said, "Remember to help me feed Baolilong."

Kaiser, however, gave him a glare,

"Yeah right! The dozen pieces of meat you've cooked were all eaten by your Dragon. Your Dragon Prince isn't full yet, and other Dragons wouldn't even dare to touch the meat!"

… … …

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Chapter 8 : Declaration of War

"Little Fireball? Little Fireball? Your master is looking for you~."

A man trotted towards the sport fields while yelling "Little Fireball".

The man wore a white, gold-lined Knight uniform, and inherited a head full of silver hair from his dad. What was different was this man's hair was short. As for his eyes, he had the same blue eyes as his sister Lanski. Along with his relaxing smile, he would make the people who look at him comfortable.

Though being unable to find where his Dragon was, the man didn't look like he cared. After all, he was only using the excuse of looking for his Dragon to be outdoors.

To him, it was sunny outside with a light, cool breeze, it would have been foolish to stay inside a building and not come out for a walk!

Of course, this was something he wouldn't say out loud. To say it out would be the same as calling his elder brother, and more importantly, His Majesty foolish. It wouldn't matter for him to call his brother foolish, but definitely not the Emperor.

The man smiled slightly, and then began to yell again, "Little Fireball, where art thou? Are you playing hide-and-seek with your master?"

"You're looking for Little Fireball?"

Kaiser happened to walk by with a cart full of meat, and he kept glancing at this man. He thought,

'Was this man really the master of the enormous Dragon aptly named 'Little' Fireball, or was he an escapee from an asylum?'

But, a madman probably couldn't get his hands on a gold-lined Knight uniform easily, so Kaiser had no choice but unwillingly admit the man who was laughing like an idiot was indeed Little Fireball's master.

As soon as Kaiser heard the Dragon calling itself Little Fireball, he already felt its master must be a little brain-damaged. At least, in the part of the brain that came up with names.

"Hmm? You know where my Little Fireball is?" The man finally withdrew his relaxed (or, in Kaiser's words, idiotic) smile.

He curiously looked at the boy who didn't seem to be afraid of him at all. Shouldn't normal people revere Gold Knights?

"Yup, I do know, and I'm about to deliver some meat over there. I can lead you to it."

Kaiser pushed the cart full of meat, and walked slowly, slacking off. Since Meinan and Purity had already rushed over, plus Auntie said, don't go too quickly, so no one would become suspicious, didn't she? Therefore, Kaiser's slacking manner was fair and square.

The man became even more curious. The boy didn't revere him at all!

As the third Prince of the Dragon Empire, and a man who had gotten to Gold rank at such a young age, the man had never had anyone who didn't venerate him. But he was easygoing, and therefore not angry, but just curious.

The truth was, Kaiser didn't do it on purpose. Though he may have never really respected anyone, but to avoid trouble, he would definitely pretend to be.

The main reason was he had seen some very important people lately. X-ranked criminal Mizerui, followed by Barbalis who had unknown powers, but guaranteed to be quite strong.

'Hmm, Princess Lanski also counts as one of them.'

Then he ran into the Black Dragon King Miluo, and Dark Knight Blood Wolf, not to mention the Paladin Lancelot who kept causing them trouble again and again. Finally, they had a run-in with The Adorning Flowers, and saw their Gold Knight leader, Gladiolus…

Compared to all them, what was a gold Knight to him?

Kaiser wouldn't even fake a smile for Lancelot, he threatened his principal, called Blood Wolf a bro, and rescued a man Gladiolus was going to kill…

"Sorcerer? Sorcerer? What's your name? I can't just keep calling you Sorcerer, right?" The man called Kaiser several times.

"Kaiser." He lazily answered.

"Oh, Kaiser." The man laughed for a while, and then finally asked when he saw Kaiser not having any response, "Why don't you ask me what my name is?"

Kaiser rolled his eyes, "Knowing another name means having one more trouble." Everyone who told him their names had all been big trouble!

The man seemed to feel a bit awkward, but continued to implore, "Ask me, please ask me~"

'Damn! Does being Gold rank Knight not involve some sort of IQ test?' Kaiser sported an agitated face, but considering the gold lines on his shirt, he forced his mouth open and said,

"What is your name then?"

