Their composure shattered, Shiyuan's admission suppressing everything the noblemen had to say. It even had Bai Longxia swallow her words of protest. Nine pairs of eyes bore into Shiyuan like pins spearing a cushion. But Shiyuan's eyes only met the shocked gaze of the princess.
My lady, did you think you were dealing with a doormat?
Bai Longxia had forced him to submit himself under her halberd's blade in order to prove that he had no ill intentions. But what about framing it the other way?
She had never proven whether she was a trustworthy character with no harmful motives in her heart.
Shiyuan had devised this test for her after hearing that denying the status of the royal preceptor would make him a bigger target in the grasp of the nobles. If Bai Longxia was so capable as the airs she put on, she'd be able to protect him from their claws.
On the other hand, if she treated him like a disposable tool in her heart, she'd definitely not take any big risks here to keep him to herself.
Either way, he was in a win-win situation, because his only concern was leaving this damned island. If the pretty princess couldn’t take him, the fat nobles would.
As he silently conveyed his conviction to stand with the admission to Bai Longxia, he could see the light of realization sparking the barely hidden arrogance in her eyes. Her first reaction upon the realization was fury, which was then replaced by a crescive fire.
Within ten seconds of the admission, the gaze of every noble in front of him underwent a similar transformation. Respect was replaced by avarice, although the caution did not go away.
“Hahaha! I heard from my father that the Preceptor was a humorous man under the mask. Never thought I'd get to witness it myself,” the old man said, his tone casual. Shiyuan didn’t miss the subtle hand signs he was making towards the group of nobles behind him.
“Why would I lie? I don't even know the person you're looking for. I'm just a victim of a shipwreck who's been living here for the last four months, occupying a home that was likely built by your preceptor. Besides, don't you have any identifying characteristics of the man? Do I match any?"
Shiyuan went on the offensive like a relentless swordsman, cutting down questions before they could be voiced.
“The only thing they know about the preceptor is his history as an Oracle secretly aiding the king,” Bai Longxia said in a quiet tone. That explained a lot. No wonder they weren’t questioning why he looked like he had just crossed his teenage years!
The Oracle's mark on his left eye had convinced them from the onset, and now, Shiyuan's explanation to the contrary was beginning to upset that belief.
“...If you're not him, where is the preceptor? He couldn't have just left!” One of the younger nobles said warily.
“Dead, probably? I don't know. These parts of the sea have a lot of dangers roaming around. I'm lucky to be alive for so long myself. He was stuck here for a much longer time, wasn’t he?" Shiyuan shrugged noncommittally.
He knew it wasn’t going to take much effort to turn their belief the other way. Human hearts were so easy to manipulate like that. Especially those who had grown up with privileges... They rarely suspected a favourable outcome just because it seemed to fall in place by sheer luck.
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To his credit, the leader of the lot didn’t look convinced. A sneer formed on his face. “Two Oracles ending up on the same isolated spot of an endless ocean by chance? Please don't mock our intelligence, Lord Preceptor.”
“By chance? No, no, no, no.” Shiyuan shook his head gently. “It is BECAUSE we were both Oracles that we ended up on the same isolated spot of an endless ocean. Destiny guided us to facilitate something, something like this situation, probably.”
Before he could finish uttering the last word, four of the noblemen attacked Bai Longxia in perfect coordination.
Shiyuan did not have the kind of developed vision that could pick apart every detail of a fight between monstrous warriors and developed sorcerers. From his perspective, the first phase of the clash consisted of a threefold attack and one setup for the next phase.
Three of the attackers were water spirit sorcerers. Three jets of seawater drilled out of the sand beneath their feet and shot towards Bai Longxia at a barely trackable speed. She sidestepped past the first one that reached her, swatted the second jetstream with the body of her halberd's blade, directing the flow to intercept the third stream and weaken it.
It didn’t even look like she was spending much effort. Her eyes weren’t on the water jets, but on the fourth noble, who had sunk himself into the loose soil like a fish diving under water.
