Jalren had been watching the battle unfold from a safe distance. He could only say one thing from everything that had happened: "Without a doubt, she is an existence that should not be ignored by anyone in the world. It is clear to me why she must die; I, personally, will take charge. She meets the requirements to fight against me; she only devoted herself to using spells so as not to show the true extent of her powers." Jalren had a serious face as he said all that; he was considering the girl to be a threat. Aris intervened:
"What do we do with those four who are asking for clemency?"
"Why are you asking such questions? It's clear that they have to be killed. They knew this job would be dangerous and yet they agreed to the terms; they already traded their lives for money, they're just disposable pieces," Jalren said in a cold tone. He didn't care about the lives of other people; in his eyes, all those who came with him were trash. The only reason he had brought them was because they forced him; supposedly, they could have served as bait if things got complicated.
At the same time, in the center, the four people were begging for mercy and were trying to save their lives. The woman spoke; she had knelt down in submission:
"My name is Priscilla, and I am the third daughter of a baron of the Ashgrey Kingdom. The reason I accepted this job was for family reasons, or to be more specific, it was for money. We have nothing against you; our intention was always to earn some money and return home quickly. I know we did wrong and it is shameless of us to be asking for this, but please forgive us. As payment for forgiving us, I will give you this," said the brown-haired woman as she moved a certain object closer with her hand. It was evident that she could barely move; her injuries were serious and she was bleeding quickly. The same went for the others who followed her. The silver-haired girl silently watched what that girl had taken out of the dimensional ring. The brown-haired girl explained:
"We found this artifact in some ancient ruins that were abandoned. As you can see, this thing emits a strange power; we don't know exactly what it does yet, but it is a valuable item. Several artifact experts said it could sell very well at auction."
The brown-haired woman stared at the girl, waiting for a positive response. The little girl looked at the artifact with strange eyes; she seemed to be analyzing the strange object. In those few moments, the four of them could feel immense anguish; their saliva had dried up due to the tension in the air. On one side, they had that monstrous girl in front of them, a few meters away, and on the other side were their contractors who were talking about killing them, since they had failed miserably. Fortunately for Priscilla and her group, the girl opened her mouth:
"Priscilla, you are a very bad businessperson. You offer a product and you don't know what it is capable of doing. You are asking to be killed, but you are in luck; that object you are offering me is worth it. It is an object that should not be in the possession of humans."
Priscilla was shocked; she could see how the small statue, of what seemed to be some sort of kneeling priestess, had flown away and had fallen in an instant into the girl's hand. The small statue was being firmly grasped by the girl, and as she did so, she said:
"You guys are in luck. If you had stayed with this thing any longer, you would have died in a horrible way. To you, this thing may be emitting some kind of strange aura that you are unable to properly identify; the reality is that this thing is not emitting mana, what this thing is actually emitting is corrupted energy. It doesn't seem to use the energy that normally inhabits the atmosphere; it's as if it were using its own existence to generate such an effect."
After hearing the explanation, some information regarding the topic came to Priscilla's mind, but she decided to keep quiet about it. The top priority right now was to survive; she didn't want to upset that little girl. After seeing the girl's face, she decided to ask; she could easily hear her own heart right now. Fear was slowly consuming her; it was the first time she felt such a thing; it felt like walking off a cliff every time.
"So you're going to let us go?"
Priscilla asked. The silver-haired girl looked at her with her beautiful green eyes and said:
"I'll let them go, but only on one condition."
Priscilla responded quickly:
"No matter what you ask of me, I will do it to the letter; I will fulfill that condition and any others you want." Priscilla could already see the path that would lead her out of this hellish place. Seeing how willing the brown-haired woman was, the girl spoke:
"Priscilla, I'm not going to ask much of you; I just want you to spread the word about everything that happened in this place. I want everyone in your kingdom to know who Lia Silverlight is; I want them to learn about the immensity of my power; I want them to fear me. Don't stop talking about me and my power until the day you die. That's all I ask."
Hearing the girl's words, Priscilla knew that failure to comply with the condition would undoubtedly result in her own death, and she immediately replied to the girl:
"Understood; I will fulfill that condition to the letter. I will inform everyone of how impressive Miss Lia is; I will make her name resonate everywhere; indeed, I will," he said as he pressed his forehead to the floor; he was almost on the verge of fainting from blood loss.
"I give you permission to use potions."
Hearing those words, one of the men beside Priscilla immediately took out four potions from his dimensional ring and distributed them among everyone. Once they drank those strange potions, an improvement in the health of the four could almost immediately be seen. Seeing this, the girl spoke:
"I recommend that you leave this place as quickly as possible; your superiors seem to be not very happy with the idea of you leaving this place alive."
The girl said as she looked at the group that was slowly walking towards them. The auras they were emitting were no joke; they were definitely serious from the start. Jalren, who usually wouldn't have accepted help from his companions, changed his mind after seeing the statue that one of those bastards was holding; he had recognized what that thing was:
'I never imagined these little bastards had such an abomination in their possession. I can't afford to let that damn statue get even the slightest bit damaged; if that thing ever comes loose, not even I'll get out of this alive.' Jalren had started to break out in a cold sweat the moment he saw that artifact.
'That thing should not be in the hands of ignorant people; if I allow that thing to get out, I will only have two choices: die in this place or die in the hands of that person.'
Jalren was strengthening his conviction; today he couldn't go home without that statue; he couldn't afford for someone to open that thing by accident, because what was going to come out of that thing didn't discriminate by age or sex; before that thing, everyone was equal.