"Bloodthirsty spectators of the Blazing Sun arena!"
The orc announcer stood high on the commentary platform, roaring with all the strength in his body.
His rough voice crashed out like thunder, echoing across the entire coliseum!
"Let us cheer for the two champions of the Blazing Sun Tournament! Let us give them our applause!"
The announcer's voice carried through the magical amplification device, reaching every corner of the arena, every syllable ringing out clearly.
In the stands, thousands of spectators shouted as one, and a tidal wave of cheers erupted at once.
The entire coliseum shook under the force of that sound.
The wave of noise felt almost physical, pounding against everyone's eardrums.
Up in the gladiator gallery, Orum did not join in the celebration.
His expression was complicated.
Orum frowned slightly, his slender fingers tapping lightly against the armrest as he sank into thought.
"Well, looks like someone else has stolen the spotlight..."
Orum murmured under his breath, a trace of frustration in his tone.
He had expected Orum himself... no, he had expected to be the sole focus of the day.
But things clearly hadn't gone that way.
This left him rather displeased.
There was nothing to be done about it, though.
His opponent's strength had simply been too overwhelming.
Orum's gaze swept over the crowd and landed on the lavish, temporary awards platform set up below the stands.
The platform was built of fine marble, decorated all around with vivid banners and garlands, gleaming brilliantly under the golden sunlight.
Orum stood at the center of the platform, the flame-steel glaive wrapped in thick purple cloth slung across his back.
The afternoon sun was viciously hot.
Golden light poured down like flame, scorching everything on the ground below.
Orum stood beneath that blazing sun, his black combat gear soaked through with sweat.
It clung tightly to his body.
But his expression remained calm as still water, and he stood without moving a muscle.
Waves of cheers and applause rolled in from every direction, surrounding him like a rising tide.
Yet at this moment, only a small portion of that cheering was actually meant for Orum.
The vast majority of it was directed at the person standing beside him.
That was the champion standing on the other side of the platform, the winner of the professional division of the Blazing Sun Tournament.
Orum turned his head slightly, his gaze falling on the champion standing shoulder to shoulder with him.
To Orum's surprise, this professional-division champion turned out to be someone he recognized.
Alexander, the handsome brown haired paladin who followed Ammanata.
Once, on a night of the full moon, Orum and the Ice Hawks Company had crossed paths with this paladin outside a wilderness cave near Ronald City. They had shared a brief encounter.
It had been a short meeting.
But Alexander's humble, gentle bearing had left a deep impression on Orum.
On Alexander's chest still hung that signature golden sun emblem.
Under the midday sun, the emblem shone like a small sun of its own.
Compared to their meeting under the full moon, Alexander today seemed even more spirited and full of vigor.
Like a divine sword freshly drawn from its sheath, its edge gleaming under the blazing sun.
For a paladin of Ammanata, a sky ablaze with sunlight was truly a great boost to one's confidence.
For the final of the Blazing Sun Tournament, Alexander had put on an even finer suit of full plate armor with excellent defensive properties.
It was a set of bright silver, precision forged steel armor, reinforced with costly mithril during its forging to increase its strength.
Alexander was tall and imposing, and the bearing of a paladin who had upheld his oath for years had settled into his every movement.
Even standing perfectly still, he radiated a natural dignity and charisma.
Among the spectators, nearly every woman present found herself drawn to this handsome paladin clad in gleaming silver armor.
Even more eye catching, Alexander held two pieces of equipment in his hands that radiated intense holy light.
Even under the fierce glare of the midday sun, the two items shone brilliantly.
That light was not a reflection of sunlight; it was divine power radiating from the items themselves.
Orum could sense the powerful holy magical fluctuations emanating from those two pieces of equipment.
That fluctuation made even the air tremble faintly.
In his left hand, Alexander held a round shield, thick and solid, roughly sixty centimeters in diameter, glowing with golden holy light.
On its face, the sun emblem seemed to be truly burning, golden flames flickering across its surface as if the emblem were alive.
In his right hand, Alexander held a one handed longsword. Its finely forged steel blade was etched with hundreds of shining lines of holy script.
Under the blazing sun, the steel longsword gave off such an intense glow that it seemed almost brighter than the sun in the sky.
The two pieces of equipment Alexander carried were both extraordinarily expensive magical weapons!
Back in Blackwater Town, Felix had only rented Orum a magical weapon to hunt a bullhead troll, rather than buying one outright!
