Chapter Seventy-Two: Counter-Ambush
“Ah!”
The girl let out a painful cry, the kn*fe slipping from her grasp.
Clang, clang, clang—
Not far away in the courtyard, the guards were still engaged in a scuffle with two shadowy figures. In the dim light, I could barely make out the two slender kids; their figures appeared small in front of the towering warriors of the Royal City, but they moved with an agility that was nothing short of remarkable. As they danced around, they deflected attack after attack, and with each flash of golden light from their hands, one of the guards would m*an and drop to the ground.
In just a few seconds, three guards were already lying on the ground.
But thankfully, none of them seemed to have been fatally hurt…
Their goal wasn’t m*rder.
The boy trapped in the ice was the first to charge at me. Even though his glowing blade was aimed straight at my neck, there was no malice in his eyes; he probably just wanted to sneak around to my back and subdue me. The same could be said for the little girl…
“Where did you come from, the Holy City?”
I casually asked, glancing at the little girl’s flushed face; the arm I had pinned with my knee was now trembling and hanging limply at her side. She desperately clawed at my fingers wrapped around her throat, but no matter how hard she tried, they wouldn’t budge… Were these kids from the Choir of Saints?
It was obvious they were far from ready for this task.~
“You can’t be fourteen years old yet. Why are you attacking here?”
“L-l-let me go…”
The little girl gritted her teeth, panic flashing across her face, mixed with a hint of fear. She instinctively glanced back at the boy still battling the ice.
The boy appeared a bit slow on the uptake—despite realizing that he couldn’t hack through the ice with just his glowing blade, he didn’t consider alternate strategies. He continued to slash at it frantically, clearly panicking and angered.
Seriously, there’s no ice below your feet! Just cut the main beam and jump into the gazebo to escape. Do I really need to point this out to you?
So dumb.
“Ah!”
When the little girl saw her friend couldn’t save her, despair flickered in her eyes before she snapped, using every ounce of strength to struggle free, a few sparkles of golden light flickering around her.
Still trying to pull off a divine miracle…
With her determined expression, it looked like a last-ditch, self-destructive attack—goodness, bad news, bad news~.
“Let! Go—”
“Good girl, it’s time for bed, be a sweetheart.”
Suddenly, my eyes glowed scarlet, and the moment she locked eyes with me, her amber pupils lost focus, her struggling ceased, and the flickering golden light surrounding her swiftly vanished. I released my grip and tossed her into the mud below.
“Worma!”
The boy witnessed this scene, his eyes immediately turning red, and he roared, “What did you do to her! I’m gonna k*ll you—”
“Shut up, you little brat.”
I cleared my ear, remaining expressionless. My eyes flashed scarlet again, and I noticed the boy suddenly stiffen, his pupils dilating.
With a casual wave, I dispelled the ice surrounding him, and he swayed, rolling his eyes back as he fell through the shattered ice and landed with a thud not far from the girl.
On the other side, hearing the commotion outside, Barry hurriedly rushed from the mansion, sword in hand, followed closely by Ryan and Uncle Doug. The trio appeared confused, glancing around as if trying to understand what was happening. They froze when they spotted me hovering in mid-air, instinctively stepping forward, but I waved them off from afar, turning my attention back to the struggle in the courtyard.
Only half a minute had passed since the ambush began, perhaps even less, yet the guards seemed to be losing ground. They were having a tough time dealing with these miraculous kids, and by now, aside from two still standing, the rest lay sprawled on the ground.
Maybe I should jump in and help…
Huh?
Just as I was about to turn and leap, I heard a faint noise and abruptly looked up, scanning the opposite side of the street outside the wall. Amid the wind, two figures were entangled in a chase—one chasing the other, leaping from the rooftops into an alleyway in the distance.
Suddenly, familiar insect chirps echoed through the night sky.
As the whistle rang out, several figures sprang from the shadows, darting over the rooftops, agilely leaping over the walls into the courtyard, joining the fray between the guards and the Choir.
The Sword of Kanli…
Those guys have been lurking nearby all along.
Were they waiting to ambush these kids?
The arrival of the Kanli organization dramatically tilted the battle in their favor. The fire and lightning orders cascaded together, their lights shooting into the sky as the two small figures were quickly subdued. In less than ten seconds, the swirling dirt formed a prison of solid walls from the night, trapping the two kids from the Choir.
In the distance, the wind howled again as a figure floated into view, like a ghostly specter of the night. A few spins closer, it landed gracefully on a nearby wall before jumping onto a honey fruit tree beside me.
That figure perched on the branch, one hand gripping the trunk, scratching his green hair, and then nonchalantly glanced down at the unconscious boy and girl at my feet.
“Long time no see, Your Highness the Princess,” he joked, “Hope everything’s peachy!”
“Ha…”
The sounds of the skirmish in the courtyard continued but gradually faded. I exhaled, a sense of foreboding washing over me as I turned to the man, eyebrows knitting together. “I sensed something was off earlier… You guys had to stir up trouble here on purpose, right? Waiting for me to return to strike? Is this Viki’s idea?”
The person I first noticed on the roof was likely from the Sword of Kanli after all.
There were too many residents around; it seemed quiet, but if I listened carefully, I could hear strange noises coming from every building. Plus, this was the safest street in the Royal City—if I sensed something was amiss, my first thought would be the Sword of Kanli. So, I became a bit careless…
I never even considered the possibility of an ambush.
“What? No, no, no, you’ve misunderstood.”
The head of the Sword of Kanli, Rect, was visibly taken aback, waving his hands at me. “It couldn’t possibly be Her Majesty’s idea—there are still old folks living in the mansion. We caught wind of a potential attack on the mansion a while back. Considering the inevitable conflict, we had no choice but to prepare. We were just waiting for them to show up and finally acted today; it was entirely coincidental.”
He pointed at the unconscious boy and girl on the ground. “These heretics are the lackeys of Archbishop Hogtus—he’s the old chap who just took over the Royal City Church last year, the head of the clergy in the previous council. We’ve been looking for him everywhere… Tsk, what a useless coward, sending a bunch of kids like this; it’s downright disgraceful.”
After hearing his words, my frown deepened. “What’s in the mansion?”
“There were some documents beneficial to the church, but those were taken away a few days ago.”
Rect shrugged, his gaze shifting toward the brightly lit mansion. “Turns out the old dude still sent people—if he couldn’t find those documents, he probably hoped these kids would do something else… He knows Her Majesty cares a lot about the old folks living in that mansion, and when someone’s desperate, they’ll dare to try anything to grab a chance to turn things around.”
As Rect spoke, he jumped down from the tree branch.
He grabbed the two unconscious kids from the bushes, half-dragging them away while saying to me, “I’ll explain everything in detail later. I was just trying to catch a little girl, and she managed to escape! Your Highness the Princess, please just head back to the mansion for now, just in case. I’ll take care of the rest!”