Hearing Kaiser finally asked, the man was very excited. He straightened his back, pumped up his chest, and declared, "I am Cappuccino Zhuogen."

The man finished his introduction, and kept his imposing demeanor while continuously glancing at Kaiser.

Seeing Kaiser stupefied, the man thought he was shocked by his name, since the only people with the Zhuogen last name were the Dragon Emperor and his children. Even if this man was a Sorcerer, and would therefore ignore his identity as a Gold Knight, he would at least be shocked of his identity as a Prince, right?

"Your brother… isn't called Latte or something, right?" Kaiser's face looked like he was saying 'I hope not, I'm just making conversation.'

"So you know, my second elder brother is Latte." Cappuccino said with excitement, and his face looked like he was saying 'So you actually know the names of us three Princes.'

"Second elder brother? So you have an eldest brother? Kaiser was in shock, and after some though, asked suspiciously, "Your eldest brother is… Mocha?"

"That's right, that's right." Cappuccino nodded fervently.

So coming up with bad names was actually a genetic disease. Kaiser started to feel sympathy to a certain someone who named his move "Failed Lecture — Skyfull Chaos Egg Falls".

(Mizerui suddenly felt his body trembling: Who? Who used magic to glimpse into my heart?)

"Sigh Well, you should restrain your grief." Kaiser sympathetically patted Cappuccino's shoulder.

Cappuccino, who wished to see admiration or reverence, would have never imagined Kaiser's response. His mouth began to twitch. When he finally snapped out of it, Kaiser had already walked far away, and Cappuccino hurriedly followed him.

As Kaiser walked, he chewed on the well-done meat Liola cooked, and performed the words 'slacking on the job' to its fullest.

Cappuccino caught up to Kaiser, and asked with shock, "Why are you eating this? Isn't this for the Dragon? Don't you know meat meant for Dragons are usually not fully cooked?"

Kaiser's reaction was rather direct: he tore off a piece of meat, and stuffed it in Cappuccino's mouth, whose face was, at first, awkward and looked like he was about to vomit, but then his taste buds started telling him the meat in his mouth was actually quite delicious.

Cappuccino finally tried chewing a couple of times, and then his face suddenly turned into the expression of 'God! Why is this so tasty? I'm afraid that I may never have something this good again, then what will I do?!'

After finishing the meat in his mouth, Cappuccino reached up and tore off several more pieces of meat and ate them as if the meat moved his heart. He licked his fingers as he asked, "Why is this so tasty? It looks like it was simply roasted."

"This is cooked with a very special method." Kaiser's eyes flashed, and began to trick this guy in front of him, who looked like an idiot,

"Do you honestly think this is ordinary meat? This is the very best meat. The animal from which this meat came had grown up in a world filled with music, and an environment where servants filled their every need. The only thing they ate were organic corns grown on the plains, and as soon as they were slaughtered, their meat was immediately delivered to us. But, what follows after is the most important part! Our cooking method is top secret, but I can tell you a bit about it, and it is 'instant heating'. The meat is cooked thoroughly in less than 0.001 second, so no juice from the meat is lost, and the meat is not damaged by long hours of cooking, only then can such delicious meat be achieved!"

Cappuccino held his mouth wide open. He listened carefully to Kaiser's explanation, and he thought, 'I can't believe Little Fireball eats better than me!'

Kaiser said triumphantly, "Had I not been well-acquainted with the chef, I wouldn't be able to get this piece of meat, and you wouldn't be able to eat it. Hey, such delicious meat, I'll sell it to you for cheap, how about… 50 gold coins, it's a steal, right? Hey, even if you're not going to buy, you still have to pay for the few bites you had just now! At least ten gold coins!"

Cappuccino was stunned. He scratched his head, and then took off a button from his sleeve, "I didn't bring any money with me. How about I use this to pay for it?"

Kaiser suspiciously examined the button. It looked a bit old, and it seemed to be made out of wood. But since Kaiser was someone who would take anything over nothing, he grabbed the button with a swoop, and he said, "Fine, fine, it's my loss, but I will still take the deal."

Cappuccino said with a smile, "That's yours, but you have to introduce me to the chef."

