Again, it was as if his body was controlled by someone else when Mika abruptly stopped swinging his sword down on Lucio.

He was flexing his entire body but it would not budge further toward Lucio.

"Trying to fight me was your biggest mistake." Lucio said with a smile.

He raised his finger and pointed at Mika.

Lightning gathered at the tip.

"?!"

From that distance, it was possible for Mika to dodge, however, his body did not listen to him again.

As a result, he was shot in the abdomen by a thin lightning beam.

Then, Mika tried to get away for now and again, his body did not move the way he wanted.

"!"

Instead, he received a punch in the face, sending him to the floor.

"Honestly, I was expecting more out of you. All the time, I have to hear them warning me about you, the wielder of Excalibur and an entity rivaling the archangels." Lucio snorted.

"Aren’t you embarrassed of yourself?" Lucio pulled Mika by his hair.

"What have you done to my body...?!" Mika grumbled.

In his current situation, Mika was helpless.

"Aren’t you embarrassed of yourself? You’ve spent the last two years building a squad of your own in order to hunt down demons across the globe. For what purpose? Right, just to bring me to my knees but look at you now."

Mika was dancing on Lucio’s palm.

"You thought that you could bring an end to me today but in the end, it will be you and your comrades who will have to meet your ends."

"Keh...!"

Lucio threw Mika’s head down.

"You know more than I thought..." Mika huffed quietly as he got up.

"What? You mean about your identity?"

Before Mika could lift his body, Lucio slowly stomped on his head.

"Well, I suppose I know more than you do." Lucio replied mockingly.

"Oh, is that so~? What is it that you know and I don’t?" Mika answered, still sounding confident despite the situation.

Lucio grinned before he kicked Mika against the table.

"I know for example that this war is just a stepping stone for the later war." he announced relaxedly.

"?"

"It doesn’t matter if you know or not, after all, there’s no way that this plan can fail."

Lucio sat down on his seat again with his hands folded on the table.

"It’s true that I want to dominate the whole world so that I can bring all the demons over, even if it means sacrificing almost the entirety of humanity. But that’s not the end of the story. You and the others may wonder why the demons want to invade our realm."

He directed his gaze shortly to the sky through the holes in the roof.

"The answer is simple. Because they can’t attack from their realm, they wanted to use our realm as their base so that they could storm the heavenly realm."

"..."

Mika squinted his eyes. He did not say anything but he already knew about that through the demons he fought in the last two years. Still, it was different hearing that from Lucio’s own mouth.

"In other words, this war means practically nothing as our world would be just used as a base for the demons." Lucio stated while smirking.

"You can go ahead and tell the others about it or try to stop me but I can guarantee you that all your efforts will be in vain. I acknowledge your strength. You’re probably the strongest and most dangerous variable among your comrades but therefore, it will be more devastating to all of you if you would lose today. If you couldn’t do anything, then who will?" he provoked Mika.

Mika was about to walk over to Lucio.

"And don’t think that the angels will come down to help you. After all, it was them who entrusted you with the mission to end this war, am I correct?"

"!"

This time, Mika was surprised. He did not expect Lucio to know about the mission he was given after Mikaela transferred his everything to Mika.

"Just like you, I’m just the pawn of someone else but it seems that the lord I serve is more cunning and smarter than yours." Lucio huffed arrogantly.

"Knowing them, they will only get themselves actively involved once you fail. It’s typical of angels. They want someone else to do their job if possible and only get their own hands dirty if they have no other choice anymore." he chuckled.

"A war between demons and angels...?" Mika muttered confusedly.

"Because of such a reason you want to wage war against the rest of the world...?"

"Would you even care about my reason?" Lucio asked, knowing fully well that Mika would not care.

Mika summoned the Holy Spear and stabbed its spearhead into the ground beneath his feet.

"Instead, we shouldn’t waste our time talking and finish this up." Lucio stated confidently.

"Now come at me, pawn of God! Let’s see if you can at least leave a scratch on me, the pawn of the Demon King!" he announced vigorously.

Mika took a deep breath.

Lucio was finally showing his true colors and did not try to hide things anymore. He was like an open book, however, Mika was still in the dark concerning Lucio’s relic.

It was as if his body and his thoughts were separated.

When he tried to cut him down, his body stopped. When he tried to dodge his attack, his body did not jump to the right like he was imagining it in his head. When he tried to get some distance, his body did not react. And when he tried to avoid his foot from stomping on his head, his head did not move aside.

’Clear your thoughts...’ Mika repeated in his mind.

"?"

Lucio tilted his head in confusion.

Then, the sound of explosions was heard from outside.

Mika focused on those sounds.

"Enlarge."

"?!"

Then, the spear suddenly grew bigger in an instant, destroying the entire room and sending both Lucio and Mika into different reactions.

"Ugh..." Mika groaned. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Blood dripped out of his mouth when he was hit by the sudden growth of his spear. Due to the impact some ribs of him were most likely broken, too. But at least, he managed to get away from Lucio for the time being.

Bluntly, he fell down.

"Mika!" Sara yelled concernedly.

She was currently fighting against Loram, the wind mage of the Grand Order, or rather the former wind mage.

Both of them were currently unharmed.

"Looks like you got your ass whopped by Sir Lucio!" Loram huffed with an all-knowing smile.

Mika got up and glanced at Loram, however, his attention was quickly captured by the people standing near Loram and Sara.

"..."

Worriedly, Lily and the others were looking at Mika.

"I’m fine..." Mika said when Sara was arriving at his side.

"What happened?" Sara asked sternly.

"Just a few surprises but nothing serious. Focus on your fight instead."

"..."

Sara was still concerned, seeing her leader in such a poor state.

She softly bit her lower lip.

"It’s the perfect timing now, right? Shouldn’t we ask them already?"

She sounded slightly desperate.

"Sara."

Fiercely, Mika stared at Sara who was instantly intimidated by him.

"No matter what happens, we won’t let them get involved."

"But-"

At the same time, Loram gathered strong wind above him, attempting to create a hurricane.

"?"

However, he noticed the presence of flames near him despite flying in the air.

"..."

Flame creatures surrounded Loram, ready to attack him any time. Meanwhile, Lily was casually walking over to Mika and Sara.

"L-Lily..."

Sara instinctively stepped aside after noticing that Lily’s sharp gaze was directed at Mika.

"When will you stop hiding things from us? When will you finally talk clearly to us?" Lily mumbled annoyedly.

Mika slightly averted his apathetic eyes from her.

"It was supposed to be our graduation ceremony today. But now it turned into some kind of battlefield, involving the whole world. And yet, the others and I don’t know anything..."

She clenched her fists.

"We don’t know anything at all! How did it come to this? What are everyone’s goals? What are you planning to do and what are you thinking right now?!"

Then, she softly bumped her fist on Mika’s chest.

"But most importantly... How can we help you...?" she muttered quiveringly as if she was on the verge of letting her tears out.

"..."

Mika looked at the others from the white class while Lily was right in front of them.

Just like she stated, everyone was willing to help out despite not knowing what his real intentions were.

"Are you stupid? What if I tell you that I’m trying to fight the world? What if I’m the enemy?" Mika replied calmly.

"Don’t call us stupid when you pose such stupid questions..."

"?"

Lily lifted her teary face.

"Isn’t it obvious what we will do?"

"No matter what it is, we will be on your side and we won’t leave you alone this time." she declared firmly.

"Why are you going so far? Why are you trusting me so much even though I was away for two ye-"

Lily flicked his forehead.

"You idiot. It’s because it’s you."