Chapter 126: Escape

Baam—!

That black object slammed into the spot where Julian had been standing. The destructive force made the ground tremble, dust scattering upward like the surface of a calm river disturbed by the fall of a massive boulder.

Amid all that, Julian looked at the place where he’d been standing with a complicated expression.

‘What the hell? I nearly died.’

That was terrifying enough that Julian had briefly thought he might actually die. Fortunately, he’d used Flash Step in those final seconds and immediately moved to a safe spot.

‘This little creature just stayed quiet too.’

It was annoying thinking that the little girl might’ve been able to do something, yet she’d chosen to just stay still and leave all of this to Julian.

Watching how the girl was still sleeping soundly, Julian looked at her with a complicated emotion for a moment, then quickly turned his gaze toward the spot where that object had landed.

The dust billowing in the air slowly settled, revealing a massive crater from that force. Then, standing there was an extremely dark creature with a large shell resembling muscle.

The creature’s head was somewhat small, looking like the shape of a fly’s head, but its body was so large, muscular, and so black it looked glossy in some places.

Bright reddish eyes stared back at Julian.

It was a type of Invader Julian didn’t recognize, but enough to make Julian sense a high level of lethality if he had to face that creature.

‘An Alien at Rank-C.’

Julian looked at Felicya in his embrace for a moment, feeling a brief irritation, then quickly adjusted his arm and used only one arm to carry the girl.

His other hand was used to summon the sword he’d gotten from Aclyris, a sleek, sharp black sword.

‘Hard to win, while escaping… that might also be impossible.’

Julian smiled slightly as thin sweat dripped down his face. In this situation, Julian could only hope that, when something bad happened to him, this little girl would do something.

Then, Julian’s gaze met the creature’s, which raised its hand and pointed at Julian. More precisely, it was pointing at Felicya.

“Give. Her. To me.”

A broken voice, a voice trying to adapt to a language it didn’t know, sounded in that silence, momentarily startling Julian.

‘It can speak human language?’

Then, this must be a type of intelligent Alien capable of thought. If so, everything Julian did would become even more difficult.

It was easy to fight a stupid Alien that moved on instinct, but an Alien capable of thinking and calculating a situation was an entirely different case.

This was very difficult.

‘Besides, it wants Felicya? Is this creature stupid?’

Felicya was clearly stronger, and this creature was instead saying to hand Felicya over to it?

Julian reconsidered the matter again, maybe this Alien wasn’t as smart as it looked.

Besides that, ‘If possible, please just take this girl from me!’

That would be a very much appreciated help. However, the problem was that Felicya herself seemed to have no intention whatsoever of letting go, making it impossible for Julian to simply hand the girl over.

Sinking into that difficult situation, Julian suddenly heard a shout coming from a long-abandoned building across the way.

“Attack! Bring that Invader down! Make sure the Most Sacred One stays safe!”

It turned out, the one who’d suddenly shown up was the man who was the leader of the Church of Ascension, namely Clarvis, whose name Julian had recently learned since he lived here.

The man arrived like a hero, wearing a dark priest’s uniform as though asserting that he was the hero behind the shadows.

Meanwhile, behind him, the other followers came to help with full determination. All of it was done solely for one single purpose, namely to protect Felicya.

‘They’re all crazy people…’

To think that these people genuinely worshipped an Alien as a god, even considering the little girl in Julian’s embrace as something very sacred, it felt rather pitiable.

But Julian couldn’t help smiling and feeling satisfied for not having to fight that terrifying creature.

That was something worth being grateful for.

Besides that, wasn’t this also some kind of opportunity?

“Felicya… seems like this hideout isn’t safe anymore.”

There was one other thing Julian knew about Felicya. That was the tendency to keep moving places once one Alien came to them.

At first it was strange, but now Julian could understand that this was done because Felicya herself seemed to want to avoid the relentless, endless pursuit coming at them.

This was the first time Julian experienced this, so all those conclusions could be wrong, and what Julian did was just a gamble.

“How about we leave while they buy us time?”

Maybe Julian wouldn’t part from this girl for a while, but at least, he’d part from those strange crazy people.

Then, Felicya’s listless eyelids lifted. Her mismatched eyes seemed to show a gleam difficult to comprehend, staring at Julian for a few seconds, then she raised her hand, rubbed her eyes, and nodded.

“Yeah.”

That one answer was enough.

Julian smiled somewhat forced, glancing toward the cult members who were busy fighting.

Because Clarvis himself was a Rank-B hunter, he should be able to kill that creature easily, but the man didn’t do it.

Julian could guess that his purpose was to strengthen the other members, but that actually became an opportunity for Julian.

‘Since they’re busy, I’ll go.’

Julian thanked them faintly, then he used Flash Step together with Felicya. The amount of Mana he needed for that was so unreasonable that Julian felt drained so much just for one use.

But, that didn’t stop Julian.

He used Flash Step, moving from place to place, and without realizing it, he found himself in a dense forest with no buildings at all.

No animal sounds, no insect sounds, the sky looked so empty and the air felt like it should from abandoned territory, this was very heavy.

“Haa…”

Julian let out a thin breath. With this excessive Mana usage, Julian needed to use a serum soon to recover his Mana again.

That meant he’d also be cutting down the time he had to maintain Fearless.

But, that didn’t matter.

Julian couldn’t say he’d made progress, because the situation was still very bad for now.

Nothing could be called progress.

With slight hesitation, Julian looked around. He needed to be careful, because now not only would Aliens chase after him for this little creature, but the cultists would also chase after Julian himself.

At that moment, Julian saw that Felicya opened her eyes, looking around with a listless gaze. Then, her hand rose and pointed in a direction.

“That way.”

Julian said nothing, he just looked in that direction, then carefully took a step.