Father and Daughter

They ran all the way and met up with Mira and the others, but they stopped.

"Why did you stop?" Chiba hurriedly came up to them and said quickly.

Mira gritted her teeth and said, "The exit is sealed off using a spell. Breaking it will require a lot of magic power, and there's a high chance they have people waiting for us outside."

Chiba frowned, then walked to the exit that was blocked by rocks.

"Rasengan!"

He slammed a Rasengan into the rock with one hand, revealing the jutsu pattern on the rock without causing any damage.

"Are there any other exits?" Chiba turned his gaze to Hualun.

The latter hesitated for a moment, then said, "Yes, but it's not a path leading to the outside world; it goes downwards."

"Alright!" Chiba nodded; it was better than staying here.

Hualun walked to a spot, then lowered himself down, and covered the ground with one hand, creating a magic circle.

"Boom..."

Amid the violent tremors, an underground passage appeared in the ground in front of Hualun.

"Walk!"

Chiba led the way, and the group quickly descended the slope.

The underground passage was very long; they walked for about ten minutes before arriving at a spacious area.

Calling it a space is an understatement; it's more like a laboratory, filled with various instruments. This seems to be Hualun's personal lab.

Hualun should be a substitute

Chiba began to take this young man seriously.

"Shall we continue?" Hualun seemed to sense a peculiar gaze and couldn't help but tremble.

Has this demon set his sights on one of his companions again?

"Can't I?" Chiba asked.

"No, going any further will take time; it's locked. I don't know the password, but I can crack it." Hualun was trying his best to demonstrate his value.

Chiba nodded, but his expression remained indifferent.

"We've been on the run for so long, let's rest for a while." Chiba used Wood Release to create a few benches, then sat down.

After everyone was seated, Chiba looked at the girl in Lixi's arms, his voice softening, and said, "Can you tell us about yourself?"

The girl raised her slightly pale face, hesitated for a moment, and then said softly, "My name is Seele."

"And then?" After waiting for a long time without the girl saying a word, Chiba finally couldn't help but ask.

I'm afraid she'll say next, "I have an older sister named Bronya."

The girl paused for a moment, then said, "I'm eleven years old."

Chiba: "???"

Mira: "???"

As the two youngest members of the team, they looked completely bewildered.

You... you look about my age, you don't look eleven at all!

But Mira was thinking...

Eleven years old...

Eleven years old...

Older than me...

!!!

"And then..." Chiba didn't want to dwell on why an eleven-year-old girl looked fourteen, so she continued to ask.

The girl seemed startled by Chiba's sudden, urgent tone and didn't dare to make a sound.

"You scared her," Mira said reproachfully, abandoning her previous thoughts.

Chiba chose to remain silent.

"Seele, can you tell us something... about you?" Lixi asked softly, holding her.

Seele looked bewildered, then whispered, "My... my dad's name is Labi..."

"..."

I asked you to talk about your own situation, not to say that your father is...

Yes...

"Holy crap! Labi!"

Chiba stood up abruptly, his face contorted with anger.

If it weren't for that damned bastard, they wouldn't have been tricked into coming here. At first, they thought he was on their side, but it turned out he was an undercover agent.

Seele was so frightened she didn't dare blink.

Mira pulled him down to sit.

"Calm down, calm down. If you scare her, she won't be able to get anything out of you."

Chiba wasn't too angry, just a little shocked.

So... the so-called "red wine" is Seele's blood, and the Labi is Seele's father.

We can make a guess.

The Labi had been doing this for over a decade, all for his daughter. Or rather, to rescue his daughter.

He accepted the Shadow Skull's arrangement in order to save his daughter.

Is Seele the bargaining chip in this exchange?

It's somewhat possible, but unlikely. With such immense value, how could he possibly return Seele to him just to lure him into a trap? It's not Seele he's the only one capable of doing something like that.

However, he didn't understand the specifics.

This means that Labi should not be just a puppet of the Shadow Skull; he should have his own ideas.

"Seele, how did you... end up in a place like that?" Lixi patted the girl's head and asked softly.

The girl calmed down after a while and whispered, "I... I don't know either."

"So you're inside every day?" Lixi couldn't help but ask.

The girl nodded gently and said, "They... come to draw my blood every day, it hurts a lot."

The girl's words were earnest, without fear or dread, as if she really wanted to tell the story well.

"Aren't you... scared?" Chiba asked curiously.

Upon hearing Chiba's question, the girl was visibly startled, apparently because Chiba had frightened her twice earlier.

But she forced herself to suppress her fear and nodded gently. "I'm scared, all alone."

Chiba opened his mouth, but then stopped himself from speaking.

He had expected the girl to answer that she was afraid of pain, but it turned out she was afraid of being alone.

"Da da da..."

At that moment, a series of footsteps, growing louder and louder, reached their ears.

They still caught up.

"Is it not done yet?" Chiba hurriedly looked at Hualun was lying on the ground.

"Don't worry, it'll be done soon, it'll be done soon." Hualun racked his brains.

The footsteps grew louder; the pursuers were closing in.

"They're inside, get ready to fight!"

"Oh no, an attack is coming!" Mira cried out, clearly feeling the burst of magic power.

"Leave it to me!"

Chiba jumped to the entrance of the passage and clasped his hands together.

"Wood Release, Wood Locking Wall!"

Two or three layers of wooden walls blocked the entrance, but in the next instant, a thick flame surged forth, breaking through all the Wood Locking Walls.

In the Kakkō, Chiba could vaguely see that at the end of the passage, there were countless mages, and in front of them stood a man.

Yaro, the guild master of the Flames of Life and Death!

"Such powerful magic... This should be... S-Class, right..." Even from such a distance, Koi could feel the formidable magic emanating from Yaro, and couldn't help but grit his teeth and say.

Chiba didn't know the specific criteria for S-Class classification, but he felt that Yaro was a level below the previous Throne of Wind, Rina. However, Koi felt that he had S-Class power, so he figured Arro was probably the gatekeeper of S-Class.

However, even the gatekeeper is a formidable opponent.

"Water Release, Water Formation Wall!"