Angel took off silently again while Nick and YunYun dashed towards the sole door leading to the grand elder’s library. They had around ten breaths of time before the hell broke loose outside – this was the only way to hold Angel back a little. But if Zia was inside, it was enough.

The library, although dark, was still the same, the only difference was that after Nick’s ‘cleanup’ there were very few books on the shelves. Apparently eight years were not enough to repair the damage he did.

They ignored the grand elder’s bedroom for now and approached the door leading to the grand hall. Before grabbing the door handle, they already heard a weird chanting or mumbling of some foreign words. Nick was not certain if those were the chants he heard when he first arrived to this world, but he was not trying to figure it out at all.

The door library opened and two shadows silently darted out. What they saw was the strange sight of an altar in the middle of the dimly lit grand hall and on it lie their friend, covered with a thin, transparent cloth. Besides the altar stood an old woman in black robe holding her hands, stretched out towards the girl lying on altar, while chanting something.

On the floor there was the familiar hexagon rune formation and on the each corner stood a person in a dark red hooded robe in the pose similar to the old women at the altar, also chanting the same words. From the fingertips of these people slight streams of barely visible mist formed and stretched all the way towards the old woman in the middle. Right behind each of these people stood another person, pressing their both palms on the hooded person’s back, most likely fueling their own Qi into the other.

What shocked Nick and YunYun was the sight of a naked, over two meters tall muscular man who stood at the end of the altar, near Zia’s feet with his enormous manhood of unnatural size erected high, apparently ready to do his part in this disgusting ritual.

But even after noticing him, the two youths didn’t stop. For the first time, just based on their instincts, they both perfectly performed elder Sonor’s movement technique and arrived at the altar in an instant. Before the people at the corners of the hexagon formation realized what happened, the upper parts of their bodies separated from the lower, slid off and fell on the floor.

The steroid infused man and the old woman met the same fate, but, while everyone else died instantly, the old hag started to scream. Nick was not interested to hear to what she had to say and mumbled ‘goodbye, elder Agnes’ while separating her head from shoulders, and, learning from their experience in Sethalia, before anyone reacted to old hag’s scream, the two immediately gathered the corpses in their respective spatial treasures.

“Take care of her!” Nick whispered and intended to run out, but YunYun stopped him.

“No! I have to went!” She hissed.

She had never been so angry in her life, even when she got abducted herself. There was no way she would allow any of those freaks to leave this place alive and she felt her Katana screaming for more blood.

Nick immediately understood and whispered, “Be careful.”

YunYun dashed towards the door while Nick took Zia in his arms and brought with him out on the balcony. He was not clear what she was fed, but was confident on dealing with it. But first, he had to let the rest know she was fine.

A split second later two arrows flew in the sky and exploded with a bright light immediately after. Nick heard surprised shouts of the sect members below and then hysterical laughter from several hundred meters further away. Three of his comrades could finally let out their frustration and the eagle would finally have his revenge as well.

At first Nick wanted to hide the sleeping Zia somewhere and join the ‘party’, but then changed his mind. He was confident others will take care of themselves while YunYun would just fall back in case she was in danger. There was no elder Sonor around anymore and no one could match her in speed in the Holy Order.

But there was a reason for him to not join the fray. If Zia woke up ‘dressed’ like this while no one was around, there was no telling how furious she would be and, of course, in order to hide her embarrassment, Nick would become the one to bear the blame. He had experienced the anger and irrationality of the women from the Li family therefore did not intend to go through the same nightmare again.

While the Holy Order’s grounds were in chaos, Nick dashed back in the library and put Zia on the large table. He lit up a couple of large candles, then fished out few herbs from his wristband, quickly ground them into a paste and mixed with a cup of water. Then raised Zia up a bit and slowly fed her the smelly substance while controlling the process with his Qi.

While keeping the right palm on her belly and guiding the Qi flow in her body, Nick tried to find appropriate clothing or at least something to wrap Zia in so she wouldn’t wake up covered only in a transparent cloth. He quickly became desperate and almost went out to look for YunYun, when realized that Zia had to have her meteorite ring with her when she was kidnapped.

While there was nothing on her fingers, most likely there was only one person left in the Holy Order who would hold such treasure. Indeed, on the old hag’s body he found two rings – one of which was Zia’s and it even contained her beloved blade. Nick took out the blade, put it near the still sleeping Zia, then picked one of her trouser outfits and was met with another challenge. One thing was to wrap her up in some sheet, but it was completely different to dress this completely naked young lady. If she woke up during the process, he might simply die.

After pondering for a moment, Nick decided that it was not a good idea to risk his life for the maiden’s comfort. He put Zia’s sword and clothes away, took out a white sheet from his wristband, wrapped her in and carried back to the altar. The grand hall was still a bloody mess, but Nick figured this view might even act as a good stimulus and help Zia to regain her senses sooner after she woke up.

