As Hikaru combined his deva with those of Seiren and King to launch a three-element wave toward Martian Class No. 3’s main forces standing at the far end of the big central field, he thought victory was definitely within his and his classmates’ grasp.

Only when a vibrating pulse was channeled through the ground beneath his feet which caused it to crumble to pieces to reveal the enemy’s trap did the young Summerbolt realize who he was dealing with.

Many crystals with a coral color shaped like giant blades, spikes and stakes were spread across the pit hidden under the area where the Earthlings had stood, Hikaru and the rest falling right to them.

The spiky-haired teenager had an extremely fast teleportation, even more so now that he could use a 100% deva output freely. That was what saved his life along with that of two of his classmates from the healer-sensor five, who he managed to grab just before teleporting away from the pit.

Not even a second could be spared to worry about the rest of his class, though, because right after the mad genius’s escape, a typhoon fell on his group along with a number of meteors the size of an exercise ball.

Caught in the typhoon, Hikaru could no longer hold on to the girls, both of them being ripped from his grasp as their savior was thrown around without being able to see a thing. His ears were full of nothing but the howling of the winds, his throat – with the dirt carried on those winds. All sense of orientation had left him, simultaneously feeling sick, but being unable to throw up because of the numbness that had taken hold of his body.

The typhoon disappeared soon enough and the boy’s nausea along with it, so he was overcome by relief. But that was because he hadn’t initially realized without that typhoon there was nothing holding him above the crystal-layered bottom of the pit.

Hikaru was able to teleport to another part of the pit that was crystal-free no more than a second before being pierced by the crystal spike he was falling toward, needing a few moments to calm himself after he had survived that ordeal.

The battle with Grak on the day he had met Yuki had been scary, of course, but it had been nothing like this. So many abilities were being used at the same time here and those abilities were far more destructive than the chainman’s.

Focusing on the realization of how unprepared he actually was for this Class Battle any longer was only going to put his classmates in more danger, though, so the young Summerbolt committed every ounce of his being to the steeling of his mind.

He was Earthling Class No. 1’s genius. Now was the time to protect them all with that brain he took great pride in having.

The spiky-haired teenager got back on his feet, looking around the smoke that had risen from the crashing of some of the meteors inside the pit to look for his classmates. He found something else before that.

Martian Class No. 3’s main force suddenly jumped inside the pit from all sides, those among them with elemental devas preparing barrages of attacks before even landing. The attack aimed at the mad genius in particular was the doing of the same villain responsible for that typhoon hitting the hot heads earlier – Jart.

He looked a bit like Vega, but his tummy was bigger, his hair longer and silver in color, his eyes – so dark gray they appeared almost black and his skin – closer in terms of complexion to that of the young Summerbolt himself.

Many mini-typhoons were sent at Hikaru by him, blocked by the hemisphere of electricity the spiky-haired teenager formed around himself. A moment later Jart teleported right next to that hemisphere and crushed a single typhoon that was much bigger than those from his barrage in the Earthling’s shield.

(Jart) ‘Having fun yet, Summerbolt?!’

(Hikaru) ‘If I was fighting someone stronger, maybe it would’ve been fun!’

Hikaru made the hemisphere burst in many lightning bolts to push back the typhoon, shaping each bolt like a spear and sending it against his enemy. Right after that he teleported to the side of the Martian who was dealing with the spears, sending him some distance away with a lightning-enveloped fist in the jaw.

As Jart was pretty much buried vertically in the wall of the pit by that attack, his opponent now went around the pit’s bottom in a frantic search for the most valuable members of his class – the healers and the sensors.

The Martians’ devas were generally stronger and more combat-oriented and they would beat the Earthlings in a straight fight – that was something Hikaru was fully aware of. Only by counting on the healers to patch up their wounds and on the sensors to predict the enemy’s movement did the young man’s class stand a chance.

The enemy had realized that as well and the whole reason for the two-stage attack they had used had been precisely that – to separate Earthling Class No. 1’s members from each other and take out the five most important among them before anyone could come to their aid.

Out of the five in question, the young Summerbolt found the first one had knelt on the ground next to a screaming Exo. She was currently channeling her healing deva’s energy through his body to heal the number of cuts on the techno-genius’s face and torso, one of which had almost cost him his left eye.

Vega and one of the girls that was a part of the rear group of the class’s formation were fighting back to back next to those two, the young Summerbolt joining them. The drunkard was breaking apart the masses of darkness created by one opponent, his classmate providing cover for herself, Exo and his healer from the lava river created by another by using her black hair that had come alive and had a volume and length many times above normal.

As both the attackers of this quartet had focused their attention on them, Hikaru succeeded in smiting the villains with a couple of projectiles made from his lightning bolts.

