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Chapter 127: Natasha's Fighting Will

Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion

Hearing Lucien's words, somehow Natasha felt like making a joke, "I'm sorry that you have to face this dangerous fighting because of me. After all, you have never even touched a girl's hand! If we can survive tonight, I'll introduce you to a decent young lady."

Lucien released a sigh, "Your Grace…" At the same time, Lucien was glad to see that Natasha was still in a joking mood. Since she was the only level five grand knight on their side, the princess herself was the key factor determining whether they would have at least a bit of hope to survive tonight.

"Then, Knight Cacharel, Daniel, and Borscht, why?" Natasha turned to the three knights who decided to stay.

"My heart is beating firmly right now." Cacharel pointed at his chest, "This is the heart of a knight, not a coward."

Daniel was a middle-aged knight, who looked intimidating and cold. "I was a pauper, and now I'm a knight. I did many bad things, but my will to fight against the forces of evil never changes." Then he crossed himself, "Maybe I'll die tonight, and before that I want to show my repentance for the horrible things I did before."

Borscht had recently become a knight, and he still looked pretty young. Scratching his head a bit, his green eyes were shining with the light of determination, "This is my first fight as a knight, and I don't want to be a deserter in my first fight, or Vivian would be laughing at me."

Mentioning his Vivian, Borscht looked affectionate and shy.

Natasha nodded to them and then turned to the two knight squires, "Bright, Tiana… The other squires and soldiers are all gone. Why did you choose to stay?"

"Your Grace… You, you remember my name!" Bright was very excited. "That's enough reason for me to fight for you, Your Grace!"

In contrast, Tiana, a half-elf and half-human girl, looked a bit hesitant, "Your Grace… my, my reason is not that lofty. I… I just feel that he would kill the people who surrendered anyway."

The reason that Verdi did not launch his attack right away was that he was waiting for the radiant knight and the senior-rank mage to come and join him after they killed Camil. After all, as a level five grand knight, Natasha's power could not be underestimated.

Hearing what Tiana just said, Verdi retorted, "If I want to kill the people who know about all my plan, I would have to kill all the knights, squires and soldiers following me right now. That's impossible, and more importantly, there is absolutely no reason for me to kill them. There won't be any hard evidence proving that I had ever colluded with Argent Horn and the sorcerers, and what I am doing now is under the acquiescence of most of the big families in the duchy. As for the Church, they're even happy to see that we nobles can have some civil wars from time to time in order to counterbalance our power. And when I become the next grand duke, all people following me will be rewarded."

Natasha listened to Verdi quietly. After he listed all those reasons trying to justify his behavior and assure his people that Tiana's words would never be true, Natasha slightly shook her head and smiled, "My dear cousin, have you ever wondered why the Congress of Magic wanted me dead so desperately that they even took the risk to seek your help? If you never thought about it, you wouldn't understand how much special attention the Church paid to me. And, by the way, even if you killed me, you wouldn't be the only legitimate heir to the grand duke title within the Violet family."

When Verdi remained silent within his confusion, Natasha turned around and said lowly to her people with great determination, "My knights, my warriors, although they outnumber us, they have to disperse their people to encircle us. And that means the number of the enemies in front of us is actually only a bit more than us."

"So we still have a chance?!" The knights' and squires' eyes lit up.

"As long as we can defeat the enemies in front of us before more of them start to attack us from behind." Natasha nodded with great determination.

This would be a quick attack. The speed would determine their life or death.

Sitting on her Dragon Scale horse named Agatha, Natasha turned around and stared at Verdi, who had two level five grand knights and four other knights behind him.

Then, curling the corner of her lips, Natasha smiled, as if something she had been dreaming for was finally realized tonight. Her eyes were shining with great excitement, shining because of her heroic dream.

Although Verdi did not hear what Natasha told her people, from Natasha's posture sitting on her horse, Verdi could tell that she was ready for the fight. There was no time for him to wait any longer.

Securing her long lance named "Slayer" under her armpit, Natasha's pulled out her knight sword named "Natasha's Thunder".

"March forward! Forward forever! In the name of Violet!" shouted the princess.

"Violet! Violet!" The knights and squires following Natasha got excited as well.

Lucien was very surprised and impressed, since he never expected that Natasha would choose this attitude to face the extreme danger. What he was watching was the true spirit of a knight.

"For the glory of Violet! Charge!" Natasha shouted aloud again and shot forward like an arrow to lead the charge.

"For the glory of Violet!" Cacharel, Lucien and Wyon, as well as Daniel, Tiana, Bright and Borscht all followed Natasha close and charged toward their enemies with their proud war cry.

Among them all, Lucien was the only one who remained relatively calm. After all, he was a sorcerer, not a knight. Holding his sword Alert, Lucien was ready to activate Sun's Corona at any time.

The tall mare named Agatha snorted loudly as it was running with great speed. There was black smoke coming out of her nostrils, and her dragon-like scales bulged greatly. As its hooves hit the floor there was loud and thunderous noises and the earth trembled slightly, as if a real dragon was coming for its enemies.