"No, thanks!"

Kaiser wiped the button over and over again. It was indeed made out of wood, and a pattern seemed to be carved into the button, the background of which looked like a Dragon, and the foreground had a sword going through it. According to Kaiser's memory, this pattern closely resembled some royal insignia of some empire. Wait, Cappuccino Zhuogen… Zhuogen!

Kaiser's body froze, and his face went dark. He asked with a trembling voice, "What's Ms. Lanski's relation to you?"

"Lanski is my only baby sister. You know her?" Cappuccino became even more curious. The boy in front of him even knew his only sister.

'Just my motherf—ing luck… why would the third Prince of Dragon Empire not be at the meeting, but instead running around with his idiotic smile?'

Kaiser swore and swore in his mind, but he eventually put on his fakest smile, then turned around to look at the Prince,

"Your Highness, are you planning on looking at your Dragon? Let me take you there then?"

"Uh?" Cappuccino didn't believe that it was possible for someone's attitude to change that quickly. To him, Kaiser seemed as lazy as a student back from summer vacation just a moment ago, but now he suddenly seemed like a butler who had worked for him for ages.

After Cappuccino's shock, he said, "Okay, you lead. But, I'd rather go meet the chef first."

Kaiser's face sank a bit, but then he piled on more smile, "What's the point of meeting chefs? They are all fat, short, big bellied, and hairless? Your Highness, it's best you don't harm your own eyes."

Cappuccino looked at Kaiser and laughed loudly, "So in other words, that chef must be tall, slender, and a head full of soft, beautiful, long hair!"

'H-he found out!' Kaiser's body completely froze.

Kaiser's shocked expression confirmed Cappuccino's guess: that chef was definitely a beautiful woman! A tall, slender, beautiful woman who could cook was the image of his ideal girl.

[T/N: In Chinese, the word 'he' and 'she' sounds the same.]

Cappuccino knew that he would never let go of this opportunity, "Beauty, beauty, here I come."

Kaiser had been a worried this Prince might just be acting, and in fact had already know the whole truth from Lancelot, but his expression… made it impossible for someone to guess what Cappuccino was thinking.

Cappuccino was laughing so much, his eyes narrowed, and his smile was somewhat perverted. He even occasionally started dancing. He puffed his mouth as if he were about to kiss someone, and anyone who saw him would want to give him some fierce slapping.

Even an idiot would know this guy was in heat! Kaiser looked at Cappuccino in disgust, but he then suddenly returned to normal, and Kaiser's disgust immediately returned to a smile.

Cappuccino said directly, "If you don't take me to the chef, I will go to the kitchen and look myself!"

Kaiser's face suddenly changed. If someone saw Liola roasting meat with his aura, then things would be bad… of course, the bad thing about it was not to have someone finding out about aura roasted meat (Kaiser basically thought, if this guy found out aura can be used to cook delicious meat, he'd be the first person to use it!), but instead Liola's true strength would be seen.

"No!" Kaiser said solemnly, and before Cappuccino could respond, Kaiser continued,

"Think about it, a beautiful woman is wearing an ugly apron and cooking with sweat running down her face. How could she possibly let a Prince see her like this?"

Cappuccino nodded. The woman's love for beauty was something he understood well.

"Therefore…" Kaiser's eyes rolled, "Let's meet at the dance after the meeting. You give me an invitation for the dance, and I will help you deliver it to the chef."

Cappuccino nodded, and said, "You don't need an invitation. Just take my button with you. I will tell the people at the door to let you through. Also, come with the chef, otherwise I wouldn't know who she is."

Kaiser nodded seriously, thinking he could just drag Purity along, because nobody would know whether Purity knew how to cook. Besides, with Purity being a Commerce Alliance leader's daughter, she would pair quite well with a Prince.

"Great!" Cappuccino cheered, and at the same time, his face suddenly changed, "Crap, I didn't think I would run into my dream girl, and I actually didn't bring my formal clothes. No, I have to go buy one right now!"

After saying so, Cappuccino ran like a wind towards the academy gate, and he turned to yell to Kaiser, "Remember! I will wait for you at tonight's dance. See you there!"

Kaiser nodded.

