Chapter 153: The Quiet Kill
Raven's gaze slid toward Jovie. She was already looking at him.
'Magical Beasts have already surrounded this building. Hmm, I sense five strong monsters among them. Shall we escape?' her voice brushed his mind, telepathically. She knew as well as he did—if Veyra killed Kael, they would be next.
Even if Nash and others spared the Radiant Knights and servants, the Magical Beasts surrounding the building would kill them.
'We're taking the Count with us,' Raven replied, his mental tone calm.
'He's dead weight,' she shot back, frowning.
'No,' he countered. 'His survival benefits me in several ways.'
Jovie sighed through the link. 'It's almost impossible to save him in this current situation. Even with five wyvern undead skeletons, I can't take on two Wizards and two Expert Walkers. There is also the Mind Worm lurking around.'
'What if we kill two of them?' Raven asked, his lips arched upward.
Jovie paused. If someone else had said those words, she wouldn't have listened to them. But she knew that the person standing beside her had assassinated the strongest Wizard of this continent while he was a mere Rank-1 Walker!
'Fine. Before that, take this." She said while giving him an eerie black bracelet.
'What is this?' Raven asked.
'Once you save the Count, just say the word 'Derht'; the bracelet will temporarily take you and the Count to my domain. Though the air there is toxic, you can stay alive for 15 minutes.'
Raven nodded.
'So, what is your plan?' Jovie asked.
'When I hit zero, hit me with your strongest spell. No holding back.'
Even as they spoke, Raven opened the inventory and took out the rifle.
The 'Starflare-3R' rifle came free, its polished metal catching the faint light. He raised it, sight locking on Delilah's head.
'Three.' His shapeshift shimmered and peeled away, revealing his true face.
'Two.' Finger tightening on the trigger, he adjusted for the slight sway in her stance.
'One.'
Bang!
The rifle roared, fire elemental energy compressed into a bullet streaking forward faster than the eye could follow. It closed the gap in a blink, aimed square at the back of Delilah's skull—
But her bracelet pulsed in golden light, flaring into a transparent barrier.
The bullet slammed into the shield, the impact cracking it in spiderweb patterns. The building shuddered under the force, dust trickling from the ceiling.
For a breath, it looked like the shot might break through.
But the fire round dissipated into embers, its power spent.
Delilah stiffened, frozen by the shock of nearly dying. Even Nash and Ariel spun toward the source of the attack, eyes wide.
They weren't the only ones. Everyone turned their attention towards Raven and Jovie, and soon widened their eyes in shock.
A two-meter-tall figure loomed behind Jovie—a black-hooded skeleton, its long, bony fingers wrapped around a scythe. The air in the hall went cold. No… not just cold but heavy and suffocating.
It was the feeling of death itself.
'Zero'.
Raven suddenly disappeared and reappeared at the place where Delilah was. Delilah was yanked into his previous position in that same heartbeat, blinking in confusion.
She never figured out what happened.
At that moment, the scythe swept once, clean and smooth. Her head left her shoulders like a slice of tofu, rolling across the blood-slick floor.
Before Nash or Ariel could react, a jagged bolt of reddish lightning erupted from the center of Raven's forehead, streaking toward Nash.
The knight's Aether Armor flared, skin turning to iron, but the force still hurled him across the hall, smashing him into the far wall.
Raven didn't waste the moment. In a blur, he was beside Alden, hauling the bleeding Count upright.
"Humph," Ariel grunted, trying to steady his breathing. He raised his hand and snapped his fingers.
A thin ice needle suddenly manifested before him and flew at incredible speed towards Raven.
It arrived before him quickly and was about to pierce his forehead.
But Ariel frowned because there was no hint of panic on his face.
No, Raven wasn't even looking at him, but at the left side where Verya was battling Kael.
Suddenly, his figure and the count's figure turned blurry and were soon replaced by a familiar figure.
Vera suddenly noticed her surroundings had changed and realized she was standing before Wizard Ariel.
'W-' Before she could ask him what had happened, the thin needle entered her forehead and exploded.
Her whole head burst open while freezing the blood, brain matter, flesh, and bone in ice!
"F*CK!" Ariel couldn't help but curse.
At the same time, a sudden boom shook the building.
