"Hey, what do you mean by this... Lucien?"
Ivy exclaimed, widening her eyes. Lucien opened the door, the masked men coming inside. There were many now, around fifty, rushing into the room with fury. They really wanted to kill someone, anyone in their way.
Lucien burned half of the masked men with a swift control of fire coming from the corner of his hand. The place was chaotic, Ivy's heart racing. The masked men were going to kill anyone, and they were after her, so she just hid in the corner of the wall, hoping Lucien would take all of the masked men's attention.
But it seemed her plan wasn't going to work because one masked man had spotted her and came after her, his magic sword aiming straight at her. Ivy's eyes widened. She stretched her hand, casting some wind spells that sent the masked man flying away.
"Oh my god, Lucien!"
The masked men suddenly decided to make Ivy their main target, rushing towards her. Of course, they hadn't forgotten their primary mission. Ivy was the one they were after, not the man who was roasting them.
More than twenty of them surrounded her, their swords aiming for her neck.
The masked men came running at her in an attack. Ivy panicked and ran away, not forgetting to use her magic to protect herself. A masked man's sword was about to cut her arm, but she twirled, escaping the attack before it could reach her. She wasn't done escaping when another masked man came, wanting to give her a surprise attack from behind, but her instincts informed her, making her leap and dodge in time.
"He's so fast... I can't handle him."
She panted, looking at Lucien. The masked men surrounded him. All of them were running at him like a group of monkeys. Even if he blasted them with flames, they still came, wanting more.
Lucien was fighting the masked men effortlessly, with ease, while she was sweating like a lazy rabbit.
The masked men seemed to have completely lost interest in her, their attention completely turning to Lucien. Her eyes couldn't help but twitch. Who was it that they were supposed to be after right now?
"Use your powers, Ivy. What is the point if you can't use them?"
Lucien's voice reached her ears when he saw Ivy standing in the corner, looking like she couldn't hurt a fly, and a masked man was coming behind her that she couldn't see. So he blasted the masked man behind her, leaving her standing like a fool, wondering what had happened.
"It is not easy here for me if you can't see," Ivy breathed heavily, answering him.
It was not easy for her. Lucien was distracting her. She had been just an ordinary human in her past life, and fighting with these people up until now had almost made her reach her limits.
"I get it, and I still feel that you do not deserve those powers. How about you just give me your powers?" Lucien punched one of the masked men this time, instead of using his powers on them as he was talking to Ivy.
"No thank you. What would you even do with them anyway?"
Ivy rolled her eyes, not looking at Lucien.
Yes, what would he do with her powers anyway? How many times did he want to get his magic core changed?
Was he a sadist? Wasn't the pain enough for him?
"Wind spiral!"
Ivy read out her incantation, summoning a wind that appeared almost in the form of a spirit, a female spirit with arms, and the wind had a tail like a tornado, not finished. The wind spirit swallowed all the men that were surrounding Ivy with her tail, but that was the last of Ivy's power. She panted, her feet unbalanced, causing her to stumble and almost fall.
"Pesky magic of yours."
Lucien blocked the attack that was sent to him, focused on Ivy, and cursed under his breath when he saw how Ivy was fighting with the masked men. Her face was sweating, like she would faint any moment now.
She was so weak and pathetic. What would she have done if he hadn't been here today but had traveled instead?
Lucien hissed silently in his heart, deciding to end the game. He evoked a lot of fire. Something like a fire circle surrounded him, and all the rings were sent, pressing on the masked men's necks, strangling them with heat and roasting them.
"Now let's see what is under this mask." He walked to the masked men, glancing slightly at Ivy. Ivy followed him, seeing what he wanted to do. Lucien tossed the body of one of the masked men aside with his feet and proceeded to go closer.
"You got to be kidding me, Duchess. It's monkey shifters that you have been making me fight with. Let me guess, they were offered a piece of banana to come assassinate you?"
Lucien's lips curved into a sneer, leaning down roughly and pulling the mask off the masked men. The men had ears obviously belonging to a monkey and a nose like a monkey. Monkey shifters were shifters that could not shift very well and still maintained some of their common appearance.
Lucien's gaze on them was very cold. Turning to look at Ivy, his gaze turned into a sarcastic laugh. Ivy clenched her knuckles, stopping herself from getting mad at him. He had saved her life, so she wouldn't say anything mean to him!
"Let's get the information out of them," she had said, walking closer to Lucien, wanting to play the hooligan and get the information out of them. But she had backed away the moment she saw Lucien lighting fire in the palm of his hand, casting it upon the bodies of the masked men. She bit her lips, wondering if this was a horror movie. Her gaze hesitated, looking at Lucien.
"Hey, why did you burn them?"
She stammered, flinching at Lucien's repulsive action. Lucien only looked at her with his hazel-like eyes, but dark at the same time, and continued doing his job of burning the men. She felt shivers running down her spine.
"That was very irrational of you."
Ivy looked down at the fire setting on the masked men. Their clothes burned first, then their skin started burning as well until it got to their flesh.
She wasn't used to seeing this every day. Only the novels she read in the real world could have such horrific scenes, and now she was seeing it eye to eye. She would be lying if she said she wasn't feeling her stomach churning. The vivid picture in front of her, like a horror movie, disgusted her a lot.
Though the masked men had tried to kill her, her heart wasn't strong enough to accept what was happening, so she closed her eyes, not wanting to look any further at the picture before her eyes.
"I'm not stupid. They still wouldn't have talked anyway, even if I had spared them." Lucien dusted off his palm, staring at the masked men that had been burned to ashes by him. They had come into his home to murder someone; they only deserved death. He wouldn't waste his time asking them petty questions when Rutor could easily carry the task out for him.
"Tsk, just your excuses."
She rolled her eyes, folding her arms, staring once more at the men that had been roasted.
The villain was really the villain. He was so cruel. He roasted the masked men without batting an eye.