An earth spirit sorcerer had a big advantage in a stage like this. He could attack from any angle by travelling through the sands. Shiyuan estimated that the water jets thrown at Bai Longxia's face were just a facade to distract her from tracking the fourth noble's movements underground.
Instead of insistently attacking her with similar water streams, the three water spirit sorcerers transformed the nearby seawater into a hazy mist, clouding half the beach almost instantly. It reduced both Shiyuan and Bai Longxia's vision to one-tenth of their original capacity.
This kicked off the second phase of the battle. Shiyuan was even more clueless about the finer details by now. Only his close proximity to the princess helped him catch some scenes.
The soil beneath Bai Longxia's feat became as unreliable as a deck on a stormy sea. One of her feet sank down while her other feet got an upward push by a fast-rising mound, completely overwhelming her balance.
Not to be outdone, Bai Longxia pushed herself off the ground with one hand in a flash, applying so much force that her whole body flew up in the air, disappearing from Shiyuan's limited range of vision.
But he heard the sharp swish of a halberd being hurled across the air, followed by a dull thud and a blood-curling roar by a male voice in the mist.
“Killing blow! Careful!”
Shiyuan decided to curl into a ball on the ground to avoid being killed, but a rough hand fell on his neck, grabbing him like a chick and dragging him away quite easily. The gap between their strength and speed was so wide that he couldn’t even respond effectively.
Seconds later, he found himself locked within a formation of three nobles, who forcibly guided him towards the shoreline where their boat was docked. Shiyuan watched with rapt attention as one of them pulled out a painting brush and swiped it in the air like a madman while running, seemingly drawing something circular and large.
Suddenly, a golden shield of light formed behind their group of four. Shiyuan recognized it. This man was a law spirit sorcerer, and he had just invoked a shield out of laws.
Barely had they taken five steps further under its protection when a booming noise erupted on its other side, and the tip of a halberd ruptured its seamless cover. Another even fiercer blow followed the first strike, seemingly made by the princess herself, and the halberd tore apart the protective barrier, shooting towards the invoker like an arrow from a greatbow.
The man didn’t get the time to create a second shield for himself. The halberd pierced through his shoulder, and the momentum carried him along more than a dozen feet. He landed on his back like a lifeless doll. And the halberd spearing his body disappeared within the blink of an eye.
Two more screams came from the mist, and suddenly, the surroundings became a lot clearer. Shiyuan and the remaining two nobles frozen by his side discovered two of the water sorcerers lying on their backs not too far away, warm blood seeping out of them onto the sands like water spilling out of a jar.
Bai Longxia was nowhere to be seen, but when the confused earth spirit sorcerer poked his head above the soil to reassess the situation, a halberd shot towards him from within the remaining mist. He barely avoided getting his head blown into bits after creating a multi-layered earth barrier to take the brunt of its momentum.
“Stop! Stop it, I say! We surrender!” The old man roared from Shiyuan's side. But Bai Longxia clearly didn’t give a damn. She leaped out of the mist, crossing more than twenty meters of distance, and swooped down on the earthen shield that had trapped her halberd.
Boom!
Her right leg sprang out like a whip and landed on the handle of the halberd, putting the majority of her momentum behind the kick. For a moment, a dim green glow appeared around the point of impact, and the shield exploded like a hammered glass toy. The halberd was kicked into the ground by the inhuman power behind the impact, creating a dozen-meter-wide crater in front of her.
“Gaaaahhh!”
The escaping earth spirit sorcerer seemed to have been injured by the explosive power that had created the crater. He lay at its periphery, groaning in pain.
“Your highness, please! We do not wish you harm! Don't force us to turn this into a life-or-death battle! Please!”
Bai Longxia picked up her halberd with a hard grip and turned to face the old leader of the nobles, the arrogance in her eyes now out in their full glory.
“I have been looking for a life or death battle against a sorcerer since I refined the bones of my right leg. So why don't you back up that bragging and show me some desperation?”