A rank 4 body was extremely strong, inhuman even.

However, falling for a few hundred meters and landing while holding a person was too much even for those that had it.

Phoebe felt as if her legs were going to break.

Yet, they held on and she also managed to save Manuel who was still in her arms.

"Get off, I need to sit."

Phoebe said, waiting for Manuel to realize that he had been saved.

"Thank you so much! You saved my life, please take this."

Manuel took out a potion from his s.p.a.ce-ring and handed it to Phoebe who accepted it without saying a word.

She then sat on the ground stretched her legs to speed up their recovery.

The injury wasn't bad but it still required a few days of rest to completely heal.

'What are they doing here? I thought that this danger zone wouldn't attract anyone. Wait, isn't that Manuel?'

Noah thought, looking at them.

He had retracted his wings out of habit, in case the two cultivators were hostile and tried to attack him.

After all, his ability to fly was extremely useful, he would rather hide it when he met with strangers.

His presence though couldn't be hidden and the two n.o.bles soon noticed that someone was staring at them.

Phoebe raised her gaze and looked toward him with a surprised expression.

What she saw was a young man with long combed dark hair and a pair of piercing blue eyes.

His clothes were tight and black and a cold aura was spread all around him.

'He is wary of us.'

She concluded and began to speak.

"I am Phoebe, from the Ramgett family. I've come here with-"

However, her words were interrupted by a loud yell shouted by his companion.

"VANCE!!!"

Manuel had turned and had recognized Noah.

At that moment, all the acc.u.mulated anger that he had felt after their match exploded and he jumped straight at Noah.

Sparks acc.u.mulated on his sword as he ran at full speed toward the man in front of him, uncaring of the fact that his specialty was the long-range combat.

His anger had taken control of his body and all he could think of was to kill the man that ruined his cultivation journey.

However, Noah wasn't the same man that he had fought in the academy.

As soon as he saw traces of hostility, Noah attacked.

His speed was way higher than Manuel's one, allowing him to reach his position when Manuel was still mid-air.

That burst of speed surprised Manuel but there was nothing that he could do about it.

He could only watch as Noah's saber slashed his waist and used his other hand to grab his throat.

THUD!

Noah roughly slammed Manuel on the ground an pointed a saber to his head, his foot pressed on his throat to hold him still.

Then, another saber appeared in his free hand which he pointed toward Phoebe.

"Why are you here?"

Manuel's robe denied all the damage of his weapon.

Also, he had decided to hold back.

After he recognized Manuel and Phoebe gave some explanation, he was sure that there were more people in their group.

Their status had to be quite high too since those two cultivators were n.o.ble.

So, he decided to not instantly kill Manuel and probe them.

"Are you Vance from the academy?"

Phoebe asked in a surprised voice but Noah only pressed harder on Manuel's throat as an answer.

Phoebe understood the meaning behind his actions and hurriedly resumed her explanation.

"Wait! I am an heir of the Ramgett family and he is the heir of the Gousho family. We joined Lord Daniel in his mission to collect Excavating worms but we fell here after the floor of the Bare Dungeon crumbed."

Noah remained impa.s.sible but his thoughts raced like crazy.

'Daniel? What need does he have for the worms? Also, why did he bring these n.o.bles with him? Couldn't he just use the guards of his family?'

Doubts a.s.saulted his mind but then he focused back on the situation in front of him.

"How many are with him?"

Phoebe listened to his words and became slightly irritated.

"Can you stop threatening us? We are n.o.bles! You need to give us some respect!"

She had never been treated so rudely in her entire life!

She was aware of some rumors that concerned Vance but she had never been too interested in them.

She was older than him after all, she wouldn't care about a nameless genius when she had the true genius of her generation on her side.

However, Noah didn't care for status and simply stabbed Manuel on the shoulder with the weapon aimed at his head.

The robe could not stop the strength applied by Noah and easily pierced the inscribed item.

Manuel's shout was suppressed by the foot on his throat but a few rough words could still be discerned.

"You…ruined…my…life."

Manuel struggled those words out of him but Noah simply stabbed his other shoulder without moving his gaze from Phoebe.

"We are five, we split up during the fall."

Phoebe said after seeing the cruel reaction that her words had caused.

"Why do you need the worms?"

Noah continued with his questions.

"I don't know, it was a mission of the alchemy division of the academy."

'Do they need some material? Why though, the worms are only useful for their blood.'

Noah was confused but he stopped trying to guess the intention of the alchemy division, he wasn't an alchemist after all.

'What should I do with these two?'

His pressing concerns were the two cultivators with him.

Noah lifted his gaze toward the upper parts of the lair and focused all his mental energy to inspect the area.

Echo helped too, scanning a large area around him.

Yet, its ability was heavily restricted in that environment, Noah didn't discover anything useful.

"Tell me, if you were me, what would you do now?"

Noah spoke casually.

Phoebe was a bit surprised and timidly gave an honest answer.

"Let Manuel go and help us escape the dungeon. Manuel has attacked you first but you used him to threaten me so you will have to answer for that."

"Wrong."

Noah said, crus.h.i.+ng Manuel's neck with his foot.