"Uh... so you're here too?"
I was totally shocked when Wayne Peng suddenly revealed my identity! Even though he didn't mean to, I was caught off guard. I could only say hello with a confused face.
I'll deal with his apology later. The main thing is there were many other people around! They all heard what Wayne Peng said. I had already hidden my wings, but now it might not matter.
I got tricked bad! I suddenly regretted listening to Gwendolyn and barging in. I couldn't help looking curiously at the people watching. They were mostly grouped together, sitting or standing. Their clothes were very fancy and expensive. They were probably from the capital.
"Are you having a meeting?"
I finally realized the woman in the main seat must be Katarina!
Even though it was our first time meeting, this princess was really good at reading situations, just like people said. Thinking back to her talk with Wayne Peng, in just a few sentences she blamed all the empire's mistakes on Reider who ran away. She was very clever!
"This isn't the official meeting. We just came to the castle to talk about trade and happened to find this situation," Wayne Peng said, shaking his head. He looked unsure, like he wanted to ask me something else. "By the way, about that spy thing last time, Reider mentioned something. You..."
But the mood in the room was very awkward! He seemed to feel it wasn't a good time to keep talking, so he stopped halfway.
"Angels again..."
"Did Edenmere already make some deal with these humans from another world?"
"We're too late in trying to make peace!"
...
The noble officials around started whispering to each other. I could hear clearly what they were discussing.
The empire and angels didn't have a good relationship to begin with. But unluckily, angels kept showing up during this invasion by humans from another world. And now, right before the peace talks, my identity was revealed and I suddenly appeared in this border lord's castle. Of course these people from the capital would suspect the angels were involved!
But it's probably okay to let them suspect. It won't change the big picture. The peace talks have to happen, and Katarina is too smart not to realize that. Their suspicions are just a misunderstanding. Plus, they don't know that I'm not the only angel in the city!
"Sorry, I was just passing by too! Don't mind me, please continue!"
I couldn't take it anymore! Everyone was staring at me. It felt so awkward and terrible! I quickly closed the door and left the meeting room without another word.
"Hey, don't go yet!"
When she saw me trying to run away, Elder Gwendolyn grabbed me in the hallway outside. But it was for something else. "I heard you can control your blue wings well now, and you can use water healing magic. You can help heal Dennis!"
So Sebastian family's oldest son Dennis didn't die in the big battle, but he was badly hurt by a stray bullet. After the war, there weren't many skilled people left. The whole city of Sifur couldn't find a good water mage. So Elder Gwendolyn grabbed me to help.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
I won't go into details about the healing, but Dennis got better as expected. That's good! It added one more person to help defend against the bandits.
After healing him, I didn't leave right away. Gwendolyn asked me to stay just in case.
Evening came quickly. Before Earth's help arrived, the bandits hiding outside the city attacked first!
The enemy had several times, maybe even ten times more people than the defenders. As soon as the sun started to set, lots of bandits came out of the forest. There were so many, it looked like a dark cloud! Suddenly, many magic bullets and arrows fell into the city.
Sifur city didn't have enough people. They could only rely on the city's magic barrier to hold on. It was mainly for defending against magic attacks like elemental magic. It wasn't very good at stopping physical attacks like arrows.
It also had a big weakness - it needed small magic circles in every corner of the city walls. This was to make sure the whole barrier covered all parts of the city.
The bandits had very good information. Besides using long-range magic, they also saw this weakness. They didn't have siege weapons, so they sent many close combat troops to climb the walls and break these small magic circles.
The enemy were mostly from the regular army. They were well-trained. Their whole attack was very organized and well-commanded!
Sifur's defenders were in big trouble. Soon after the battle started, the enemy easily got onto the city walls!
After about 15 minutes, the south gate that Dennis was guarding broke first. It almost fell! Luckily, Wayne Peng's team came with guns and bullets just in time to help. They worked together with the city defenders to fight off the enemy and close the gate again.
But even this didn't help much. The attacks on the other gates were still very strong. Soon the east and west gates were in danger too!
At this critical moment, just as Gwendolyn and I were about to join the fight ourselves, we finally saw some helicopters coming in the fading light of sunset!
When the helicopters were still far from the target, they first fired some air-to-ground missiles into the enemy crowd. Then they spread out and used machine guns to clear the bandits gathered outside each gate. In an instant, they completely changed the battle.
These bandits were all soldiers who had run away after being badly beaten by Earth's army before. When they saw these big metal birds flying overhead with strong winds, they lost all courage! They scattered like a flock of birds, all running for their lives into the forest around.
It was so fast! In just a few minutes, the danger to Sifur city was completely gone.
"Is that the unbeatable army from another world?" Katarina said softly to herself as she watched everything from a high castle balcony. Then she quickly went downstairs to join Altima and the others in welcoming the helicopters.
"The city should be safe now, right? You don't need me anymore? I'm going back!" I said goodbye to Gwendolyn from the castle roof. She had to go with Altima, but Adrian was waiting for me in the light elf village! I didn't want to join this boring event. Plus, everyone knew I was an angel now. It would be sensitive to show my face in public.
"Looks like this ended pretty well."
Just as Gwendolyn left, a strangely familiar voice came from beside me. I turned to look and was so surprised I almost jumped up, pointing at the person.
"Wow, you finally decided to show up!"
It was Galadra! She had disappeared for over a month. I had almost forgotten about her. I didn't expect her to suddenly appear in front of me again.
"I had no choice. The Cycle of Rebirth is a very big and complicated system. I had to check everything carefully before I dared to come find you guys!"
She explained happily, covering her mouth. She seemed to be in a good mood. It looks like there were no problems with the Cycle of Rebirth.
"So what exactly happened? Did you figure it out?" I asked. I still didn't understand why the portal connecting the two worlds formed. This was a good chance to ask her.
"Of course it was because of that necklace!" Galadra answered confidently. Seeing I didn't understand, she quickly explained more.
"That necklace was made from Liana's magic power. It's a pure wind element object. And Liana helped me build the whole Cycle of Rebirth system back then, so she can actually control the Cycle of Rebirth a bit using her magic power! In other words, Nicola from the future used the necklace to open this portal by controlling the Cycle of Rebirth to project a space tunnel. It's exactly the same as how you guys came to this world before! The only difference is how long it stays open."
"What? But we only came here as souls before! But they..." I was very unhappy when I heard this. I pointed at Wayne Peng and the others on the ground and complained, "Look at them! Not only did they come in person, they've almost moved their whole arsenal from Earth here now!"