The Goddess' Champion

"What is going on Zamira!?"

"I'm healing…"

"Shush! Keep your voice down, listen and do what I say, we can escape this!"

"What is going on?"

Before Luke could utter anything else, the steps of the incoming ants made themselves known.

The baldy struggled to maintain his consciousness, his fussy gaze set on his 'companions'.

He couldn't see their recovering faces, and as if in a joint agreement, after Zamira gave them a nod, they understood.

"Just don't raise your heads no matter what, pretend you're unconscious." She whispered, the visage of her comrades stopped being tired as they progressively healed, it would bring suspicions to the ants if they were seen, thankfully, the ants didn't care as much, when they died, they died…

"W-Wait! What aren't you telling me!?" Luke felt something was odd, why should they pretend?

"Oh, you're a stubborn one, yelling as always, magus or not I should just kill you, but then again, you're the one that produces the most lumen here so, just shut up for a moment like your companions, will you?~"

*BAAANGG!!*

Luke got a fist square against his jaw from the ant, not the strength of a human, it was the strength of a creature.

His entire face was flung to the side as he spew blood and along came unconsciousness.

Zamira sighed in relief, had the fool talked any more, they'd be in trouble.

The ant passed by, looking at their slumped panting expressions, their gazes couldn't be seen, as if they forsook life and choose resignation, he smirked amused, took the lumen and off he went, pretending to tell Forlon that the humans only have a few days left before the dishes are served.

…

After the ant left, it was instantaneous.

"Zamira!" Anna yelled, scared… she could feel her own body still weakened by the array, but way stronger than before, what kind of healing spell is this!?

"J-Just stay clear, we have a helper, he's coming to save us…" Zamira said and got questioned about it, telling them that she had been speaking to someone throw the last few days.

They would have thought she's going delusional were it not for the spell.

Minutes passed and turned into hours, but there was no sign of Constantine and Zamira was starting to get scared, did something happen to him? Did he get captured?

By now she was convinced he'd keep his word, not only did he come back to her, he healed them too… it is impossible he did that for nothing.

It took two whole hours for Constantine to finally appear.

"Zamira!"

"Where were you!?" She asked with utter relief, by now her entire face was fixed out of scars, it was a the pretty countenance of a young lady, not a girl, her silky yet still dusty purple hair had a few bangs that barely covered one of her blue eyes.

"Recovering my mana… its time, the ants are unaware… and I was making a few more preparations in the meantime…" Constantine said, gazing her face for a little while before his hand snuck forward and took the shackles.

*WHOOSH!!*

Fire appeared from his hand, and it immediately triggered the people.

His figure was covered with a mask made of plants, his ears couldn't be seen, except for his clear blue eyes that were nearly white, nothing was visible.

But right now he just used fire, burning the shackles, he's a magus!

'We're saved!' They all thought, seemingly not paying attention to how his body sank in the ground, in their minds, he did this by hand, an extremely difficult job, but possible indeed with enough resilience.

The shackles burned, they burned her skin too, she hissed in pain but took it like a champ, the process repeated four times and then he did the same to the other three.

"He doesn't deserve to be saved, what should we do now?" Zamira rubbed her wrist and picked up her sword, careful to not make a lot of movement or else, they'd attract gazes.

Luke lay unconscious, and he'd stay like that, eternally.

"Thank you for saving us! I'm Anne!" The girl introduced herself and so did the bulky men who immediately planned to hug him!

As if a phantom he blinked away from them with a weird expression.

"Please, no hugs…" He said, shaking his hands.

'Especially from you…' who knows what would come after the hug, he didn't even want to imagine.

[I'll give you ten thousand points if you let them hug you~] Zebellia 'tempted' him… but to the conqueror, dignity is paramount.

"No comment from my part…" He wanted to curse her but couldn't, he was so in debt that he could win the biggest lottery and still be broke.

"I'm going to run and start a fire… cause a commotion… while I do that, gazes will be away from you, do as I said and run to that cave, lead them!"

"Are you going to be okay? Let me help you!" Zamira insisted, the others too wanted to get involved, but he shook his head.

"Listen, you're going to get into that cave… and I'm going to lure them away, using my own means I'll get back to you and we're out of here, do what I say…" He said with a glare, those were orders, not suggestions.

At his dominant tonality they perked up, to them, he looked like a weakling who was fighting his first battle, but the demeanour and the status as a magus were things they couldn't ignore.

"Understood, take care of yourself…" They started to run straight away, his fierce glare fixed on them.

Those weren't the eyes of an elf, those were the eyes of a lion.

[You don't want any variables…]

"Yes, if they helped me, we could escape in one go, but… I don't trust them."

[Why don't you just go with them and dig a tunnel all the way to the exit?]

"That would take too much mana, it's several hundred metres away, and I'd rather do it with the ants' attention away." He used wind magic to make his steps lighter, easy to do and moved swiftly through the camp before coming across three particular shacks, he could hear the ants talking inside, and some even… moaning?

"Eww… thank your god, at least you're going to die in pleasure." He sighed in disgust and lit up a fire.

[What are those plants?]

"Rosemary, my mom used to tell me that those catch fire real quick~" he created them with flora magic and then squished them to produce oil, the one he secretly poured on those shacks.

[You love your mother a lot, don't you?] she noticed he used to one way one another, always talk about her teachings.

"With all my heart… she was a florist." He said simply with a frown, clearly indicating he didn't want to touch the subject and Zebellia unexpectedly heed.

It started with a single shack, then two… three, five.

'The more distraction the better~'

*WHOOSHHH!*

When the fire lit up, the panic was instantenous, with a root covered in fire, the silver rat ran and lit up the entire place as if it was holiday.

"FIREE!!!"

The ants started to concentrate and they all looked at that silver blur with hatred, initially believing the fire could be contained, but the more shacks lit up… the greater the despair.

"Capture that little rat! He wasn't dead after all!"

With a smirk in his gaze, Constantine picked up his spear and ran with an entourage of ants behind, all of them wielding their spear and expecting to take at least a limb out of the rat for themselves.

Forlon came out of one of the shacks with a gaze filled with hatred, fire lit up his camp from right to left, it expanded through ground channels, the oils served as the medium, the rosemaries as the source.

It couldn't be stopped.

The humans did as Constantine said and destroyed the path to the cave, leaving them in an encased room, not to spacious… they could only wait and hope, otherwise… oxygen would turn into a primal need.

As chaps wrecked the camp and Constantine squeezed himself in one of the channels, Zebellia regarded everything from this unknown realm.

It was a gargantuan figure, she sighed and her head rested atop the soft grass,

Floating above her was a big construct, like a floating crimson sphere with different dots rotating around it.

A God Spark.

Said sphere was covered by an immense cloud of negativity, dark fog, but as if time itself served as a barrier… the black fog was unable to touch the God Spark.

[Constantine… you could have saved them without causing this much destruction, as expected… I can't repress your destructive nature…] despite the fact that she felt amused at his methods.

When thinking about the future, that smile disappeared and transformed in concern.

[No wonder your divine was set to be… the God of War, well, it's better than the God of Lust]

She sighed once again in anxiousness and decided to simply look at the scene.