Lucien was riding on a dark red horse left by the knight who surrendered to follow the princess. Cacharel was on his left, and Wyon was on his right. Although there were only eight people on their side, they were charging toward their enemies as if they were a great army!

As they were charging faster and faster, the sharp tip of Slayer changed the air flow and created a big shield covering Natasha and all her knights and knight squires.

Verdi was well prepared. Raising up his left hand, he frowned his eyebrows and then made a gesture. Instantly, hundreds of arrows were shot out targeting the princess and the seven people following her.

However, the shield created by Natasha's lance perfectly protected them from being hurt by the arrows. All of the arrows were broken and fell down to the ground as soon as they touched the air flow.

Verdi was not very surprised. As he waved his hand again, the knight squires who were waiting for his command instantly started to approach the people following Natasha. At the same time, Verdi rushed at Natasha with a huge black iron shield in his left hand, and a fire sword in his right hand.

Another level five grand knight on Verdi's side named Tod also charged toward them. With his Blessing "Iron Blood", Tod was very confident that they could crush them within ten seconds.

Natasha's purple eyes turned into a completely silver color. Staring at Verdi and Tod, her eyes became colder and colder.

Tod's silver lance grazed Natasha's Slayer. Being protected by Verdi's huge shield, Tod focused all his strength on attacking. The shield Verdi was using was called "The Shield of Truth".

Natasha did not try to defend at all, instead, she made a direct thrust at Verdi's shield. As her speed increased, her long lance was surrounded by some visible black lines, coming straight from Natasha's own Blessing, whose name was "Cleaving", or more commonly known as "The Sword of Truth".

This was a fight between the Sword and the Shield.

The whole world seemed to pause for a bit, as everything happened very fast. Verdi heard a tiny sound of crack from his shield a moment after the impact.

When Verdi fully activated his Blessing in order to repair the Shield of Truth, Tod's lance directly pierced through Natasha's abdomen!

Even Tod himself was very surprised. He was expecting was that, facing his attack, Natasha would use her knight sword to defend herself and at the same time change her direction of charging. After all, the purpose of his attack was to disturb Natasha's fighting pace.

At the same time, a bunch of silver arrows pierced her body. Since the armor called Dragon Blood that Natasha was wearing was badly damaged already, it could not protect Natasha properly.

Although Natasha's facial expression showed that she was in pain, her gray pupils were still cold and calm. She used neither her lance nor her sword, but with her bare left hand she grabbed Tod's lance and pushed him backward forcefully with great strength.

She did not stop. Grabbing the lance, Natasha was still charging forward.

Her face looked over-excited, almost crazy.

Then, with a crispy "crack", Natasha's Slayer directly pierced through Verdi's Shield of Truth this time, with her even greater momentum! The shield rapidly broke into pieces.

Verdi could not believe what he just saw. Suddenly, he realized that Natasha actually had a kind of mutant power based on her Blessing, since the Blessing called the Sword of Truth was a combination of the power of the two greatest families over the continent, the Violet and the Holm families. Her mutant power worked simply: the more serious she was injured, the more powerful she would be!

Verdi was not a rookie on the battlefield. Facing the lance coming directly toward him, he activated his magic item without any hesitance. Suddenly, he disappeared from where he was, and in the next second he showed up again, around twenty meters away.

"Is she really gonna make it?" A ridiculous idea flashed across Verdi's mind for a second.

Natasha did not stop. Carrying her Slayer under her armpit, and tightly grabbing Tod's lance which pierced through her abdomen with her hand, Natasha pushed Tod back and they were rushing at Verdi at the same time.

While Natasha was fighting with great momentum, the people following her were not in a very good condition because of the attack from both sides.

Although those knights and squires were nothing for Wyon, who was a level four grand knight, Cacharel was facing a knight of the same level as him. As Cacharel was using all his power to fight against the knight, he was badly injured by the the spears of the knight squires.

After hearing two short and sharp screams from Bright and Tiana, Lucien never heard them again. He could hear Borscht's heavy breaths behind him, and Daniel's few muffled groans.

When Lucien was helping Cacharel with his Alert, he saw countless silver arrows coming toward them like rain drops.

Without any hesitance, Lucien activated Star Shield. If they survived, Lucien might still have a chance to find some excuses to explain, but if they died there, every effort he made would be pointless.

Covering Lucien and the other people, the Star Shield was shining brightly at night. Multiple arrows hit the cover and fell down on the ground without doing any damage to it.

On the other side, Tod discarded his lance and an iron shield appeared in his left hand, conjured by his Blessing. Wielding his longsword in his right hand, Tod started to fight back. The other grand knights on Verdi's side who were encircling Natasha and her people were now only half the original distance away from them!