And yet here was Alexander, holding two magical weapons at once, simply to compete in the Blazing Sun Tournament!
Orum guessed that Alexander must have the backing of the Church, to be so extravagantly wealthy.
Still, such fine equipment was only one reason Alexander had been able to claim the championship.
Orum understood well that equipment, however important, was never the sole deciding factor in victory.
What had truly let Alexander sweep through the competition and dominate the field was his refined combat technique and formidable class abilities.
After his own match had ended, Orum had taken the time to watch part of Alexander's fight as well.
The result was that this professional division final had been an eye opening experience for Orum.
Having watched it, Orum came away with a profoundly deep impression of the paladin class.
It was a class that came remarkably close to perfection.
Balanced in offense and defense, and possessing healing ability besides. Among melee classes, it had almost no weaknesses.
Depending on the oath a paladin swore, each paladin followed a different subclass path.
Each oath represented a different ideology and a different source of power.
And it determined which special abilities a paladin could gain.
Paladin oaths came in four kinds.
The Oath of the Ancients, which pursued wisdom and knowledge; the Oath of Devotion, which meant sacrificing oneself to protect others.
The Oath of Vengeance, which punished evil and sought retribution; and the Oath of the Crown, which upheld law and order.
As a paladin devoted to Ammanata, god of law and the sun, Alexander had sworn the Oath of the Crown.
An oath to uphold law and order, one that aligned perfectly with his faith.
A paladin who swore the Oath of the Crown was bound to uphold the following tenets:
Law. Uphold civilization and order.
Loyalty. Your word is your bond. Without loyalty, oath and law mean nothing.
Responsibility. Answer for the consequences of your actions and fulfill your duties and obligations.
On the surface, being a paladin sounded like a solemn, dignified vocation, filled with sanctity and purpose.
Orum had originally assumed a paladin's way of fighting would be equally stately and solemn.
Perhaps some kind of ritual prayer beforehand.
Then combat carried out with holy, graceful bearing.
But the actual fight Orum witnessed was nothing like that at all.
Alexander's fighting style could be summed up in one word.
Violence.
Though his whole body radiated a blinding holy light (Orum suspected this was itself part of his tactics), as if he wore a divine cloak, at its core Alexander's fighting was simply about using his own overwhelming offensive and defensive power to crush his opponents like a tidal wave.
The moment Alexander entered the arena, Orum saw him step back and swiftly cast two buff spells on himself.
The motions were so practiced it was as if he drilled the same combination every single day.
No wasted movement, no hesitation whatsoever.
As precise as a machine executing a program.
Paladin, Oath of the Crown class action: Clarity of Justice!
First circle enchantment spell: Heroism!
The skill "Clarity of Justice" granted Alexander a greater damage bonus and increased accuracy, making every strike of his more lethal.
And the spell "Heroism" granted him extra healing effects every moment of the fight, continuously restoring his vitality.
Unless he suffered catastrophic damage in a short span of time, he could remain at peak condition indefinitely.
Protected by his full plate armor, boosted further by his two magical items, and stacking two layers of high potency buffs on top of that, Alexander's performance in the match could only be described as cutting through his opponents like they were nothing.
Beyond that, what truly astonished Orum was that Alexander could also unleash one of the paladin's signature abilities.
The Sacred Slash!
At the center of the battlefield, Alexander raised his holy longsword high and chanted a sacred incantation!
Orum watched golden holy light pour down from the sky as if the sun itself had descended, gathering upon the surface of the holy sword in Alexander's hand, before crashing down onto Raygore's armor!
The holy light of the Sacred Slash struck like divine punishment, piercing straight through the heavy armor, ignoring physical defenses entirely and delivering devastating harm directly to the flesh.
Even a warrior as tough and thick skinned as Raygore suffered greatly under the burning holy light of the Sacred Slash: his flesh and blood boiled and roiled, his skin splitting open all over his body!
A single strike was enough to leave this powerful orc warrior grievously wounded.
Though he could still recover somewhat through his second wind, in the ensuing chaos of the melee, he was regrettably eliminated.
After the other seven competitors had been eliminated one by one in the chaotic battle, Alexander found himself alone against a man eating python thick as a water vat.
Under the eager gaze of the crowd, Alexander unleashed another simple, brutal Sacred Slash, severing the serpent's head clean off in a spray of blood.