He could hear YunYun fighting behind the large door at the end of the hall, but held back the urge to go help and started guiding Qi through Zia’s body again. A couple minutes later her eyelids twitched and opened.

For a few moments she tried to recognize the surroundings, but other than the high ceiling of the dim lit hall she couldn’t see anything.

“Stay like this for a bit and normalize the Qi flow.” She suddenly heard familiar voice commanding her, “You were drugged, but should be fine now.”

If it was any other person, she might have jumped up, but Nick guiding her was rooted deep in her bones throughout the childhood, therefore she instinctively nodded and closed her eyes. Nick felt how she checked her ring that was already back on her finger and the huge blade appeared in Zia’s hand.

“Mmm …” She almost moaned like falling in to lovers embrace when felt the familiar handle in her palm.

Nick shook his head while sighing. The relationship between this girl and her weapon was indeed bizarre.

“Alright. You continue and meanwhile I’ll debrief you. No matter what you hear, you are not allowed to act rashly, understood?” Seeing her giving a barely visible nod, Nick continued, “You were kidnapped by the Holy Order ...”

Before Nick completed the sentence, Zia’s eyes opened wide, but he was already prepared and pressed on her shoulders to keep her lying down.

“Stay calm for a moment. You can go and kill them all soon.” He hissed through his teeth. Although Nick was pressing on her with all his might, he barely managed to keep her down – Zia obviously was furious and her strength seemed to be almost inhumane.

She took few deep breaths and seemingly calmed down, at least outwardly.

“Alright.” Nick continued, “After learning of your disappearance, we quickly rushed over and managed to find you. Your father, Ling, YunYun and Andrew are cleaning up at the moment. The sooner you recover your senses, the sooner you can join.”

“How did you find me?” Zia whispered. Although she was hothead, she clearly remembered that the Holy Order’s location was hidden. Otherwise her father would’ve cleaned them up long ago.

“Angel led us. He is outside fighting as well.” Nick said, but immediately had to turn away. This time he didn’t react in time – hearing the news Zia spring up and the white sheet barely covered her body.

“Angel? The gray eagle?!” Her eyes sparkled in excitement. To this day she hadn’t met any rank six beasts, while Nick and YunYun made friends in the animal world ‘left and right’, thus Zia felt left out.

“Yup, the same one. You probably should wear something otherwise it will be inconvenient to fight.” Nick said and walked towards the door at the end of the grand hall, “Meanwhile I’ll go and check on YunYun. When you are ready – we can meet up with the others.”

Only now Zia realized she was naked under the sheet and blushed in deep red color.

“Others?” She asked in confusion.

“As I said – your father, Ling and Andrew also came to rescue you.” Nick answered.

“Andrew? Why did he come?” Obviously Zia understood that the two top Qi swordsmen like her father and Ling were more than enough to deal with any situation while Nick and YunYun were also present. Therefore the prince from Nola kingdom was kind of ‘out of place’ here.

“What do you mean, ‘why’? He was the first one who noticed your disappearance and was worried that you won’t make it back to the Olympic games on time!” Nick knew her very well and the words that could move ‘regular’ maiden’s heart would never work on Zia. Thus he picked the ‘right ones’ to help the prince out.

“Ah! My baby!” Zia almost screamed out loud and a second later shouted, “Let’s go! Kill them all!”

Nick stealthily glanced back only to see her fully dressed in white and currently fixing her red headscarf.

‘Wft? How is it even possible to dress up this fast? Regular ladies need half an hour to get ready, but this one … sigh.’ Nick thought to himself while opening the door and calling YunYun over.

After few moments she arrived covered in blood and gore. The only thing that was still clean and didn’t have even a drop of blood was her Katana.

Seeing Nick’s worried look she smiled back and whispered, “I’m unharmed.”

Nick nodded and pointed at the library door, “Let’s go out that way. Your weapons are not really suited for the indoor fighting, especially Zia’s.”

The trio dashed out and the chaos on the Holy Order’s grounds rose to even higher level. For the next hour and a half wails of pain filled the night sky accompanied by eagle’s screams and loud cheers of joy, obviously Zia’s.

The sun was already up when Nick tended to the Andrew’s wounds. They all had gathered on the balcony and finally could catch a breath. Angel proudly stood at the far end where his cage was once located and pretended to theatrically clean himself while there was not a drop of blood on his shiny feathers.

Contrary to the eagle, all six people currently were bloodied all over. While mostly they had suffered only few superficial injuries, the prince from the Nola kingdom had several deep and scary cuts – apparently he got unlucky and was ambushed by multiple Qi sword masters and survived only because Ling came to the rescue at the very last moment.

Zia was standing in front of the prince with her hands crossed on chest and holding a lecture, “You see? This is why I keep telling you that you don’t practice enough!”

Earlier she was trying to get Angel’s attention, but the eagle kept on ignoring her so she quickly got bored and found a new entertainment.

“How could I face king Spencer if something happened to you? Hm? What would I tell him if you died?” Zia continued to nag.

