Damian breathed in and calmed himself, not focusing on the miserable duo any more than necessary he cut off the iron chains binding Sam's hands and legs with his crimson spear.
Sam just flopped down in Anthony's arms, his chest barely moving. Anthony hugged him with tears in his eyes while constantly calling his nephew's name to wake him up but Damian had doubts as to if he even was conscious at this point. Gesturing Anthony to put the boy down and give his body some much needed rest, Damian retrieved a water skin from his storage and gave it to Anthony who slowly and steadily after controlling his emotions let the water flow in the dried mouth of the young boy.
Damian felt relief that he at least found him before his situation could get any worse. But this wasn't over yet, the main problem was to get out from this place alive. Stepping out of the cell room Damian looked around and found the beastman standing there, the two knights were at each corner of the long hallway keeping watch. Damian's mana sense was picking up distant mana signatures from the other two hallways.
The beastman was not saying a word but the crimson spear in Damian's hand was receiving it's fair share of attention from the winged knight.
"No ordinary person can have a soul bound weapon kid... What's your excuse this time..?"
"Do we really have to do this right now..?"
"Hmm.. fine. But you are coming with us to Dawnstar after this thing ends, You can't defeat us or outrun us kid. So don't even try."
"As you say..."
Damian focused some more into his mana sense and faintly picked up a cluster of mana energy in the far distant. There seemed to be more than two guards. If the pattern was same as the floor above then each hallway with 2 guards should be 8 in total for a floor. They already dealt with 6, there should only be 2 left on this floor. Unless the two cell guards were not included in the eight patrolling knight guards.
"There seems to be more guards on this floor..." Damian thought it better to tell the beastman.
"Where..?"
"In the distant but seems like they are together.."
"This is enough, tell the man to grab the kid we need to leave."
Damian returned to Anthony and Sam and saw the kid unconscious in the old man's lap. But he did drink enough water so he should be fine for a while.
"Let's go."
Anthony nodded and lifted the young boy on his shoulder, he barely weighed anything at all. The knight from one corner caught up with them as they headed towards the corner they had come from. The cluster of mana was still far so they should have enough time to leave.
'Shhhhhhh...'
'BOOOOOOOOM !!'
A sound loud enough to tear apart eardrums came from above them, it felt like an explosion of some sort. Damian stopped walking just like everyone around him covering his ears and after few seconds there it was once again, the booming sound continued and it did not stop after that too. Getting a serious bad feeling about this Damian focused his mana sense once more and cursed aloud.
The four mana signatures were coming at a fast speed right towards them and not just that, many still sleeping mana signatures on the first two floors were also up and moving around here and there.
'What the hell happened outside..?'
Not wasting his time thinking Damian took out his sword and got ready to fight.
"Four people running towards us from up ahead..."
"What.. who.." The swordsman tried saying something but the beastman cut him off.
"In position !"
In seconds they could see the faint outlines of people running towards them however they were even more surprised to see them than they themselves. Damian guessed they were trying to go upstairs for the explosions and not come for them. However there was no point to who was here for what, the four guards charged towards them indiscriminately just as they did towards them. Anthony stayed back with Sam as Damian charged behind the beastman, each of them attacking one guard of their choosing. This was not a surprise attack and the guards were ready for them when they clashed swords against them. The guard knights were also of second rank and not easily dealt with.
The other two knights in Damian's team were already having difficulties as Damian overwhelmed the guard in from of him with brute strength and quick changing stances with his small body. When he mixed in a runic scroll of his modified fire pillar to create an opening, the unfortunate guard almost burned to crisp but at the end time Damian pulled him back and hit him hard on back of his head with the handle of his sword to knock him out.
The guard was just a guard, he probably didn't even know why there was a kid in their basement.
The beastman also knocked the guard he was fighting, this one had a hole in his heart though. Damian and the beastman turned back together and assisted the two knights to finish their opponents. Damian knocked the guard with a surprise powerful punch to his head as he was fighting the spear wielding knight. And before the cowardly spear could pierce the guard's heart Damian grabbed it midway.
The spearman cursed but retrieved his weapon anyways. The beastman glared at Damian but, the continues booming sounds coming from the top was impossible to ignore so he just gestured for them to move forward while doing an empty horizontal slash to remove the blood from his sword. Once again they ran towards the stairway but before they could even properly reach the first step a large group of knights came rushing from the door on top of the stairs. Both parties froze looking at each other, the various knights of the city knight's headquarters - First rank and second some even foot soldiers mixed in on the first two steps and the five infiltrators with a prisoner at the last step.
Damian knew they were there, he had sensed them but this was the only way out and before they could get completely blocked in this closed dark miserable hallways, this was their only chance to fight it out. They didn't know what really was happening yet and were ill prepared for this, but the numbers were not be underestimated. If only one or two of them were a weird Esper ability holders they would be done for. But good thing about rare and powerful ability holders was that they were not that many and all those who had it were in a good enough position that they would never be reduced to mere soldiers and patrolling knights. They held strategic positions in each kingdom.
"Alert! Raise the alarms! We have intruders !!" One of them ran back to the first floor to raise the alarm as the rest charged forward.
Damian felt relief when the fight finally began and no weird ability holder was present among them, there were many mages though and some pugilists too with their tough bodies and crazy strength. The alarm was going off with high pitched annoying sound in the background. The beastman was handling five knights at once while both knights in their team were fighting three of their own. Judging Damian as just a random kid only two knights of first rank were charging towards him, which put a smile on Damian's face as he knocked our the two in seconds with quick exchanges.
Damian took a second to look around and saw his companions struggling, even the beastman had his hands full with three second ranks, one pugilist first rank and one random first rank ganging up on him. Damian looked at Anthony behind him and gestured him to move forward, the way forward was clear with everyone busy fighting.
"What about them..?" He asked while moving up the staircase.
"They are the distraction, remember...? Their sacrifice will never be forgotten, they will live forever in our hearts."
"Damn kid ! That is cold..."