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Calamity of Bloodshed.
This was a spell that Roel bought from the Gold Coin Shop while it was holding a special discount. Its effect was quite mystical, working only on a probability basis. So far, the only person whom the spell had worked on was Peter Kater. That being said, it did provide him with quite some useful information. For one, he learned that he, for some reason, had become a target for evil cults.
However, the spell was being activated for the second time this very instant. Roel saw a light-red name appearing above the golden-haired knight's head. The fact that the color was light-red showed that the knight carried killing intent, but it wasn't primarily targeted at him.
But what was shocking wasn't the color of the name but rather the name itself.
[Wade's Aide: Felder Elric (Bryan Elric)]
He wasn't too surprised at the start, but when he noticed the name placed inside the brackets, he couldn't remain composed any longer. It was almost as if he had been struck by a bolt of lightning.
The sudden appearance of the name 'Bryan Elric' left Roel's mind blanking out. His first reaction was to wonder if that Count Bryan had been mysteriously dragged into this world when the labyrinth activated.
However, he quickly denied that possibility. For one, it was impossible for Bryan Elric to be in the vicinity of the Labyrinth Villa, and for the other, he seemed to fit perfectly into this world.
This knight's subordination to Wade Xeclyde and the authority he wielded before the soldiers showed that he was indeed Felder Elric, a man who belonged to this era. However, the Calamity of Bloodshed couldn't possibly make a mistake, so why would Bryan Elric's name appear?
After thinking hard on this matter, Roel could only think of a single possibility—the Felder Elric of this generation was indeed the future Bryan Elric!
It was written in the history books that the patriarch of the Elric House had ended his life after the defeat of Wade's allied armies in the March Turmoil. It was unlikely for this part of the history to be false as the Xeclydes would have personally verified the authenticity of the news.
Felder Elric must have found some way to revive himself, allowing him to continue existing as Bryan Elric in the era of Holy Eminence John more than a century later.
The discovery of this alarming secret made Roel's heart pound harder. He couldn't help but stare at the golden-haired knight intently, which only seemed to further spur on Felder's hostility.
"Brat, I have no idea where you came from, but you are standing before the great Prince Wade. You better lower your head in humility and respect in his presence."
After uttering those threatening words, Felder turned his attention away from Roel and ordered the soldiers to tighten the encirclement around the monastery. Following that, he led the vanguard force made up solely of elite soldiers into the monastery fearlessly.
"Ahh! Don't kill me, I am merely a monk…"
The footsteps of the soldiers pattering on the wooden floor of the monastery sounded loudly. The sound of a door being kicked open echoed loudly in the air, and it was swiftly followed by Klaude's frightened screams.
Following that, a soldier rushed out of the monastery and exclaimed excitedly.
"Your Highness, we have found her!"
A clear smile broke out on Prince Wade's face upon hearing the report. He quickly made his way into the monastery, and under the lead of the soldiers, he headed straight toward the room Nora laid in.
He didn't even spare a glance at Klaude, who was being pinned against the corner of the room with a blade pressed against his neck, as he walked straight toward the unconscious girl lying on the bed. The tension that had kept him strung up over the last few days finally left his body along with a sigh of relief.
I've won!
The huge losses he had made over the past half a month of internal strife hadn't been in vain. He managed to succeed in the end. As long as he managed to put Victoria under his custody, his plans would surely work out without a hitch!
"Still, I didn't expect Ponte to abandon you and escape alone. I thought that the two of you… No, wait a moment. This isn't right!"
Wade widened his eyes as he walked closer to take a closer look at the 'Victoria' lying on the bed. He suddenly felt a strong sense of incongruity about the person before him.
Even though Victoria had a childlike physique that never seemed to mature, there was no way she could have looked so young. It was almost as if she had regressed several years to return back to her childhood. Furthermore, her bloodline ability…
Wade closed his eyes in order to get a keener sense of the bloodline ability of the girl lying before him. The results made his face scrunch tightly out of sheer incredulity. It was true that the girl shared the bloodline origin as him, but her bloodline was only at Bronze-tier!
This was obviously not right. Both he and Victoria had already reached Silver Bloodline 6 years ago! Bloodline regression? Just like how it was impossible for a human to age backward, there was no way that the tier of a person's bloodline could regress either!
If so, could it be that Victoria had managed to regress her time? No, that was impossible too. Not even an Origin Level 1 transcendent has the power to tamper with a person's time, so such a possibility could be excluded.
By eliminating all that was impossible, what that was left, no matter how improbable, had to be the truth. Wade had no choice but to accept the true significance behind this baffling situation before him, and that was that the girl before him was not Victoria Xeclyde!
"Bring that boy outside to me. Now!"
Having stumbled upon the truth, Wade's very first reaction was to interrogate Roel. However, before his men could move, the textbooks in the monastery that were used to educate the children studying here suddenly released a brilliant flash of light. Countless pages shot out from the textbooks and filled the room.
This abrupt situation made Wade's face darken lividly.
"Shit!"
The presence of this familiar phenomenon made Wade reflexively draw his sword. But contrary to his expectations, those pages didn't attack Wade, but instead, they shot forth for the unconscious girl lying on the bed.
Amidst the storm of pages, a black-haired man suddenly appeared out of nowhere. He grabbed the unconscious girl before directing a polite smile toward Wade.
