"Vated!!!"

Like a curse, the name of the man standing above them passed through their lips at the same time.

Idlan was the first to regain his wits. He threw a small fireball at Vated who didn't even move from his spot to avoid it.

The magic hit him right in his face but Vated didn't even flinch.

However, Idlan didn't have such hope in the first place.

He pulled out a sword with his last valid hand while shouting toward Brit and Hammiel.

"I will stall him. Take the girls and.."

A loud snort interrupted him before he could follow with his next attack. Immediately after, Vated suddenly waved his large hand.

The ground immediately started to sink as if the soil was no longer solid. The three men with their weapons in hands couldn't react in time. They struggled but could only watch powerlessly as their feet began to sink into the ground.

For the three men, the entire hideout was like a quicksand making them sink deeper rapidly. They were struggling fiercely and didn't even have time to notice that the bed with the three girls on it along with the other furniture inside the hideout were unaffected by his magic. In fact, they were the only ones affected by his strange magic.

"You think I will let you run away so easily?" Finally spoke Vated with annoyance.

He still couldn't forget the time he spent running around everywhere to catch them. The simple mission already cost him too much. He didn't want to delay things anymore.

First, get the girls then come back to settle those debts.

Seeing the three men struggling together and shooting various low-level magic made him smile in ridicule.

He couldn't go all out in this small hideout because of the girls, but against this kind of magic, he didn't even need to raise his hand. He just needed to wait for them to exhaust themselves.

As long as he took care of these three men, then getting the girls would be a simple task. They were far too young to offer any kind of resistance. Therefore, he let those attacks hit him without moving. The various elements crashed violently into him with a loud noise but no pain or wound followed.

"It's useless." Added Vated after a minute of a violent downpour.

His earth guard was the magic he was the most familiar with. By covering a part of his body with the hardest kind of earth he could create, it was basically possible to ignore this kind of simple attack. He developed it by mostly relying on his understanding of the concept of hardness of the earth element.

Attacks at this level couldn't hurt him no matter what and, more importantly, Vated knew that their violent attacks wouldn't last long.

Sure enough, after a bit of time, the downpour slowed down before totally stopping.

After a few seconds, the smoke created by their violent yet desperate outburst finally dispersed only to reveal the three men with their legs still trapped breathing heavily and unable to raise their arms anymore.

"Done?" Coldly laughed Vated before turning his head toward the bed where he saw his target lying earlier.

However, instead of a wide and vicious smile, his face crumbled in surprise.

The three girls that he was expecting to see were gone.

"Where are they !?!" He angrily roared more to himself than to the three defeated men.

Two of the three young girls were still unconscious, it should have been impossible for them to escape on their own. After the brief surprise and anger, he quickly calmed down for one simple reason.

Focusing his mind allowed him to easily find the girls running away. They were still close and, as long as they were moving, finding them wasn't an issue for him.

Brit and Hammiel didn't even have the strength to raise their head anymore. Therefore, they didn't see Vated who closed his eyes in front of them to concentrate.

He totally ignored them as they weren't a threat to him. He knew it and they also clearly understood it earlier. Brit and Hammiel couldn't move and didn't have the strength to resist his magic anymore but Idlan still had this last bit of resource.

He looked coldly at Vated and raised his left arm slowly to gather his mana to strike one last time.

However, he didn't have this chance.

"I'm done with you."

Disregarding their wills and existences, Vated simply waved his massive and muscular hand to welcome this last desperate struggle.

Immediately after, the entire hideout collapsed on its own. A vast amount of earth and rock fell all at once stopping Idlan's attack and burying the three brave men together.

Their screams and curses were drowned by the massive rumbling of the earth. The violent outburst quickly stopped to let its place to a disturbing and eerie silence.

Vated straightened his posture and closed his eyes calmly one more time.

His feet once more slowly sunk into the ground to take him to his targets.

-----------------------------------

Gaya watched powerlessly at the internal struggle and dispute of the guards after Vated's threat.

As the only member of a Beast tribe living in a Human town, she always had troubles trusting those around her, and these three guards weren't an exception. She anxiously watched their arguments, ready to take the girls away with her at a moment's notice.

Without anyone noticing, a thin dark fur slowly covered her limbs. Her tail and ears slowly grew as her small white teeth became sharper and more fitting to a predator. However, the rest of her body stayed unchanged unlike the previous time when she transformed.

Among the various races and species populating the continents, few could compare to the Beastmen in terms of versatility.

The number of various subspecies of their kind was beyond compare, but they were also gifted with a unique ability.

The ability to morph, to change their shape along with their will.

Most of them could only alternate between their human and beast form, but some gifted individuals could mix their different traits.

A transformation somewhere between these two forms allowing them to conserve their human appearance while gathering the raw strength, agility and heightened senses given to them by their bestial attributes.

