"I like this plan," Margoth grinned, revealing his evil self. The lift they were on brought them to the dungeon beneath the castle. The maids and soldiers used the dungeon's pathways to navigate the castle quicker. Additionally, the king used the dungeon to traverse the castle without attracting too much attention. Mainly when the king went to check on his subjects disguised as a commoner.
The lift finally came to a halt when they reached a dimly lit hall with several barrels of rum stacked one upon one in the corners. The torches lit the hall in a dim orange light which enabled Draven to see the armored soldier guarding the hallway on the opposite side of the hall.
Instead of dashing towards the soldier or teleporting near him, Draven opened his wings.
He raised his wings as high as he could before flapping.
Whoosh!
The flap of his wings produced a shock wave that put out all the torches in the hall. As a result, the hall turned to pitch dark. The soldiers were startled by the sudden blackout.
He was about to take a step forward when Draven appeared behind him. But instead of knocking out the soldier, Draven entered the hallway behind the guard while he went to check on the torches.
After entering the hallway, Draven was welcomed by another hall. Fortunately, the hall was empty. Other than the fancy carpet below the golden chandeliers and the surrounding cloud white sofa set, there was nothing in the room. Instead, the brick walls were decorated with several portraits of nature such as waterfalls, lakes, and golden wheat fields in Veland.
Draven hastily limped towards the portrait of the wheat field. When Draven reached the portrait, he tilted the portrait to the right and then left, and then to the right again.
Creak!
Suddenly, Margoth saw the brick wall before they trembled. Then, slowly and steadily, the brick wall creaked open. Draven entered through the gap and closed the secret brick door before the soldier entered the hallway to check the room.
"Draven can you hear me?" as Draven stepped into the narrow hallway dimly lit with torches, he heard Sarah's voice in his head. Margoth noticed a dim glow in his ears.
Earlier when Draven parted ways with Sarah, she gave him a tiny tubular thing and asked Draven to put it in his ear. According to her, it would enable them to communicate from long distances. Usually, UFH communicated with its heroes using the diamond crystal. However, for security reasons, Draven didn't take Pigeon's diamond crystal as UFH had ways to track all the diamond crystals. So taking one from the pigeon after killing him would be like screaming his location to UFH.
Sarah used the same principles and mechanisms to build tubular-shaped devices which she called Khals. It literally took her half an hour and a few parts she disassembled from the devices she got from Martiland to make them.
"I can,"
Draven answered her while walking into the dark hallway,
"I'm at the server station and waiting for you to cut the power. Where are you?" she whispered,
"On my way," Draven replied as Margoth materialized over his shoulder,
"To kidnap the king,"
"To do what?!" Sarah almost shouted at them when she heard Margoth,
"Don't tell me you're gonna kill him too," Draven could hear the terror in her heart through her voice,
"I am not," Draven reassured her.
"Okay…" her voice trailed off. It was evident Sarah didn't completely believe him. How could she, after seeing everything Draven had done to people he came across? Except for Timothy, everyone with whom Draven interacted was either broken or killed by him.
"Don't draw any attention to yourself. Keep your head down and wait for my signal," Draven instructed her on what to do next. He wasn't in a mood to chat with her. At the moment, the effects of the berserker pill had gone entirely. Hence, he felt an aching pain in every part of his body.
After several minutes of limping, Draven had enough of it. He stopped beside a torch.
"Why did you stop?" Margoth asked as Draven grabbed the torch hanging on the wall.
Looking at Draven gritting his teeth, Margoth guessed what was in Draven's mind. Just as he expected, Draven moved the torch to his thigh, where blood was oozing down.
SHHHHHH!
As soon as Draven put the fire torch onto his wound, it burnt his wound as well as the armor. Margoth heard the sizzling sound as though Draven was frying something. The strong scent of his own flesh burning and armor melting entered his nostrils. The smell was quite strong but it couldn't daze Draven. He kept the torch on his thigh until his eyes started to form tears.
Draven staggered as he leaned on the wall, taking a few deep breaths. Then, when the pain of burning his thigh with the torch lessened, Draven moved the torch to his rib cage, where the soldiers stabbed him a few times with a dagger.
Shhhhhh!
The same sizzling sound resonated in Margoth's ears when Draven burnt his wound in the left side of his ribcage with the torch. Draven wanted to roar in pain, but he controlled the urge. As a result, his eyes started to gush out tears, and turned his breathing heavier and heavier.
"All of this could have been avoided if you had simply killed them," Margoth rolled his eyes, snickering at Draven.
Margoth was indeed right. Killing them was much easier than knocking them out, especially since the soldiers were clad in iron-plated armor.
If Draven wanted to kill them, he could have grabbed a spear from one of them and stabbed every single one through the head. But Draven would rather die than take the life of someone who doesn't deserve it.
It would make him no different than the villains he vowed to weed out from this world. Each soldier had a family of their own, just like Draven once had.
After burning the rest of the wounds in his body, Draven felt slightly better. Naturally, therefore, he resumed his journey toward the king's room.
The narrow hallway didn't branch out. They walked in the relatively narrow and straight passageway until they saw a golden ladder at the end of the passageway.
"Golden ladder…let's steal it on our way out. It will fetch us some etherials,"
"He's a king. What do you expect?" Draven walked towards the ladder. Since he burned the wound in his leg, he didn't limp as he did a couple of minutes ago before he burnt the wounds.
Throwing the torch in his hand aside, Draven climbed the ladder attached to the door with a golden latch. Instead of quickly opening the door, Draven placed his ear on the latch to hear the sounds coming from the room above.
The room above was King Richard's bedroom itself. Hence, Draven wanted to ensure he was alone before entering the secret door.
"Tell the men to wait outside. I'll be with them in a couple of minutes,"
Draven heard King Richard's voice after so long. It had been a decade since he heard Richard's voice. The last time Draven met Richard, he accused Draven of destroying Kingdom's properties and tried to arrest him. At that time, Draven was just a rogue superhero who didn't have any backing from UFH.
If it weren't for Magnum Layne, the heir of the Layne family, the situation would have escalated between Draven and Richard. Instead, Magnum was generous enough to pay for the damage caused by the fight between Draven and Van Krieger.
Unlike Richard, Magnum Layne held no grudge against the gifted ones. At that time, Draven only knew Magnum as the heir to the Layne family. However, now he knew everything about Magnum.
"Yes, your majesty," Draven heard an obedient voice, most probably a soldier or the king's personal guard.
Draven heard footsteps and the sound of a door closing. Then, Draven slowly pushed open the door, taking a peek at the door through the gap.
In the fancy room brightly lit with a grandeur chandelier, King Richard was standing in front of a six feet mirror and adjusting his kingly red robes. He had no idea he was being watched by Draven just a few meters away from the mirror.
The secret door Draven was holding onto was located next to the king's bed and under the red carpet. In cases of emergencies, the king would be escorted out of the castle through the passageway Draven came from.
After making sure no one else was in the room, Draven silently opened the door. Then, he climbed out of the hole onto the king's chamber.
Thud!
As soon as Draven let go of the door, it shut close, making a thud sound. The king was startled to hear the sudden sound as he immediately jerked around to see Draven standing before him.
King Richard's heart skipped a beat seeing a stranger suddenly appear before him with a bloody face. His first instinct was to reach for the sword on the wall near him.
But Draven startled the king by vanishing into thin air and appearing behind him.
Bang!
Draven punched Richard in the side of his face and extended the hidden sword on his wrist. With a swift movement, Draven wrapped his arm around King Richard's neck from behind and pressed his broken sword against his throat,
"Hello, your majesty," Draven whispered into King Richard's ear.