Chapter 128: Piercing

Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion

Tod's sword was covered with a thin layer of red light. From an angle, Tod started an attack with his sword aiming straight at Natasha's neck. No matter how powerful Natasha's Blessing was, losing her head would still mean the end of her life. Also, Tod's sword had a special kind of power. When the sword cut a target, the wound would bleed continuously, regardless of how great the person's self-healing ability was.

At the same time, Tod's skin turned into a silver color and his body was covered with a layer of metal, as if he were a real Steel Golem. That blessing power could at the same time enhance his defense capabilities and his strength.

Natasha finished pulling out Tod's lance from her abdomen with one hand, throwing it away. In the other hand, her sword, covered with small flashes of lightning, parried the incoming attack, but she wouldn't be able to continue after Verdi if she had to deal with Tod.

"Wyon!" shouted Natasha, "Cover me!"

As Natasha called his name, Wyon immediately activated his Blessing. His body started emitting a bright white light and four pairs of big white wings appeared on his back. His sizer grew to almost twice that of common people.

This was Wyon's Blessing, the Angel of Strength!

Catching up with Tod, Wyon wielded his huge sword with both hands and directly hacked at Tod's red sword. Riding on his horse, Tod swiftly changed his direction and blocked Wyon's attack. Both of them were using their full strength, trying to defeat each other's sword. The power of collision of the swords summoned forth gusts of wind. Both of their gauntlets started to crack from the great power of the impacts.

While many of the white and shining feathers of Wyon's wings were falling, Tod remained relatively calm. Obviously, Tod was in a more favorable position in that confrontation.

Facing those terrible odds, Wyon knew that he could not yield. As the princess' main knight in that battle, it was his duty to fight for Natasha until the last second of his life. Spurring his horse with his boots, Wyon followed right behind her and prevented the princess from being attacked by Tod.

Not far behind them, Borscht couldn't stand his wounds anymore and fell from his horse, moaning in his last breath, "Vivian…"

After knocking Borscht over, the other knights and squires switched their target to Lucien, who looked relatively weak among the other warriors on his team.

Thanks to his Ice Revenger, Lucien had stayed relatively calm so far, although his arm was already numb from hacking and blocking the attacks. After all, strength was not his forte.

When another smite struck Lucien's back, his Star Shield finally reached its limit and shattered into small shining pieces.

Lucien was gathering his spiritual power in order to recast Star Shield, but a second smite came at him. Luckily, he was still charging forward, or he would be dead already. He was certain that the one attacking him was a level two knight, since his Star Shield was capable of handling three or four attacks of a level one knight, and unless his spiritual power was drained, his shield would always be there protecting him.

That was why a sorcerer was, to some extent, stronger than a knight of the same level.

However, facing a level two knight, Lucien, a first circle sorcerer, was being pushed.

At that moment, Natasha was again only a few meters away from Verdi. To the side, there were only several knight squires who were protecting Silvia. Behind Verdi there was a broad open field and Melzer Black Forest further ahead.

If Natasha could break out their siege and make it to the black forest, Verdi would lose his precious chance to kill the princess tonight, which he would probably not have again in this life.

If Natasha made it through the night, Verdi himself would be the one who was going to be sentenced to death, and all efforts he made would become useless.

Even without his shield, Verdi lowered his head and looked rather determined. Although he was a narrow-minded man, as a knight, Verdi still had strong willpower and a bold heart.

Being clearly aware of the fact that, in terms of experience in fighting, he might be slightly inferior to his cousin, Verdi knew that what he needed at that moment was a perfect defense, to stop Natasha.

Crossing his arms in front of his chest, he roared and activated his Blessing again. The roaring was so powerful that even his horse was stunned a bit. The ground started to shake vigorously, and then multiple thick walls suddenly rose up from the black soil, blocking the path between Verdi and Natasha.

A few stars in the night sky suddenly started to shine brightly. Their light seemed to cover Verdi's armor, and a translucent force shield showed up in front of him.

The Shield of Truth was actually a Blessing that combined the Blessings called Earth and another one called Stars.

That demanded all the power Verdi had. His Blessing had showed its true power.

Natasha's eyebrows frowned a bit, but then she started to charge forward with an even greater speed. Soon, her black lance directly pierced through the first few walls. Although the rest of the walls were destroyed by Slayer as well, they made her charging speed decrease considerably.

When the tip of Natasha's lance hit Verdi's force shield, the transparent shield shook with ever-widening ripples on the surface surrounding the lance tip. Verdi took a step back, but in the next second he successfully withstood the powerful momentum of Natasha's blow and stabilized the shield.

One second, two seconds… Natasha's was pushing her Slayer forward with all her might, but it only penetrated a few centimeters into the shield.

A cold smile appeared on Verdi's face as he saw that the other grand knights were finally about to catch up with Natasha, readying their swords to strike at her.

However, at that moment, a white light beam came down from the sky and hit his shield with a tremendous power.

The light was burning hot, as if it was the righteous flames of God.

It was the Holy Strike!

Although the level one divine spell did not actually do any damage to the Shield of Truth, Verdi was badly distracted.

