Chapter 101: The escape
"Ooh... no... don’t say things like that... please!" Sarah suddenly dropped to her knees in front of her. "Let me at least use my magic to stop the bleeding and pain. And when my uncle comes, he might be able to find a way to help you," she pleaded, her hands shaking violently as she hovered them over Emily’s stump.
Emily’s cold hand suddenly grabbed Sarah’s wrist. "I’m surprised you are a Mage. But if you don’t mind, could you please heal the people upstairs first? They are the ones who need the most medical attention right now," she said, her eye filled with determination as she tried to force herself to stand up.
"Let me help you," David suddenly said, reaching down to grab her uninjured arm and lift her to her feet.
"Let go of me. It’s not like I can’t do this much on my own," she snapped, stubbornly pulling her arm away. She placed her hand on the wall and tried to force herself up, her legs shaking violently and her teeth grinding in pain. But without the balance of her other arm, she eventually failed, slumping back down onto the steps.
"Tsk... guess I don’t even have the strength to stand up anymore," she muttered, a deeply pissed-off expression crossing her face. "Guess I’m staying down here for now. David, take them upstairs to where Emma and Mother are."
’Upstairs? Does she mean...’ Ian thought, panic setting in again. "Are Emma and Mom okay?!" Ian suddenly asked.
"Mom is okay. She just used way too much energy fighting, causing a massive strain on her body," Emily explained with a complicated look. "But Emma... Emma is not handling what just happened well at all. Especially when Dion..." Emily paused, looking away.
"Ah, sorry. I almost sprung the news about Dion on you like that," Emily apologized softly.
"It’s okay. I already know," Ian said, his voice terrifyingly calm.
"You already know...? Well, it doesn’t matter anyway. Just go upstairs and talk to her. Maybe she can at least listen to you," Emily sighed, leaning her head back against the stairs.
"This way," David suddenly said, walking ahead of them up the grand staircase.
Ian took one last, glance at Emily sitting helplessly by the stairs. "You should get some rest, at least. Not just sit here in the dark," Ian said softly, standing behind her.
"Rest? Huh... how could I possibly sleep with things looking like this?" she whispered, staring out at the bloody, ruined hallway.
"I will find peopl—"
Ian suddenly stopped talking, a deep frown forming on his face.
"Bloodlust? And an incredibly strong one, too," Ian said, a deadly serious look returning to his eyes.
"Blood what?" Emily asked, confused.
"Ian, we have a massive problem," Sarah suddenly said, her glowing eyes darting around the hall with a deeply worried look.
"What is it?"
"There is a massive flow of mana completely surrounding this whole estate. It seems to be a barrier," Sarah said, her voice shaking slightly.
"A barrier?!"
"Yes. And it’s not one of those easy, defensive barriers either. It is a one-way trap that allows outside things to come in, but once you step inside, you cannot go back out. And it is not an easy spell to cast... most likely, a Fourth-Circle Mage is directly behind this or even a Fifth," she warned.
"HEY!! You assassins! How dare you casually massacre a noble family of this Kingdom!!" a booming voice suddenly echoed from the dark courtyard outside.
"In the name of the Trillah Kingdom, the noble Zennin House will exact revenge for the fallen House of Thorne!!" the man yelled so loudly that everyone inside the estate could clearly hear him.
"And if you rats don’t come out here within ten seconds, my friend here will burn this whole ruined estate to a crisp!!" he threatened, laughing loudly into the night.
...
— At Another Thorne Estate (Alarick’s Residence) —
"Did you get everything that could lead to us being suspected?!" Alarick suddenly demanded, hurriedly climbing into a waiting carriage in the dead of night.
"Yes... I think this is everything. We didn’t leave much direct evidence behind related to us being in covert contact with the Eden Guild," Edward said, quickly climbing up to the driver’s seat at the front of the carriage.
"Then let’s get out of here already! I don’t want to be in this Barony a second longer," Alarick ordered nervously.
After hearing that, Edward cracked the whip, driving the horses into a full sprint down the dark dirt road.
"By the way, sir... did you contact the family about the message we just received from the Guild?" Edward asked over his shoulder.
"Of course I did! What did you expect me to do, just not tell them?!" Alarick snapped with a highly annoyed look.
"But man, who would have ever guessed that those crazy Guild bastards would actually attack today, without any warning, and not even on the agreed-upon date?!"
"Yeah... it seems they might have thought it was a trap, since you did give them a specific date to attack," Edward reasoned.
"Yeah, you might be right... but at least their sudden impatience won’t change our plans anyway," Alarick smiled darkly, leaning back into his plush seat.