Although Andrew was currently scolded, he felt like in heaven. Even the wounds didn’t hurt at all.

“I had no choice, but to act a bit recklessly this time. We had to make sure you are back before the games start.” Prince defended with a smile all over his face, he had learned long time ago the proper way to speak to her.

“Hmph!” Zia snorted, “Alright, I’ll forgive you this time!”

Looking at those two YunYun shook her head and sighed, “What a weird couple!”

“You’re the one to talk!” King Alexander sighed as well.

The crazed run followed by the long fight was too much for the experienced Qi sword master and the ruler of the strongest country. It became even more dangerous when the remaining few dozen sect members realized there was no escape and started to throw large amounts of alchemy flasks with poisonous substances at them. Luckily that kid foresaw the situation beforehand and gave all of them weird looking masks. While these masks only protected from the poisonous gasses, all they had to do was to avoid getting directly hit.

As the result most of the remaining sect members basically poisoned each other to the death by throwing the flasks around chaotically and the rescue team only had to pick up the few survivors. Even then the concentration of gasses became too intense, therefore at the end they gathered on the balcony and, with the first rays of sun, could admire their work below.

When Andrew was finally patched up, Nick went over to Angel.

“I guess, this is it.” Nick said while smiling at his grand friend, “You had your revenge.”

Angel slightly nodded and looked up at the sky. For some reason Nick felt it was almost human-like reaction of reminiscence.

“What are your plans now? Will you return to the Northern mountain range or go back to your previous home?” Nick asked and the eagle crooked his head as if considering his options.

Not waiting for the answer, Nick continued, “This whole bunch was led by three crazed old hags. We killed one and king’s forces took care of another. In few weeks we will set out to find the third. If you want, you can join us, although we have only rough estimate on her possible location and will travel across the sea.”

Seeing Angel still deep in thought, Nick said, “Think about it. If you decide to join the fun and come with us, we can meet after one month at the delta of the Eternal river. It is quite wide, but I think we can find each other, right? That place is unexplored and dangerous ... should be interesting to see the Dragon isles, don’t you think?”

If Angel seemed to be deep in thoughts before, then hearing the name ‘Dragon isles’ he almost jolted.

“Oh? You have heard of those? Or may be you’ve been there before? Then let’s explore them together!” Nick laughed out loud when he saw eagle’s reaction.

“We will need a ship. And a captain.” YunYun said. She came over unnoticed while the two were ‘chatting’.

“It would be silly and may be even dangerous to sail around the whole continent, therefore I guess king Spencer could lend us one. But the captain … well … I have an idea. You definitely can guess whom I have in mind.” Nick grinned back.

Soon Angel bumped Nick’s fist with his giant claw, took off and disappeared in the clouds. Nick stood at the balcony, looking at the distant mountain slopes waking up to the morning sun. It felt almost like it was yesterday when elder Agnes brought him out here for the first time, but, to his big surprise, he realized he didn’t have any nostalgic feelings about it. Nick didn’t feel happy or content for avenging his parents and the little brother – everything simply felt right! He brought the ‘government enforcers’ as he promised back then and they, even though he was also kind of a part of them, bathed this place in blood.

During these years he was focused on enjoying his life and self improvement and there was no reason for anything to change.

‘Well except the ‘small’ changes.’ He smiled to himself and took YunYun’s hand in his. They both stood on the edge of balcony and bathed in the rays of the morning sun.

The group departed an hour later. Zia kept pestering everyone to start moving so they could ‘save her baby’ and soon her father gave up. Ling was left to guard the place in case any remnants of the Holy Order returned before Simon Den’s forces arrived, inspected and cleansed this place thoroughly. Thus the plague that once terrorized continent, the Holy Order, was no more. There was only one thing left to do – find the last one of the Trinity.

Thirty five days later Nick and YunYun stood at the top of the foremast of the ship “Esmeralda” that currently was sailing west, towards the Dragon isles. Far in the distance at the horizon behind them the coastline of the Nola kingdom was slowly disappearing.

Nick turned out to be right – indeed, king Spenser gladly lent them one of his ships, although was surprised that the youth brought his own captain and even the crew was almost full. What surprised the king of the Nola kingdom even more was the fact that his son was also part of the crew, but when he heard that the youngest Maxwell princess was also present, everything made sense.

Nick looked down and saw Zia and Andrew practicing their swordplay on the main deck while Clayton stood at the helm with a barely visible smile on his lips. While Zia was the only Maxwell sister on the board, she was not the only Maxwell present – prince Helio also was here, although after leaving the harbor Kate immediately pulled him away and no one had seen them since. The ‘old team’ was back together again, although with few substitutions and additions.

Hearing the soft cry of the eagle, Nick looked up and saw Angel soaring between clouds. Indeed, his first friend in this world decided to accompany them on this adventure.

Nick squeezed YunYun’s hand, looked at her and smiled, “You know, YunYun? This is the life!”

THE END