No doubt about it. Undine had instantly categorized Baiyi as another one of those barbarians who had been waiting for nightfall to act on his impulse!

  That, of course, pissed Baiyi off. All that work, preparation, travelling, putting up with Alpine Barbarians’ beauty standards

  Baiyi pinched a handful of Undines cheeks and yanked sideways hard.

  “Owww! S-s-shtaph it! Ish hurtssh!”


  “Not until youre finally sober.”


  One could say she

  perhaps finally sober, as her eyes lit up immediately at Baiyis reply, recognizing the owner of the voice. But then again, she reacted by opening her mouth wide to let out another scream. It was as if she had not just been held captive, and was not in the middle of the enemy’s territory, and was not previously drugged to keep quiet!

  It was fortunate that the distance between her cheeks and her lips wasnt far apart.

  “Mmmffff!”

  She looked at him with a persecuted expression, shaking her head to free her mouth from his hand, even lightly pinching the metacarpal arch of his palm with her lips.

  Getting the strong hint, Baiyi let his hand go. The young lady lowered her voice, but to her surprise and admittingly, gratification had no intention of staying quiet. “Arent you that stinky bastard?”


  There was only one person in the universe Undine would call stinky bastard, and that was Baiyis old alter ego, Sven the Rogue Knight.

  That honestly threw Baiyi off, as he had already changed his voice prior to saving her. So how could she still recognize him?

  “I dont think weve met before, lady.”


  “Dont deny it!” Undine replied with newfound confidence. “Sure, your voice had gone really weird, but the way youve been talking, acting, and that feeling you are giving me none of that had changed! I know its you, stinky bastard!”


  Strangely, as she was talking, recalling the details in her mind between Sven and the man before her, her smile had softened into a glowing blithe.

  Baiyi gulped in his mind.

  Acting on that thought, Baiyi produced another few batches of antidote and other medicines and started pouring them into her mouth again.

  “Mmf!” Undine protested but as she was still tied up, she could only take the medicines in her current uncomfortable position. After five bottles of them, she looked at him pitifully. “Cmon, just because I recognized you despite your pathetically flimsy disguise, youre already stuffing things into my mouth?”


  Baiyi did not voice that out, but it was obvious that his usual composure had cracked.

  And that was not all. Someone in the Void had started speaking up for Undine or rather, taking the chance to poke fun at him.

  “Pathetically flimsy disguise? And she is still half-drugged! Damn! Please apply aloe-vera on that burn. I heard it helps.”


  “Maybe you can try that bushido thing and commit seppuku. Dont accidentally commit sudoku, though!”


  “Oh, cut it out, you two! Sir Hope, Im not here to judge you, I just want to suggest something maybe next time, go all the way with your disguises? Its time to learn from drag queens!”


  He was not truly angry. As Undine had finally been found, the general hubbub in the Void had turned into one with much levity. After all, now that the object of his mission was recovered, everything else became less daunting.

  “How are you doing? Can you move your body?” Baiyi said after a while.

  Undine shook her head. “No. I cant feel my limbs and neither can I feel my combat chi.”


  She raised her head as high as she could, trying to stare through his obscured face. “How come youre here trying to save me, stinky bastard?”


  Baiyi ignored her question. He took a large sword from his storage pouch, he had pilfered it from one of the tipis he had snuck into earlier, and cut through the jute rope binding her. True to her words, her body plopped down softly.

  Baiyi had already thought of that. He caught her before her body hit the floor, letting her lean onto his back. Then, picking up some of the severed jute ropes, he tied her tautly onto his back. That had always been the go-to solution to all sorts of problems he encountered when travelling with Mia and now Undine had a chance to experience it.

  The young lady seemed to be enjoying it, although as soon as her skin felt an odd hard texture, she blurted out, “Is that your armor?”


  “Quiet!” Baiyi snapped in a low voice. When he was cutting her loose, he had half-expected a loud siren call or a sudden swarm of guards bursting in. Yet the entire compound did not seem to change. Had he been overestimating the barbarians?

  Growing bolder, Baiyi released a little of his psychic energy to scout for danger outside

  “Somethings not right.”


  The voice of a young girl, softly uttered from the royal tipi beside them, was like a bucket of cold water falling from nowhere.

  Too late. The barbarians were immediately on alert, crying “Addhba! Addhba!” amidst dozens of torches being lit up suddenly. Booming sounds of footsteps and metallic clanking quickly encircled the tipi Baiyi was in.

  Baiyi thought. He wasnt particularly worried about being discovered, as he already had Undine with him meaning, he could really let loose now. Besides, he had no doubt that he could easily defeat the guards and escape.

  With a flash of white, Baiyis sword cut an opening on the tipi and walked out to the staring eyes of the guards. He waved an updated version of Pyroblast in his hand as the guards watched him tossed it to a pile of miscellaneous things stored at the side, and

  The tipi exploded and it shot right into the dark sky. Flames and sparks were flying in every directions as things were thrown around. Amidst the chaos, Baiyi caught another sword, its blade was on fire, in midair with his free hand and extinguished the flame with a swing.

  Now armed with two blades, Baiyi charged towards the ragtag guards.

  It was not hard to pinpoint where he was because with a few flashes of light reflected off his sword, the guards instantly fell onto the ground as blood burst out from slices that penetrated even their armors. Pools and geysers of blood followed Baiyi wherever he hacked.

  He didnt even need to use any special techniques, it was really just a blind hack-and-slash. The difference was that he had a new power, the power the Ancestors had bestowed on him earlier. That was all he had and those mooks died so fast that they couldnt even report to their own ancestors on how he killed them.

  Even Undine, who was tied to his back, had no idea on what was going on. She was spinning and turning and suddenly everyone around them were dead.

  Undines mind could not contain her surprise.

  Undines hidden girl-in-puberty sentiment surfaced,

  The fallacy in that was the fact that Baiyi was throwing himself into the melee with a defenseless, weak, drugged-for-days girl strapped using only jute rope, onto his back. If she would discard her princess-being-rescued mindset, she would have noticed how dangerous it was and how little care Baiyi was giving to her at the moment. But of course, she was already delirious from her time in captivity. Being strapped onto his back felt really good!

  The power of teenage fantasy was so strong that colors were returning to her face.

  Can anyone blame her though? She was still single, and even if she had been groomed to take on the responsibility of the entire Dole family, she was still a young girl at heart. Especially when she had been through torture at the hands of those monsters and now a dashing man with a tsundere attitude had come all alone (to her knowledge, anyway) just to save her

  Which girl would not fall for

  Baiyi, of course, was ignorant of the fantasies she had in her mind. Occupying his head was how, with his new strength, he had already caused a massacre among the barbarians. The ones who came later were of course less foolhardy and stupid as their eyes turned to the corpses around him.

  They watched Baiyi in fear, retreating.

  “This man is too powerful! Protect our king! Call all our best men! Protect our king!” One of the guards, who seemed to be a captain of sorts, roared. Seeing Baiyi like that, he immediately thought that it was an assassination attempt.

  Baiyi chuckled and tossed a few more of his Pyroblasts into random tipis close by, creating even more snafu with screams and fire. He never wanted to engage with those mooks anyway, so when everyone was confused, he turned around and ran.

  And now that his back was turned towards them, they could finally see that their first prize the beautiful girl they had snatched earlier, was strapped onto his back.

  Suddenly the barbarian’s directive changed. “That woman is running away!