Yuma dropped the sword and stared at the pit in shock. His eyes wideo the point it looked like it'd fall out from the socket.

  The fishy and burnt smell ing from his family's burnt corpses caused his ears t as Yuma fell into a trance.

  Slowly raising his head toward Lacius's group, Yuma stared at them with bloodshot eyes.

  Seeing Yuma's expression, the blessed around Lacius gripped their ons while sweating.

  All of them have seen the feat Yuma could do. Whether it's fighting against an army on his own, or the final attack that he has just done, he has made them doubt whether or not he is still a human.

  Even if they knew he had spent most of his energy to release the st ssh he made, Yuma's angry expression still made everyourn tense.

  While staring at everyone, Yuma suddenly bent forward and picked up the sword he had dropped.

  Lacius khe sword was something the creator had given Yuma, and it must have its own special ability. So, when he saw Yuma bend forward to pick it, Lacius created ah spike that khe sword away.

  Yuma ran toward the sword while Lacius quickly ordered the blessed around him to attack.

  As he tried to save the remaining energy in his body, Yuma didn't use his ability to deal with the attacks. Instead, he only relied on his physical attributes that has increased upon reag Level 2 and evaded them.

  By the time he is close to the sword that has been knocked away, Yuma sees the earth below it open up and swallow the sword.

  When he saw it had bee impossible to retrieve his sword in a short time, Yuma decided to leave it be for now and dashed toward Lacius.

  Lacius saw it and quickly gathered the blessed around him and made them activate their abilities.

  Yuma knew Lacius loved to hide behind others while summoning thick earth walls to guard himself.

  Instead of summoning a burst of fme that'll definitely be blocked by the enemy's blessed powers. Yuma dehe fme he had summoned as much as possible and tur into two bullet-like attacks that shot toward Lacius's heart.

  The first fire bullet he created tained much more energy and was used to break the prote around Lacius. While the sed one is the one he depends on to kill Lacius.

  This is his st bet, as Yuma knows the energy inside his body has truly been exhausted.

  Just like he expected, after the fme bullet passes through several walls of ice, waters, and a wall of chaotid currents, Lacius has somehow summoned four secutive earth walls.

  After pierg through three of the walls, the first fme exploded and caused the remaining wall to be shattered into pieces.

  Before Lacius has any time to ereother earth wall, the sed fme bullet passes through the pce where the first fme has exploded and reaches him.

  Seeing the small glowing red bullet, Lacius quickly evaded. But, his rea time is a beat slower. Although the fme failed to hit his heart, it still came into tact with his left arm.

  The moment that fme came into tact with his arm, it exploded and blew his whole arm away.

  After staring at his left arm which has turned into a charred mess in disbelief. Lacius grabbed his mangled shoulder which still had a cracked bone pointing out of it. "Arghhhh!"

  After screaming at the top of his lung, Lacius cursed in his mind 'Damn it! Why did everything g? I just want to kidnap his family as a means to force Yuma to cooperate with my experiment. Why did he kill all of his family and then go insane?!'

  "All of you, capture him! He should have already run out of power!" Lacius shouted while gritting his teeth to suppress the pain he felt.

  The surrounding blessed felt a bit afraid of Yuma and only summoned some water toward Yuma and froze them to restrain him.

  Yuma saw his legs had been enveloped in id pu it several times.

  Thanks to his enhanced physical strength, he successfully destroyed the ice after three punches. But, Yuma didn't bee gd and instead stared at the blessed around Lacius.

  When those blessed saw he hasn't used his blessed power to escape and only used his physical strength. They know Lacius's word is correct.

  After heavily injuring Lacius, Yuma felt the anger in his heart had slightly subsided and he finally regained his senses.

  The first thing Yuma does after regaining his senses is to run away before Lacius's army has the time tanize. But, the blessed around Lacius quickly surrounded him and attacked.

  Although Yuma isn't sure why most of the attacks seem to be nohal. He ig for now and focused on avoiding those attacks while looking for a ce to escape.

  The lohe battle sted, the more anxious Yuma became.

  After several minutes of dodging and looking for an opening to escape, he heard the army's marg sound.

  Yuma turned his head and saw the area around him had been encircled by Lacius's army. 'No wonder I felt those people arrived a bit te. It seems they're busy reanizing the formation first to surround my house before slowly enclosing it.'

  As he got distracted, the earth under his leg began to rise and swallowed half of his leg.

  Meanwhile, another blessed shot a ball of water toward his torso, which was quickly frozen by another blessed.

  With his physical strength exhausted and only a tiny bit of his energy has been recovered, Yuma finally got immobilized.

  Feeling the cold on his torso, Yuma's mind somehow became extremely calm.

  He felt there was something wrong sihe battle started.

  Oside, Yuma looked expressionless and focused on Lacius. But internally, he has been thinking, 'Why did Lacius suddenly target me?'

  While Yuma is standing still, a blessed with healing power is busy healing the wound on Lacius's shoulder.

  Although they 't regrow his arm. The power of those blessed is enough to stop the bleeding and heal some of the burnt wounds.

  Lacius stared at Yuma and told a random bless to forcefully feed Yuma with several bottles of potions.

  Seeing Yuma's body had turned weak, Lacius ordered, "Bring him back to the pace."

  Right after he said that Yuma felt his head turn heavy. Then, he suddenly fell down onto the floor.

