After they chatted briefly, Pieter wanted to bring Lux back to House Crownguard first, and Sona and the others could conveniently go along as well.
Fiora needed to return to House Laurent first, so Luke went to freeload a ride in the Laurent carriage.
The group split into two and set off in two different directions.
The carriage rocked and swayed as it moved forward. The person driving up front was Ammdar. Although he was Fiora's older brother and the eldest son of House Laurent, right now he was more like Fiora's assistant.
Inside the carriage, Fiora and Luke sat across from each other.
Miss Duelist kept her pretty face cold as she lifted the curtain and looked at the scenery outside, clearly having no intention of speaking with Luke.
This made the atmosphere inside the carriage a little awkward. Looking at her cold and pretty face, Luke deeply understood that at times like this, a man had to be a little shameless. So he stood up directly, preparing to sit beside her.
Who knew that the moment he stood, the carriage jolted, and his head slammed straight into the ceiling. He sucked in a sharp breath from the pain.
He clutched his head, his expression twisting together.
With that, Fiora immediately could not quite hold it in anymore. The corner of her mouth lifted lightly, and that smile instantly broke her composure. Seeing that she could no longer keep acting cold, she lowered the curtain, turned her head, and looked at Luke. "Does it hurt?"
"A little."
Luke naturally sat down beside her. The two were extremely close, close enough to smell each other.
Fiora's cool eyes swept over him, and she sneered. "Serves you right."
There was enough space in the carriage for many people, yet he insisted on squeezing over. Even so, she did not move away. In fact, she even shifted a little closer.
Luke knew what she was still angry about, so he took the initiative to explain, "I didn't reply to your letters because I wanted to come to High Silvermere and give you a surprise."
Fiora sneered faintly. "For the sake of this surprise, I waited over ten days for your reply."
Hearing this, Luke smiled. "Who knew you missed me this much, ah!"
Before he could finish speaking, he suddenly felt the flesh near his upper thigh get pinched hard. Fiora's expression remained calm from beginning to end.
And she clearly had no intention of letting go.
"Stop pinching. If you break it, you're the one who loses out later!"
Luke kept sucking in cold breaths from the pain.
After he said that, Fiora did indeed let go.
Luke finally breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly, he wanted to sit a little farther away. But just as he moved, he saw Miss Duelist's eyes look over from beside him. Those cool eyes still held a longing that could not quite be hidden.
She grabbed Luke by the collar, tilted her head up slightly, and her red, vivid lips came close.
Their lips met, and all words seemed to melt into that kiss.
She had never been someone who hid her feelings.
Although it was a little embarrassing that this bastard had guessed right, missing him was missing him. And when she had suddenly looked up and seen him earlier, the joy she felt had not been fake either.
After a long kiss, the two finally separated, and a glistening thread stretched between them.
Fiora licked her moist red lips. Her breathing had sped up a little, and there were several traces of rosy color on her face. Set against her usual cool demeanor, she looked especially beautiful right now.
Her eyes also trembled and shimmered faintly, their light captivating.
The ambiguous atmosphere inside the carriage rose another level.
However, Fiora still restrained her impulse. She raised her eyes to look at Luke and said coldly, "I'll forgive you this time. If you dare prepare this kind of low-quality surprise again next time, I won't let you off lightly."
For some reason, as Luke looked at Miss Duelist in front of him, he suddenly felt that she was somewhat cute.
Normally, her image should have had nothing to do with the word cute.
He nodded with a smile at the corner of his mouth, then reached out and held Fiora's hand. She did not struggle either, letting him hold it in his.
Not long after the duel at the Sword Hall ended, the result of the battle had already spread throughout High Silvermere.
For a time, it stirred discussion across the entire city. Almost everywhere, from streets to alleys, people were talking about it.
As for the name Fiora Laurent, people were no longer unfamiliar with it.
The discussions about her now were mostly about when she would be able to take first place on the sword rankings. Judging by Fiora's current performance in High Silvermere, people felt this was only a matter of time.
On this point, she herself was also full of confidence.
If it were not for the fact that every duel among the top ten on the rankings required much more preparation time than usual, Fiora could even challenge two people in a single day.
Luke visited House Laurent in High Silvermere for a while. Along the way, the Laurent clan members all looked at Fiora with gazes filled with respect.