"A very good morning to you, Your Highness Wade. And… goodbye."
With a mischievous laughter, Ponte and Nora's bodies suddenly scattered into countless book pages, causing Wade's sword to end up piercing through empty air. Wade cast aside his sword furiously and issued an order to his men,
"They must still be in the vicinity. Hurry up and look for them!"
With Wade taking the lead, the soldiers quickly rushed out of the monastery to conduct a thorough search of the area. After their departure, the storm in the room quickly settled down. A page slowly drifted down to the ground, revealing the content on it.
「5 March, sunny.
Today's Victoria is wearing yellow panties.」
…
While book pages were rampaging within the room Nora had been in, there were also some unexpected situations happening outside the monastery too.
While Roel was looking around, he suddenly noticed that an army of organized soldiers wearing the standard uniform of the Theocracy's military had suddenly appeared out of nowhere to encircle all of them. It happened so suddenly that he was left utterly dumbstruck.
In Roel's defense, he wasn't the only one whose mouth was flopping open and close like a fish out of water. Felder was as shocked as he was.
Without a doubt, the appearance of these soldiers was bad news to Wade's allied armies. This was further reinforced by the fact that these soldiers had, in fact, literally appeared out of nowhere, which meant that the master of this gigantic labyrinth must have pulled some strings here.
As for who the master of this massive labyrinth was… it went without saying that it was Roel's famed predecessor, Ponte Ascart!
Hooray, my savior has come! Long live my ancestors!
Roel was more excited about this than anyone else. To his delight, the soldiers of the Theocracy didn't let him down either. Under the great banner of the Guardian of Radiant Wings, an incredibly beautiful golden-haired woman drew her sword and pointed it toward Felder Elric.
"Attack!"
A melodious yet firm command was issued to the soldiers of the Theocracy.
Princess Victoria's forces roared furiously as the strongest knights standing at the forefront of the formation led a valiant charge against Wade's allied armies. At the same time, the archers standing at the back of the formation drew their bowstring to cover them.
While Wade's allied armies were caught off guard, they were not rendered helpless by the situation. They swiftly recovered from the shock and began rearranging their formations to brace themselves for the impact from the knights' charge.
It should have gone without saying that the one who was the most disadvantaged by this clash was Roel.
"Oi oi oi, I am still here!"
Staring at the massive cluster of arrows raining down from above, Roel's face darkened in horror. The emergence of Victoria's forces had indeed brought him a ray of hope, but ironically, it also plunged him further into danger. Before he could escape from the grasp of Wade's soldiers, he had to first and foremost find a way to survive!
It didn't take Roel too much effort to figure out why Wade and Victoria would appear at the same place simultaneously. Given that this monastery was not some strategic location, the only possibility was Nora.
It's likely that they have some sort of magic tool or spell that allows them to detect the royal bloodline, Roel thought.
At the same time, he heaved a sigh of relief too. Since Victoria was here, it could only mean that she was also determined to secure Nora, which meant that things wouldn't work out as Wade intended. The combined prowess of Victoria and Ponte would be more effective than any plan he could think of to help Nora.
Actually, now that he thought about it, it was unlikely for Wade to kill Nora outright. The Xeclydes suffered from a lack of offspring, so it was likely that he would avoid killing any of his family members unless the situation truly warranted such a course of action. While Nora was an unexpected variable, Wade would probably wait for her to wake up and explain the circumstances first before deciding whether to take her life or not.
In the end, the one who was in the greatest danger here was in fact none other than Roel himself.
He was already on the verge of getting killed by friendly fire over here. This was his firsthand experience of what a large-scale battle among transcendents was like. Perhaps it was out of consideration that they were in the midst of a city or that it was simply too mana consuming, neither sides were using any elemental attribute spells; there were no fireballs or the like flying around.
But despite the lack of special effects, the threat he faced was way more deadly than a volley of fireballs.
A single arrow struck the empty ground just five meters away from Roel, and the mana infused on its tip immediately exploded. The rock-paved street shattered from the blow, and a powerful shockwave stirred up by the explosion nearly pushed Roel down to the ground.
"Holy shit… This isn't what arrows are supposed to be like!! It's no wonder they aren't bothering to use fireballs or that sort of fantasy stuff. Hell, these arrows are faster and more destructive than any fireball can possibly be!"
Roel immediately clutched the purple pendant hung around his neck, summoning a thin layer of shielding to surround him. Fortunately, the quality of Carter's magic tools was reliable, or else this rain of arrows would have been more than enough to take his life.
Under the fierce assault of Princess Victoria's forces, Wade's allied armies suffered heavy losses. Cries of agony sounded ceaselessly in the air.
Roel shot a look at the five soldiers who were assigned to guard over him. Two of them had already lost their lives, and the other three were either trying to save their comrades or had drawn their shields and weapons, preparing themselves for battle. It was clear that no one's attention was on him right now. After all, who would care about a mere prisoner when their lives were at stake?
Due to the sudden outbreak of chaos, Roel was finally free to make his getaway. He prepared himself to be received by his allies, but in the next moment, he saw a black-haired man flying across the air with a golden-haired girl in his hand.
At this moment, Roel only had a single thought in his mind.
Wait for me, I haven't gotten on the bus yet!!!