The blinding light of the Sacred Slash burst like an exploding sun, lighting the entire coliseum bright as day.
The glare of the Sacred Slash was nearly enough to blind the spectators.
Such a dazzling display instantly won Alexander countless fervent new admirers.
"My god! What kind of power is that?"
"Holy light! That's the legendary holy light!"
"That's incredible! It's like a divine miracle!"
The stands erupted into unprecedented, frenzied shouting.
"So cool!"
"Long live the holy light!"
Because of this, Orum, who had originally drawn so much attention, suddenly found his popularity cut in half.
All the spotlight was stolen away by this blindingly flashy paladin, Alexander, glittering from head to toe.
The audience's attention was almost entirely fixed on Alexander now, with only a handful of people still paying attention to Orum.
After all, though Orum's fights had been clean and efficient, they simply couldn't compete visually with holy light special effects.
One was a plain, unadorned one hit kill; the other was a dazzling, spectacular display of divine judgment.
To the average spectator, the latter was clearly far more entertaining and awe inspiring, while also satisfying the common people's longing for a glimpse of the miraculous.
What's more, Alexander had defeated multiple opponents consecutively in both the qualifiers and the final, giving him a far more impressive record compared to Orum, who had only beaten Joseph and Anton.
Still, Orum couldn't care less about any of this.
Popularity couldn't feed you, nor could it strengthen you.
Less attention, if anything, was a good thing.
Thinking this, Orum narrowed his eyes and glanced sideways at Alexander.
Besides, Alexander ought to count himself lucky that he hadn't ended up as Orum's opponent.
Otherwise, Orum might have used the highly corrosive monster fluid he'd obtained from the ooze to simply dissolve both of his magical weapons on the spot.
He wondered whether this paladin would break down in tears on the spot.
Amid a deafening roar of cannon fire, the awards ceremony officially began.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
Three cannon blasts fired in succession, bursting into brilliant, colorful fireworks in the sky.
The fireworks bloomed across the blue sky in a riot of color, like blossoming flowers.
At the same time, the orchestra at the side of the coliseum struck up a rousing new movement.
The fierce drumbeat pounded like a heartbeat, and the whole piece brimmed with the joy of victory and the glow of glory.
To the swelling music, a dozen or so scantily clad dancers emerged from the entrance.
Every one of these dancers had healthy, sun kissed skin and alluring curves, drawing every eye in the arena.
Each dancer wore a bright, youthful smile, carrying colorful bouquets of flowers in her hands.
The stands erupted into even louder cheers and a chorus of whistles.
"Over here! Look over here!"
"Beautiful ladies! I love you!"
The dancers moved with graceful steps, tossing flowers to the crowd as they walked toward the platform.
Petals of every color drifted down like colored rain, glinting brightly under the sunlight.
The dancers approached Orum and Alexander, taking out carefully woven garlands to bestow upon the two champions as a symbol of glory.
The one who presented Alexander's garland was a blonde, blue eyed half elf dancer.
Her movements were graceful and poised, her face wearing a practiced, sweet smile.
The one who presented Orum's garland, however, was a barbarian girl clad in animal hide skirts, full of a wild, untamed beauty.
She looked somewhat nervous, her cheeks tinged faintly red.
The girl rose on her tiptoes, carefully placing the garland atop Orum's head.
Once the garland was in place, the girl stepped back, blushing, and gave Orum a shy smile.
On the other side, Alexander lifted his head high, accepting the garland placed on him by the half elf dancer.
His face beamed with a confident, proud smile, basking in this moment of glory under everyone's gaze.
The cheers in the stands rose to a new peak once more, the entire coliseum shaking beneath the wave of sound.
"Champion! Champion! Champion!"
Just as the dancers stepped aside, two more figures approached from the other side of the coliseum.
They were two burly men, muscles knotted, arms thick and powerful.
They wore metal masks covering half their faces, giving off an air of stern mystery.
They were dressed in standard gladiator garb: leather chest guards and greaves.
Their exposed bronze skin was crisscrossed with countless scars.
Each of the two gladiators carried a treasure chest, one large and one small.
They walked with steady steps across the golden sand of the arena, approaching Orum and Alexander.
Under the expectant gaze of the crowd, the two gladiators came before the champions and set the chests down heavily on the ground, producing a dull thud.
The spectators' eyes were all fixed on these two chests.
Waiting eagerly for the reward to be revealed.
