It all happened too fast. The prince's butler was only starting to realize that Prince Adolf was under an assassination attempt. "Come, men! Our prince is being attacked," he shouted as loud as he could.
Yet, all the reply that he got was the o silent night. There was no elven guard out of the building to respond to him. Luckily for Adolf, Arvid was an experienced man. He knew that the only way to survive was to escape into this hall room.
Combat qi started emerging out of Arvid's body. When it was covered around his entire body, he stomped on the ground so hard that the tiles shattered from the impact. With the speed of an arrow that's been fired, he ran to the door to get out the hall room.
"Soon," he thought. His life would be saved if he got out, but he didn't. There was an invisible that was blocking his way. He didn't notice until he smashed his head into it. He was protected by his own combat qi armor, but it sure didn't feel good.
Just when Arvid was trying to recover from the dizziness he was getting, he suddenly felt a malicious wind coming from behind. He was an experienced fighter, so he knew that the air was becoming slashed with a blade. He lowered his body to avoid it, but the slash quickly changed course and went for his knelt head.
Arvid yelled as he instinctively covered his head with his arms, "A human knight! You're a human knight!"
Arvid knew what he was talking about. Throughout his career as a professional assassin, he has witnessed countless different fighting styles from his opponents. Out of all of them, the human knights were among the ones with the most invisible techniques, whether it was on the offensive or the defensive end. That being said, when the other races tried to mimic the humans, they could never perform the moves rights due to their anatomical differences.
When Arvid blocked his head with his arms, the blade came down and pierced the sleeves of his shirt apart. As it turned out, both of his arms were made of hard steel. No wonder he wasn't afraid of losing the ability to hold a weapon.
With the blade still pressing from above him, Arvid could feel a chilling air that was rushing towards him. When he tried to escape, frost was already appearing on his body. It was immobilizing him, and he fell on the ground because he's lost his balance.
That's when Arvid's finally got a full view of the figure he identified as a "human knight." From what he could see, the man was holding a shield and a big sword, both of which were typical of human knights. Something was weird about his mount, however.
The human knight was accompanied by a spirit wolf. Arvid was an elf, so he knew how bizarre that was. No elf has ever tamed a spirit wolf before. In fact, nobody has ever tamed one before. And just what was the monster that was standing here?
He had so many questions and not enough time to answer them. While Arvid was trying to make sense of what's going on, the ice magic sword that was in the spirit guardian knight's hand became a flash of lightning that pierced through his throat.
In the instance before Arvid's death, he could see all the lives he's claimed screaming at him at once. He didn't have any friends. All his friends died by his hands. As all his memories flashed by his conscience, he laughed like a maniac.
"My life! It's finally over!" Arvid murmured as he lost his final breath. And since the prince's butler couldn't fight, all it took was one slash from the spirit guardian knight to decapitate him.
At the same time, the protection gear on Prince Adolf's body was burst open. Abel's Jade Tan Do was already struck into his vertebrate.
As he's already lost control of his body from the beating, Prince Adolf gave up on trying to make a struggle.
"Please," Prince Adolf pleaded hoarsely, "Don't let me die so cluelessly. Tell me who you are. I want to know the name of my killer."
"Your honor," Abel replied without taking off his cover, "If there really is such a thing as a next life, please remember to identify your enemy before you go after them. You know, especially when you don't know a lot about them."
When Prince Adolf heard the voice that was so familiar, he responded with a howl,
"I am the heir to Jochberg City, and I am the prince of the Royal Elves! I am not going to die, you hear me? I am not going to..."
When Prince Adolf's breath became weaker, he eventually drew his last breath and passed away. Abel watched the whole time. He's finally had his revenge, but killing a prince was not going to do a lot of good to his relationship with the Royal Elves. In other words, Jochberg City was going to come after him sooner or later.
Whether it was the armor or his clothes, Abel stripped everything off Prince Adolf as quickly as possible. Everything that this prince was wearing was something valuable. He didn't have the time to examine each one of them, so he thought that he was just going to do that when he heads back. To be safe, he threw them all into his private storage box.
With nothing else to do, Abel focused his power of the Will into his soul chain. That's when White Cloud decided to descend from the sky. Abel's already switched off the "protection circle of the Dark Valley," but since everyone on the island was losing their lives, the elven guards that were monitoring security just thought that the seclusion circle was still intact.
Abel thought that he was going to leave right after he finished packing up, but after thinking to himself for a while, he decided to head back to the hallroom to put Arvid's dead body into his portal bag. When he finished doing that, he jumped on White Cloud's back to make a return trip.
"We're going back, White Cloud!" Abel ordered as he tapped on White Cloud's neck. If White Cloud could not camouflage its huge body, there was no way that a spiritual flying beast like it could make a flight inside the Double Moon Forest.
The return trip didn't take very long. White Cloud was flying way up high. Besides, it could sense how anxious Abel was becoming, and that's why it was so fast to get back to the camp that was surrounded by the poisonous ivy.
When Abel made his landing, he quickly rode Black Wind off White Cloud's back. Soon, he was back inside the seclusion circle.
It had been two hours since Abel left Prince Adolf's mansion. The elven guards were finally starting to notice that something was wrong. If it's at a time this late, there was no way that the prince would stay with a guest for two hours, not unless that guest was a female elf.
When the elven guards rushed to the island that was in the middle of the mansion, they realized that the seclusion circle had disappeared. Something bad must've happened. When they rushed into the hallroom, what they saw made them all had a pale look on their face. Prince Adolf was lying on his own blood. He was dead, and he was stripped naked like a defiled girl.
The news quickly got to Grand Duke Edwina. When she listened to the report made by Butler Derek, the first thing she decided to do was to take out her communication circle.
In the camp that was surrounded by the poisonous ivy, Carrie was just done with her bath. She was eating her fruits as she was sitting inside her own camp. Suddenly, the sign card in her pocket was starting to vibrate. Then, followed by a splattering sound, the magic gemstone that was used to power it started to shatter.
Carrie knew that there was something very wrong about that. The sign card was for emergency contact. Unlike regular communication circles, it was a one-time use item that could allow Angstrom City to contact her. After taking it out of her pocket, she quickly placed an intermediate gemstone inside the center slot.
A white light started to flash out. There was a hologram of Granduke Edwina in it.
"Wasn't Abel with you, Carrie?" Grand Duke Edwina asked as soon as the communication circle was connected.
"He was," Carried replied while she noticed how rushed her mother was, "He was with us the entire time today. He's even saved Lady Morrie's life today."
Grand Duke Edwina was starting to look very concerned, "I'll hear that story later, my child, but I want to know where he is right now."
Carrie was starting to realize the situation could be serious, "Abel was not with us just then, Mother! I wanted to spare him the privacy, so I left him on the other side of the camp."
Grand Duke Edwina commanded, "Get him here this instance! Tell him that I have something important to talk about."
"Yes, Mother!' Carrie bowed and complied.