"What are they doing?" Layfon was dumbfounded after Selena suddenly took over the team and tried to tell the team to continue fighting. It looked like Nathan's flying beasts had found out about the encirclement, so he wanted to know how he was going to escape.
'Still, is there any escape at all?' Layfon frowned. 'All three sides are being held by two warrior class aliens along with numerous lower-level aliens.
'Normally, I would go to the east, but this is a warrior class mutant we're talking about. It's true that there's only one, but this mutant is terrifying. I might have a way to escape from here even when protecting them, but I don't think they have enough strength to break through the encirclement.
'Are they still going to fight? Maybe I overestimated Nathan? Did he not see that the situation was already a lost cause?" Layfon still couldn't figure out what was happening.
In fact, Nathan's divine beasts were fighting against an army of aliens coming from the south. If they could take them down, it would be good, but the moment the main group of aliens reinforced it, they would be overwhelmed.
Layfon had already drawn his blade while observing the battle carefully. If there was a sign of them getting overwhelmed, he would help and get them out of there.
'Has the greed in getting something from the Sword Saint blinded their judgment? The problem is that Her Highness Flora and Her Holiness Serafina are there with him. If this is the alien territory, they would die together with him.
'And I don't think the backlash of having the Sword Saint's daughter and the Dragon King's daughter dying together with him is small.
'Or is Selena influencing his judgment? There are a lot of records where a ruler was influenced by his mistresses. I'm not entirely sure, but Selena approached him first. Did she tell him something?'
"…" Layfon's expression turned solemn as the aliens started to come closer and closer. 'It will only take a minute before they're com—!'
Layfon abruptly stopped his thought because Kun suddenly flew back toward him. 'What is he doing?'
Kun turned into Peng and flew around above Nathan. Nathan seemed to have seen the incoming aliens, especially the mutant. Hence, he gave a signal to Peng to activate his power.
A violent, swirling air rose from the ground underneath Nathan into the sky.
'What is he doing?' Layfon widened his eyes in shock. 'I don't think his familiar is harming him, but what is that? He still plans to fight them? What can he do? Does he have another trump card that gives him that confidence? This doesn't make sense.'
Nathan, on the other hand, had a big reason to hide himself inside the tornado. That was to utilize his Innate Ability.
While looking at a blank scroll in front of him, Nathan muttered, 'Let's see… What kind of power will benefit me the most in this kind of fight?
'As expected, I should go for an absolute element. Should I go for the absolute ice? Or is there any other element I can use? Well, time is not enough for this one, so I need something that has a massive area.'
Nathan crossed his arms. He took out all his magazines.
"There are only twelve, including the one inside the gun. So, 6,000 ena… I don't think it's enough."
Back then, he put 5,000 ena to control an absolute element just for five minutes. In addition, it was a weak control because he was only capable of freezing his enemies.
'From what I can see, the more ena you sacrifice, the higher the control as well as the duration. If we can somehow kill all of these aliens, it should be enough to convince the Sword Saint to the point where he can't raise any more objections.
'Besides, even though this won't be enough to tell the entire thing about my Innate Ability, Flora and Noelle would know a thing or two about my Innate Ability. After that, it'll be easier to explain.
'I guess I will bleed myself today.'
Retreating was close to impossible. The only way to escape was to get Layfon's help. If this was in the alien's territory, he would probably do this as well.
In the end, revealing the Soul Contract to a certain extent shouldn't be too much of a problem. Even if Layfon saw everything here, he would only think this was a trump card he had hidden for so long.
"Fenrir. Oh, Fenrir. You're going to be punished hard for jinxing our situation." Nathan grinned evilly. He finally started writing the contract.
[In exchange for 20,000 ena, Nathan Reckmoon is able to control the ice element at 0 Kelvin for 30 minutes. The ena required to lower the temperature of the ice will be supplied by 6,000 ena from Party A's possession and 14,000 ena from the main body's reserve.]
In the past, he offered 2,000 ena to control an absolute element in the past. In addition, they had a mini ice age because of the volcanic eruption.
On the other hand, he offered 20,000 ena this time. Instead of 5 minutes, he wanted 30 minutes.
Still, if it was linear like he thought, he should be able to ask for 50 minutes. However, Nathan wanted to gain more power over the absolute ice in exchange for those 20 minutes.
It could be said to be another experiment, one that was quite costly for him because he didn't have a lot of ena.
However, if this worked, he would be able to conceptualize the contract that put an element source inside his body.
In addition, they were hunting a lot of warrior class aliens this time. After revealing this trump card, no one was going to really object to letting him get a bit more cores to replenish the loss of ena. And it wasn't like he paid the entire 20,000 ena. 6,000 of them came from his master's pocket, considering she was the one recharging the magazines.
Nathan took a deep breath. He could sense the alien coming based on the sound alone.
"Activate." Nathan muttered as a surge of ena, specifically the ice element, entered his body.