Cappuccino was so happy, he jumped for joy. When Cappuccino disappeared from the gate, Kaiser showed his true face: a face full of disgust. At the same time, he noticed the students around him looked at him ambiguously, and then looked at the direction Cappuccino went.

"What are you looking at?! Never seen a man? If you haven't, why don't you look at yourselves?!"

* * *

Like Kaiser running into a Prince, Liola also seemed to be having bad luck. While he was busy cooking meat with his aura like a machine, he suddenly heard Baolilong's anxious screams. Baolilong's cry for "papa" made Liola frown, and he asked,

"Baolilong, what's wrong?"

"Papa, waahhh~ bad men are bullying Baolilong, they are taking Baolilong away, papa come quick."

Baolilong continued to cry, and didn't respond to Liola's inquiries about who the bad guys were. Liola ignored what Kaiser had said. He turned to run out of the little room.

Auntie was blocking the door, and she had no intention of letting Liola pass. Liola raised his head to look at Auntie, who sighed and said,

"You run into trouble even during peaceful times around the academy. Now the academy is filled with trouble, are you sure you want to go out?"

Liola slowly raised his head further. His silver eyes no longer had any sign of running away. He stared blankly into Auntie's eyes,

"If I don't go out, what would you have me do? Stay here forever?"

"If you can face any and all difficulties, Auntie would rather have you fly freely outside."

Auntie smiled with her teeth showing, but then her face sank, "But if you run into trouble again and then hide, then you better stay here."

Liola thought about everything he had done up to now: he promised Anise he would no longer run away from the real reason why they met, but while looking for peaceful days, hadn't he always been running away ever since he left Anise? He ran to a foreign world, ran to the academy, and even ran to the Dark Street… The irony of this was the more he ran away, the more involved he became. If he would no longer run away…

… Then he should face his troubles, and defeat any who oppose him!

Liola's silver eyes shone, and calmly yet confidently said to Auntie, "I'm going out, and I won't be coming back again."

Auntie was pleased and nodded, at the same time moved her body away, "Yeah, you are not the kind of person to be a chef. Go, little child, find where you belong in the sky."

For some reason, seeing Auntie's kind eyes, warmth crept into Liola's heart. After nodding earnestly to Auntie, Liola walked out of the narrow room.

When he was out of the kitchen, he saw no one was around, so quickly took off his Sorcerer robe, revealing the silver-lined Knight uniform underneath. He put on his mask and threw his robe onto a nearby tree, then Liola used his fastest speed without hesitation and rushed towards Baolilong.

Considering Assassins win almost purely by speed, Liola's full speed was beyond amazing. When he passed another person in his path, the person could only feel a breeze passing by, and therefore completely unaware someone had passed them. Liola instantly reached where Baolilong was, and also saw the situation.

A few Silver and Gold Knights surrounded Baolilong while it was in the shape of a small Dragon. One of the Gold Knight was angrily yelling at Baolilong.

Baolilong was crying, and at the same time it desperately yelled, "No! No! Baolilong doesn't want to go with you, and Baolilong doesn't want to change masters! No, waahhh…"

A man wearing black, gold-lined Knight uniform said furiously, "Nonsense! As a Sacred White Dragon, you must pick a person from the Dragon Empire's Royal Family as your master, how could you pick a random outsider as your master!"

"Sigh, though I've heard this Sacred White Dragon was naive and childish and lack the temperament of Sacred White Dragons, but I would've never imagined it would have made such a grave mistake…" Another Knight shook his head and sighed.

"This is bad, this Sacred White Dragon seems like it can't be given such important responsibilities."

Baolilong heard everything, and although it could only understand some of it, it knew they were scolding no one but itself. More and more tears rolled out of its pink big eyes.

Other than the Knights surrounding Baolilong, Liola suddenly realized his companions were also there. But what really shocked him was that, Daylight was lying on the ground, unconscious.

Purity lay on Daylight's chest with her shoulders twitching, and she was clearly weeping. Meinan, on the other hand, was staring at the Knights with a never-before-seen rage in his eyes.

After examining the surrounding, Liola was certain something big happened, probably those Knights found out about Baolilong's real identity, and decided to kidnap Baolilong or force it to choose another master.

