Drake saw her appearance shimmer for a moment but it didn’t disappear, apparently, he had hurt her more than he thought. His speed was much faster than hers so after a few steps he was already above her and slashed downwards, she screamed out as several tails fell to the floor spraying blood all over him, normally he would be disgusted by having blood sprayed on him, but killing the assassin that could use invisibility was the first priority, so he ignored his disgust and struck again.

His sword slashed towards her neck, however, just before his blade took her head it was deflected, he could only see a sword coming out of the ground and jumped back to avoid a follow-up strike from this weird attack.

The round thing on the ground he thought was a rock rose upwards followed by shoulders and legs, then a panther several sizes larger than the previous ones appeared, he judged that the situation was unfavorable and sprinted away again.

Selenia had gotten there just in time and was forced to come out from the shadows on Kuro’s back and defend Ahri, instead of trying to kill the enemy commander. When she saw him start to run and the injuries on his limbs she was about to give chase, however, Kuro pulled her in a different direction from where she was looking.

Just as she was wondering what Kuro was doing she saw her gingerly picking up the collapsed Ahri by her leather armor, with Ahri in her fangs Kuro melded with the shadows and disappeared.

After nearly a minute they appeared again inside the forest and Kuro looked exhausted. Moving her shadow though so many sources of light the soldiers carried along with taking two people drained her completely, Kuro put down Ahri then moved over to the side and fell flat on the ground panting slightly.

Lucifer suddenly felt a soul bond waver and was taken out of his train of thought, a pile of mud and rocks lost its shape and fell to the ground as his consciousness flew towards the commotion.

Once he arrived he saw Ahri clutching her stomach as blood poured out of a gash going from one hip to the other, Kuro was sprawled out on the ground and Selenia was using an ability on Ahri, Lucifer couldn’t tell what she was using but he could feel the spirits behaving frantically while full of energy.

he see Ahri’s wounds slowly closing, but she was losing too much blood, he asked “how was she found”

Selenia jumped and the loss in concentration caused her to stop for a moment and blood spurted from the wound, she restarted the treatment and rebuked “don’t ask about what happened do something or your slave will die”

Lucifer responded “I don’t even have enough mana to defend myself let along heal others what happened”

Selenia rebuked “she attacked the enemy commander because she thought something happened to you ok, now I’ve seen you heal your body plenty of times already so heal this idiot”

Lucifer replied “I have been using my remaining mana reserves to fight with my body so I have almost nothing left”

“almost nothing is not nothing, so at least try ARRR” Selenia chastened before keeling over and screaming in pain.

Lucifer said “Don’t TELL ME what to do”, then he focused on the dying girl, although he had no mana left he still had a lot of life energy and even more now after so many people died in his dungeon. He began injecting small amounts of life energy into the wounded areas and watched the wound slowly stitch together, but she was still bleeding out too fast.

Her breathing was also becoming shallower and he could barely feel her heartbeat, with nothing left to lose he just dumped life energy into her dying body, at first nothing seemed to happen, but after a moment she started glowing green, her wounds closed completely and tails started to regrow, he stopped injecting life energy.

After she stopped glowing Selenia remarked “she has more tails than before? And her hair Is now silver...”

Lucifer said “I don’t know what aftereffects using such a large amount of life energy on a human would have, but she should live. Did she at least kill the commander”

Selenia answered “I was almost able to but circumstances got in the way”

Lucifer sighed and said “Now our fighting power has been reduced even more and more importantly we lost the element of surprise, the commander will be much more guarded now that someone has tried to kill him. Considering how things are going you might be the last line of defense to my core, you will probably be fighting in a tight hallway until your exhausted to death, are you sure you don’t want to back out now.”

Selenia chuckled “you're still offering a way out for me, why the different treatment”, while gesturing to the unconscious fox woman.

Lucifer replied “I treat you both the same”

Selenia pointed towards Ahri and Lucifer continued, “She chose to fight and can die as a consequence, that is none of my business, so you can choose to fight or not too and will have to live with the consequences, although you will probably die if I’m being honest”

Selenia replied “don’t you seem a little too carefree in the face of death”

Lucifer chuckled before casually responding, “I’ve died twice before and they are some of my best memories so I don’t care for death”

Selenia asked “well you tell me about it afterwards”

Lucifer replied “so you intend on staying then”

Selenia sighed with a sunken expression “I’m tired, I’m tired all the time, of people, being betrayed, having to always look over my shoulder, having to guess whether the man “trying to help me” is trying to get into bed with me, or lure me into a trap for my pursuers, I’m just tired and want to settle down from running around all the time.

If I left where would I go, before there was one Noble in the Dutchy hunting me and I was only barely keeping ahead of them, now that I have killed that bastard the whole Duchy is after me, and worse yet I attacked and killed the noble in their main city right under their noses, so every second I live is another second they are shamed and if I have learned anything its nobles never forget a grudge.

So either fight and win a home and maybe die trying, or keep running...”

Lucifer nodded his imaginary head and replied “ok prepare yourself and come directly to the sixth floor”

“sixth, what happened to the fourth and where is Rick?” asked Selenia.

Lucifer answered “the fourth floor never had anything dangerous in it to begin with so they have already begun entering the fifth floor, as for Rick… he is with Lucky and I almost feel sorry for the enemies with those two children together”