Divine Luck: SSS-Rank Battle Maid Harem

Like snails coming in contact with salt, the black gem's roots flinched and started pulling back.

"NOOO!" The Great Ugor's agonizing scream carried anger and refusal. He would not let himself succumb like this. Despite the pain and weakness assailing his body, he turned around in a mad frenzy and grabbed Zach by the throat, picking him up and slamming him into the ground.

Zach, having lost most of the world essence energy's effects, was absolutely powerless. Even Anerias could have done what the Great Ugor just did. And if the Great Ugor did it, it was only natural that Zach suffered a few injuries.

He managed to block some of it with his barriers, but his head was dizzy, and he might have bitten himself on the tongue as his mouth was full of blood.

Still, he grinned as he looked at the Great Ugor, blood staining his teeth.

Zach had no way of knowing, but it was the exact same smile Yanael had made when the Great Ugor tried to make her surrender. He was reminded of his failure. On the brink of death and mad with pain and anger, the Great Ugor's only outlet was the throat under his hands.

He squeezed.

Zach met the Great Ugor's eyes with a calm gaze and forced out a sound that would have been a chuckle if not for the heavy hands around his throat. Instead, all that came out was a wheeze. But this time, the Great Ugor wasn't imagining the mocking look in Zach's eyes, and he knew what Zach wanted to say.

The Great Ugor put his entire weight on Zach's body. He was dying. There was nothing he could do at this point. He was done running. And since he wasn't running, he was at least making sure to bring Zach, the angel, the principal, or whoever the fuck he was strangling with him.

His strength was rapidly failing him as more and more of the roots withdrew and the potion turned more and more of his body into dust, but the potion had hit his back, which was the furthest place from his hands.

The Great Ugor was confident he could finish the job before his faded away.

He would have. He dragged out strength from nowhere as his grip around Zach's neck tightened, breaking his barriers. He was about to snap his neck when a hand suddenly appeared over the black gem in his eye.

"This hand familiar to you?" A voice said right into his ear.

"It should be. It's the mirror to the one you made me cut off when I pledged by loyalty, pig."

The man's fingers dug into the Great Ugor's eye socket.

"AAARGH!" The Great Ugor screamed in pain as his head was pulled backward, but he still didn't let go of Zach's neck.

The man's fingers, like prying a diamond out of a ring, were hard and unstoppable. They didn't care about the ring—the Great Ugor's eye socket—and just pushed in before gripping the diamond.

With a grin, the man started tugging on the gem. It was still lodged into the Great Ugor like attached to a mountain, even when a majority of the roots had withdrawn into the gem and the Great Ugor's body was mostly gone, giving it nothing to hold onto.

But the man didn't mind. The longer he needed to pull on the gem, the longer he could subject the Great Ugor to another level of pain.

Still, he had to get it out before the potion reached it, so he didn't slack off and put his all into taking out the gem. Eventually, it popped out, and the man stumbled backward. He hurried to stabilize himself so that he could see when the Great Ugor completely lost all of his life and turned into dust, his last expression one of unbearable agony with bloody tears streaming down his face from his empty eye socket.

The man smiled in satisfaction. He took a deep breath before sighing and clutching the gem in his hand. He closed his eyes as relief washed over him.

Finally.

But before he could rest further or celebrate, an old man's hand grabbed his wrist and pulled him down to the cracked floor.

Zach yanked the man next to him and forced him onto the ground next to him. Zach was too tired to stand, so he had to resort to this.

He wheezed into the man's ear,

"What took you so long?" Zach let go of the man's wrist and laid back down as the man chuckled.

"I could say the same." The man didn't get up and just looked at the ceiling next to Zach.

"Why were you petrified for the entire fight?"

"Dramatic entrance…And…I heard mud was…good for your skin…" Zach spoke between wheezing breaths. The world essence energy running rampant through his body, giving him a strength superior to that of even Mandra, had taken its toll on his body. It had taken all he had to get the man down next to him.

Right now, Zach couldn't even move a finger.

Seeing that Zach was too tired to even talk, the man turned his head to the exit.

"It's over. You can free them."

A few moments later, Monolith and the other students burst out of the tunnel to the fifth layer. Monolith was looking at Zach. The students were glaring at the man.

He and Monolith had knocked them out, kidnapped them, and followed the Great Ugor's order to bring any intruder or disruptor to him. The man had also taken Dukiel's Enhanced potion without asking what it was, almost like he knew already. He hadn't taken anything else.

At first, it had seemed like he was offering them up to the Great Ugor or something. But then, as soon as they entered the tunnel, the man had done something and stopped walking. Weirdly enough, the group had been able to see the Daughter and the others walk past them without so much as looking in their direction.

Except for the Daughter. She glanced at the man but did nothing else.

The group in the tunnel had also been able to see everything that happened in the throne room.

More than once, the students and their familiars, Soara included, had tried to break free and join the battle against the Great Ugor. Every time, it ended with Monolith knocking them out for a little while until they learned. The only one who didn't learn and kept fighting was Soara, who had to be carried out of the tunnel since she was still unconscious.

Eventually, the students decided what to do with the man.

"Julius, you bastard!" They ran at him.