Daylight, being the chivalric Knight and a good friend, would naturally never allow them to bully Baolilong. However, Daylight was a Blue Knight, and was therefore no match for these Gold and Silver Knights, thus, he could only end up defeated.

Seeing his companions injured because they were trying to protect his Dragon, Liola felt worse than when he was injured. He quickly circulated his Ki, and his agile body instantly stood in front of Baolilong's body. He picked up Baolilong, then instantly moved away.

During all this, though a few Gold Knights were able to see him, they had no time to stop him, so they couldn't do anything except watch him carry Baolilong back to Daylight and others.

"Li… Silver Mask!" Meinan was in shock when he saw Liola suddenly appearing before his eyes, and he had Baolilong in his hand.

After the initial shock, Meinan yelled to Liola without any hesitation, "Silver Mask! Teach these bastards a lesson! They… not only did they beat Daylight unconscious, they broke Purity's wrist because she was controlling Mechas."

Liola's eyes narrowed, and he looked at Purity's hand from the corner of his eyes. Sure enough, Purity's right wrist was bruised and swollen like a bun, and looked like there were bone fractures.

At the same time, Purity raised her head; tears flowed out of her red eyes as she said to Liola,

"I'll be fine, but they broke Daylight's sword, and Flames was also severely injured. Daylight was very sad. Li-Li… dage, please avenge Daylight!"

Hearing Purity, Liola was thoroughly infuriated. A terrifying flame burned in his eyes, but he didn't say anything else. He placed Baolilong into Meinan's arms, and said to him,

"Meinan, use your protective shield. I will not let any physical attacks harm you."

Though there were two Gold and five Silver opposing Knights, Meinan didn't doubt Liola for a second, and he believed Liola would definitely right this injustice. What he must do now was to maintain the shield to protect his companions, so Liola wouldn't have to worry about anyone but himself.

Meinan started chanting, and a light blue protective shield firmly wrapped around him and his companions.

"You? A silver Knight?" The Silver Knight standing in front laughed ridiculing Liola.

Though the man in front of him was wearing a mask, but he could judge his age was below 30, at most he was someone who barely made it to Silver rank. The Silver Knight smiled, because he was someone who had been a Silver Knight for ten years.

"Second Prince, Your Highness, would you please let me handle this arrogant Silver Knight?"

The Silver Knight turned and pleaded to Latte, who was in the center of the group of Knights, but Latte's gaze was fixed on Liola's mask. His face seemed strange, but after a brief moment of thought, he waved his hand and granted the Silver Knight's request.

The Silver Knight walked towards Liola in high spirits, wondering how to beat his opponent in the most gruesome way possible but still make it appear easy. But he had no idea Latte had already known he would lose, and he was sent only to test Silver Mask's abilities. After all, the Paladin Lancelot had said Silver Mask was the most powerful Kung Fu prodigy he had ever seen. Judging from their innate abilities, Liola had far surpassed Latte, perhaps even Lancelot himself.

When Liola saw the Silver Knight stepping up, he didn't seem to care at all.

One-on-one duels, he dared to guarantee no one present could be a match for him. Even group fights were an Assassin's a strong. Unless these Knights could cooperate, there was no possibility stand a chance of defeating him.

Liola knew in his heart, cooperative Knights may be able to make a formidable formation, but these Gold and Silver Knights would never be able to. The strong always fancied themselves unmatched by anyone else in the world, and why would they know how to stand in formation with others?

Liola pulled out Broken Silver. He had the urge to unsheath it, because these people injured his companions, the only friends he ever had.

The Silver Knight also unsheathed his sword, and released his pride — his Silver Aura. The edges of the aura had a slightly different color, and he thought he would be ten years away from Gold rank, at most.

Liola was finally able to control his urge. Not unsheathing Broken Silver would let him fight to his heart's content, so he wouldn't have to worry about accidentally killing these damn Knights.

'Can they be even called Knights?' Liola remembered Daylight. He… was the only true Knight!

"I, Silver Knight Kalaka hereby challenge you to a Knight's duel." The Silver Knight unwillingly went through the formality of a Knight's duel with the man in front of him.

"I accept."

