Chapter 12: Saving People
On this desolate road, Finnley royal family’s second prince, ‘Shack’, was cursing the magical beasts when Linley silently removed the ‘spatial ring’ from his finger and tucked it into the inner pocket of his coat.
“The Finnley royal family split into several groups to leave, and they must have agreed on a final meeting place.”
Linley had been worrying about how to find Clayde, and now heaven had delivered Shack and his group right to him. How could Linley not be overjoyed? Moreover, Linley had a guess—when he had tried to kill Clayde and was captured by the Radiant Church, the Church had initially wanted to recruit him. So it was highly likely that the Radiant Church had imposed a gag order on Clayde.
“This Shack probably doesn’t know that the demon who tried to kill his father that day was me.”
Linley thought this to himself as he walked toward Shack.
Linley also made another decision: “If this Shack knows I tried to kill his father, then none of these people can be left alive!” To ordinary magical beasts, Shack’s group might seem formidable. But to Linley and Bebe, this pair of monsters, they were nothing.
“Second Prince!”
Linley called out warmly and loudly.
Shack, who had been eating roasted meat and grumbling about the magical beasts, was startled by Linley’s voice and turned to look in its direction. As he looked at Linley, Linley and Bebe stared intently at Shack, watching for any change in his eyes or expression.
“If there’s even a hint of trouble, capture first, then kill!” Linley carefully observed the other’s eyes and expression.
Seeing Linley, Shack excitedly jumped to his feet. His massive, two-meter-tall frame leaped up from the ground and ran straight toward Linley, exclaiming joyfully, “Lord Linley! You’re alive! That’s wonderful, truly wonderful!”
“I’m delighted to see the Second Prince here as well,” Linley said, noting that Shack’s eyes and expression showed no signs of deception. He nodded inwardly.
Linley’s guess was spot on. Clayde had indeed been instructed by the Radiant Church never to reveal that the ‘demon’ who had tried to assassinate him was Linley. And no matter how bold Clayde was, he wouldn’t dare defy the Radiant Church’s orders.
“Lord Linley, have you eaten? Come, join us,” Shack said warmly in his booming voice.
At that moment, Shack had no idea he had just walked the line between life and death. If his expression had betrayed anything, he would already be dead.
“Lord Linley, you mustn’t blame Father for not saving you. The stampede of magical beasts came too fast; Father had no choice. He couldn’t even bring most of his consorts—only the most favored few,” Shack defended his father.
“I understand,” Linley nodded. At the same time, he glanced around.
The elite knights reminded Linley of the ‘Thunderbolt Squad’ he had encountered when attacking Clayde in the palace. The knights before him had a very similar aura. Besides the nearly thirty knights, there was also an older woman and a little girl of about five or six.
“Greetings, Your Highness the Consort, Your Highness the Princess.”
Linley immediately bowed to the two women.
The beautiful consort, though over forty, looked like she was in her early thirties—seductive and alluring. She smiled and said, “Linley, His Majesty left in such a hurry that he didn’t even bring a single mage. He also assumed the Radiant Church would save you, so…”
Both Shack and the consort were trying to excuse Clayde.
In their minds, it was important to maintain good relations with Linley. They had no idea about the true relationship between Linley and Clayde.
“I understand,” Linley said, but inwardly he sneered. Not long ago, when he had tried to kill Clayde in the palace, he had noticed that Clayde’s group consisted entirely of warriors, with no mages. Similarly, Shack’s group now also lacked mages.
Clearly, Clayde had abandoned the mages during his escape.
Mages were useful in battle, but this was a flight for survival, not a fight against magical beasts. Bringing mages along would only slow them down. How could they match the speed of powerful warriors, who could sprint on foot even without horses? Could mages do that?
******
On the desolate road, Shack’s cavalry unit pressed forward. The once-bustling villages along the roadside had turned into ruins, with rotting corpses often visible. In these barren places, one or two magical beasts could occasionally be seen roaming.
Occasionally, a few humans who had survived the initial slaughter would be killed and eaten by these wandering beasts.
“Our Finnley Kingdom is finished.”
Shack rode side by side with Linley, gazing at the desolate scene and sighing. From time to time, one or two magical beasts would attack, but the Thunderbolt Squad members easily killed them, leaving Shack and Linley’s conversation uninterrupted.
“At least nine out of ten Finnley Kingdom residents are dead,” Linley said, his expression filled with helplessness and sorrow.
Shack nodded slightly.
He felt deeply pained. The fall of the Finnley Kingdom meant they were no longer royalty. Without a kingdom, what was a royal family?
“Fortunately…” Shack thought of the five magic crystal cards in his pack. With those cards, even without a kingdom, the Finnley royal family could rely on their millennia of accumulated wealth to become a powerful family.
Linley suddenly asked, “Second Prince, where will we meet His Majesty this time?”
By sticking with Shack, Linley’s goal was to find out Clayde’s whereabouts.
Shack replied helplessly, “Lord Linley, Father and I didn’t expect the disaster to be so widespread. The two meeting points we set within Finnley Kingdom are useless now. I can only follow the original plan and continue north. When we reach a safe city that was also one of our designated meeting points, we’ll stop and settle down.”
Linley understood immediately.
Shack and Clayde had not set just one meeting city but a series of cities stretching north from Finnley City. Whichever city was safe, they would likely stop there.