After a couple of minutes of hard concentration, Gaya's transformation was complete.

Except for a thin layer of dark fur on her arms, her somewhat longer ears and her sharper teeth having troubles to fit in her small mouth, there was no major change to her physical appearance.

Her long dark glossy hair was still the same and her beautiful electric blue eyes were still gazing with the same intensity at the scene happening in front of her.

Still arguing together, none of the three men noticed the changes in her appearance.

She was standing ready to move the girls to the hidden passage behind the bed, but contrary to her expectations, the two guards along with Idlan didn't make a move against her to take the girls away.

However, she didn't have any time to breathe a sigh of relief when she noticed the source of their fear near the hideout.

"He isn't counting anymore!" She quickly exclaimed when she noticed the abnormal silence outside.

However, it was too late.

The man tracking them had already locked onto their position because of the earlier commotion.

There was only one way for her to help the girls.

She didn't stay behind to waste the brave moments of these men protecting them.

As soon as the smoke of their attacks hitting Vated began to spread and covered the inside of the hideout, she took each girl under an arm and swiftly entered the hidden passageway behind the bed.

She ran as fast as she could in the narrow and dark tunnel, barely passing through certain parts with the unconscious girls against her body. Something like that would have been totally impossible if not for her temporarily heightened strength, given by her newly acquired transformation.

Even so, the long tunnel seemed endless for the young girl.

Several minutes already passed since she began to run, but the noise of the attacks from the guards of the town already stopped.

Anxious, she pressed forward as fast as her thin and short legs allowed her to.

Because she knew that she couldn't rival this opponent. Her previous encounter with the men in the middle of the night made her understand this simple truth.

Despite her will and all the efforts she made these past years, she was still weak.

However, she couldn't give up.

She didn't exactly know what happened to Millodas, but she was sure that no one else from the town would come to save her and the girls.

She was the only one who could protect them until their mother or Aten came back.

She looked at the beautiful sleeping faces of the girls in her arms and buried her fears deep inside her.

The idea of giving up on them to save herself didn't even cross her young mind.

She tightened her grip on the girls who grew up like her own sisters and strengthened her will before pressing forward even faster than before.

After what seemed like an eternity of running, Gaya finally reached the narrow end of the tunnel giving a small dim light to the underground construction.

She slowed her steps and focused her hearing around her. It took her several seconds to calm her mind and ignore her erratic heartbeats, but she quickly noticed that no one was beyond the end of the tunnel.

Therefore, she didn't hesitate anymore.

She cautiously stepped outside with the girls and emerged from a small hole carefully dissimulated inside a clearing of the forest.

She didn't know where to go, but she knew that she couldn't stay near the hideout or return to the town.

Various ideas began to form in her young mind to put the girls to safety, some realistic, other dangerous but most of them simply desperate.

In the end, she decided that the only possible choice for her was to hide inside the dense forest or to leave with the girls to seek help outside.

She continued to think as she ran forward, trying to put as much distance as she could between her and the imposing man who attacked the hideout.

She didn't know who this was. Idlan had neither the time nor the will to explain exactly who was trying to kidnap the girls.

However, even without any information, Gaya knew that this man was dangerous and that she couldn't do anything about him

After several minutes of frantic running inside the dense forest, strangely devoid of any significant lifeform, Gaya finally began to calm down.

The dense foliage of the trees around her obstructed the fresh rays of the morning sun making the cold wind more difficult to bear for Sellysse and Llynadia who seemed ready to wake up at any moment.

"You've run far enough."

In the middle of the calm forest, a rough voice suddenly broke the silence and the train of thoughts of Gaya.

Surprised, the young girl stopped in her tracks and slowly turned her head toward the voice.

An imposing man a least ten years older than Sillath's father calmly stood a hundred feet away from her. He had a calm expression, but a vicious smile on his lips while looking at the lonely little girl trying to run away from him.

The forest was quite dense, but Gaya was sure that no one was there when she looked a moment ago.

Unable to understand, she ignored her questions and reacted on instinct.

"Wind arrow!"

She used her strongest magic without any useless word. However, even at point-blank range, such a magic was useless in a real fight. Therefore, she didn't aim directly at the man but aimed at her feet.

The strong gust of wind blew the dead leaves and the soil of the forest toward this man.

After creating this unusual tempest, Gaya immediately ran away in another direction while frantically looking behind her.

She ran as fast as the uneven ground allowed her to. Her breathing was becoming faster and more irregular along with her fears and anxiety growing in her heart.

"Stop, don't make me break your legs."

As if to answer her fears, her frantic run was once again stopped by the rough voice suddenly ending the silence of the forest. However, this time the voice was a lot harsher and hid little of its anger.

The man was standing around fifty feet away from her.