The entire coliseum fell into a brief silence.
Then, the two burly men exchanged a glance and let out a shout together, as if summoning all their strength.
"Hah!"
The sound rang out thunderously, echoing across the whole coliseum.
Under the expectant gaze of the crowd, they flung open the lids of the two chests at once!
There was a rush of clinking sound.
Inside the chests, packed full, gleamed piles of golden coins!
Like a chest of fine gold bricks, dazzling under the sunlight, enough to make anyone's eyes swim.
The smaller chest held well over a thousand gold coins.
The larger one was even more astonishing.
At least two thousand coins, piled up like a small mountain.
This was the hefty prize for winning the Blazing Sun Tournament.
To an ordinary person, this was an unimaginable fortune.
Enough to cover ten years of living expenses for an average family.
The stands immediately erupted with envious gasps and exclamations of admiration.
Everyone's eyes were drawn to the glittering coins.
"My god! Look at all that gold!"
"Now that's a fortune!"
"I want to enter the gladiator tournament too!"
Amid the rising clamor of cheers and applause.
Morgan Silverhand, lord of Roen City, rose from his seat and approached the railing of the VIP gallery.
Behind him, soldiers clad in matching silver armor stood in tight formation, holding long halberds.
Arranged in a neat line, imposing and dignified.
At this moment, Lord Morgan's expression was stern and cold.
His deep set eyes, sharp as a hawk's, swept swiftly across the entire coliseum.
Then he cleared his throat and began his speech: "Honored citizens, and honored guests who have traveled from afar..."
"...today's Blazing Sun Tournament has once again shown the world the prosperity and might of our Roen City..."
His voice, amplified by the magical device, carried through the whole coliseum.
Every word rang out clear, full of authority and power.
The content of the lord's speech was nothing but the usual official platitudes.
Thanking everyone for their support, praising the two champions' valor.
Blessing Roen City with prosperity, and extolling the rule of the Silverhand family.
Along with fine hopes for the future.
Orum stood quietly in place, listening to the lord's speech.
Outwardly composed, but his mind was elsewhere.
These official pleasantries were utterly boring.
Orum's thoughts began to drift.
Where should he go with Felix and the others to celebrate afterward?
What local specialties did Roen City have?
With a thousand gold coins in prize money, even the fanciest restaurant, he could order without even glancing at the prices.
Orum's mind wandered idly over such things.
Besides, the monster organ scale he'd obtained from killing the python still hadn't been fused.
And there was that new title he'd earned.
He needed to look into it properly.
Just as Orum was thinking about all this...
A strange feeling suddenly surged up within him.
An indescribable sense of danger.
As if something terrible was about to happen.
The brand on his shoulder blade began to burn.
Orum froze abruptly.
That was the mark representing Bonshaba, Goddess of Misfortune, and it was giving off a faint heat.
A restless surge of excitement welled up from somewhere deep inside him.
That feeling seemed almost to be anticipating some grand, chaotic feast!
This was the first time Orum had ever encountered such a thing.
Why would the Goddess of Misfortune's brand suddenly start burning?
What exactly was this premonition foretelling?!
Orum lifted his head, scanning his surroundings warily, then swiftly turned his gaze toward the VIP gallery.
His pupils contracted slightly.
Amid that gilded, magnificent noble gallery, Orum caught the faint trace of something eerie.
The feeling was subtle.
Like ripples suddenly appearing across the surface of a calm lake.
Barely noticeable, but undeniably there.
Orum's eyes swept carefully across the noble seating.
Searching for the source of the anomaly.
Suddenly, his gaze locked onto a figure.
A slender, graceful woman dressed as a maidservant.
She was carrying an elegant porcelain tray, upon which sat an ornately patterned teapot and teacups.
The maid had an alluring figure, her curves fully displayed by her tight fitting uniform.
More than a few nobles had their eyes drawn to her.
Those lecherous nobles' gazes followed her every move, like hungry hunters eyeing their prey.
But just as the maid approached Lord Morgan, just as she was about to pass behind the silver haired old man, she suddenly moved!
Without the slightest warning.
Her hand shot out from beneath the porcelain tray.
A slender dagger, gleaming with cold light, appeared in her grip!
The blade was thin and razor sharp, reflecting a blinding glint under the sunlight.
The steel carried a faint bluish sheen, clearly coated in some potent poison!