Her current status in House Laurent could be said to be second only to a few older elders. After what happened in the capital, those elders had also intentionally stepped back and no longer planned to interfere with family affairs.
In other words, Fiora was now basically equivalent to the acting head of House Laurent's High Silvermere branch.
House Laurent in High Silvermere did indeed look more like a true swordsmanship family. It was several times larger than the branch in the capital. Some time ago, under Fiora's intentional recruitment, clan members, relatives, and distant kin from all directions had already gathered here.
The former House Laurent had been immersed in past glory and did not maintain very close contact with distant relatives from those places. Some of those distant relatives did not even possess noble status.
But looking at it now, the main clan had not produced many talented people. Instead, talent was emerging one after another among the distant relatives.
After Fiora took power, the first thing she did was eliminate the hierarchy inside the family. She wanted to create a true, pure swordsmanship family, and the first thing she had to solve was inequality of status.
As long as status was unequal, discrimination would always exist.
Therefore, she treated everyone equally and opened the family's gates, gathering all the brothers and sisters among the distant relatives. In addition, she granted noble status to everyone under the family name. Her requirement was that every Laurent clan member had to unite as one and devote themselves to pursuing the finest swordsmanship.
Now, after a period of change, the rotten old habits of House Laurent already showed faint signs of being removed.
To achieve true change would still require some time.
But Fiora believed that she would definitely succeed.
Luke sat in the backyard, listening to Miss Duelist talk about her grand ideals and ambitions, watching her bright eyes and the confident smile curving at the corners of her lips.
A light breeze gently stirred the ends of her hair. Luke only felt that at this moment, she seemed as dazzling and brilliant as a diamond.
After staying at House Laurent for a while, the two set off for House Crownguard to meet up with Lux and the others.
It had just reached noon, so if they went over now, they could conveniently freeload lunch.
Their timing today was also perfect. In the afternoon, they could still catch a Dragonbird Festival.
High Silvermere was known as the City of Dragonbirds. Many dragonbirds nested here, and the base of the Dragonbird Riders was also located here.
The Dragonbird Festival was an event for viewing dragonbirds and the Dragonbird Riders. The festival was not a holiday, and similar festivals were held several times every year.
This time, Luke and the others happened to catch one.
So in the afternoon, under Miss Crownguard's urgent urging, the group headed out onto the streets and made their way toward the festival.
There was still some time before the festival truly began, but the atmosphere on the streets had already built up. People came and went everywhere, and the place was quite lively and bustling.
Around the streets near the festival plaza, all sorts of stalls had already been set up, including some little entertainment booths.
There was nothing especially surprising about these, since the streets in the capital had them too.
Luke and the others played, browsed, and walked toward the festival plaza, waiting for the festival to begin.
Miss Crownguard, who had just eaten three candy apples that morning, now held another three in her hands and swaggered down the street, giving people the feeling of a local boss returning to her village.
Along the way, she also drew sidelong looks from passersby. After seeing that it was Lux, their memories immediately became clear.
Many people still remembered that many years ago, High Silvermere had had a little blonde girl who was extremely eye-catching.
Anyone who had seen her found it very hard to forget her.
At three in the afternoon, Dragonbird Plaza, dense with people, was already almost completely surrounded. At the two ends of the plaza stood two enormous dragonbird statues.
Boom, boom, boom!
Suddenly, several ceremonial cannons shot into the sky, signaling the start of the festival.
Amid the cannon blasts, dragonbird cries rang out in response. A row of dark silhouettes descended from the sky. They were clearly dragonbirds with wings spread wide, flying in neat formation over the people's heads.
The lively atmosphere instantly boiled over. The Dragonbird Festival had begun.
Luke and the others sat in audience seats with a good view, watching the festival and immersing themselves in the lively atmosphere.
Beneath the blue sky, dragonbirds danced and soared.
The festival continued until evening. Sitting in the carriage back home, Lux clearly had not yet recovered from the atmosphere of the festival. Her little face was still excited.
"I haven't watched the Dragonbird Festival in so many years. It's still as lively as ever."
Hearing her words, everyone present nodded slightly.
The Dragonbird Festival was indeed somewhat livelier than the festivals in the capital.
