Just as everyone had suspected, the royal guards and the jade hands were a little late to the fight just outside the city. But it was not Lord Torgenn in that carriage, it was Nanny Han. One seemed to underestimate the Wickshire fortress; this was the stronghold of Lady Wickshire. It would be beneath them to allow Lord Torgenn to come to harm.
Halfway, Nanny Han had led a replacement entourage and gone the same way Lord Torgenn was supposed to go. Lord Torgenn himself, did not know that his driver and guards had been given secret signals causing them to change their direction. Yet, even that was not enough.
As Nanny Han and her group fought away the assassins, another group approached Lord Torgenn on his way.
Lord Torgenn could almost feel himself fall asleep when a scream woke him. He opened his eyes to find himself outside the carriage in the grasp of one of his guards. He looked to the side, to see that the carriage had been destroyed.
“What is happening?” he asked the guard. The guard quickly pressed a pressure point on his neck and he felt himself lose consciousness.
The guard threw his lord over his shoulder and made for the woods. As he moved, he nodded at his colleagues and they flanked the outskirts and defended his rear. But those that pursued were not ordinary assassins, they were high-ranking martial artists.
With a flick of the wrists, the guards defending the rear found their heads on the floor. They moved with such speed, yet it seemed as though they were but walking. With one step they were about to grab Lord Torgenn off the guard’s shoulder. But at that moment, a feeling of indescribable dread overwhelmed them. A metallic smell stung their nose instantly.
The sudden smell of blood in the air was indescribable, it almost choked them dead.
“Calm yourselves, this is just a man!” the assassin’s leader scolded his team, but he too could not stop trembling. In their hesitation, the guard carrying Lord Torgenn moved a distance away, before collapsing under the pressure.
“Return,” a person cloaked in black appeared before them. The assassins could not truly see his form, save his shadow, clear on the grass. The assassins gritted their teeth as they glanced at each other. Return?
That was not even an option! As though they made up their minds at the same time, they attacked the shadow instantly. As they moved, more cloaked men appeared. Like the other, the assassins could only truly see their shadows. The assassins were fast, but the shadows were faster. One of the assassins felt his hand get ripped from its shoulder before he saw it. Spinning to the side, he swerved out of the way and landed with a groan. Without thinking further, he used his leg to draw a symbol with his blood dripping from his torn shoulder. His entire body started to glow a faint red under the dark hood of the forest trees.
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“Self-destructing?” one of the shadows snorted. But the assassin did not care. He launched forward, straightening his body out to resemble an arrow shot from a bow, thereby increasing his speed. He reached a shadow in the next second. Like a bug, he wrapped his only remaining limbs around the shadow and held on. The temperature around the area spiked and the other assassins used this chance to lay down a formation. In seconds, they had locked the space; no one could enter or leave the locked area. It was clear they intended to die in there. Most of the shadows were locked inside and could not see or hear anything outside the locked space. Inside the space, gravity did not exist. They floated with the tree branches and grass blades unlucky enough to be trapped inside with them. With no gravity, everyone’s speed reduced drastically.
The battle had taken a weird turn, so the assassins all joined to self-destruct. Only a second away and they knew the blast wave would kill Lord Torgenn, who was unconscious somewhere outside the locked space.
Suddenly, there was a lazy cough and they felt as though a bucket of cold water was thrown on them. They knew the locked space was broken when they could see outside it. They tried to conjure their internal energy but felt nothing in their cores. What kind of situation was this?
A person strolled in and both the assassins and the shadows froze. The assassins were sure of one thing; this was the one who released that blood aura they had almost drowned in before. Having him this close, all their orifice started to spew blood. The pain was unbearable for all of them; the shadows were no exception. In that state of pain, their true dark-cloaked forms were revealed to all who cared to look.
“Master, please,” one of the shadows begged. Only then did the blood aura disappear and with it, the pressure on their cores. They all collapsed into gasps, coughing fits and struggled to breathe. The assassins wanted to escape at this moment. There was no way they wanted to be caught by such a man. But the pressure was gone, they could not move.
“Take them away, they will be useful,” the newcomer said to his shadow men. He was much shorter than the others and only when he came into a direct beam of the moonlight streaming through thick tree branches, did the assassins see that he was a young boy no older than eighteen.
The boy turned with a displeased expression towards his subordinates.
“You let yourself be trapped in such a situation?” he said to the shadows sprawled on the ground.
“I’m sorry, master, we underestimated them,” one of them said. Before his words entered ears, his head had left his body and touched the floor.
“When you all return, go and receive your punishment,” he said and they all nodded. Soon, more shadows arrived in haste. Their leader stared at the boy in worry.
“Master, why did you come out? I said we could handle it ourselves,” the leader of the newly arrived shadow men was a hunched elderly man with a walking stick.
The boy turned to where Lord Torgenn lay unconscious and the surrounding shadows hurried to carry the unconscious lord.
“My father-in-law-to-be is in danger, I had to show my sincerity,” the boy said and the shadows froze. The man with the walking stick sighed; if you are sincere, then the saints are just awaiting eternal punishment, the man thought.
“She sent me word instead of sending someone to save her father and I dare not think she did not foresee this, do you think she was testing me? Say, this wife of mine, is she satisfied with my performance?” the boy asked, “Then again he was not the target.” Again, the shadows raised their brows and the man with the walking stick sighed again.
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