His expression and posture were the same as if they didn't move from their previous spot.

The same dark eyes, devoid of any feelings, stared at the young girl who was desperately trying to catch her breath while calming her fears.

However, she couldn't stop her arms and legs from shaking in front of this massive man.

Powerlessness once more seized her heart as a shiver ran down her back after being stared by his malicious and lustful gaze.

She prepared to cast another magic, but a simple look from the man stopped her attempt.

She couldn't fight him.

She couldn't escape.

However, she didn't give up the girls to their fate and instead, tightened her grip on their small bodies.

"Don't come closer!" She screamed in panic when she saw him take a step forward.

Her voice looked more like a threatening growl making Vated furrowed his brows.

As if he had suddenly understood something, his expression darkened and his face became wilder, forcing the girl to take a few steps back by reflex.

"So it was you!"

He took a heavy step forward in her direction while intensely glaring at her with his eyes as dark as coal.

"It was you who alerted the entire town! You little bitch, you're as responsible as Millodas of what is going to happen to this town." He said with a twisted expression.

"What do you mean? What do you plan on doing?" She asked confused and frightened.

However, instead of answering her, he took another heavy step toward her making the ground around him crack.

"You shouldn't worry about that."

Before she could prepare or ask another question to earn some time, the massive man suddenly vanished from his previous spot.

She failed to see him moving and couldn't react in time when an impressive large hand appeared near her face.

*BAM*

Vated's large hand directly landed on her small and delicate face breaking one of her long and sharp teeth along with her small nose.

Unable to withstand the shock, she was sent flying along with the girls a dozen feet backward.

She rolled on the harsh ground of the forest before finally abruptly stopping against a boulder.

The impact and the pain nearly robbed her of her consciousness, but the taste of blood flowing on her face and in her mouth helped her regain her mind.

She painfully stood up while holding her broken nose and her swollen cheek with her small hand. She tried to regain her spirit while focusing her blurry vision on the large man staring at her.

After a couple of seconds, she finally noticed that the impact made her drop the girls.

Vated calmly watched her struggle and running toward the girls with a vicious grin on his face.

"Gaya.. It hurts!"

A small sleepy voice welcomed Gaya when she reached the girls.

The impact of the fall finally awoke Sellysse. Llynadia also was slowly awakening, but her sister was quicker to come to her senses.

Seeing Gaya's swollen and bloody face, made the young girl scream in horror.

Not understanding the situation, she held back her tears and shouted from the top of her lungs.

"MOMMY!!! Someone is hurting Gaya! MOM, DAD!"

However, only the disturbing chuckle of Vated welcomed her pleas.

She turned her small head to look at his imposing stature but strangely didn't shrink back. Instead, she stood up, took a step forward and pointed at him angrily with one if her tiny fingers.

"Mommy is gonna punish you!"

As if to reinforce these innocent words, Gaya also added with hate in her voice.

"Seledia isn't going to forgive you if you hurt them."

However, the smile on his lips only grew wider after their words.

"I don't need her forgiveness, I will come to find her soon enough. I told you already, you should worry about yourself."

His rough voice full of desire for violence finally made the brave Sellysse shrink back behind Gaya to stand next to her still confused sister.

"You made me lose my men so you're going to compensate me, little one. Don't worry, I will find a nice buyer for you."

Gaya immediately grew paler after his words. Aten already explained to her why she shouldn't easily trust strangers. She already knew more than many others the risk of being a Beastman member in this Kingdom.

However, she didn't try to run away after his threats.

She bravely stood in front of the pale and confused Llynadia along with the angry and scared Sellysse.

She gathered her will and strengthened her transformation.

The blood stopped flowing from her beautiful pale face while her electric blue eyes stared without blinking in front of her as if she was looking at her prey.

Amidst her fears and despair, another emotion was surging from the bottom of her heart like a giant wave threatening to drown her.

The will to fight.

The desire to defend her life and those she held dear.

Long and sharp claws slowly grew from her hands. The thin fur on her arms slowly disappeared, replaced by strange-looking marks on her forearms and face.

"What the?" Asked Vated in reflex, surprised by her sudden changes.

However, his surprise only lasted an instant before being replaced by glee.

"Seems like you can be more than just a sex slave after all." Grinned Vated viciously.

Gaya ignored his words and continued to focus her feelings on her transformation.

The small dark symbols and marks grew longer and more refined along with the appearance of a strange green hue surrounding her and answering her feelings.

Her fears changed into courage and, more importantly, her despair slowly turned into unwillingness.

Unwillingness to submit to this man and the fate that he represented.

She was no longer a shy girl.

She wasn't willing to accept the choices of others anymore.

With a long roar, she completed her transformation and intensified the mysterious green hue around her body.

She wasn't the same as four years ago.

This time, she won't accept this reality.