Before anyone could react, in that split second, the maid lunged, driving the dagger straight toward Morgan Silverhand's unprotected back of the head!
At the very same moment, chaos erupted among the spectators near the noble gallery!
A number of onlookers who had been quietly watching in wide sun cloaks suddenly leapt to their feet!
They pulled out hand crossbows they had hidden beneath their bulky cloaks, already prepared.
Their movements were perfectly synchronized, clearly the result of training!
The crossbow strings were drawn taut, bolts already loaded, ready to fire at any moment!
These assassins, disguised as spectators, aimed their crossbows directly at Lord Morgan!
"Thwip, thwip, thwip!"
Dozens of bolts fired almost simultaneously, streaking toward the black robed Morgan!
In an instant, death descended from above.
A thick killing intent slammed against everyone like something physical!
The entire noble gallery descended into chaos.
Terrified screams rang out one after another!
"Ahh!"
"Assassins! There are assassins!"
"Protect the Lord!"
The noble gallery erupted into pandemonium.
Orum watched as dozens of crossbow bolts hurtled toward their target.
And that lethal dagger was about to plunge into the back of Lord Morgan's head.
But at that critical instant, a figure beside Lord Morgan suddenly exploded into motion!
That figure moved like lightning.
Without warning of any kind.
Like a beast coiled and ready, bursting into astonishing speed the instant it sensed the threat.
The entire sequence took less than half a second.
It was a knight clad head to toe in fine steel plate armor, his reaction speed almost unbelievably fast!
The knight's build was tall and imposing, his armor a deep grey from head to toe.
Every plate was finely polished, its thickness reaching a terrifying four fingers wide.
Armor of this weight would have exceeded a hundred and twenty kilograms.
And yet his movements showed no sign of being hindered by it at all.
Instead, he displayed astonishing agility, utterly at odds with the weight of the heavy armor he wore.
The knight reached out abruptly, his thick arm clamping down like an iron vise, precisely seizing the wrist of the maid mid strike!
The muscles of his arm bulged, veins standing out.
The sheer force of it was staggering!
Just from the grip alone, a bone crunching sound tore through the air, sharp enough to set teeth on edge!
"Crack!"
The maid's face went instantly pale.
She could feel her own wrist bones groaning under that terrifying grip, unable to withstand the pressure.
The knight before her was Lawrence, Lord Morgan's personal bodyguard captain, a truly powerful knight of Platinum rank!
Platinum rank professionals were also known as the "Kingdom's Paragons." Across the entire kingdom, there were fewer than fifty of them in total!
Each one stood at the very pinnacle of their field.
Lawrence was sixty years old this year, but his rich experience meant he still maintained peak combat prowess.
For a Platinum rank professional, age was not much of a limitation.
Their physical constitution far exceeded that of ordinary people.
Their lifespans, too, ran much longer than the average person's. Only past the age of a hundred would their bodies begin to show signs of aging.
"Crunch!"
Having effortlessly intercepted the maid's attack, Lawrence squeezed hard, crushing the maid's slender wrist entirely!
Through the slits in Lawrence's helmet, his gaze was projected cold and merciless.
As if he were merely snapping a dry twig.
The maid's wrist was completely deformed under his grip.
White shards of bone protruded through the torn skin, blood spilling down her wrist in a bright red stream.
The dagger clattered to the ground, its threat neutralized.
Immediately after, Lawrence threw a merciless punch, slamming it squarely into the maid's sternum!
As his fist tore through the air, it let out a sharp, whistling shriek.
"Crack, crack, crack!"
A series of teeth grating bone cracking sounds rang out one after another as the maid's sternum shattered completely under the blow!
Her feet lifted off the ground instantly, her body suspended in midair, her entire chest caving in deeply from the impact!
Her internal organs shifted violently under the tremendous force!
"Splutch!"
Blood and shredded fragments of internal organs poured from the maid's mouth, a mixture of dark red fluid splattering across the ground, the scene extraordinarily bloody and gruesome.
Lawrence gave her no chance to recover, driving another punch straight down onto the crown of her head!
This was the finishing blow.
A Platinum rank knight's strike delivered without restraint, more than enough to end a life in an instant.
The maid's head slammed downward as if struck by a cannonball!
A dull, crushing sound rang out.
The collision between her skull and the marble floor produced a bone chilling noise.
"Thud!"
Blood burst out like an exploding flower, blooming instantly across the ground.
