That was painful but it all worked out. I knew that I didn't have much of a chance of beating the overly prepared assassins. They knew about most of the spells I could do. They even prepared countermeasures for them.
The only reason I was able to even expose them and kill one instantly was because of the "Tears of Amrisia" spell. This is a spell I learned in the future.
They couldn't prepare for stuff they didn't know. They also struggled to fight me with their swords. I made them waste all their mana in a hurry to finish things quickly.
When they had the guards lowered and mana exhausted, I used something that no one should know I have.
Divine Spells.
Divine spells are spells that only clergy, that a god favors, and divine vessels of gods can use.
As one of Helena's major divinities is healing, I can use a spell called the "Grace of the Goddess" that completely heals me. I can only use it once a day.
She also has a bunch of minor divinities including lust, mirrors, and reflection. A combination of the mirror and reflection divinity gets you the spell "Divine Reflection".
This is a spell that takes all the damage you have taken in the past day and returns its accumulation to the chosen targets.
As they landed killing blows, I healed myself up and sent the killing blows back to them.
It's quite a powerful spell but there are a couple of conditions that need to be met such as the chosen targets cannot be more than 7. Any harm you do to yourself isn't used for reflection.
It also can't be used on opponents that are 4 tiers more than your own. It can't be used on anyone with a lower tier than mine.
They were only 2 tiers above me. They have no one to blame but themselves and whoever hired them for their useless deaths.
"Ha...huuu." I take deep breaths and wait quietly in my room. It wouldn't take long for my parents or some elders to arrive.
There is no need for me to leave my room. There are probably fights beyond my level going on outside. I could hear small bangs and booms. The house was also shaking very subtly.
With my mana exhausted, there is no reason for me to go out and endanger myself.
I cross my legs and sit on my cushion that had a bunch of holes in because of me. I start meditating and absorbing mana.
The dead bodies on the side weren't much of a distraction. I've meditated in worse places during the war.
After about 5 minutes, my core was already a quarter full. This would normally take me 15 minutes. Becoming a divine vessel had already multiplied my absorption rate by 3.
As for the rate of growing my core, I could only test it after my core was full.
Bang!
My door swung open as I opened my eyes.
"My daughter!" My father yelled as ran in covered in blood from head to toe. I could see that he only had minor bruises and cuts so the blood wasn't his.
The most blood was located on his gigantic fists. There were also bits of internal organs all over him. The bloody color was further emphasized by the red aura that he was leaking.
"Are you okay!" He grabbed my shoulders and looked all over me. He saw that my dress was cut in many places but there were no injuries. Except for the dried blood, my skin was as clean as it could be.
The look in his eyes was frantic and confused. His expression was filled with worry as he sighed and hugged me. He got blood over me but it didn't matter.
I hugged my father back and didn't say anything.
"I'm glad you're alright," he said with a little sob. I move out of the hug and look at his face.
"Silly father. We can't have the family head crying." I saw while rubbing the tears that were pouring from his eyes.
I used my sleeves to wipe the blood and tears around his face.
He sobbed a little more and lowered his head. "I'm sorry." he said while looking a bit down.
'You should be sorry. Look at how messy your hair is. You need to cut it shorter if you want more fights like this." I say jokingly.
My father is just too emotional. None of this is his fault. It's not his fault that our relatives want to take the position of an heir from me.
It's not his fault that they have tried to get rid of me in many ways since I was a baby.
"Father, is everyone okay?" I asked. For them to be occupied for so long, the enemies must have been decently capable.
Father raised his head and started to wipe his face himself.
"Yeah. There were three 6th-tier warriors and a bunch of 5th-tier warriors. The 5th tier kept our guards busy. The elders and I dealt with the 6th tiers." he said.
"How many casualties?" I hope we didn't lose any but that's not realistic.
"I don't know yet. All I know is that none of the assassins escaped." he replied.
'None of them escaped?" That was strange.
They should have at least one that escaped. Assassin guilds always make sure to send at least one person who is good at running. They always need to know why or how they might have failed.
"A 7th-tier mage from Vornix came and finished them off in one move. If it was just me and the elders, at least Ione would have escaped."
My father was at the peak of 5th tier and 2 elders at the 6th tier wouldn't have been able to kill them all. Only if we had a couple more 6th tiers could we manage to kill them this quickly. It made sense that a 7th tier had to make a move for things to go this smoothly.
"Is the elder from Vornix still here?" I asked, curious as to how Ryan could have made an elder move so quickly.
The elders in his family are notorious for being selfish. They wouldn't move unless there were real benefits.
"The elder left as soon as he confirmed that all the assassins were dead. he then took their dead bodies and left." Father then explained the whole series of events.
The house was suddenly attacked by a group of trained assains as soon as dinner was over. It was usually the time we let our guards down. They were quick and targeted the strongest ones in the mansion first and then the guards.
This stopped anyone from coming to help me. That's what gave a chance to those 5 men to take care of me.