  Seeing that his potions were effective, Lacius nodded and prepared to ride his horse aurn to Winter City with the army.

  Giving a few potions to the blessed that rode a horse together with the unscious Yuma, Lacius ordered him to feed Yuma with two different potions every ten minutes.

  One of them is used to suppress energy, while the other is used to knoeone unscious.

  Although those potions usually st for close to half an hour for someo his level. But, Yuma's level is much higher than his, so Lacius felt Yuma might be much more resistant to the potions.

  Suddenly, he paused and walked toward the pce where he buried Yuma's sword. 'I almost fot.'

  Activating his blessed power, Lacius dug the sword and rode his horse.

  During the journey back, Lacius slightly rexed and ted his gain. 'This time, I successfully captured a living higher level blessed. After studying Yuma's body and energy, I should be close to finding the method to advand regain my youth.'

  Lacius turned his head to the rear and g the unscious Yuma tens of meters away in envy.

  Even though he is already eighty years old, Yuma still looks like a middle aged man.

  Lacius shook his head and began to think about the trouble that'll happen once he returned.

  Those nobles will definitely pie trouble with him after he tricked them into preparing the army by mentioning the demon king.

  He sighed, 'How did I end up in this situation? I am the one giving them their authority to help me mahe kingdom, but they are slowly restrig my movements and trol over the kingdom instead.'

  pared to when he just got the kingdom, where the kingdom is akin to a body with a single mind. The current kingdom is much more plicated, just like a body where all of the ans think by themselves.

  Lacius kinda misses the absolute authority he had before. But he knows those nobles he appointed have bee a necessary part of the kingdom as it grows bigger and bigger.

  While he is lost in thought, Lacius feel heat waves ing from behind him.

  Turning his head, he saw a fire cye had devoured some of the soldiers and horses.

  The oved away from the road and spun toward the wilderness before exploding and burning the surroundiation. In the ter of that explosion, the vague silhouette of a human be seen.

  "Is that Yuma?!" Lacius saw the figure and became shocked, "How did he wake up and even capable of using his power?!"

  Lacius shouted toward the surrounding blessed, "All soldiers and blessed with the wind element, go and cut off the tree aation to stop the spreading fmes. Water, ice, ah element blessed, use your power to extinguish the fme! Those with divirength, go and capture Yuma back here!"

  After giving his and, Lacius cursed, 'Damn it! How did Yuma wake up? Did the blessed I asked to take care of him fet to feed him the potions? Or has the resistance of someo Yuma's level greatly increased to the point of almost rendering my potion iive?'

  By the time the fme has beeinguished, most of the blessed that has beeo look for Yuma has returned.

  But seeing they all hadn't found any trace of Yuma, Lacius's face turned livid.

  With Yuma’s escape, his loss from this battle is simply too great.

  Not only will those nobles cause a lot of trouble, but he has lost an arm and even gaihe animosity of a high leveled blessed.

  ***

  Inside a forest filled with dense vegetation, Yuma has run away while doing whatever he to remove his trace.

  He never got the o remove his trace during his adventure before. So, Yuma knows he is quite bad at it. Especially sine blessed have occasionally followed his trad attacked him.

  Luckily, after he faked his unsciousness, he regained most of his energy.

  After he lost and was forced to drink the potion Lacius made, Yuma could feel his sciousurn heavy and the energy in his body became slightly unresponsive.

  But after the bit of energy in his body circuted through his body once, Yuma felt the effect of that potion quickly diminishing.

  With the bination of clues he has gathered, like the non-fatal attacks from Lacius's subordinates, and their attempt to capture his family to force him to surrender. Yuma guessed the main reason Lacius suddenly targeted him robably to capture him alive.

  Then, the effect of that potion he has just drank should be reted to it.

  Feeling the effect that caused his mind to feel heavy, Yuma decided to take a bet and fell down to the ground and turned 'unscious'. Then, he waited until his energy recovered and quickly escaped.

  'Luckily, I took the right bet.' Yuma slightly narrowed his eyes while running in the dense wilderness. 'Now I o meet with my only remaining family. This time I vow to protect them and live far away from that accursed Winter City.'

  Yuma took a deep breath while slightly slowing down. 'It seems they have stopped following me.'

  'I truly want to meet with my family that has escaped. But I am afraid Lacius will try to capture them and force me to e out.' Yuma thought while looking at the surrounding forest.

  'For now, I'll o make Lacius busy so the three that escaped won't be captured. I guess burning the forest nearby Winter City should suffice.'

  With that idea, he ged the dire he ran, and moved closer into Winter City.

  SmolPotats

  At least Lacius hasn't made something that could cause chaos and mayhem in the world for now.

  But Lacius's killing made him recall a question. "Hey, System. You said NE is geed from ive emotion ohe creature in my world died right?"

  [Yes.]

  "Then, won't what Lacius is doing right now will gee NE and even spawn another demon king in the long term? After all those prisoner will definitely be in despair when they died after being experimented."

  [There is o worry. Normal world has the ability to expel some o the void as long as not too muE is geed at ond caused the world to get stipated.]

  [Only when too muE is geed at once will the world be uo expell their NE and gave birth to a demon king.]

  Cedriodded and accepted the System's expnation.

  Then, he pced a mental o che Lacius more often before switg his attention to che Tsukiko who he felt might also turn into a super troublemaker.

  ***

  [colpse]