"The Church!" Verdi blurted out. Knowing that all of Natasha's and her knights' divine and magic items had been used up and reached their limit, this divine spell was totally out of Verdi's expectation and only one possibility crossed his mind. If the Church found out what he was doing there right now, that would be the end of him!

As the Blessings were affected by the owner's willpower, Verdi's Shield of Truth trembled a bit when he got distracted for that second.

However, that one single second was already enough for Natasha, a grand knight, to completely turn the tables.

Using all her strength and power, Natasha grabbed her black lance and pierced Verdi's force field like a drill. The translucent shield instantly cracked and broke into thousands of shining pieces. Slayer continued moving forward and pierced through Verdi's left shoulder, near the joint, directly knocking him off his horse.

Being nailed by Natasha's lance, Verdi got crazy. To prevent the lance from completely drained his strength and life, he pulled out his sword with his right hand and directly chopped off his left arm together with his left shoulder. Then, free from Natasha's lance, he rolled to the other side. His purple blood burst out and sprinkled everywhere on the ground.

It was Lucien who cast the spell Holy Strike just now. He activated Sun's Corona at the very crucial moment.

In order to become a powerful sorcerer, staying calm and focused was of great significance to adjust the tactics for fighting based on the different situations.

Facing the several enemies who just arrived and were trying to stop Natasha, Cacharel suddenly swooped down on one of them with his body weight. Then, his whole body stretched like a piece of rubber, tightly tying the grand knight and his sword like a rubber rope, but at the same time, several horrible wounds appeared on Cacharel's body.

This was Cacharel's Blessing. He could stretch his body and strongly constrict the enemies!

On the other side, Daniel, who had already been seriously injured, jumped from his horse and over some enemies, knocking down a couple of the knights.

They were willing to use suicide tactics so that their princess could stand a chance!

Natasha followed Verdi's roll and used the lightning power on her sword, Thunder, to paralyze him. Her next attack was seeking Verdi's throat, but a strong air wave hit her hand mid-swing, pushing her hand and the sword slightly to the side. Thus, Natasha's sword missed Verdi's neck by an inch.

It was Silvia who cast the spell with her magic item.

Natasha's turned her horse around to try again and quickly adjusted her wrist to strike down at Verdi once again.

However, at that time, Silvia suddenly jumped out, standing between her and Verdi. She was staring at Natasha with her beautiful black eyes.

Silvia was protecting Verdi with her own body, hoping her former lover would not dare to hurt her!

Great pain could be found in Natasha's gray eyes as she hacked at her lover without any hesitance. She clearly knew that, at this point, any hesitance could get her killed, along with the knights who were loyal to her, the friends that had supported her in that dire moment.

Until she felt the coldness of the sword and the great pain, Silvia could not believe her eyes. With unwavering determination, Natasha's sword split Silvia's body in two.

The princess did not stop, though, and rode her horse forward to do the same to Verdi.

At that very moment, all of Verdi's knights immediately turned around to try to stop Natasha, regardless of the great risk they would face when they showed Lucien and Wyon their backs.

Chapter 129: Breakout

Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion

"Bang!" A loud and crispy sound of metals colliding with each other was heard. It was from Wyon's heavy sword fiercely hacking Tod's metalized face when the latter stopped attacking him and turned around in order to help his lord Verdi.

A deep, horrible wound appeared in the center of Tod's face, starting from his forehead all the way to his chin, and even his nose was split into two. However, instead of blood, it was liquid metal that was slowly coming out of the wound. At the same time, the liquid metal was trying to heal the scary wound.

Although Tod was seriously injured, the sword in his hand did not stop, and it went directly to the princess, whose blade was a few centimeters away from Verdi. Although Natasha swiftly leaned to the side, Tod's sword left a terrible cut on Natasha's back, from which her spine and internal organs were almost visible.

The already badly damaged armor could not protect her very well anymore. With a muffled moan, Natasha bit her lips to bear the great pain and, without pause, wielded her Thunder toward Verdi again!

She knew that she could not lose her momentum at this time, or it would be the end of all of them, and her knights and squires would die for nothing.

Beside Silvia's hacked body, Verdi thought he got a chance to use his magic item again and thus escape away from Natasha. However, a powerful lightning struck him directly from the sky.

As an extraordinary magic sword, Natasha's Thunder had a certain chance to summon real lightning.

Verdi's broken, dark purple armor was instantly burned black. Although luckily part of the remaining power of his Blessing saved his life from the lightning, the powerful strike fully paralyzed his body again.

He was angry and desperate. Verdi could not understand why everything turned out to be so bitter, when he thought a great success was definitely upon his hands. However, he would not easily reconcile himself to the situation!

At that moment, Natasha's sharp blade was coming directly toward Verdi's neck, but he sommoned forth all his remaining willpower to overcome the paralyzing feeling in his right arm. With it, he suddenly tried to block Thunder with his bare right hand. Lots of small rays of lightning instantly covered his hand and his forearm, snapping part of his right arm right off. However, the sacrifice of his right arm also reduced Thunder's speed and, by the time the blade reached his neck, a piece of the Shield of Truth was formed around it. At the same time, his feet pushed against the ground and his body rolled backwards.

