“Natsu!” Vikram said, looked worriedly at his comrade like everyone else. Then he became angry at himself and said, “Dammit! Here I am, standing here, unable to do anything!”

“Calm down, Vikram,” said Fred from behind him. “There’s not much we can do.”

“I know that, but it’s still frustrating!” Vikram commented angrily.

“Shut it,” snapped Gram from beside him.

This caused the Sonic Hero to round on him and shout, “Dammit! Here I am, concerned, and you’re still on your high horse?”

Gram did not look at him and merely said, “Do I look like I’m wasting time like you?”

When he said that, Vikram looked at him and looked alarmed when he saw the prince from another world wearing a serious expression on his face while his hands shook for some reason.

“What are you doing?”

“Breaking free.”

“Huh?” Vikram asked, looking amazed. “How can you break free when you can’t even move your arms?”

Instead of explaining himself, Gram glanced at him sideways and said, “Use your head, fool.”

This stunned the teenager from another world and watched as Gram seemed to be struggling in doing something. For a moment, Vikram thought of a wild possibility, but then he shook his head and rationalised that it must be something to break free from that stone encasement. Sure enough, small light cracks began appearing around the stone as he seemed to be using his powers to break free from the bind.

Realising that the prince from another world was using his powers to try and break free, Vikram was inspired and began to do the same. He began moving his arms back and forth rapidly in quick successions, smashing into the front and then the back at an incredible speed. The others watched them performing something with amazement on their faces, but they soon realised what they were up to and remained silent.

Meanwhile, Natsu was getting pushed back by the spear wielding alien, who was better than him at the art of spear fighting. Bruton was a soldier that was trained in many arts, and he was confident he could have fought the hero with his eyes closed. Natsu, on the other hand, was swinging the spear reflexively to his enemy’s movements to block and try his best to attack without a purposeful strike that caused him to miss.

“Not good,” muttered Natsu, leaping away and maintaining the distance between him and the alien.

“What’s the matter? Getting cold feet at the thought of losing?” Bruton jeered.

The Zeklock Hero did not reply and merely stood there staring at him as he was running low on breath. Just then, they heard a tremendous explosion of power occur behind him as Gram managed to blast the stone away with his power and take aim at Natsu’s back.

“Duck!” He yelled at his comrade.

Not needing to be told twice, Natsu ducked down so that Gram aimed for the alien and launched an attack by shouting, “Electron Cannon!”

In an instant, a violent electrical attack erupted from his arm and it flew away at the alien, hitting him squarely in the chest. The reason the attack succeeded was because he was startled by their movement and as he raised his hand to block the attack with his magic, Natsu disabled it by aiming his hand up at him.

With the attack collided against him, Bruton was blasted off his feet and soared through the air before he smashed against the wall. He slid down the wall and crashed on the floor as Vikram managed to break himself free from the stone encasement while Gram aimed his hands at the people trapped in the encasement and freed them. Then they all turned and faced the alien, who looked up at the warriors that were present to take him down.

“I see. Looks like I’m at a bit of a disadvantage,” he commented, smiling wryly at them.

“Surrender or perish!” Natsu said, with everyone aiming their weapons at him.

Bruton began chuckling, and his chuckling turned into cold mirthless laughter before he exclaimed, “Unlikely!”

As he said that, the ground beneath everyone shook violently before it exploded, causing everyone to lose their footing and fly into the air. While they reacted in shock, the alien brought his hands forward and clapped them together before spreading them out, causing a violent wind to suddenly sweep towards them. With his enemies disoriented and off-balance from the attack, he flew through the air and grabbed hold of Raze and hoisted her over his shoulders.

“You bastard!” Gram shouted, aiming his hand up at the alien to attack him.

“Stop!” Bolten shouted, looking desperate. “He’s got Raze!”

As that fact caused Gram to grit his teeth with frustration, the alien smiled at them and said, “Now then, if you’ll excuse me,” and he soared away through the hole he made earlier.

“Wait!” Bolten cried out, but the only people to listen were those around him. Then he clenched his fists and said, “Come on! We need to chase after him!”

“I agree!” Vikram said, and he raced out of the bunker before anyone else could move a centimetre.

“Let’s go!” Natsu said, getting to his feet with the rest of his comrades following him out of there.

Bolten turned to the Royal Guards and said, “Protect them while I follow the heroes.”

“Yes, sir,” they said and nodded their heads in assent.

“Bolten—!” The king began.

However, the first prince glared at him angrily and said, “I would like to have a word with you once this is over!”

“Let’s go, prince,” said Alestor, and he and Bolten departed quickly after the heroes, leaving behind the king, and his unconscious brother behind along with the other Royal Guards.

