Boom!

As soon as the lightning came, Vale noticed that Tracie was already holding a double-edged sword and it was pointed at the sky. She was laughing in excitement!

'Does she think she's an immortal?' Vale frowned.

As he saw that the lightning didn't create the destruction he was expecting to see, he suddenly had a bad feeling about this. They were actually baiting him to summon his lightning all this time.

They were indeed prepared to deal with his Divine Lightning!

That sword she was holding must be the bane of all Lightning Attacks!

He then heard the group cheer as they celebrated their successful operation.

"Haha! My sword is finally complete! That lightning must've really come from the heavens. This is awesome." Tracie said in delight as she looked at her sword that was emitting a strong fluctuation of energy.

"Congratulations, young miss."

"This a great news"

"Now, if we turn Philip into a Mystical Artifact, we will be able to advance our plan."

"Perfect! Capture that masked man! Hurry!"

Vale was about to disappear with his Lightspeed when he heard their words.

'You think you've won already?' Vale silently thought as he hated the idea that they used his lightning to power up their Mystical Item or whatever they did just now.

Without any hesitation, Vale used his Ghost Hands. Three ghastly and terrifying hands appeared, and he controlled one of them to hold the cane of the previous Headmaster. Then, the other two Ghost Hands were used to protect him.

After doing this, he used his Light Absorption to remove any light in the surroundings, and at the same time, he shifted his focus to the sword and triggered his other spell.

Traceless Shift!

In the blink of an eye, Vale held the heavy double-edged sword in his hands!

"Shit! He stole the sword! After him!"

Within the darkness, everyone heard Tracie's high-pitched voice as she commanded them to chase after Vale.

Of course, the latter was already running away the moment he got the sword!

'Yvaine, can you keep these items inside my Shadow?'

'Impossible.' Yvaine answered.

Vale already knows this, but he still tried, just in case.

Whoosh~

Vale kept moving while his Ghost Hands were active.

The number of people that they mobilized was actually larger than the ones he detected a while ago.

Numerous spells would come flying at him as soon as they sensed his presence

Luckily, Vale was still filled with stamina, and running away wasn't a big problem.

After some time, he managed to escape their pursuit, and at the same time, he felt that Philip was waking up.

No, he was coughing out blood!

Vale stopped momentarily as he put down his friend.

Vale had prepared his healing medicine for this situation, so he forcefully fed it to Philip.

It seemed quite effective and this made Vale heave a sigh of relief.

'Stay strong, Philip...'

After Philip stopped coughing, he started breathing calmly. He finally looked a lot better, but he was still unconscious.

He called out his name softly, "Philip? Philip, can you hear me? It's me, Vale."

Philip didn't respond. He didn't even open his eyes. Vale felt a surge of fear in his chest.

He checked Philip's pulse and breathing. They were weak but steady. He tried to wake him up by shaking him gently or slapping him lightly. Unfortunately, nothing worked.

After inspecting him a bit with his Spirit Vision, Vale realized that Philip was unconscious not because of physical harm but because of mental harm. If he would make a guess, someone had used a powerful mind spell on him to probably search or erase his memories or alter his personality to make him loyal to the enemy.

Vale could only imagine what they'd done. He might be overthinking, but he couldn't help but consider these things.

Vale felt anger rising in him. He should've acted wildly a bit more. However, he needed to save Philip and continuing to fight in that situation might just hurt the latter.

'Tracie Coulston I'll remember you. Let me put a Mark on you for now...' Vale silently thought as he lifted Philip's body and carried him over his shoulder.

He cast a spell to create a cloak of invisibility around them and headed for the exit. It wasn't really an invisibility spell. It was simply his ESP spell that could isolate their presence and become 'invisible' in others' magic zone

In short, they could only 'see' them using their eye vision and not with their Magic Zone while in this state.

'Hmm? They're still here? Just how many people did they mobilize to chase us?' Vale mused as he moved forward. He had entered the nearby forest and planned to get to the next city from there.

He was hesitating whether to stop and fight or just focus on escaping.

'Tsk I'll just deal with you guys later on.' Vale thought.

In the end, Vale decided to be on the defensive.

Philip looked fragile right now, and a random offensive spell might end his life. His rescue mission would be completely pointless if he died right now.

He needed to get out of the Viscount's territory, or he'll just be facing more enemies and obstacles.

He used his spells, mostly his Ghost Hands, to defend himself and Philip. As expected, he didn't take some hits and wounds since he kept his focus on deflecting attacks instead of counter-attacking them.

Although he felt his strength and dark energy draining, he felt that it was more than enough to leave this place.

In any case, with his Agility, Strength, and Vitality, it was simply impossible to chase him unless they were using a vehicle or a horse in this jungle.

It didn't take that long until the enemies gave up as they exhausted their Arcane Energy and physical stamina.

***

In the meantime, while Vale was approaching the small village that he found, the incident about the destruction of the Murton Castle started to spread in every Association's Factions and Arcane Organizations, including the five prominent churches.

The nickname Devil Incarnate had started to spread throughout the kingdom. As a matter of fact, a wanted poster was already being printed to be sent to all the cities and towns in the kingdom!