As Maria was slow compared to himself, Lucien picked her up and shot towards the gates of the capital.
Even if he already got what he needed from her, the deal he gave her made sure that she would be loyal, at least for now. And he needed more than one capable subordinate.
Since the streets were empty nobody impeded them all the way till the gates where Lucien didn't just walk out, he climbed up the wall and jumped over at some point, completely ignoring the shouting guards.
They were delayed quite a while, he was sure someone was on their tail by now, it didn't matter if the guards spotted them. Every couple of second meant a kilometer advantage, so he didn't bother to hide and ran at full speed.
He didn't even manage to run for half and hour when someone slowly caught up with them. The advantage he took brought them a bit over 500 kilometers away from the capital. Once he was within a kilometer a voice spread out.
"So you are the one who started the trial of the Saint Daughter much earlier than it should have been."
Maria was not shocked about the remark, it didn't really matter who started it. What truly mattered was the reaction of her close ones to the situation. The result was made obvious over the past year.
"What is a Rank 3 like you doing chasing us juniors?"
"What you did to the royals of this Empire is enough to send even a peak Rank 3, you should rejoice it's only me."
The Practitioner chasing them was obviously a Rank 3 on the Light Path, either Strength or Vitality as Main, and Agility as secondary. When training one of the Manuals the royals had, you could enhance two bodily stats even when using one Path, but when breaking through the boost you get for the secondary stat was low.
Looking at his speed, if he broke through when his Strength was 1000, it would become 5000, but if at that time his Agility was 600, it would at most become 1200. If a second Path was used that had Agility as main then after getting to Rank 3, it would also surge to 5000.
But after the first breakthrough that made the stat surge to 5000, no matter how many Paths you trained of the same stat, it wouldn't surge again at Rank 3 because of a breakthrough. It was a one time baptism.
The Practitioner chasing them was not exceptionally faster which was surprising, but if he caught up with them it would spell big danger, not to mention potential Soul Attacks.
Lucien already had plan in mind and was almost at the destination, so he ran as fast as possible, even leaving Maria behind crossed his mind, but with his stats it didn't matter if he carried her or not.
"No need to run further, spare me the chase and give up."
The Rank 3 was getting frustrated, as long as he was within 300 meters, he could end the fight. If it was Lucien chasing, considering his Soul Domain the fight would have already finished before it even started, but not everybody could send attacks over a kilometer.
"I'll spare you the chase for sure, heh."
Looking forward in the distance there was a village there. At the speed they were running they were near the village within the same minute.
The Light Practitioner was also a believer of God and wanted to prevent him from doing anything bad, but couldn't stop him from entering the village.
Once he was inside and almost at the middle of the village, Lucien showed a sinister smile.
"Come to me."
It didn't matter if was normal people, Practitioners or the Rank 2 Mayor, even the dogs were not spared as their blood left their bodies and started converging towards the middle of the village.
Before the Rank 3 had a chance to do anything, the Blood converged and condensed into a spear.
"See you in hell."
The spear shot toward him like a meteor.
"Imp.... IMPOSSIBLE!!!"
He put out a Light Shield in a hurry, but a Middle Path was not something a Lower Path could defend, at least not if the gap in power was not completely absolute.
The only thing he managed to do was make sure the spear didn't pierce his heart, but it still managed to shoot through the right side of his chest.
Before getting a grip on himself, he saw something out of nightmares. Right after the spear there was a figure clad in strangely attractive Darkness, with wings and horns adoring his body. The only thing that was different were the two red pupils.
A punch followed the spear, hitting him right in the head putting a dent into it.
"Ohhh so you are Vitality based, if you were on the Strength this wouldn't even tingle, but then again if you didn't train Strength you would be dead now, so you are covering your weakness with some shitty Metal Path."
This sentence brought even more shock to the pitiful dog of the Holy Empire, everything he was hiding was figured out moments after the fight started.
Lucien already knew about his second Path, but was saying it now just to shake him. With 5000 Vitality, long fight was not an option.
From the start till now, the whole rhythm of fight was within the grasp of Lucien, even through the enemy could finish him with a Soul Attack, he was too stunned by the events to remember about this detail.
Lucien followed his first punch with a second one toward the same location to worsen the injury. There was finally some resistance, but it was only putting two hands forward to defend and focusing his Particles there, which would normally be fully enough.
"Idiot."
From his shadow another spear shot out, piercing both the legs of the enemy, which lead him to fall down.
Lucien didn't continue the fight but shot backward to pick up Maria and leave. But just as he was picking her up, a vicious sound reached him.
"You think you can leave after doing this to me? If you can survive this, I won't be able to stop you, but let's see if you qualify."
"Soul Burn."
Even without turning, Lucien could see through his Domain that a formless attack was shot towards him, one that he couldn't dodge no matter what.