These simple two words slowly came out of Liola's mouth as if they were a judge's declaration at the end of a trial. The opposing Silver Knight shivered as he heard, 'Why did this man's words carry such cold feelings?'

As soon as he finished, a light flashed across Liola's eyes.

The Silver Knight saw Silver Mask standing still, but what was strange was he saw another Silver Mask right in front of him.

While he was still pondering, Broken Silver had already landed heavily on the Silver Knight's entire body. Yes, his entire body. He could only feel he had received a severe beating throughout his body, but he could not distinguish where he was hit first or last.

Correction, he did know where he was hit last, because Liola's palm landed heavily in his abdomen, sending his body flying off.

The direction he flew was the place where the other Knights stood, and it was headed directly at Latte. A few Knights panicked as they stepped up to try to stop the Silver Knight's body from reaching the Prince.

When the first person tried, he immediately realized something was wrong, and he couldn't stop the body, so he put his back against the Silver Knight, and his arms on two Knights next to him. These two Knights soon realized the same awkward situation, and helped him to stop the Silver Knight's body. Even with all three of them, they still took a step back from the momentum.

The only word that could describe Latte's eyes would be "terrified".

Silver Mask didn't even release his aura, and he already made these Silver Knights look this bad.

Could it be what Lancelot said was true? Even if he were to fight with his full power, he wasn't confident he would win?

Liola's eyes grew cold, and he pointed at all the Knights, "I, Silver Mask, hereby challenge all of you to a Knight's duel!"

This shocked every Knight present. The other Gold Knight yelled furiously at Silver Mask, "A tiny little Silver Knight had the nerves to challenge a gold rank, and even challenge this many Knights at once. Are you completely ignoring a Knight's rank?!"

Liola stood straight, and put on a strange smile, "What? Are you worried you might still lose to me with so many of you, and then wouldn't know where to hide your shame?"

The Gold and Silver Knights could not bear with such insults, and drew their swords.

The only person who did not move was the second Prince, Latte. Knowing the person in front of him may very well surpass Lancelot in terms of strength, he would never start a fight would him. Dragon Empire Prince can never be defeated!

"No!" Latte yelled out at the Knights, "Chivalric code does not allow us to all attack one person. Let's forget it. His Majesty is still in this academy, and I don't want to cause any more trouble. Let's stop here."

The other Gold Knight's face went pale, but still followed Latte's orders, and angrily sheathed his sword.

At the same time, he yelled to Liola, "You are lucky this time, the magnanimous Prince has pardoned you."

Liola found this all funny. Perhaps the Knights didn't see Latte's expression because they had their backs to him, but Liola saw it clearly: Latte's terrified expression could never fool Liola. Looks like this second Prince did indeed know of his true strength.

Should he let them go? Liola was still thinking, but something strange suddenly happened.

The originally clear skies were suddenly covered with dark clouds, and lightning flashed from these clouds. Then, a few bolts of lightning struck down at the space between Liola and Latte. The Knights realized something was wrong, and all drew their swords and released their Gold and Silver Auras.

After Latte released his aura to protect himself, he yelled at Liola, "What the hell are you doing? Are you going to make a move against me, the second Prince of the Dragon Empire?"

Considering the only thing Liola knew about magic was his half-baked healing spell, Liola had no idea what was happening. He turned around to check on his companions, and he saw Meinan was completely puzzled, but the protective shield remained intact.

Liola had just as much trust in Meinan's shield as his own Kung Fu, so he didn't have to worry about the lightning harming his friends, and he concentrated on observing this strange phenomenon.

The crowds around also seemed to started to cause a commotion. Everyone in Aklan Academy and even the entire Aklan capital saw this shocking scene: a large pitch-black cloud gathered above Aklan Academy.

"I, the Black Dragon King Miluo hereby announce to the world, I will lead Mechas and Magicians , and declare war against the whole world!"

Everyone in the capital saw Miluo's mountain-like body hanging in the air. The day had suddenly been turned into night. His shiny scaled rivaled the beauty of the stars, and his giant claws looked like it could easily tear the sky apart. His size, beauty, and terrifying sovereignty announced the strength of the Black Dragon King to the world, at the same time it was announcing the end of peace.