This didn’t take them down, of course, but it distracted them long enough for a number of wide-diameter disks made of rocks to go through them, leaving as many cuts on them as those on the young man who was currently being healed. The maker of the disks was Yonira – the one with the second greatest hair volume and second strongest deva among the Earthling girls (third, if counting Yuki) – and the one who landed next to the mad genius then.

Having taken out the immediate threat for them, Hikaru and Yonira regrouped with Vega and their classmate who returned her hair to its normal size and form, their attention quickly turning to Exo.

He still screamed of pain even though some of his wounds had already closed completely, his skin being covered in sweat, his breath – being faint. Healing such damage with high speed still put a lot of stress on the body, after all, and for someone who was not used to it, the treatment could prove nearly as tormenting as the wound itself. 

(Hikaru) ‘I see you found Rika. We’ve got one of the central five covered, then. What about Exo?’

(Vega) ‘Not everyone was so lucky when we got pushed in the pit. Especially the dumb bastards who tried to protect the rest of us.’

(Hikaru) ‘He protected you guys?’

(Yonira) ‘How else do you think we came out unscathed?’

(Hikaru) ‘Exo’s done his part, then. It’s time we …’

Jart came out of a typhoon behind Hikaru before he could finish, having enveloped his right arm in a number of mini-typhoons to transform it into a typhoon-drill, the multilayered rock wall created by Yonira to block the attack being what made the mad genius notice it and turn to the persistent Vega lookalike.

(Jart) ‘How long did you think that trick back there was gonna delay me?’

(Hikaru) ‘Enough for me to assess the situation.’ – having said something to keep his opponent distracted due to annoyance for some time, he turned his attention back to the five in front of him – ‘You’ve formed a good group here, so make sure you stick together. And protect Rika and Exo, no matter what. I’ll sweep around the pit to see how the others are doing.’

Earthling Class No. 1’s genius vanished with a crack of thunder before getting any reaction to the command he had given, realizing while moving around the pit that the enemy far outnumbered his class’s forces. Investigating this while looking for the other members of the healer-sensor group was not going to be an easy task, but the longer the mystery with the Martians’ numbers remained unsolved, the greater the danger for the Earthlings’ prized jewels would be.

So the young Summerbolt teleported at the edge of the pit, looking at what lay on the ground level beyond it to find the cause for the disproportionate ratio between the two classes’ members. One of the Martians had fallen on his knees near the pit and had put his hands on the ground, dark purple blobs with small bits of yellow light inside coming out of his back and detaching themselves from it when they grew in size. Those blobs started changing their shape and appearance after being separated from their creator’s back, eventually becoming identical clones of him.

From what the spiky-haired teenager had seen, he estimated that at least thirty clones had already been sent to the bottom of the pit. There were also around twenty more with the original who were just standing in one place without doing anything. That too was not random. Those clones had been gathered closely around something – two silhouettes in between their ranks that were not identical to the others.

Upon realizing what an opportunity had just revealed itself to him, Hikaru couldn’t help but grin.

(Hikaru) ‘So that’s where you’re hiding them.’ – hearing the spiky-haired teenager announce himself, the clones turned their shocked faces to him as he came out of the pit and stepped closer to them – I don’t know the devas of all the members of your class, but I’m pretty sure you’ve got one with a healing and one with a sensor deva. That’s who you’re guarding there, right?’ – he then used the highest teleportation speed he was able to achieve at this point to get to the original who was creating the clones, concentrating electricity in his chest to move up his throat and release in a roar-type attack – ‘And if I take out the original, the clones protecting those two will …’

Someone had kept interrupting Hikaru since the start of the battle on the central field, in this case the interruption coming when the ground he was going to use to provide proper footing for a truly destructive roar was shaken by a strong vibration. The loss of footing led to the roar being released prematurely and in an upward direction, the mad genius’s eyes searching for the one who had crippled his attack.

A Martian who stood on the other side of the pit was caught by his gaze, touching the earth with a triumphant smirk that had a tinge of mockery to it.

(Martian No. 1) ‘If you realized our sensor’s there, you should’ve figured she’s already sensed you.’ – the moment Hikaru got back on his feet, meteors rained down on him, only now noticing another Martian that stood all the way by the trees beyond the big central field’s remains had directed both his hands toward the skies – ‘Those clones aren’t the only ones protecting her if that’s what you hoped for.’

The young Summerbolt now sent lightning bolts from his whole body in sufficient numbers to deal with all the meteors falling from the skies, blowing them up in smoking pieces of rock enveloped in electric charges. His other adversaries in the vicinity wasted no time, ten of the clones who were guarding Martian Class No. 3’s healer and sensor having split from the rest to attack him while he was distracted.

