43 Chapter 43: Maverick and Kiver

"Woah!"

From where Van stood, he heard another explosion, louder than the first one, the room he was in shaking violently, drawers and barrels falling over. As the explosion subsided, Van decided to drink another potion, only to see the drawer full of broken glass and a puddle of healing liquid.

"You gotta be kidding me!" 

His arms fixed, Van decided to make his way out of the manor and finally escape, albeit with no potion. As he made his way through the halls, he found the rooms were more damaged than when he entered. 

As he entered a hallway, he saw the path was blocked by rubble, the ceiling above having collapsed. 

'Just keep going.'

He went in a different direction, climbing into a different room through a hole in the wall. Once inside, he grimaced, as laying on the floor of that room was the body of Virra, the other assassin and Verro's sister.

She had a large hole in her stomach, amidst smaller wounds. Next to her was the head of a man, probably one of the bandits at the Grand Knight rank. The right side of the room was demolished, revealing the outside, where Van saw countless bodies.

"Oh my God…" 

Van exited the manor through the hole, seeing only a few bandits left alive, currently setting fire to the surroundings. In the distance, he sensed three powerful mana signatures, though one was fading as time passed.

Van stepped closer, feeling pitiful for the figure he recognized. On top of a batch on blacked grass lay Verro, Maverick currently on top of him, caving his skull in with mana coated fists.

Next to Maverick lay Kiver, who looked worse than the other two, missing an arm and several chunks of flesh. All three were burnt, their clothes blackened with soot. Maverick was bleeding from several parts of his body, yet he still punched Verro's face.

Van could sense the terrifyingly large amounts of mana from Maverick's fists, and he winced each time they landed on Verro. Unable to do anything but watch, Van saw as Maverick took Verro's life.

Upon realizing his opponent was dead, Maverick stood up before sitting down again, a short distance from the dead assassin. He and Kiver were breathing heavily from the fight, probably the hardest one they had ever been in.

"What are you to him?" Maverick grunted, motioning with his neck to the side. 

Van looked where he motioned to see a body nearby, the head heavily burnt and blackened. But Van recognized those clothes. It was the body of Lord Raphael. 

"I was his slave." Van swallowed, trying not to be affected. The people he had spent nearly a year with, all dead so suddenly. "He probably wasn't as bad as other nobles, but he was a part of the problem nonetheless." 

Hearing his answer, Maverick grunted. 

"Hmph. That's good to know. We could use a man like you in our group." Maverick looked around at the corpses of his people. "Though there's not much of us left." 

"Sorry, I want to enjoy my freedom."

Van walked past Maverick, heading for the gate, but it wasn't going to be that easy.

"You killed a lot of my people, you know. I'm giving you the option to make up for that." Maverick called out to Van, stopping him in his tracks. 

Van turned around to see Maverick and Kiver get to their feet. The two were in a dire state, but they were still Grand Knights. If Van fought them, he wasn't sure if he could make it out alive.

"Look, kid. You're either with us, or you're against us." 

Van sighed, making it look like he was thinking about it. Secretly, he began to use Ground Geyser, building up mana underneath the two men's feet. Unfortunately, Maverick instantly saw through him.

"Looks like you're against us."

Maverick disappeared from his spot, the ground bursting with mana where he previously was, Kiver also dodging the geyser beneath him. 

Van blinked, and Maverick's fist was inches from his face, shimmering with mana. Van immediately put mana in his feet and disappeared, reappearing a few meters away. That was a mana trick he learned when he formed the 4th Sword. 

Maverick chased after Van, his raw speed more than able to stay on the teenager's heels. As Van kept running away, he knew he would run out of mana soon. He needed to try something else.

Van put mana into his legs as he dodged another punch that could tear him apart, this time appearing close to Kiver. Before the gray-haired bandit could react, Van threw 4 Mana Bombs at him, which was all he had, before running away again. 

"Shit!" 

Seeing that Kiver couldn't get out of the bombs' range in time, Maverick used his speed to run over to him and pick up the bombs before leaping away. While Kiver was saved, Maverick had to face 4 explosions of mana point blank.

Kiver's jaw dropped as he tried to find Maverick through the smoke. Van, seeing the distracted Kiver, appeared behind him, empowering his fist with as much mana as it could take before slamming it into the back of Kiver's head.

Normally, a Knight would never be able to easily damage a Grand Knight, but Kiver had faced the brunt of Verro's attacks, meaning he was nowhere near the normal amount of power a Grand Knight had.

Van felt his fist break through something hard, then hit something soft and wet. As he pulled his fist out, Kiver fell forward, landing face down on the dirt. He wasn't going to get back up again.

As Van stopped to catch his breath, waiting for Maverick to step out of the explosion, he heard a yell that shook him to his core.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHHHHH! KIVER!!!"

Before Van could realize what was going on, he felt something heavy smack into him, and he was sent flying, a massive indent of a fist in his stomach. He coughed out a ton of blood before landing next to a pile of burning wood.

"Kiver! Wake up!" 

While Van was incapacitated, Maverick kneeled beside the dead Kiver, hugging his body. Tears were streaming down his face as he was in utter disbelief at the state of his dear friend.