"What does that mean, sir?" Edward asked.
"The Family expected a situation like this from the start, so they had secret individuals quietly placed in the villages directly outside those two estates for the past week! If I am not completely wrong, they should be making their final moves right now to kill those assassins and tie up all our loose ends!" Alarick smirked.
"Mmmm... what the hell is that?" Edward suddenly muttered, staring at a dark shape standing perfectly still in the absolute middle of the road ahead.
"What is it?" Alarick asked, leaning forward.
"I’m feeling a presence. Sir, that’s a person!!" Edward suddenly yelled, his eyes widening as he saw a man dressed in full black armor slowly drawing a longsword in the moonlight.
"Why is he just standing there? Isn’t he afraid of death?" Edward asked in confusion.
"Run him over!!" Alarick suddenly said. "A fully armed person waiting on the road for us at night is absolutely not good news! Increase the speed!!"
Edward nodded. He then whipped the horses, pushing them to an even faster, terrifying speed directly toward the armored man.
The armored man didn’t flinch. He suddenly activated a dense blue Aura, but he only coated his sword, leaving his body unprotected. Without hesitating, the man began charging directly at the speeding carriage!
’This guy is completely insane! But looking at his average speed and the fact that he’s only putting Aura on his sword, he is nothing more than a Third-Stage user,’ Edward analyzed confidently.
But just at the moment of impact, the armored man suddenly flooded his feet with explosive blue Aura! He leaped impossibly high into the air, completely clearing the charging horses, and aimed his plunging sword directly at Edward!
"Shit!!" Edward cursed. He instantly drew his own sword, violently parrying the armored man’s strike in mid-air as he desperately jumped off the moving carriage to avoid being crushed.
"Hey!! Don’t leave me in here!!" Alarick screamed in terror as he saw Edward abandon the driver’s seat.
"Don’t worry, old man. He ain’t leaving you," the armored man grunted as he landed perfectly on the driver’s seat.
With a single, fluid swing of his blue blade, he cleanly cut the thick leather ropes connecting the horses to the carriage.
The freed horses neighed loudly and sprinted away into the night, while the wooden carriage skidded across the dirt road, spinning out of control before finally slamming to a halt in a ditch.
"Shit! I should get out of here right now! Fighting a Fourth-Stage user alone is pure madness!" Edward thought. He scrambled to his feet in the dirt, turning to run for the trees.
But suddenly, the cold steel of a broadsword was pressed firmly against his cheek.
"Don’t even think about it, buddy," a person wearing shining silver armor warned, glaring at Edward with a deadly serious look.
"Should we just kill him?" another silver-armored guard asked, stepping out of the shadows.
’There are three of them?!’ Edward panicked, looking at the two silver guards in front of him, and then watching as the black-armored guard dragging a screaming Alarick out of the crashed carriage by his hair.
’Just who the hell are these people, and were they waiting for us here this whole time?!’
"Look at you, newbie, always so eager to kill," the first silver guard chuckled. "But we shouldn’t kill them. Vincent gave the Captain an order to safely bring them back alive if possible."
"Vincent?! Wait, are you guys just mere guards from the Family?!" Alarick yelled indignantly, struggling as he was dragged across the dirt. "Do you have any idea who I am?! To be handling me like this?! I can have all of you fired!!"
"Shut the hell up, you sick old man," the black-armored Captain growled, kicking Alarick in the stomach. "I can kill you right now if I want to, and I can always just tell the Lord and Vincent that you tragically died in a carriage accident."
"Since they didn’t die in the crash, can I have permission to remove this heavy helmet? Man, I can’t even breathe in here," one of the silver guards asked, tapping his visor.
"Sure, go ahead," the black-armored guard nodded. "And while you are doing that, go and check their carriage to see if they had any documents or items that can help us."
"You fools should clearly know what’s going on at the Main Estate right now if you guys were ordered to set an ambush out here!" Alarick spat, coughing on the dirt.
"Yeah, we know exactly what is happening. And it’s nothing to be scared of," the Captain smirked under his helmet. "Because the exact moment we received news that one of your Guild friends were attacking I was told to set an ambush. I was honestly a bit surprised, too, since we initially heard that this ambush was supposed to happen the day after tomorrow."
"It’s tomorrow, sir," Trevor suddenly corrected him, pulling off his silver helmet and gasping for fresh air.
"What?" the Captain asked.
"It’s already past midnight. So technically, the attack is happening tomorrow," Trevor explained helpfully.
"Huh..Did you have to correct me infront of everyone." The black armored guard said in a feminine voice while touching his helmet with embarrassment.