A giant bolt of lightning struck down, and it looked as if it was splitting the sky into two halves.

Having predicted where the lightning would hit, Liola quickly backed up, and into Meinan's shield. At the same time, Meinan increased the strength of the shield to its highest, and forcefully stopped this lightning.

The opposing Knights didn't have Liola's speed allowing them to escape, nor did they have someone like Meinan who could stop the lightning.

Under the blinding column of lightning, moans of pain and screams continuously cried out, and a few of them sounded shrill. The voices themselves were trying to convey the terror and sadness of death.

Liola was an Assassin. He could clearly identify the cries people make before death. After a dozen of seconds bathed in the column of lightning, Liola was certain… no one was alive.

Miluo… had gotten stronger. The attack was almost unimaginably powerful.

Liola could completely feel the horror of this attack. This enormous power even made the Assassin tremor a little. Even if he hadn't promised Anise not to kill, he feared he wouldn't be able to win against Miluo, and perhaps he was had a long way to go before being able to do so.

Liola worriedly looked towards Meinan. The attack enough to kill two Gold Knights, could Meinan really stop it? But what was strange was Meinan didn't seem strenuous or in pain, but instead he was puzzled. He seemed like he wanted to say something to Liola, but did not do so because he was concentrating on maintaining his magic.

Though Liola didn't know what Meinan was puzzled about, but seeing Meinan didn't seem to have any difficulties, he felt relieved.

After a while, a deep bitter voice yelled, "My son, Latte!"

Liola sensed another immense power approaching from above.

And as this power attacked, the giant lightning had disappeared. It was only then that Liola and others could see outside.

They saw the Dragon Emperor, Barbalis, and Commerce Alliance Leaders were standing not too far away. Everyone's face was hard to look at.

The Dragon Emperor's delicate face was filled with pain and sorrow. A man walked to Latte's charred corpse, and picked up the necklace in disbelief, a Dragon cross necklace.

"Second elder Sovereign brother…" The man who picked up the necklace was the person whom Kaiser had just met, Cappuccino.

His face was filled with disbelief, but the necklace in his hand was solid proof of the lifeless corpse in front of him did indeed belong to the Dragon Empire's second Prince, Latte.

Liola was in shock, because of the Dragon cross necklace, Anise's possession. Liola finally understood how hard it felt to have the necklace leave him.

Before, even without seeing it, at most he would feel empty. But now, seeing the necklace in front of his very own eyes, every emotion Liola had ever had towards the necklace and Anise exploded.

He desperately wanted to put it back to his neck, but Liola knew deeply the situation would never allow him to do so. Liola lowered his face, held his fist tight, to the point where his nails sank into his flesh.

Then, the Dragon Emperor raised his head, and said with a hoarse voice to Miluo,

"Miluo, you have caused me many problems, and I did not voice a word of complaint. After all, it was my mistake that cost Bairui, your wife, to lose her life, but why must you take your anger out on others? Why must you kill my innocent child and a dozen Knights? Have you lost your Dragon's pride?"

Miluo's earthshaking laughter reverberated in the air, and stopping after a long while,

"What is Bairui to me anyway? NOTHING. When I conquer the world, EVERYTHING will be mine!"

"What an unreasonable Dragon!" The Red Leader angrily scolded.

Miluo mercilessly shot a bolt of lightning toward her, but an elegant purple light blocked the lightning attack. Everyone noticed the Dragon Emperor's aura was also a unique color — purple.

The Dragon Emperor's face sank, "Black Dragon King Miluo, if you don't realize your mistake now and turn back, the Dragon Empire will issue another order to kill you!"

Miluo, however, looked down on everyone and said, "Come, everyone. You will realize my friends are far more common than you imagine. Traitors crawl amongst you. Who are your allies and who are the traitors? You will never know until you report to the devil, in hell."

Before people even had time to respond, the Black Dragon King disappeared as quickly as he appeared. The only thing remained was the sunny skies, and a few black clouds scattered here and there.

"Papa!"

Baolilong's call caught Liola's attention, but when Liola looked towards Baolilong, he realized Baolilong was not looking at him, but instead at the foreboding black clouds in the sky…

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Chapter end