CHAPTER 116
NOW, WHAT DID I DO?
The loosening of VoidZone's grasp might have given the suffering knight some breathing room, but it didn’t relieve his condition. His heart was still the battlefield of nature’s mana and his own aura. Just what Hans felt when he tried to create an aura back in the Ghost Isles. The knight gasped, taking heavy breaths, and Hans finally closed into the panting knight, “So you wanna go for round two —” Hans asked but got interrupted.
“No, I’ll tal — agh”
“Hey, Hans, stop,” Delimira expressed, shaking her head, “he was going to talk.”
“Oh! I must not have heard him,” Hans replied, curt, cutting off his Inectio and both Delimir and the knight took some breaths of relief for different reasons. But she couldn't help remark. “And he says, I’m a sadist,” only to get Hans’s wide smirk as a response. On the other hand, getting another glimpse of the excruciating pain, the knight gestured for him to stop, “I’ll talk, please stop.”
“What is this? You are going to snitch this easily. I really dislike disloyalty —”
“You should try feeling what I’m feeling right now.” the knight rebuked but Hans cut him off again, “So you’ve recovered enough to talk back, haan…” He said in fury, getting a firm grasp over the knight’s heart once again.
“Aah, damn it, I said, I’ll talk…please, I beg you, stop please.”
“Now, you are taking the right way,” Hans said, glancing at Delimira and continuing, “I told ya, he’ll be begging to stop.”
“Yeah, yeah, Prince of Parv, I get it so wipe the smug out of your face.” She responded and turning to the almost fainted knight, she asked, “What are you waiting for? Spill everything.”
“I'm from Sunfall royal guard… No, no —”
“Hans,” Deli shouted to stop him but Hans was as baffled as the knight himself. He instantly responded, “It's not me, this time.” Both turned to the knight who was shaking violently, but suddenly stopped. Even his withering pain washed away, and those empty eyes, lit with vitality. “Spawn of Parv, I’ll come kill you so keep your neck clean till then.” “Plop,” the knight exploded like a water balloon, not even his bones remained; it was a scene like something had melted him from the inside. “What was it?” Hans asked Delimira, and she answered what she thought, “Do ghosts really exist? It looked like he was possessed for a minute.” And When she came to her senses, she asked him, “Why is a Sunfall royal guard involved with you? Not even your father had contact with them?”
Hans was thinking the same, the only Sunfall person he knew was Cassidy, his Prophet house member in Concordia and even with her, he had no contacts whatsoever. “Who knows, he definitely said ‘SPAWN OF PARV’. My father really lived a wild life, and now I’m paying the compensation. Did he nab another princess, or what?”
“Well, they say sons resemble their fathers. We’ll see when you kidnap one for yourself.” Delimira joked, not knowing one day her words would turn true, also unaware of what the future had in store for him, Hans bit back, “Like hell Winters. I ain’t dying because of a girl.” She shook her head, only wanting to go back, so both started running back to the manor, but suddenly a signal went off high in the sky, and the attackers started fleeing back. And by the time they reached the main battlefield, the former entrance of the Manor. All they saw were the traces of an intense fight. But before Hans could say anything, a strong knuckle welcomed his head. “Oye, Squeaky, How many times, did I say not to use your head and run when I say so —”
“But I —”
“Thock,” another one grazed his head. “Don’t talk back, you punk.”
“But we killed him." Hans stressed, "We killed a grade seventy knight. Doesn’t that mean something?”
“Of course it does," Rudolf also stressed, " That knight is an idiot.”
“Stop it dear, ” Sierra came wiping a smear of blood from her face, and Rudolf asked in disbelief, “What? You are letting it slide.”
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“Yes —”
“Really grandma?” Hans asked, rubbing his hand on the head bump, but Sierra shattered his expectation saying, “It doesn’t mean, you won’t be punished later, child.” She turned to Rudolf again and said, “It seems all ran away.” "Yeah," Rudolf also acknowledged their absence. However, Sierra couldn’t help but pass a remark to her husband, “You’ve grown weaker, dear.” She saw the traces and continued, “If it would've been past you, they wouldn't have had the chance to enter our home.”