Since he was still thinking about the whole situation he had found himself in, Hikaru couldn’t take out the clones before they reached him, the first of them landing a hit on his face that pushed him back. Another clone had already moved behind him by then to grab the genius and allow the others to unleash the fury of their fists and kicks on him.

The pain from that first smack had hardly subsided when his face was pummeled by a volley of punches, his torso following suit on the pain train.

A pulse of lightning then electrocuted all ten clones and separated them from him, but not before the spiky-haired teenager coughed a little blood, which meant some damage had been done to his organs for the short span of the beating he had taken.

As devastating as the clones’ attack had been, it turned out to have been just a diversion meant to distract Hikaru from the meteors that were still falling around long enough for some of them to hit him. By the time he had understood that, one of the enemy’s heavenly projectiles reached his back, another lightning-fast teleportation saving the young man again.

Seeing as how he couldn’t take on all the enemies on the surface alone, he teleported back to the bottom of the pit, a sense of cold spreading across his whole back then. That sense of cold lasted only a few seconds, though.

What followed was more agonizing and prolonged. A feeling of searing pain engulfed the back of his torso and neck and although he could not see the damage, Hikaru gathered what its nature was.

The meteor that had managed to hit him must have made contact enough to burn him before the teleportation was complete. And what remained from the back of his T-shirt digging into the singed flesh made the pain caused by this wound all the more excruciating.

At the same time the lower half of his face and his body still stung from the beating of the clones. The combination of those two types of damage was enough to make him want to fall on the ground and curl up in a ball.

In order to give his nervous system some information to process aside from the feeling of pain, the wounded genius looked around, seeing how one of his classmates was running away from something out of the corner of his eye then.

It was Keiry D, the tiny black-haired sensor deviant of the Earthlings, who came out amid a veil of dark blue smoke with sheer terror on her face. What had caused her dread were most likely the couple of brown-skinned tentacles with orange scales on them here and there that came out of the smoke.

Seeing this expelled all thoughts of curling up in a ball from Hikaru’s mind.

He teleported between Keiry and the tentacles that had almost reached her within a second, burning them with his bolts and then grabbing his classmate by the waist before teleporting beyond the smoke.

The mad genius recognized that dark blue smoke he saw had been created by the deva of one of the girls from his class, so there were bound to be allies beyond the smoke’s veil. Fortunately his assumption turned out to be correct, finding the creator of the veil was being patched up by another healing deviant from the Earthling group there. Meanwhile three others held off several copies of the clone creator on the surface, the Martian who had created the tentacles that had come through the smoke and another who was in the process of transforming into a giant spiny-tailed iguana.

The young Summerbolt left Keiry D next to his classmate whose broken arm and partially mangled face were being treated, looking at her while attempting to hide his shock and concern. She smiled a bit when their eyes met, so that probably meant he couldn’t hide his emotions well enough.

Hikaru had never seen any of his classmates in such a state. And every time he had since the start of the this battle, his resolve had wavered and the anger in him had swelled. At this point the swelling of his anger was the one that had become more palpable, however.

(Earthling No. 1) ‘I know. I’ve looked a lot better than this.’

(Hikaru) ‘Are you going to be OK?

(Earthling No. 1) ‘This baby here’s patching me up, so I should be just fine.’

After being addressed by her, the healer patching up the smoke maker turned her attention away from her patient and to Hikaru.

(Earthling No. 2) ‘You figure out a way out of this mess for us yet?’

(Hikaru) ‘Not quite, but I’m working on it. Have any of you seen Annabel and Vale?’

Keiry D, who had had managed to calm down a bit after realizing she was no longer being chased by the scaly tentacles, answered that question then.

(Keiry D) ‘Annabel’s with Seiren and King. Vale’s with the other flank quartet.’

(Hikaru) ‘What about Hock and Gorudora? Have those bastards come around here?’

(Keiry D) ‘I haven’t sensed them anywhere near us, no. And I haven’t heard anyone say they’ve seen them.’

Another realization dawned on the man genius’s mind when he heard that.

And that realization meant maybe there was still a chance. A chance to turn this whole situation in his class’s favor.

(Hikaru) ‘Right.

The original creating those clones over there is on the surface, guarding the Martians’ healer and sensor along with the vibration and meteor deviant of the enemy forces. I’m not sure taking out the clone maker will make his copies disappear, but it’s worth a shot.

You girls find a way to get to him and neutralize him along with the healer and the sensor. That may turn the tables against the enemies you’re fighting here and help out anybody else from the class who’s up against some clones.’

(Keiry D) ‘What about you?’

Hikaru answered that question with more terrifying resolve that he had felt in a long time, clenching his fists and bursting in lightning despite knowing he had to conserve his strength for what was to come.

(Hikaru) ‘I’m going to end this Battle before anyone else gets hurt.’