Blood sprayed and splattered, staining the faces and lavish clothing of the terrified nobles standing nearby!
The warm blood carried with it a thick, coppery stench.
"By the Saints! Murder!"
The nobles screamed in even greater terror.
They had never before witnessed such a bloody, brutal scene at such close range.
Those pampered, privileged nobles now scattered in every direction like startled chickens.
By this point, several nobles had already been struck by crossbow bolts, collapsing into pools of blood, letting out shrieking wails like pigs being slaughtered!
Though the assassins' bolts had failed to strike their primary target, they had still caused no small amount of casualties.
A young noble scion had been struck in the shoulder by a bolt.
He writhed on the ground in agony, letting out heart wrenching screams.
Another middle aged noble fared even worse, a bolt piercing straight through his thigh.
Blood gushed out in a steady stream.
They rolled about on the ground in a desperate frenzy, trying to lessen the agonizing pain from the bolts, but the poison coating them had already begun to take effect.
The symptoms of poisoning quickly became apparent.
Both men's faces began to turn blue.
Their breathing grew rapid and labored, foam forming at their mouths, their bodies convulsing uncontrollably!
A deadly toxin was rapidly spreading through their veins!
Yet in the face of the bolts streaking toward him, Morgan Silverhand's expression remained utterly unchanged, not even a flicker of a frown.
His expression stayed as cold and stern as iron.
Lord Morgan raised his right arm and snatched abruptly at the incoming bolts.
His movement was astonishingly fast, precise beyond belief!
One bolt was caught firmly in the palm of his hand!
His powerful fingers closed steadily around the bolt's shaft.
That bolt, which should have been lethal, felt like nothing more than a toy in his grip.
At that moment, Morgan Silverhand's face had gone livid, fury blazing in his eyes. He had clearly been enraged to the extreme by this assassination attempt.
He gave a cold snort, his voice carrying a heavy, oppressive weight. "You dare."
Then, he flung the bolt he'd caught back in the direction it had come from, with a sharp backhand throw!
The bolt tore free from his grip, splitting the air, transforming into a streak of black lightning, flying back several times faster than it had originally come!
"Splurch!"
The horrific sound of flesh being torn apart rang out clearly.
The bolt struck true, driving straight through the chest of one of the grey cloaked assassins!
It punched through the assassin's body as easily as tearing through paper.
Entering through the chest, exiting through the back.
"Aaaargh!"
The assassin let out a shrill, agonized scream, his heavy cloak falling away from his body, revealing his true form beneath the black fabric.
He turned out to be a Tiefling!
A being with skin as red as blood, and the pair of forbidden, demonic horns that marked his kind!
This race had long been explicitly banned by Roen City's laws, and every last one of them had been expelled from the city!
Over this past year, the Silverhand family had taken an extremely harsh stance against Tieflings.
A few months ago, Morgan Silverhand had issued a decree expelling every Tiefling within the city.
Since then, Tieflings had been forbidden from setting foot on Roen City soil.
And now, here was a Tiefling bold enough to sneak into the city to assassinate its lord!
The Tiefling assassin collapsed to the ground, the bolt lodged in his chest, blood gushing out in torrents from the wound.
The blood spread rapidly across the stone steps, forming a horrifying pool.
In the Tiefling assassin's eyes, traces of unwillingness and fury still lingered, his golden slitted pupils gradually losing their light, dimming quickly into nothing.
With this comrade's death, the other assassins still cloaked in black continued their assault with reckless abandon!
These assassins completely disregarded their fallen companion's death, as if they had long since resigned themselves to die.
They drew gleaming twin blades from beneath their cloaks and charged toward the VIP gallery like a flock of black crows!
"Kill!" the assassins roared, their eyes burning with a fevered, twisted light!
The roar sounded like the howl of wild beasts, brimming with bloodlust.
Orum could tell at once that these were no ordinary assassins.
This was a group of thoroughly brainwashed fanatics, ready to die for their cause!
In an instant, several nobles who failed to react in time were cut down by the assassins' twin blades, tumbling into pools of blood!
A middle aged noble in an ornate silk robe was the first to fall.
Before he could even react, the sharp twin blades had already slashed across his throat.
"Aaaahh!" A shrill scream rang out.
The noble's throat was sliced deeply open, blood gushing out like a bursting dam!
Blood sprayed out like a fountain, splattering across the floor of the VIP gallery!