“Which cities did you and His Majesty agree on?” Linley asked with a smile.
Shack, unsuspecting, replied directly, “The cities include some within Finnley Kingdom, some further north in other kingdoms and duchies, and even one in the O’Brien Empire.”
“The O’Brien Empire?” Linley smiled.
Shack said sheepishly, “Father worried that the magical beasts might overrun the entire Sacred Alliance region, forcing us to flee to the O’Brien Empire. The O’Brien Empire is the continent’s strongest military power; it can definitely hold off those beasts.”
Linley knew more than Shack.
The O’Brien Empire wasn’t just militarily powerful on the surface—it also had the ‘War God’ O’Brien himself. With the War God there, even the ‘King’ of the Magical Beast Mountain Range would have to think twice before attacking.
“Don’t overthink it. We’ll just keep moving forward. When we reach a safe place and find the nearest city Father designated, we’ll stop and rest. Lord Linley, let’s speed up. Hyah, hyah!” Shack spurred his horse, and the cavalry unit quickly galloped through the desolate region.
Linley stayed with Shack’s group. Whenever they encountered magical beasts along the way, Linley didn’t need to lift a finger—the Thunderbolt Squad warriors handled them.
Three days later.
“The territories of two kingdoms and three duchies have fallen.”
Shack, Linley, and the others crossed the borders of the Finnley Kingdom, the Hammu Kingdom, and two duchies, entering the territory of the ‘Rigaud Duchy.’ But the Rigaud Duchy was also completely empty of people.
Such a vast area lost was truly astonishing.
After all, the Sacred Alliance consisted of only six kingdoms and fifteen duchies.
“Roar~~”
“Roar~~”
A series of magical beast roars came from ahead, mixed with human shouts. The chaotic noise made Shack and Linley realize what was happening.
“There’s a battle between humans and magical beasts up ahead,” Shack said, frowning and stroking his chin. “Everyone, be careful. We’ll take a detour.”
“Yes, sir!” the Thunderbolt Squad members replied respectfully.
Shack led the group in a careful detour. But as they passed closest to the battle zone, Shack’s eyes widened. “Prince Roy?”
Linley also noticed the scene. It was another elite cavalry unit, but they were unlucky—they had encountered a pack of fire lions.
Fire lions were seventh-rank fire-type magical beasts. They could easily spit ‘flaming fireballs’ and had flames burning all over their bodies.
Although they were seventh-rank, magical beasts naturally had an advantage over humans. Even an eighth-rank warrior would need considerable effort to kill a seventh-rank fire lion. The elite cavalry unit had very few eighth-rank warriors; most were seventh-rank. Fighting nearly twenty fire lions, the cavalry unit had already lost half its members. Only about a third of the fire lions had been killed.
Though half the cavalry was dead, none of the eighth-rank warriors had fallen. In reality, the unit’s combat power had only decreased by about a third.
“Halt,” Shack ordered.
The surrounding knights were startled but nodded. With the Thunderbolt Squad’s strength, combined with Prince Roy’s forces, killing the fire lions wouldn’t have been difficult. But to their surprise, Shack didn’t order them to intervene.
Only after Prince Roy’s forces had suffered heavy losses—two eighth-rank warriors dead and the fire lions more than half gone—did Shack finally give the order.
“Move out. Rescue Prince Roy,” Shack said to his men.
“Yes, sir!”
The Thunderbolt Squad charged in. With nearly thirty fresh fighters, including nearly ten eighth-rank warriors, they quickly killed five or six of the remaining fire lions. The few survivors fled immediately.
******
“Prince Shack, thank you. Thank you.”
Prince Roy, a very handsome young man, was in a sorry state. Seeing Shack, he gratefully embraced him.
“Prince Roy, ah, I saw a cavalry unit under attack from a distance. Out of caution, I hesitated for a while. Only when I recognized you did I order the attack. Please don’t take offense,” Shack said, feigning regret. “If I had come sooner, fewer of your men would have died.”
Shack’s group had lingered in the distance for quite a while. How could Roy’s elite warriors not have noticed?
Roy and his men harbored some resentment, but Shack’s explanation made them somewhat believe him.
After all, in this disaster, who would risk their lives to save strangers?
“Prince Shack, don’t say that. I’m already very grateful. Otherwise, I’d have only two or three men left now. Hey, don’t! We’ll handle our dead ourselves,” Prince Roy called out when he saw one of Shack’s men casually removing a pack from a corpse.
After the fire lions fled, Roy’s surviving men began stripping the packs from the dead and carrying them themselves.
This naturally aroused suspicion among Shack’s men. Why bother taking a dead man’s pack? So one of Shack’s men “helpfully” reached for a pack, which immediately triggered a hostile reaction.
“Fine, take it,” the knight under Shack said, handing the pack back. Roy’s knight snatched it and glared at him.
Shack sneered inwardly.
It was easy to guess. Most royal families didn’t have spatial rings. The Finnley royal family had been lucky enough to obtain one by chance. Now, with the disaster upon them, they had to carry their treasury’s treasures in packs. Prince Roy’s men were so protective of their packs that they likely contained the Hammu royal family’s heirlooms.
“Not many left. I have a ten-out-of-ten chance,” Shack thought, eyeing Roy’s forces. He had already made up his mind.