Natasha hacked her sword at Verdi's neck with all her anger, pain and hatred. Although the small piece of shield did not fully stop her attack, when the shield broke into pieces, her momentum had been weakened enough. Thunder cut a deep wound in Verdi's neck, but the blade did not really touch his carotid arteries. Verdi passed out, but he was not dead, yet.

When Natasha was about to lift her sword again to end her cousin's sinful life, a few of Verdi's grand knights arrived and blocked her path to their lord, who had completely lost his consciousness.

Natasha quickly made an estimation of their power and instantly decided to leave. She was already seriously injured, and the extra power her Blessing created due to her injuries would not last much longer. She knew that this was not the right time for her to be a hero.

"Let's go!" shouted Natasha to her people, and then she spurred Agatha and rushed out of the encirclement.

Verdi's knights were occupied with saving their lord, and more importantly, they also felt intimidated when they saw their lord lying on the ground like a torn sack.

Therefore, it was not hard for Lucien, Cacharel and Wyon to break the siege and follow Natasha. Unfortunately, facing too many knights on his own, Daniel did not make it.

"You f**king idiots! What are you f**king waiting for?!" When Tod approached Verdi, he yelled at the rest of the knights with great anger, "Go and get them, or we will all die!"

Leaving some knight squires to take care of Verdi, Tod spurred his horse and led the rest of the knights to chase the princess.

The four Dragon Scale horses were very fast, and soon they were close to the edge of the black forest. At that time, Natasha suddenly turned around and threw her black lance, Slayer, toward Tod, with all her strength and power.

Flying with great speed in the air, the lance stirred the air flow and created a loud and unique noise.

As Tod subconsciously rolled down from his horse and fell on the ground, Slayer pierced right through another level four knight's chest, who was behind Tod and did not even have time to raise his shield to defend. When Slayer flew right through the knight's chest, it immediately turned the body into something brittle, that shattered into thousands of shining pieces in the next second.

When Tod stood up again, the princess and her people had already disappeared in the forest.

Natasha's final burst of power shocked everyone present.

After a short period of time, Tod said to the rest of the knights in a cold voice, "We have to find and kill them tonight, and we have no second choice. If the princess survives, we will all die, and our families will die with us."

The other knights nodded and followed Tod into the deep woods.

…

As the big and tall trees grew in the number the deeper they went into the woods, the horses were not suitable for moving forward anymore. Thus, Wyon suggested that they should leave the horses and go on foot.

When Natasha was about to get off from her horse, she fell to the ground.

Both Lucien and Wyon rushed toward her, and found that the princess was already in a coma. Her face was abnormally flushed, and her body was covered with gashes, especially the terrible hole on her abdomen and the deep cut in her back.

"The princess has reached her limit," Wyon was trying to stop some of the wounds from bleeding, "but Her Grace should be fine. After all, the self-healing power of a grand knight should be able to let her recover relatively fast."

Lucien carefully touched Natasha's forehead and the tip of her nose. He found that there were small particles swelling underneath her burning hot skin, and, thankfully, she was still breathing relatively smoothly.

As the least injured among them all, Lucien carried Natasha on his back and took her sword with him. At the same time, Wyon put Cacharel on his back, since he was already too weak to stand still.

Then, they resumed their escape through the forest.

"Baron Wyon," Lucien paused a bit and said to him seriously, "you're the strongest and the most powerful one among us all. I think you should take the princess back to Aalto, and I can cover you."

"Impressive, Lucien. I heard your name before and I never expected that a musician could be brave and powerful like you are." A bitter smile appeared on Wyon's face, "I appreciate your suggestion, but I don't think I should be the one to take the princess out of here, since Tod knows me pretty well, and honestly speaking, I don't think I can get rid of them that easily… I'm badly injured already. Right now, even the running is pretty much a stretch for me…"

"Baron Wyon…" Lucien did not know what to say.

"Listen to me, Lucien." Wyon nodded, "As you said, I'm the strongest among us all, and I bet Tod would believe that I would be the one with the princess. So you should be the one sending the princess back to Aalto, and Cacharel and I will cover you."

"I agree…" Cacharel nodded and said to Lucien in a weak voice.

"Even if you meet them on your way, they won't be Verdi's main force. And besides, you have the princess' sword," Wyon added.

"I see." Lucien nodded. There was no time for him to try to act like a great hero.

"Take off the princess's armor and give it to us." Wyon stopped running and said to Lucien. "The grand knights can smell the scent blood in the air."

After Lucien handed Natasha's damaged Dragon Blood to them, both Wyon and Cacharel tied some pieces to their own armors.

"All our hope is on you now, Lucien." Cacharel smiled peacefully, "If we die, remember to bring some flowers to our graves."