Just when I killed the 5, it seemed like the rest of the attackers knew they had failed. They were about to retreat when the 7th-tier mage came out of nowhere.
He cast a fire element spell that spontaneously combusted all the attackers to ashes. He then floated the dead bodies of the assailants with his mana and took them away.
He didn't even stop for a second. He flew in and out with a single word spoken.
"Let's go take care of the wounded. We also need to give compensation to the family of those that have died." I said while sighing.
There was no point in speculating. I could just ask Ryan tomorrow. Right now, we have our own people to focus on.
He had always done his best to keep me secure and to keep our home as safe as possible. It's just that with the recent events with the cult, the situation in the empire was getting heated.
Now that we were preparing for war, our relatives would do their best to get rid of and put one of their own as heir. Father can't have another heir due to certain reasons so all they had to do was remove me.
This bear of a man is as soft as a rabbit inside. I really do wonder how a mother deals with him. I certainly am getting a headache just trying to lift his somber mood.
Rather than dealing with a father whose emotions are so fragile I rather think about how we should retaliate.
In the past timeline, we took our time dealing with our shitty relatives. It costs us so many resources, lives, and time to deal with them. These were all things we couldn't afford to waste anymore.
I needed to seek Ryan out and find a way to eliminate them swiftly and with minimal losses.
...
...
The next day, we had finished cleaning up our estate of all the blood and bodies of the fallen. I had already sent someone to give some compensation to the families of 8 guards that we had lost last night.
Mother was taking care of father's emotional state. The butlers and maids were taking care of the menial tasks. This left me without anything to do.
I already had breakfast so I decided to head to the Vornix estate. He was probably teaching Risa the swordsmanship. I would like to see her learn. Her rate of growth always made me feel so proud.
So Emily and I take the carriage with double the security around us than usual. We entered the Vornix estate and our guards were to wait near the entrance. They were not allowed too deep into another noble's property.
When Emily and I got to the training field next to Ryan's residence, we good see a wonderful sight.
Risa, less than half of Ryan's height was swinging the sword like a madman. Strike after strike after strike.
She constantly switched the speed, angles, and body parts at which she swung. She had a fierce look on her childish face that made me want to giggle.
That fierce look just looked so cute and harmless on her that I wanted to grab her and give her a hug.
"This is going to take a while, isn't it?" said Emily. She was holding onto a picnic basket in her hand. She was laying a large blanket on the ground so we could sit and wait.
"Yeah. When they train, they tend to ignore everything else." I said. Risa and Ryan were preoccupied with exchanging hits.
They had already glanced at us when we had arrived. After that, they didn't even spare a quick peek at us. Both of them are individuals obsessed with the sword. That is how Ryan got so good and how Risa was going to surpass him.
Their obsession with excellence is what led them to reach the peak of the continent. Of course, luck also played a huge part as the 2 siblings always seemed to get their hands on rare resources out of nowhere.
...
About an hour later, the two fighters were tired out and came out of the field. They came to us on the picnic blanket. Emily and I were drinking some tea while enjoying some confectionaries.
We started chatting as they were taking a break to recover their stamina. We talked about what happened last night at my place and he told me how he got an elder to act.
"I bribed him." Ryan said outright while eating a slice of cake.
"With what?" I asked.
"Before I left the SSS, they rewarded me with a bunch of rare pill formulas as a farewell gift. I gave Elder Daken one of them." he explained.
Most of the Vornix elders are obsessed with alchemy so they would do practically anything to get their hands on new formulas. They are crazy about learning and research so handing them a rare pill formula gets you a massive favor.
"Alright." I nodded. At least he didn't have to give up anything too important to those greedy old coots.
'How did you know that we were attacked that fast?"
"Ah, I have someone who hides right outside your mansion. He sent an emergency signal as soon as the assassins showed up." he said after finishing the cake and picking up some biscuits.
I sighed when I heard this. Of course, he had someone watching. He probably had someone watching since an attack that happened to me a couple of years ago.
There had been so many attacks on me since birth. It had become such a common thing that Ryan probably had multiple eyes posted all around our mansion.
His duality of cautiousness and recklessness is why I love him so much.
We then stopped talking about serious things as Risa was still here. We couldn't get into much detail as she was too young to understand the cruelty of things we had to do.
We continued conversing about the small stuff as Ryan shared more stories from his time at the SSS (Supreme Sword School).
Risa and Ryan then train again for 2 hours. It was almost lunchtime by then so he dropped her off with his parents and we went to his place.
Once we were in his room, we could talk about the sensitive stuff.
"Do you want to take of them the slow and legal way or the very fast and very troublesome way?" he asked.
I didn't have to even bring it up. He already knew that I wanted to get rid of my relatives.
Giving me 2 options was quite considerate of him, even though he knows what way I want right now. I appreciate the courtesy.
"The very troublesome way." I say with confidence.
"Hehe." He chuckles and smiles. "As you wish. Let me contact the rat exterminators."