Chapter 102
Lucas's hand fell against the stone, the cold seeping through his fingers. Across the chamber, the Demonic Mana Beast took another step toward Ashely's fallen form. Scarlett moved in from the shadows, her spear raised. The blue-haired demon followed, arrow drawn.
They thought they had won.
Lucas closed his eyes.
Now.
Scarlett's spear drove toward Ashely's chest.
It passed through empty air.
The body beneath her dissolved into blue light, fragments of mana scattering like startled birds. Scarlett's eyes widened. Her spear struck stone, cracking the platform where the body had been.
"An illusion," she hissed.
The blue-haired demon spun, arrow sweeping the chamber. "Where—"
He stopped.
On the far side of the platform, where Lucas had fallen, another figure rose. Silver hair. Pale skin, the same face. Another clone—this one flickering, unstable, its form already dissolving at the edges.
It looked at them and smiled.
Then it, too, dissolved into light.
Scarlett's jaw tightened. "He was never here."
The beast roared, its crimson gaze sweeping the chamber, finding nothing.
The battle had been a stage, and the main actors had already left.
Lucas had prepared for this.
When Scarlett appeared in the chamber, when she revealed herself and began to speak, Lucas had not been listening. Not truly, his mind was already calculating, already moving pieces into place.
The Mana Clone beside him—the one he had used to maintain his connection to the team's decoy—was not his only clone.
There was another, one he had created before entering the cave.
It had been waiting outside, hidden in the rocks above the entrance, gathering mana from the thin mountain air.
When Scarlett's red beam struck Ashely, when her body crumpled against the stone, Lucas had not hesitated. Mana Spell: Illusory Swap.
His clone moved,
While Scarlett spoke, while she spun her story of higher realms and Abyssal Kings, the clone descended. Silent. Unseen.
It reached Ashely's body in the space between Scarlett's words, lifted her from the stone, and carried her back through the tunnel. The real Ashely was already gone before the seal even shattered.
What remained on the platform was light and mana—a copy so perfect that even Scarlett's Void sight had not pierced it.
Three clones.
One with the team, maintaining the decoy. One in the cave, standing beside him. One carrying Ashely to safety.
Each one drained him. Each one required mana he could not spare, focus he could not afford. And through it all, he had held the Astral Mode, suppressed the demonic beast, deflected Scarlett's strike, and fought.
Scarlett stood frozen on the shattered platform, her red eyes scanning the darkness of the tunnel. The blue-haired demon—his name was Veylan, though Lucas would not learn it until later—lowered his bow, his face tight with frustration.
"He cannot be far," Veylan said. "His mana was nearly gone."
Scarlett's lips pressed into a thin line. "Nothing left," she repeated. "And yet he took her from us."
The beast growled, its massive form shifting, the molten veins in its bod pulsing with frustrated hunger. It could taste the bloodline it had been promised, could feel it somewhere in the mountain, but it could not find it. The scent was gone.
Lucas had placed a seal on Ashely before the clone even moved. A bloodline seal—something he had learned from the Queen herself, a technique she had created to hide her family's power from those who would hunt them. He had thought it would be useful. He had not known how soon.
The seal wrapped around Ashely's bloodline, smothering the demonic signature that marked her as the beast's target, hiding her from the senses that would have found her in an instant.
The beast howled, its frustration shaking the walls, but the sound was empty. It could not see what it could not sense.
Scarlett watched the darkness for a long moment. Then, slowly, she smiled.
"Clever," she murmured. "Using our arrogance against ourselves."
She turned to Veylan. "Find them."
Veylan nodded and disappeared into the shadows, his form dissolving into wind.
Scarlett looked down at the shattered seal, at the place where Ashely's blood had stained the stone. She touched her fingers to the red smear, then raised them to her lips.
Lucas carried Ashely through the narrow passages of the mountain. He had removed all his clones now, calling back the mana they held to recover what he could. The one with the team, the one that had stood beside him in the cave, the one that had carried Ashely—all of them dissolved, their energy flowing back into his empty core.
It was not enough to restore him completely, but it was something.
He walked until his legs threatened to give out, until the tunnels narrowed and the air grew thin. He needed somewhere safe. Somewhere he could summon his recovery clone—the one he always left hidden, the last reserve of mana he could call when everything else was gone.
He kept moving.
He had found a place sometime ago, when he and Ashely first scouted the route—a narrow fissure in the rock, hidden behind a fall of stone, too small for the beast to reach, too deep for casual search. He had marked it with a rune, a tiny thing, invisible to anyone not looking for it.
To hide it even better, to make it unnoticeable, he had placed another rune over the entrance, one that bent the light and muted the presence of anything within.
His hands found the stone, pulled it aside, revealed the darkness within. He lowered Ashely into the space, then crawled in after her, pulling the stone back into place.
He pressed his palm against Ashely's side, where the beam had struck. The wound was bad—the flesh burned away, the ribs visible beneath. But she was breathing. His healing spells could work to some extent, but the corrupting mana was the thing that kept her in the coma.
The bloodline seal pulsed faintly on her chest, a web of light that kept her hidden from the demon's senses.
Lucas leaned back against the stone, taking a deep breath as he felt the pain all over his body.
He reached into his small bag and took out a scroll. His fingers trembled as he unrolled it and placed his palm against the surface.
Summoning Spell: Summon
Another Lucas appeared beside him—the recovery clone, the one he always kept hidden in a safe location, waiting for moments like this. The clone did not hesitate. It reached out, touching Lucas's shoulder, and all the mana it had gathered flowed into him.
The clone vanished.
Lucas felt his core fill, the emptiness replaced by being full.
His mana reached one hundred percent.
He activated his Mana Eyes. The cyan light flickered back into his irises, weak but present. He did not waste time.
He placed his hands over Ashely's wound and began to work, drawing the corrupting mana from her body.
When the last of the corruption was gone, he cast another spell.
Mana Spell: Great Healing
Warm light flowed from his palms into her wound. The flesh began to knit, the burned edges pulling together, the bone beneath sealing. It was slow work, painstaking, but it worked. Her breathing steadied, and color returned to her face.
He sat back, exhausted.
The seal was still recharging. He could not enter Astral Mode without chanting now.
He also wanted to use the Giant Mana Eye.
But it was still recovering from healing him before. Making it unusable for a long time, his hopes were not with it.
Lucas leaned his head back against the stone and closed his eyes.