Lucien nodded, and then Wyon and Cacharel left toward the other side of the forest.

…

Lucien was still running. He had no idea how long he had been fleeing. He was gasping loudly, and his own gasping was the only thing that he could hear in the deep forest.

Honestly speaking, the idea of just leaving Natasha somewhere in the forest and running for his own life did cross Lucien's mind. After all, he still had his dreams that hadn't been fulfilled yet.

However, Lucien just couldn't do that. Leaving a friend here just like that, in great danger, would destroy the rest of his life.

After recovering a bit, Lucien activated his Star Shield again, covering both Natasha and himself, just in case.

"Lucien… you really got some good stuff in the magic lock…" At this time, Natasha's voice came from behind him. Lucien had no idea when she came back to consciousness.

"Am I that heavy?" Natasha was still joking, and after a few seconds, she murmured, "You're my only friend now, Lucien."

Lucien was not sure if she was sobbing.

…

Deep in the sewers in Aalto, countless rats surged forward out of nowhere, like a black tide, and all of them had terrifying red eyes.

Chapter 130: Tiphotidis

Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion

When Elsinore Lake got rid of the restriction of the Grand Cross in the black and white world, the space inverted and the magic lock was shattered, and its remaining pieces were still floating deeper into the World of Souls.

As the remains of the magic lock floated throughout that world, countless magic circles started to silently collapse, until a magnificent city appeared in the front, devoid of colors.

The shadow city was like the inverted reflection of Aalto, while the arrangement of the city was a total mess. Above this shadow city, there was a Grand Cross consisting of nine mysterious stars that were shining brightly.

Being influenced by the collapse of the magic lock around Elsinore Lake, this Grand Cross started to break down as well. Some kind of silver-colored fog slowly rose from beneath the shadow city, which was cold and quiet, as if it was turning this shadow Aalto into a hell where coldness and death dominated everything.

Suddenly, a pale and huge palm reached out of the ground, and each knuckle of the hand had horrifying, sharp bone spurs. Somehow, the terrifying hand broke the boundary existing between the World of Souls and the main material world and directly showed up deep in the sewers in the real Aalto.

The hand was shining with silver light. Any creature in the sewers affected by the light went crazy, like the red-eyed rats. The silver light was turning all the creatures there into filthy monsters. The ground was shaking fiercely. Lots of residents above the ground escaped from their places, screaming and crying. They thought it was a horrible earthquake.

However, it was way more terrible than an earthquake. In the sewers, when the huge, pale palm pressed itself against the ceiling, countless deep and wide gaps appeared on the ground above. Then, a humanoid monster with pale skin, red eyes, and silver goat horns on its head jumped out of the ground and landed heavily above the surface. The whole city fiercely shook again because of this horrible monster, which was tens of meters tall.

The monster's whole body was covered with silver light, and the light was spreading like waves. Everything covered by the light turned cold.

"Stupid…" This manlike monster sneered and murmured in Infernal, the language of demons. "What was sealed was never the previous duke. No one should trust a demon."

…

Leading two level three grand knights, four level two knights, and four level one knights, Tod entered Melzer Black Forest. Following the smell of blood, they went all the way deep into the woods.

At the place where Lucien and Wyon went separate ways, Tod stopped, "They took different ways. The smell of the princess' blood is in both directions."

"Wyon went this way." Worns, a level three knight, could detect the smell of Wyon's blood.

"Wyon is a level four grand knight. Anatole and I will go after him." Tod was very resolute, "Worns, you take the other way. If you find the princess, send us a signal."

"Please wait," Rosan Aaron stopped Tod.

Although Tod disliked dark knights a lot, he never underestimated their special abilities. "What do you want to say?"

Pointing at the direction where Lucien went, Aaron answered seriously, "They can confuse us with the smell of blood, but they cannot lie to the shadow. The dark shadow told me Natasha went this way."

"Very well." Tod nodded, "Then, Anatole and Worns, you to go after Wyon, and Aaron and I will follow this path."

…

Hearing Natasha's words, Lucien did not know what to say. He sighed in his heart. If Natasha knew that he was a sorcerer, she would no longer have that impression.

After a moment, Lucien comforted her, "Your Grace, besides me, you still have the grand duke, Lady Camil, Felicia… You still have many friends who will always support you and care for you."

As soon as he mentioned Camil, Lucien knew he said something stupid.

"Auntie…" Natasha sounded even more depressed now, "I was so stupid… All of these… all of it… is because of me."

"That was an oversight… Your Grace." Lucien tried to sound more objective, "But it's not all your fault."

"It is," Natasha answered in a low voice. "I found out Silvia was a sorcerer apprentice a long time ago."

"What?!" Carrying Natasha, Lucien was still running as fast as he could. Hearing what the princess just said, Lucien almost ran into a tree.

"My love… no, my greed blinded me." Natasha released a long sigh, "Since it is said that the origin of Blessing has something to do with the ancient sorcerers, I was hoping that she could figure out a way which would enable two girls together to have babies that are born with the power of Blessing, then no one could disturb our love anymore using this as an excuse."

