Outside the Abandoned City—
It was late autumn.
Beneath a sky that deepened into twilight, a platinum-domed carriage, drawn by six white horses, proceeded unhurriedly.
It moved along a road carpeted with vibrant crimson maple leaves, flanked by a retinue of maids and guards.
“Your Royal Highness,” a voice intoned, “you are a person of immense preciousness. Why would you do something so utterly out of line? That man earlier, he was incredibly filthy! And yet, you…”
The speaker was Darneil Taffin, a young man clad in a gold-trimmed guard uniform.
A mid-level Sword Master, he served as Princess Yuina Rose Sesika’s personal guard and the leader of this contingent.
As he spoke, anger flared across Darneil’s face, his unexpressed jealousy simmering beneath the surface.
‘Had I not been absent at that precise moment,’ he mused, ‘that wretched, filthy beggar would never have dared to touch Princess Yuina’s noble person.’
“He is not a filthy person,” Yuina stated, shaking her head.
“I could feel the warmth within his heart.”
Upon hearing Princess Yuina’s calm reply, a furious flame ignited within Darneil’s heart.
Were it not for his paramount duty to protect the princess, he would have instantly turned back and cleaved that beggar in two with his sword.
“Halt! Something’s amiss! Prepare for battle!”
Darneil was about to speak further when his acute intuition caught the slightest rustle in the air.
He instantly drew the enchanted longsword from his hip, issuing a loud warning.
Whoosh!
In the very next instant after Darneil’s shout, an anti-magic arrow, wreathed in swirling black mist, sliced through the air, its tip aimed directly at his head.
The arrow pulsed with an astonishingly dreadful aura.
Darneil dared not meet it head-on, ducking his head to evade.
However, the guards behind him were not so fortunate; two of them had their foreheads pierced clean through.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Immediately afterward, more whistling sounds rent the air as numerous anti-magic arrows streaked forth from the shadowy night sky.
While these subsequent arrows lacked the potent force of the first, they compensated with sheer overwhelming numbers.
“Mages, erect shields! Protect Her Royal Highness!”
True to his role as Princess Yuina’s personal guard, Darneil possessed formidable capabilities.
After a brief moment of disarray, he quickly regained his composure, issuing commands with calm precision.
As if specifically prepared for such a predicament, all of Princess Yuina’s maids were, in fact, mages, one even a junior Magician.
They swiftly conjured a golden barrier of light, effectively deflecting the barrage of anti-magic arrows.
Realizing their anti-magic arrows were proving ineffective, the attackers, previously concealed by the night, revealed themselves.
They were a group of figures cloaked in black, each exuding a fierce, murderous aura.
“Sword Masters, follow me to battle and slay the enemy!”
As Darneil’s battle cry rang out, the guards spurred their horses forward, charging into the fray against the black-clad figures.
The two sides clashed in close combat, resulting in an utterly one-sided outcome that astonished everyone.
Darneil’s guard contingent had no power to retaliate whatsoever!
For among the black-clad figures, there was a Great Sword Master!
The Great Sword Master in black was wreathed in surging, formidable dark magic.
They scythed through the guards’ lives like a frenzied reaper, leaving no opponent capable of a single stand wherever they passed.
Once the black-clad Great Sword Master had slaughtered all the nearby guards, their chilling gaze shifted towards Darneil.
In that moment, fear eclipsed everything within Darneil’s heart.
The dread of death and his utter surrender to terror compelled Darneil to commit an act utterly unbecoming of his station.
He abandoned his subordinates, who were still fighting valiantly and drenched in blood.
He deserted Princess Yuina, whom he was sworn to protect with his life.
Turning on his heel, he fled.
“Your Royal Highness, quickly, descend from the carriage! Your servant will escort you… Ah!!”
The moment Darneil fled, the princess’s personal maid, also the junior Magician, instantly grasped the gravity of the situation.
She reached out to Princess Yuina in the carriage, intending to help her down.
However, a blood-stained demonic sword suddenly streaked through the air, tearing through the barrier of light, and piercing her heart clean through her spine.
“Sister Huayin!”
Witnessing her personal maid, whom she regarded as a sister, die before her eyes, Princess Yuina let out a cry of anguish, helpless tears streaming down her face.
With Darneil’s escape and the death of Huayin, the Magician, the entire guard contingent was swiftly annihilated by the black-clad assailants.
“Hahaha, Princess, do not grieve,” the Great Sword Master cackled.
“We shall come up now and offer you… comfort!”
All that remained in the clearing were the black-clad figures, now encircling from all directions, Princess Yuina, trapped tightly within her carriage, and the Great Sword Master, who was cackling loudly.
“I, Yuina Rose Sesika, will never sit idly by and await my demise!”
Princess Yuina, still in the carriage, wiped away the tears from the corners of her eyes.
Clutching a magic staff that glowed with pure white light, she responded to the Great Sword Master with words of unwavering resolve.
Boom!
Just then, a beam of profound dark light, akin to a falling meteor, plummeted.
It struck the center of the black-clad group and landed atop the carriage roof.
“Am I a step too late?”
Like a raging inferno, a figure wreathed in ethereal dark magic stood tall and imposing, like a straight spear.
Yet, they also radiated a scorching, palpable killing intent, utterly cold and devoid of any emotion, as if they were facing mere corpses.
“If that is the case,” the voice resonated with chilling finality, “then let your blood and souls be the payment…”