Even Katarina, when she looked up and saw those silverwing dragonbirds spreading their wings and soaring overhead, when everyone's cheers echoed beside her ears along with the ceremonial cannons rising into the sky, her heart could not help immersing itself in that atmosphere as well.
The group chatted about the Dragonbird Festival just now as they slowly returned home.
When they returned to House Crownguard, the sky had already darkened, and they freeloaded another dinner there.
Because they still had to go to Fossbarrow, the group could stay in High Silvermere for only one day at most. After tonight, they would have to continue setting off.
Late at night.
In Fossbarrow.
This small town was located among jagged mountains. The terrain was steep, and at the other end of town, beyond rugged ravines and cliffs covered in broken stones,
a dark figure quietly arrived.
The figure seemed to merge with the night itself, but her enchanting body could still faintly be made out. Several demonic tail whips swayed behind her.
She landed on the ground, her form fully revealing itself. Looking at a low grave mound not far ahead, her seductive eyes flickered, and she muttered to herself, "You've been sleeping for this long and still haven't woken up. It seems that human really did injure you badly."
She strolled forward and arrived before the grave mound. Then she raised her hand, and a wave of demonic power gathered in it. Dark aura coiled around it, gradually turning into a teardrop-shaped mass of black energy.
"You've slept long enough. It's time to get up and move around."
As her words fell, the black teardrop left her hand and dropped downward. Then it sank entirely into the grave mound and vanished without a sound.
She was in no hurry. Her eyes remained on the grave mound as she waited quietly.
After a few minutes, a strange wind suddenly blew past. The grave mound finally moved, as if it were a boiling spring. A burst of black energy abruptly emerged from it.
Seeing this, a satisfied smile appeared on her face. "Have fun. If you're happy, I can be happy too."
After that low murmur, a trace of coldness flashed through her eyes.
Being hunted down to this point by prey she had once regarded as food, ending up in such an embarrassing state, was simply an enormous humiliation to her.
And yet, right now, she just so happened to have no way to deal with it.
However, while passing by here by chance, she had thought of something.
Back when she had been amusing herself in this country called Demacia, she had known that on this land, there existed a demon of equal rank to herself.
The other side should also have known of her. Between the two demons, there had been a wordless tacit understanding. Each occupied their own region and never interfered with the other.
Later, she heard that the demon in the north had been destroyed by humans, and she had mocked him for a while.
A mighty demon had actually been reduced to such a state by humans. It truly was laughable.
But unexpectedly, her current situation was not much better than his.
Not only had part of her power been taken away, her name and whereabouts had also fallen into human hands. She was being hunted all the way and could not find a suitable opportunity to recover her strength.
But if one demon was not enough, then surely two demons would be.
At that thought, her form once again merged into the darkness and disappeared.
Not long after she left, the dark aura above the grave mound began to surge even more violently, as if something terrifying were awakening from slumber.
Black energy coiled around it, constantly rising into the sky before gathering together. Like a pair of demonic eyes, it gradually shrouded the skies above Fossbarrow.
The next day.
Early in the morning, Luke said goodbye to Fiora, who was refusing to get out of bed, and went to House Crownguard to meet up with Lux and the others.
Before leaving, the corner of his mouth still carried a smug smile. He looked to be in an especially good mood.
Although his steps were unsteady and he looked weak and drained, when he thought of last night's battle, the smile at the corner of his mouth became increasingly bright.
Vitality Pills really were good things.
Once the buff was active, he was practically divinely assisted. A match that had originally been at a disadvantage immediately became evenly matched.
Although in the end, both sides had ended up suffering mutual defeat, Luke believed that this would be the first step in his rise.
By the time he arrived at House Crownguard, Lux and the others had only just gotten up.
There were not many empty rooms in House Crownguard, which had conveniently given Luke a reason to spend the night at House Laurent.
While waiting, Luke practiced Vitality Arts in the courtyard.
After breakfast, the group packed simply and prepared to continue setting off.
High Silvermere was not far from Fossbarrow. At most, it would take a little more than a day to arrive.
After leaving High Silvermere, Luke raised his head and looked at the gloomy sky. Clouds stretched one after another, and he could not help frowning slightly.
The weather did not look good. In fact, it looked like it was going to rain.
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