Only Speed ​​Can Break

“Miss Haggia, quickly go support His Highness!”

Yuri yelled without turning her head, while the other two hidden guards stared intently at the black-clad man.

“No one is getting away!”

The owl phantom behind the black-clad man flapped its wings.

Flora, trying to bypass them, urgently dodged, but the horse beneath her was struck in one leg by a wind blade, whinnying before collapsing to the ground.

Flora rolled several times on the ground, minimizing the impact of the fall, and enduring the pain and inexplicable discomfort in her body, she shouted:

“I’m fine!”

But before that, the three hidden guards had already moved.

One of them was clearly a mage, quickly unleashing a fireball at the black-clad man, but the latter leisurely dodged the attack, which would have made a knight despair.

“Is this all you’ve got? To not even have tracking ability, the Crown Prince’s mages are truly disappointing.”

The burliest of the hidden guards swiftly charged forward, swinging his sword, but no matter how he displayed his exquisite swordsmanship, his blade failed to touch the black-clad man even slightly.

Yuri, a true assassin, rushed forward, wielding her dagger to stab the opponent, but before she could react, the opponent suddenly moved behind her with impossible speed, knocking her away.

“Too slow, too slow, in battles of this world, speed is king!”

The black-clad man grinned.

Even without him saying so, the three hidden guards had already figured out that his Guardian ability was related to speed, and their faces instantly turned grim.

Among them, the only one who could deal with such an opponent was the Crown Prince.

“Don’t worry, my comrades are attending to the Crown Prince over there. You’ll soon be reunited with him in hell!”

Seeming to have read their thoughts, the black-clad man continued to exert psychological pressure on them.

Whoosh.

Flora launched another fireball spell at him.

The black-clad man initially intended to casually avoid it as before, but at the last moment, he sensed it was a tracking fireball.

He swiftly activated his ability, retreating a dozen steps instantly, and threw a small knife he carried to detonate the fireball in mid-air.

“Impressive, to think there’s such a mage here.”

At this point, the black-clad man noticed the three hidden guards all looking astonished and couldn’t help but pause.

He wondered if his very ordinary maneuver warranted such surprise.

However, the three hidden guards were not surprised by his dodging technique, but by Flora casting magic yet again.

Before coming here, they had personally witnessed Flora casting acceleration magic on a horse, circling to a flank far from the main enemy force, then casting far sight magic, and releasing over a dozen magic arrows and one fireball.

All this was done with almost no interruption between spells.

In reality, to the common people, long-range attack magic was just a more powerful, high-tier arrow.

A spell’s range, speed, power, casting interval, and accuracy… all depended on the mage’s skill level and the magic power injected.

Normally, an ordinary mage could never perform what Flora had done earlier.

Even an Awakener with naturally superior magic power to ordinary mages would not have any residual energy to cast magic now.

Unless—

“Number Eight, protect Miss Haggia!”

Seeing Flora conjure another fireball, the mage hidden guard shouted.

Yuri immediately retreated to Flora’s side, while the mage hidden guard drew his sword and, with the other warrior hidden guard, charged forward, trying to create an opportunity for Flora as much as possible.

Normal mages usually possess some close-combat ability to compensate for their helplessness during magic casting intervals and their weakness when enemies get close before they can cast a spell.

But one mage telling another mage to be protected, combined with their earlier surprise, the black-clad man was no fool and immediately understood.

“A Grand Mage? I see, no wonder you could spare hands to support the Crown Prince!”

The black-clad man quickly turned into an afterimage, swiftly slashing at the two men three times with movements that seemed impossible for a human, knocking them away.

“This sensation… defensive magic?”

The black-clad man was slightly surprised.

His intention was to kill them, but it turned into a heavy blow… Though his strong suit was speed, a high-speed object’s impact force was not weak. Ordinary defensive magic couldn’t block his lightning-fast triple slash.

Even more exaggerated, this defensive magic wasn’t a continuous buff but temporarily applied, in other words, it was cast instantly, faster than his own attacks!

This level, even among Grand Mages, was outstanding!

“Too bad, you met me!”

A high-speed knight was naturally a mage’s natural enemy, not to mention he had the boost of his Guardian ability, making his strength comparable to a Sky Knight.

Although the two who were knocked away weren’t dead, they were unconscious.

Now, beside the golden-haired girl was only a weaker, squishier assassin, what was there to fear!

Activating his Guardian ability again, the black-clad man rushed towards the two women.

The female assassin’s movements seemed like slow motion to him.

He again used a high-speed triple attack to knock her away, then drew a second dagger and aimed a lightning-fast sixteen-slash attack at the golden-haired girl.

From the sensation, the opponent had once again cast defensive magic.

But the black-clad man had anticipated this, which was why he swung so many times in one breath, and each strike aimed at a vital point, solely to severely injure the opponent with just the impact force after damage reduction!

The golden-haired girl, as expected, was sent flying backward, falling heavily to the ground.

The black-clad man let out a long breath.

“I need to quickly deal with these guys and go back to support the main force…”

Saying this, he intended to walk over for the killing blow, but the next moment he froze.

The golden-haired girl lying on the ground was gone.

Chila.

A strange sound suddenly came from behind him.

The black-clad man quickly spun around, only to see the golden-haired girl sprawled on the ground.

No, what’s going on?

How did she fall there?

How could she still be standing up?

The black-clad man was stunned, but as the moonlight illuminated the scene, he quickly noticed the anomaly: on the ground behind the golden-haired girl, there was a long dragging mark, as if a giant beast had dragged heavy prey through this spot.

But there was no giant beast, only the golden-haired girl’s beautiful dress was tattered.

A terrifying thought surged into the black-clad man’s mind.

He quickly activated his ability, rushing towards the golden-haired girl at top speed, but when his sword tip was less than a centimeter from her.

The target disappeared again.

His blade cut through empty air.

Just like before, he caught nothing.

Turning his head to look a little further to the left, the golden-haired girl stood up, panting, and slowly picked up the female assassin’s lost dagger.

This time, the friction marks on the ground were smaller.

Her dress was even more tattered.

“Not bad, I didn’t expect you to have acceleration magic, but in your current state, how much longer can you last?”

Looking at the golden-haired girl, who was covered in sweat and clearly not in good condition, the black-clad man said with feigned composure.

But soon, as a phantom slowly emerged behind the girl, the black-clad man’s face first became solemn, then bewildered, and finally utterly dumbfounded, his teeth chattering uncontrollably:

“Bl-Blue Dragon… and that speed… could you be…”

The black-clad man wanted to turn and flee at full speed.

But just as he began to think of doing so, before he could even move, he felt a cold sensation at his throat, and the entire world began to spin…

Before his consciousness completely dissipated, he heard these words—

“I actually got blood on me… It seems I’m really quite weak now…”