"Your Grace, you're… you're…" Lucien was trying to find a proper word, "ambitious."

"Ambitious…" Natasha was a bit confused at first and then she cheered herself up, "Anyway, since now we're running for our lives, well… now you're running for our lives, it is not really a good time to feel regretful and sad. It will take me about two to three hours to recover to a certain extent, and during this period of time, my life will be on your hands."

Then, she paused a bit and said to him, "Actually… You didn't have to do this for me. Thank you, Lucien. I'll always keep this in mind."

"I witnessed the whole thing." Lucien tried to make the princess feel less guilty, "Verdi would try to kill me either way. I'd rather help my friend."

"You just don't want to show how nice you are, Lucien." Natasha slightly shook her head, "I'll temporarily free Thunder from my control and let you leave your spiritual power on it. Thunder is a level five perfect rank sword. With the sword, you will have a chance against anyone who's under the rank of grand knight."

Lucien left his spiritual power mark on Thunder following Natasha's directions, and during the process, he got more information on that sword.

"Natasha's Thunder. Level five perfect rank sword. Made from precious aerolite and the blood of a Storm Titan. Can cause damage close to the power of a radiant knight. The owner's strength can be improved to the level of a common Storm Titan, which equals to the peak of a grand knight's strength.

"Besides, Thunder comes with the enchantment of small lightnings, which can paralyze its target and make it lose the hearing for a while. There is a five percent chance that Thunder can summon real lightning from the sky, which equals to a fifth circle sorcerer casting the magic spell Thunder. There is about 0.1% chance that the summoned lightning will be super powerful. In stormy weather, the chances will be increased, but also the owner should be more careful as well.

"This is a coming-of-age gift for my little Natasha. This is the Scepter of Thunder.

"By: Yaroran Hathaway Hoffenberg."

Grabbing Thunder, Lucien felt the power of lightning nurturing his body. Although his hand felt a bit numb, he could tell that his strength was being greatly improved. A thick piece of tree root cracked as Lucien stepped on it purposefully.

"Try to get used to it, Lucien," Natasha said to him. "This is a weapon, not a magic item. Using any weapon or armor that is too powerful for the user can bring some side effects. And it takes longer for someone to get used to it. Comparatively speaking, magic items are much better at this point."

"Are you saying that a normal person can actually use some powerful magic items, Your Grace?" asked Lucien. He wondered if he could beat a senior-rank mage if he had a dozen of magic rings enchanted with ninth circle spells.

"Well…" Natasha nodded, but then shook her head, "It really depends. High level magic items are precious. And most of the magic items above level five usually have strict requirement for their owners, such as the level of spiritual power, strength, knowledge, willpower and so on. But before that level, if your enemy who's more powerful than you is not prepared, yes, you might have some chance to win. In contrast, extraordinary weapons and armors usually don't work in this way."

Lucien did not have much knowledge of extraordinary weapons and armors. After hearing Natasha's words, Lucien started to have a rough idea with regard to this topic and sort of understood why Sun's Corona would have five layers' of seals.

Gently wielding the sword, Lucien felt that his speed was slightly improved as well.

"Ummm… You know what, " Natasha looked around and said to him easily, "you left a lot of clues for those bad people to trace us."

"Did I?!" Lucien was surprised, "I thought I had been very careful already. Well… after all, I'm just a musician, Your Grace."

"I bet you were, Lucien, but I don't feel you're just a musician…" Natasha laughed and quickly switched the topic, "When I received my knight training, I learned a lot about these matters, and I can teach you."

Under Natasha's instruction, Lucien learned a couple of ways to hide his trails by using different plants, minerals and even small creatures.

"Smart. You learned very fast, Lucien." Natasha nodded, "By the way, I'm pretty sure there are Ghost Aloes around this area… maybe close to the water. If you can find some, the aloes can remove the blood smell on us."

…

As soon as the gigantic, manlike monster started to move, beams of holy light appeared in the city, one after another, and layers of divine power circles rose and connected to each other.

"Welcome to Aalto, the Great Master of Argent," the person who was speaking to the monster sounded rather old, "or should I call you, Mr. Tiphotidis, the Ice duke."

It was Sard, the Saint Cardinal, who was floating in the air. Wearing a plain, white robe, Sard was holding a magic staff embedded with shining gems and a big cross. His eyes were bright and sharp.

"Why are you here, Sard?!" The Great Master of Argent shouted with anger, "You should be at Elsinore Lake right now! You don't care about the princess?!"

Chapter 131: The Joint Effort

Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion

Holding the Sun Scepter in his hand, Sard expanded the divine power circles and let them fully cover the city. By doing this, Sard actually brought the battle field into another dimension, in order to avoid the horrible destruction of the city that could be expected from such a battle.

Then, Sard answered in a slow pace, "Someone's handling the troubles there for me. No worries."

