"kill them all"
A large number of knights began slaughtering unarmed civilians who were running for their lives. Even small children weren't spared, the cruelty of scene can traumatize anyone present on the scene.
Knights in white armour doesn't show even an slightest hesitation while genociding the innocent people.
A Man who looked like an barbarian entered the battle, and threw his axe towards an civilian , shattering him into pieces.
The man was none other than Commander of Vestry's forces of invasion.
Arthur Void, who was one of the holy generals of Vestry's forces and have gained many merits in field of military for his missions. People around him were always afraid of him, due to his aggressive nature.
He was one of the most trusted men of Pope Primus, and his personality can be described as dominating , he doesn't respect anyone. Primus picked him up from an slum where he was impressed by the brutality of the young Arthur. In next few years, Primus made him train like a dog, turning him into one of his powerful pawns.
Picking his axe, Arthur took a deep breath,
"smell of blood is so nice".
Seeing Arthur's genocide, the defending parties warriors were despairing and cursing their luck. 7 warriors ganged up on Arthur but they didn't knew that future had already decided for them.
Two warriors with swords engaged in fierce battle but were overpowered, thrashing his axe in one of them. Arthur sliced him into 2, while other who got opportunity for attack and swung his sword but Arthur's reaction time was insane, dodging the swing he pushed the warrior and swung his axe into his head, and blood buttered out of his head painting axe with red colour.
Soldiers who were watching from last defense lines, announced
"send the messenger to capital"
"looks like we won't be able to make it out alive from here".
An soldier in blue robe left the city with his eyes full of tears and heart full of hate and left for capital and on the way he muttered,
"It wouldn't have happened if they would have bravely declared war rather than cowardly ambushing us".
Huge clouds of smoke rose from the city and Soldier went into deep forest towards the direction of capital.
Ertonburg, capital of Ledia kingdom
"How's his highness , priest"
"I am sorry to say but the poison he is infected with have quite high mortality rate, I don't think he have much time left"
The man was the general of Ledia military forces, Glen Morris who was begging for the cure for his king.
"no alchemist or priest have any antidote for this type of poison",
Saying these word's priest left general and king alone in the room. King whose complexion was as pale as ghost opened his eyes and raised his hand towards Glen, he immediately grabbed king's hand and sat in chair beside king's bed,
"its all my fault, your highness"
"if I had known about their plan, you wouldn't had been in this situation, I failed you".
A weak voice came out of King's mouth,
"it wasn't your fault, Glen, they took us by surprise"
"I don't blame you for my daughter's death"
Tears gushed out of Glen's eyes,
"I think I don't have much time left, let me tell you my last thoughts"
" even though you are my nephew , I raised you as my son as Ivy's elder brother so don't blame everything on yourself, circumstances are just aren't in our favour"
"why don't we just give them the sword, your highness"
"we can't because it was gift from spirit king to our ancestor rather than gift, he gave us duty to guard that sword until its next weilder comes"
"so my last order for you to lead all forces as king rather than general to the battlefield and show those cowards what's the meaning of true warriors".
After end of his conversation, the hand which was held by Glen fall down and king met his demise.
Whole city was mourning on the death of the king and Glen with other officials were commencing the funeral of the king. Glen muttered
"I will make them regret this",
and buried the king in his grave. After that army began preparing for war and headed towards battlefield.
The reason behind king's demise and Ivy's disappearance was same, it happened after the exposal of Durandel.
Forces of Vestry was preparing for invasion at the border, the tension was immense, king knew that they would be annihilated by Vestry's forces.So he send out an message to Arthur for last meeting before war at his camp and went out to meet him,
"we have met many times now, old king why don't you just hand over the sword"
"pardon me, but I can't handover Durandel"
"so you are planning to betray Vestry for the useless sword",
Taking sip of wine, king continued,
"it is my ancestral sword, I came here to request Vestry please think of this matter once again ".
Arthur replied,
"Vestry already made their decision, you are just wasting your precious time".
At that time, Ivy and Glen were also present there, raging over the rude behaviour of Arthur towards their King. King sighed,
"so there's no use, well next time we will meet at battlefield".
Arthur grinned towards old King and spoke up,
"we will meet if you will get out of here alive".
As soon as Arthur completed his statement, several soldiers made their way into camp where the meeting was held and surrounded them . Ivy grasped the situation real quick and warned everyone,
"its an ambush, protect your highness".
Glen with other bodyguards tried to make way for king to escape but in the process many got killed. While Ivy and Glen were holding their grounds while protecting the king, he coughed blood and fell unconscious
"you thought I would just let you go, the wine which you were drinking was poisoned",
Glen spoke up,
"despicable".
Arthur spoke,
"everything is fair in war".
As Ivy's side was being overpowered by Arthur's, she took out an black ball and smashed it on ground as soon as ball smashed a huge smoke filled the area and in the next moment, Ivy with Glen and king disappeared from the scene.
"search them immediately"
An alarm was raised . Since all the camp was searching for them, they would get caught in no time. Ivy schemed a plan,
"General Glen , take your highness and get out from here while I distract them"
"I won't why don't I distract and you escape?"
"don't be foolish General, your duty to protect king come first before your emotions".
Glen wasn't agreeing on the rash scheme that Ivy planned, but she finally convinced him,
"don't worry I won't be dying here".
Giving false hope to Glen, she went out to create distraction. Glen already knew that it would be impossible for her to escape but he can't do anything because protection of the king was his first priority.
Ivy took an fired up torch and lit an tent in camp which was at opposite direction of Glen's location. Seeing the fire, every soldier in camp rushed towards scene, and Ivy was spotted and followed, she took an horse and made her way in opposite direction of Ledia's border. While the whole scheme was commencing, Glen with king escaped from another side of camp and fled towards border.
Ivy was followed by many soldiers. Since it was an dense forest, she wasn't able to make distance between her and soldiers. Since the path in forest became narrow, she couldn't help but run through it as she was running through forest an arrow hit her at back but she didn't stop, as time went by her senses began blurry due to loss of blood.
And as time passed, her exhaustion began taking over due to which she wasn't able to sense her path and fall off an cliff and while rolling down the path finally fell into river.
Due to the hard impact, she lost her consciousness and afterwards found herself being caged by trader and sold in Bartos to Hugo. As Vestry had already offered an bounty on her, Hugo recognised her immediately and locked her, in one of his towers for the time being until the invasion was over to get higher prices from Vestry in exchange of her.