A skeletal wyvern burst into the hall, its jagged frame scraping the high ceiling, nearly tearing through the roof. The monster's jaws opened, unleashing a roar of blue flame that rippled across the air like liquid fire.
The Radiant Knights broke. Some bolted for the exits, others dove through shattered windows. There were even two of them that got swept by the blue flame and burned into ash.
Nash recovered just in time to see Raven, the Count, and even Kael vanish into a shadow portal that appeared out of nowhere.
Meanwhile, Jovie also disappeared as if she had never been there.
"What the hell happened? Who is he? Where did they go?" Nash barked, his voice still rough from the fight.
His eyes locked on the towering wyvern in the hall, its skeletal frame still smoking.
It took him half a heartbeat to recognize it—this was the same beast they had brought down two days ago.
His frown deepened.
Ariel's expression had gone stone-hard. Without another word, he extended his staff and cast a spell. Frost exploded from the floor, jagged chains of ice snaking up and locking around the undead wyvern's limbs. The monster thrashed, bony wings cracking against the walls.
"That swap spell is one of the Royal Bloodline spells," Ariel said, voice clipped. "So rare even among the Royal family members that only three people in all sixty-six princes and princesses can use this swap spell."
He didn't give Nash time to question. A blade of compressed wind screamed into existence and ripped clean through the wyvern's neck. The head tumbled, bone splinters scattering across the stone.
"The one who attacked us… is a Prince?" Nash's voice faltered. His face lost color. He knew the weight of what that meant—killing a Count was enough to ruin a family for generations. Crossing a Royal was worse. There were fates uglier than death.
"I think it's similar to the Bloodline spell, not the same," Ariel replied, already moving. "One of the three is dead. The second prince is in the capital for the Crown Ceremony—if it were him, we'd already be corpses."
"And the third?" Nash pressed, trailing him.
"The Emperor," Ariel said flatly. "So no—whoever saved the Count isn't Royal."
Before Nash could respond, a shriek split the air, followed by steel shattering outside. Screams—sharp, panicked—echoed through the dome. Ariel's head turned toward the exit.
"The parasite's finally out," he said, voice low but urgent, and strode for the doors.
Outside, the scene was a mess of chaos and blood. Radiant Knights were scattering, some trying to hold their ground, others breaking ranks and running. The air reeked of iron and burnt flesh.
Four shapes drew Ariel's attention immediately—
A red-skinned orc the size of a carriage, charging with an axe that looked like it had been forged to split mountains.
A silver-furred wolf with a single twisted horn, its movements so fast it seemed to run on air.
A three-headed viper, each maw spilling gouts of green acid that hissed against the stone.
And finally—an oily black worm the size of a small tree, its entire body studded with blinking, lidless eyes.
Unlike the other three, the worm appeared at the back and quietly observed the battle with countless eyes.
"All Rank-2 magical beasts," Ariel noted, calm in a way that made Nash's stomach turn. "Kill the worm, the rest die."
"Got it." Nash's spear came up, red aura licking along the blade.
As if they had instantly understood their intention, all four magical beasts charged.
The red orc barreled toward Nash, its legs pounding deep craters into the dirt before leaping—axe raised high. Simultaneously, the silver wolf vanished in a blur, reappearing behind Ariel in mid-strike. The viper came fast, its three heads weaving through the chaos, spraying acid in wide arcs.
Nash met the orc's strike like it was nothing—spear tip flashing, clashing against the axe. The weapon cracked, then shattered under the impact. The orc stumbled, but not a trace of panic or fear in its eyes.
But before Nash could deal damage by thrusting, the viper coiled around its ally, scales grinding like stone. The thrust glanced off, leaving nothing more than a shallow cut.
"Annoying," Nash muttered. His spear shifted, gold light flooding the shaft, sparks crawling like veins of fire along the tip.
A single, focused bolt of lightning punched through the snake's armored hide, tore through the orc's gut, and erupted out the other side in smoke and sizzling flesh. The two monsters shuddered once, then collapsed, their bodies twitching from the electric burn.
Behind him, Ariel had separated the silver wolf's head from its body in one clean stroke. Blood steamed on the frost-covered ground as he stepped toward the mind worm.