"---and then they just laughed at me! can you believe it!?"

"nope, sure can't"

"yes isn't that right! but that's not the worst of all then he---"

Mars once again tuned out the sound and focused on Chloe's face, he found her petty charming without sound at the moment but quickly tuned in again as she was nearing the end of her complaining

"---honestly can you believe it?"

"nope, sure can't"

"hey are you even listening?

"sure am"

"...then repeat what I just said"

"I can't because I was lost in observing your charming face"

Chloe's face lit up red before she turned her head away with a humph and mumbled

"so you do find me charming..."

"of cause I do... I mean have you looked at yourself? I almost think you're sculptured personally by one of the 13"

Chloe's face turned even more red as she still refused to look at him, meanwhile Mars clenched his fist under the table

'distraction successful... but what am I going to do about her...'

Mars took a closer look at Chloe that still was busy blus.h.i.+ng and quickly found she was working up a healthy tan on her skin but otherwise nothing came to mind, that when someone else called out to him

"hey Mars!"

"hmm..?"

Mars turned and saw Hans walking over

"oh, your with your girlfriend... sorry but we need to gather now"

"okay... see you later Chloe"

"see you Mars"

Chloe looked a little sad but Mars knew he had to go

"let's talk later okay?"

"okay..."

Chloe still looked a little down when Mars walked away but Mars focused on Hans and asked

"is it cla.s.s 1 golems again?"

"hmm... yeah same as usual"

"okay got it..."

Mars and Hans quickly got back to squad 7's tent where the others where all suited up, Mars helped Hans suit up and then the 5 of them headed out of the camp and began to head north, on the way Vanessa spoke to Mars that was running next to her

"are you good to fire the first shoot?"

"yeah"

"good, cause here they are"

approximately 400 meters away was a group of almost 300 cla.s.s 1 golems, they were moving directly south

"weird"

"what?"

"it's just that they seem oddly organized"

"hmm.... you're right Mars, they do look organized"

"well whatever"

Mars quickly prepared his 4 fold exposition and was about to fire it off when suddenly something shot out form the group of cla.s.s 1 golems

"intercept!"

Nicole reacted first and stepped in front of Mars and drew her great sword

*CLANG*

a football sized stone hit her sword and exploded into fragments, as soon as Vanessa heard the sound of the stone hitting the sword she yelled out

"s.h.i.+t! there's cla.s.s 2 golems in there, Mars fire your spell now!"

"got it!"

Mars waved his hand and sent off the bright white fireball towards the rapidly closing group of golems, in response more stones was fired with break neck speed form the group of golems after the fireball, seemingly trying to shot it down but it was all in vain as Mars made the fireball doge the incoming stones and soon it reached its target and exploded in a truly awesome manner sending pieces of chard body parts flying all over the place, but when the dust settled close to 100 figures was still standing, half of them being made of rock with eerie blue glowing eyes and a mana stone in the chest area

'those must be the cla.s.s 2 golems...'

a wide smile formed on Mars's face form his energy sense he could feel that the energy in the cla.s.s 2 golem's mana stones was more than double of that in the cla.s.s 1's

"Mars pull back to the camp and request for reinforcements"

"no way, captain are you trying to hug all the fun for yourself?"

"...fine you better not get killed"

Mars drew his sword and stood ready as the golems closed in Hans looked rather excited even with his helmet on Mars could tell he had a wide grin on his face form the way he was pacing back and forth while the humming form his armor suit gradually got higher and higher, Vanessa turned around and looked at her squad, Mars could feel her jet black eyes though the helmet

"let's kill theses sons of b.i.t.c.hes!"

"""OHHHH!!!"""

"ohhh"

the other 3 seemed a lot more fired up than Mars, or maybe it was because their roars was amplified by their loudspeakers

"remember to keep the formation tight... Mars you do whatever"

"I can do that"

as soon as Mars responded he disappeared from view and reappeared close to the golems

"s.h.i.+t that guy is crazy"

"...yeah I agree, 10 cel says he's injured by the end"

"Gus... fine then 100 says he's fine"

"that's some confidence captain..."

"yeah well, I have crossed blades with him before, anyway let's go!"

"""yes captain!"""

while the squad was betting on whether he would be fine Mars dug into the golems with his sword, he rapidly reappeared and disappeared again every time he appeared a head would be sent flying without fail greatly upsetting the golems as they roared at him but with how fast he was moving they could do nothing but watch as their numbers shrunk, by the time Mars sent head number 15 flying the rest of the squad joined the fight, they didn't bother with the cla.s.s 1 golems as they just kicked them aside if they were in the way before they clashed with the cla.s.s 2 golems

"time to pull my weight a bit more..."

Mars reappeared behind a cla.s.s 2 golem and grabbed the back of it's head before he discharged the 10 energy units he had changed beforehand

"...and boom goes the diamante"

*BOOM*

the head of the cla.s.s 2 golem was blown clean off along with most of its upper body exposing it's mana stone which Mars quickly pulled out causing the rest of the cla.s.s 2 golem to turn into pieces of rock as it collapsed, Mars pocketed the mana stone with a smile on his face before he activated [Instant movement] again and disappeared again. This time he reappeared in front of another cla.s.s 2 golem and slashed down with his sword splitting cleanly it down the middle before he turned and kicked it form the side sending the now parted in 2 mana stone flying causing the golem to collapse

"this is easy..."

Mars stopped using [Instant movement] and kicked of the group avoiding a stone fired from a cla.s.s 2 golem before he arrived in front of a another cla.s.s 2 golem and with a single slash cut out the mana stone, causing the golem to collapse

"was that the last one?"

Mars looked around and just managed to catch sight of Vanessa bringing down her great sword on the last cla.s.s 2 golem, utterly obliterating it and sending pieces of rock flying

"that's.... rather crude... but effective"

"well that's that, let's head back to camp"

after making sure all the golems were pacified the group started to head back south towards the camp

'this is starting to get annoying...'

on the way back to camp Nicole, Gus and Hans were rather quiet but all 3 of them stared at Mars with various degrees of wonder, Mars gave a sigh and asked Vanessa which he was walking next to

"...is it okay to leave them like that?"

"they'll be fine in time"

"okay if you say so captain..."

Mars gave another sigh, but as Vanessa said when they made it back to camp Gus Nicole and Hans had all recovered from their shock and was speaking with Mars with smiles on their faces after making it back to the tent Mars helped with maintaining the armor suits while he observed the runes and lines on the inside of the armor suits boosting his knowledge about formations somewhat with the help of the others that answered his questions with smiles on their faces when he asked

'if this keeps up I should be able to make my own active mana armor in the future...'

Mars laid down on his bed and looked into the ceiling while he prepared for his night salvage expedition

'I'm almost level 25, with this battle I should be able to level up tonight...'

looking forwards to the night Mars closed his eyes and drifted of to a shallow sleep...