Rudolf looked at his bloody fist and didn't have any words to refute, and seeing his lord silent, Hodges came saving his face, tallying the damage and informing the result of the attack, “We had fourteen unwelcome guests, eight knights and six mages. Aldrich killed one, the young Lord killed one and…” “And what? Mr Hodges,” Hans said in anticipation, and Hodges completed his sentence, “And Lady Sierra had killed six mages. Haa.." he sighed, "I kept forgetting that she was called ‘The Iron Lady’ —”
“Wow, I know grandma was awesome, but…” Hans turned to Rudolf and mocked the poor man, “Why did Gramps score zero?”
Taking criticism from his wife was bearable but not from the brat, so he responded in fury, “Because unlike you two, I had to know which bastard had the galls to do these things in my mansion.”
“A Sunfall royal guard,” Delimira, who was listening to everything from the back, responded. And Hans nodded, supporting her claim as he explained things further. And after hearing what he had to say, the others did as they'd planned before, everyone staring at him as if for some reason it was his fault. “Now, what did I do?” he shouted, taking a few steps back.
“Did you hit Cassidy, their princess,” Rudolf asked back.
“No, she ain’t my type?”
“I said ‘hit” not ‘hit on’, idiot”
“No, I really didn’t do anything this time. They kept asking for the Parvian artefact.” He argued, taking the Mother's Embrace out from his inner pockets. Since the moment he got the artefact it never left his side once, and it was purely because this was his sole connection to Parv. Once again, he activated it and the shroud of warmth covered everyone like a blanket, “That’s all it could do. Do you think they would be this crazy for just a warming artefact?”
“No, but is that all it could do?” Rudolf asked back.
“Yeah.”
Growing his suspicions, Rudolf asked with thinned eyes, “Did Arat give you anything that you are not telling us?”
“No”
“Are you sure, squeaky?”
“Yeah,” pointing to his head, Hans asked, “This is not an artefact, right?”
“No, it's not. It doesn't work if the Parvian court does not place it by themselves. I don’t know how it works, but they probably didn’t come for that.”
“Then, that's all I got from Arat” He turned off the ‘Mother’s embrace’, and meanwhile, when the men of the house were chatting, Sierra patted Delimira’s shoulder, “Good job, dear disciple.” Delimira nodded silently. However, Sierra took her silence as the young lady feeling gloomy, she asked in a sympathetic tone, “I know, you fought alongside Hans to take down that damn pest. And he is stealing the limelight —”. “No, it's not that” Delimira stopped her master before she could misunderstand further, “I’m just pondering.” “What?” Sierra asked. “You've said, Hans’s ultimate weapon wouldn't work on me ---”
“Isn’t that an advantage, you should be happy about?”
“But Hans never fought with me with everything he got, and just to compete with him on these unequal grounds, I had to put my everything. I can’t see myself defeating him —”
“Why do you have to be the one defeating him?” Sierra asked, and patting her shoulders, she turned her to him and whispered, “Unlike before, you are friends now and aren't fighting alongside each other, trusting your backs completely on someone matters the most. You are not enemies after all.”
The words left Delimira perplexed, she never had thought of it this way. All she was thinking of surpassing Hans, but when she thought she had left him behind. He jumped up, setting a new bar for her. Sierra knew what her thoughts were so she added, “Rivalry makes you better but it must not be your end goal, disciple. Think deeply, why did you start this arduous journey of Sword mage? Surpassing Hans might have triggered your path, but you have your own story to finish." She stressed, "Or competing with Hans became so important to you that you have forgotten?”
“There is a man, I wish to kill,” her own words rang in her head. She started all of this because she wanted to put down the man who ruined her family. Sentencing her father to challenge an impossible task. Exiling her mother from her homeland. “Yes, I must’ve forgotten because my life was going so well —” “No, you stupid girl. It's your right to live a happy life. I’m not stopping you from being happy. I’m telling you,” pointing to Hans, she continued, “You have got a reliable friend, not just a rival to compete.” When she heard those words, her imagination started creating a bigger story. No one was capable of fighting besides Hans but her and it was definite that Hans was not going to stop there. She was his perfect partner and when these thoughts clicked in her head - The junction of two flawless gears had initiated a sequence, propelling the wheels of destiny forward and setting the rhythm for the intertwined journeys of Hans, Delimira, and countless others still waiting to join them.
“Yes, I have a friend now,” she responded with warm eyes as she looked at Hans jumping around in excitement.
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