Meanwhile, the alien soared into the air while carrying Raze over his shoulders with a smile on his face. For a moment there, he was worried that he might be facing his end, but luckily, he was able to catch them off guard by making the ground explode. Now the task for him left was to go to a designated destination that he had marked a while back and make connection with his home world.

“I must get there before those heroes catch up with me,” he muttered, and quickly flew towards the location.

He flew for a few minutes before yellow hands of energy came flying out of nowhere from the distance. Shocked at first, he quickly recovered and began to dodge them by flying out of their way. However, there were too many of them, and he soon found himself captured as they came together to trap him inside.

“W-What is this?!” He exclaimed, not understanding what was going on.

Once he was securely encased in the energy hands, he and Raze were extracted towards the place the energy hands originated from. As they arrived, the alien was shocked to see Lakshman standing there, with his hand aimed at them while wearing a big grin on his face.

“You’re still alive?!” Bruton exclaimed in shock once he was a few meters away from him.

“Yeah, well, it was a good try,” admitted Lakshman with a smile, his right eye back to normal except for the burn mark that was still etched on his face. “However, it’d take more than that to take me down.”

“There’s no way you could’ve survived being submerged into molten lava, especially at the centre of this planet’s core!”

“You’re right. Even I wouldn’t have survived it, but I had my skills that came in handy to save me at the last moment.”

While saying that, Lakshman thought back to the moment after he was pushed towards the ground by the rocks that were formed around him. At that time, he was fighting the unbelievable pain from his face and right eye being scorched by the laser the alien attacked him with.

As he drew closer to the lava, the fairy exclaimed in his mind, “Watch out!”

His past-self shouted, “Quickly! Use Elemental Coated Armour!”

Reacting to those words, Lakshman clenched his fists and shouted, “Elemental Coated Armour.”

In an instant, he got surrounded by his energy that formed like an armour around him, which protected him from the lava from the planet’s core. After escaping from there and got back to the surface, Lakshman sat down and used Restoration to grow his eye back while doing his best to endure the pain. That was why it had taken him several minutes to recover and get back into the action.

Not knowing any of this, the alien believed that this enemy was far more powerful than the initial time he estimated about him. He felt he was defeated, but he still had a mission to carry out, and he was prepared to die if he had to make it happen. Unfortunately, in his predicament, he was not going to go anywhere as he felt a strong binding magic from the energy that surrounded him, but he knew he must inform his master no matter the cost.

“There’s only one thing left to do,” he thought to himself and smiled sardonically.

Lakshman noticed him smiling and asked suspiciously, “What are you smiling about?”

Bruton looked at him and without saying another word, he clapped his hands together and shouted, “Sacrificial Crusade!”

In an instant, his body suddenly began to glow brightly and caused Lakshman to stare at him in alarm while hearing his actions explained to him by both the fairy and Asura in his mind at the same time.

“He’s going to destroy himself!”

Acting quickly, Lakshman used his energy hands to extract Raze away from him and got away from him just in time before the man let out a blood curdling scream. In the next moment, a violent flash of light occurred and the man vanished as a mighty explosion took his place.

It erupted out of Lakshman’s energy arms and expanded for many diameters before Lakshman aimed his hand at it and activated Maga Distrab, causing the explosion to dissipate and vanish in an instant. Then he stared at the spot the explosion had vanished at before muttering to himself.

“What was he thinking killing himself like that?”

“I don’t think it was a normal speed that he used,” commented Asura inside his mind. “Sacrificial Crusade. I feel like I heard it somewhere before though, but I can’t quite place my finger on it.”

Lakshman had no idea what that spell was capable of doing either, but he knew that the alien had done something and it was bad news for them. As he wondered what it was about, he suddenly sensed an enormous amount of power coming towards them from somewhere he had no idea about. A moment later, there was a blinding flash of light before it dimmed and revealed a person hovering there.

The unknown man was as a tall, slim figure wearing a dark armour that pulsed with red energy judging from what Lakshman could make of it. The figure had closed his eyes and was hovering there silently without moving a muscle. Then he opened his eyes and slowly turned towards the Lakshman, who was staring at him in shock.

“Greetings, hero,” the man said in a deep authoritative voice that resonated with power. “We meet at last.”

Lakshman did not know how or why, but he realised the person before him was the Overlord, the master of the alien that he had been fighting recently, the one that Alestor had a dream about a few days back, and the one that was indicated in the prophecy left by Erza’s mother. As such, the two most powerful warriors from two different worlds somehow came face to face with one other with Erza’s life being at stake there.