The sky above them was dark, and occasionally, low rumbles could be heard.

Kai and the others were hiding under several trees. Since they were stuck in the mountain area surrounded by trees, the only possible plan for them was to tie up their tent onto trees, so it became a roof for them.

It was dangerous to hide under a tree in a lightning storm as the lightning might strike the trees. However, they had no shelter or a cave near them, so they had no choice other than tying up their tent onto trees a few meters away from them to become a shelter under the heavy rain. This way, they could make a temporary shelter and make a distance with the trees.

They never expected that the storm would come so quickly. They remembered that it was sunny just an hour ago.

As soon as the morning came, they picked up their pace once again.

There weren’t many magical beasts, so they were more tired from running around rather than killing the magical beasts themselves. In fact, they didn’t find any powerful magical beasts in the area.

The best they could find was a C-rank bear. And they easily defeated it by ganging up on the bear.

Around lunchtime, they settled down for lunch. It was at this time they were surrounded by dark clouds. By the time they finished their lunch, the rain had started pouring down. Because of that, they decided to go back to Kanggye Stadium to hide from the rain or, at the very least, in an abandoned house around.

Unfortunately, they were too far from the stadium. As for the abandoned house, they saw some of them before. After all, they had ventured five kilometers from the stadium and entered the other mountain range northeast Kanggye Stadium. But because of the constant chasing, they unconsciously became lost inside the mountain.

They thought they would be able to find a shelter or abandoned house around the area since they knew about it from the map, so they decided to look for a cave for shelter, but it was easier said than done. When they went to the designated position on the map, all they found was a destroyed house that couldn’t even become a shelter.

So, ultimately, they decided to go into the woods once again. After all, the deadliest place in a lightning storm would be in the open rather than under the trees.

However, it was at this moment that Kai suddenly picked up various sounds coming from the north.

“What?!” Kai was so shocked when he picked up these noises.

“Kai?” The others were shocked by his sudden shout.

“This is not good. What is our position?” Kai asked Ayaka.

“Three kilometers northeast from the stadium,” Ayaka didn’t know why Kai suddenly reacted that way, but she instinctively replied. After all, every time Kai reacted that way, it meant something bad.

“Ayaka, immediately fly to the sky, check the situation coming from the north. No, bring me to the sky and fly toward the stadium!” Kai immediately commanded. He looked at Chitose and commanded, “Take Carmina and fly together with us. We’re retreating to the stadium.”

“!!!” Chitose and Carmina were obviously confused by this. Chitose asked, “What happened?”

“We don’t have enough time. Just shut up and retreat!” Kai roared. He immediately ran toward Ayaka. He already got a headache because of the loud sound of the rain together with the lightning. It could be said that because of these two, Kai’s detection range shrank from a few kilometers to one kilometer.

When Ayaka saw him like that, she didn’t care anymore. She immediately grabbed him and activated her Fire Wings. When they were in the sky, Ayaka was shocked by the sight of magical beasts. She saw a few hundred magical beasts flying toward their position.

Of course, Ayaka could only see it vaguely. If she had a binocular, she would probably be able to see that there was a human leading those magical beasts toward them. Of course, even if she had one, she wouldn’t be able to find a human in front of those enormous flying magical beasts so easily, since her focus would be on the magical beasts.

“Kai, even though I want to fly away immediately, we’re in a lightning storm. We might get struck by lightning,” Ayaka said frustratedly. 

“Lower our altitude. Just make sure you don’t go above the trees around. It might not be very effective, but at the very least, it will decrease our chance of getting struck by it,” Kai said hurriedly.

He then saw Chitose finally fly to the sky with Carmina. When they saw those magical beasts, they were too shocked that Kai needed to shout at them once more.

“We’re running away right now! Follow us!” Kai instructed them.

He then gave the signal to Ayaka to start flying toward Kanggye Stadium. As soon as Chitose saw them flying away, she immediately followed them as closely as possible.

When they started moving toward Kanggye Stadium, the magical beasts also started to change their directions toward them. In other words, these magical beasts were flying toward them.

Ayaka didn’t have time to think as she needed to fly through these woods. It was different from Kai. He trusted Ayaka and tried to come up with a plan. “Ayaka, we need to lower our altitude more. With their flying speed, they’ll catch up to us in a minute or so, while we need around three minutes of flying to arrive at Kanggye Stadium. So let’s try to fool them in the woods.”

“Leave it to me.” Although it would be harder to hide among all these trees if they lowered their altitude, Ayaka didn’t complain, nor was she discontent about it. She also didn’t have a single thought about fighting back.

With a few hundred enormous flying beasts, it would be a one-sided fight if they tried to fight them in the air. She was wondering why they didn’t just run with their feet if he wanted to confuse them in the woods. But when she saw the muddy ground, she realized the reason why Kai suggested to fly lower but needed more energy instead of running with their feet.

Running on such a muddy ground, they would easily slip and perhaps injure themselves, so Kai didn’t suggest it.

She looked at Kai, who was in deep thought. She needed to know the plan for their next move before the magical beasts caught up with them. Unfortunately, Kai didn’t say anything.

In reality, Kai wasn’t thinking about their next move. Instead, the word ‘why’ came to his mind. Even though escaping from those magical beasts was their priority, Kai came to a halt when that particular word came into his head.

He remembered that there were at least two groups a few hundred meters from their area. And that group would most likely get attacked first.

He found it strange. After all, the magical beasts didn’t even spot those other people and came straight at them. So Kai was wondering how and why this entire time.

He tried to recall everything they did after they came here, but to his knowledge, none of the things they did could make them become targets for those magical beasts. And the movement from the magical beasts was also very strange.

The magical beasts passed by anyone in their way and continued to fly toward them. 

Before he first noticed the magical beasts, he surely didn’t give away his position. Even so, the magical beasts were still chasing them.

Suddenly, Kai remembered the incident where he was targeted by a sniper. That thought led to the investigation of the Katsuragi family with his sister.

‘What if the magical beasts are manipulated by someone? What if I’m their target? Is this the Katsuragi family’s scheme again? But how do the magical beasts know our position?’ Those questions emerged inside his mind. Kai was frustrated until he thought, ‘What if there’s someone who knows our position and is leading them here?’

When Kai thought about that, he turned his head to Fujino Chitose and Carmina Elvera. Within this distance, he could hear their heartbeats even within the rain. Chitose’s heartbeat was like his and Ayaka’s. They were in a panicked state, but they were trying hard to calm down.

However, when he turned to Carmina, he heard her heart rapidly beat, but it slowly slowed down. It was like she knew about this and wasn’t pressured from this. It was at this moment that he knew she was the one.

“Kai, we need a plan right now!” Ayaka shouted as she saw the magical beasts already shorten the distance. They roughly had a half minute before the beasts caught up with them.

Kai gritted his teeth and said, “Stop. Don’t fly anymore.”

“What?! Are you insane?” Ayaka shouted.

Kai put on a serious expression and said in a low voice, “Please believe me. Just three seconds is fine. After that, continue to fly again toward the stadium.”

Ayaka was bewildered by his order. She gritted her teeth and decided to trust him. She suddenly stopped. Meanwhile, because Kai didn’t say it out loud, Fujino Chitose was still flying away.

She realized it too late as they had a distance of almost a hundred meters.

But it was different from Kai. He realized something that made him angry.

“1…”

“2…”

“3…”

Ayaka immediately started flying toward them again and caught up with Chitose and Carmina.

“Chitose, we need to lower our altitude again. If possible, as close as possible to the ground.” Kai shouted.

Chitose nodded and lowered her altitude. Ayaka also did the same. He then said to Ayaka, “Ayaka, can you strike the magical beasts with your firebirds? After that, we will go toward three o’clock. But make sure we maintain our altitude.”

“I can.” Ayaka nodded. She thought Kai wanted to slow them down. Although it was a bit hard, it should be possible for her. “You need to grab tight as my balance might be a bit off if I use other magic.”

Kai nodded.

“Firebirds!”

A few firebirds immediately flew from the magic circle toward the magical beasts.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

After releasing her attack, she slowly changed her direction according to Kai’s instruction. Kai then shouted to Chitose, “We’re going to distract them. Both of you go toward the stadium and get teachers to help us!”

“Wait!” Chitose was surprised that they wanted to be the decoy. She wanted to say something, but both Kai and Ayaka already flew away. Her expression became serious, and she would definitely tell the teachers so they could help them.

Unbeknownst to her, Carmina, who was in her arms, suddenly smiled evilly.