"There's only one person who can deal with it." Tiphotidis surrounded itself with a fiend circle and blocked the divine power circles from affecting it without much effort, "You worked with the grand arcanist, Yaroran Hathaway?! How dare you! You helped her come back from the secret dimension?!"

"Well… There is no everlasting friend, and no everlasting enemy." Sard smiled.

Looking around, Tiphotidis saw no other cardinals present, not to mention the pope.

"As you might notice, I'm the only grand cardinal here," Sard was still talking in a very calm tone, "because I'm very interested in the legendary archmage called Maskelyne, and the secret of the dimension called the World of Souls. You and Apsis must know about that."

"Risk… That's a big risk." Tiphotidis burst into a raucous laughter, "You greedy human beings. You think you can stop me on your own with a bunch of stupid shining magic circles? Tell me… would you dare tell Yaroran the complete truth?"

Sard was definitely well prepared. He shrugged easily, "Oh, I'm sorry… I'm not really on my own."

Rhine, in his black shirt and red long jacket, showed up behind the Great Master of Argent.

Without even looking back, Tiphotidis sneered, "Little filthy vampire."

Two pairs of huge, black bat wings bulged out of Rhine's back. And the aura of Rhine's darkness and evilness somehow matched the holy light surrounding Sard perfectly well. His eyes, instead of being the usual scarlet eyes a vampire had, were still silver.

"Long time no see, Tiphotidis. For your information, there are different kinds of vampires, but it seems that you've already forgotten me," greeted Rhine casually.

"Count Silver Eye, the Observer. It's you." Tiphotidis got serious.

…

Above Elsinore lake, the cardinals, gold knights, and night watchers floating in the sky besieged their enemies.

Within the circle, there was a male and a female.

The man in the black robe with brown hair and dark blue eyes was Rogerio, Mr. Deroni's business partner that Lucien actually met once before. According to Verdi's words, Rogerio and a radiant knight were supposed to be fighting against Camil at that moment.

The woman was very beautiful, and her silver gray eyes were very impressive. Wearing a dark purple robe, she looked rather cold. Slowly lifting up her hand, she pointed her finger at Ilia, his priests and the dark knights, who were very confused right now, and slightly moved her lips,

"Elements Resolve."

Immediately, Ilia, the level seven grand priest, was turned into a variety of different substances: black particles, smoke, small clusters of green wildfire, pungent sulphur powder, and even his great fiend power was being swiftly disintegrated.

Very soon, the level seven grand priest, plus his six great priests, twelve priests and all the dark knights were completely turned into colorful small particles floating the air. Soon afterwards, nothing was left of them.

Although the horrifying wraith wearing black robe was resolving as well, the colorful particles in the air did not disappear. A moment later, the particles reunited together and the monster appeared again.

"Apsis, go back to your Skeleton Land," the woman said shortly.

A shining gate suddenly emerged in front of the monster. After silently staring at the woman for a moment, the black-robed monster obediently stepped into the gate.

Then, the lake became peaceful again. Thanks to the timely arrival of the Church, the residents of the small town were saved.

"Now, you can go." The lady was still very cold. She commanded the powerful cardinals and knights to leave as if she was giving an order to her minions.

Amelton, Hayward and Rafati turned around silently and left submissively. Although they had no idea why she was there, they were more than grateful that she did not bother killing them.

After all, the lady was an arcanist. She was one of the greatest arcanists ever in history, Yaroran Hathaway, the Lord of Elements, who ranked the sixteenth place on the Church's Cleansing List.

After the Church and the people of the duchy left, Rogerio came in front of Hathaway and questioned her with a slight bit of anger, "Your Excellency, how can you violate the decision made by the lords of the congress?"

Taking a glance at Rogerio, Hathaway's silver gray eyes remained cold. "Did I agree to it? Without my consent, no decision is valid."

"But…" Rogerio tried to insist.

However, Hathaway cut him off directly, "Every grand arcanist has the power of veto, and you'd better keep this in mind. By the way, I don't want that there's anyone trying to poke their nose into the internal affairs of the Holm family."

After finishing her phrase, she disappeared in the air.

When Hathaway was gone, Rogerio's face suddenly became more relaxed, as if the anger he showed earlier was just something fake. Facing an internal power struggle among the grand arcanists, even an archmage needed to be very careful.

…

On the wildlands outside of Melzer Black Forest, bodies were overlapping each other.

Grabbing Verdi's neck with her right hand, Camil directly lifted him up, "Where's the princess?"

Verdi knew that he was totally hopeless now, and he sneered, "In the black forest. Maybe my knights have already found and killed her."

Camil grabbed his neck even tighter.

"Tell… tell me, Camil…" Verdi could not breathe and the words were squeezed out of his throat, "Did the grand duke… ask you… to kill my father?"

"Go to hell." Camil directly exploded Verdi's body into pieces with extremely powerful water spouts.

Until the last second of Verdi's life, he felt no regret.

Entering the black forest, Camil started to trace the smell of Natasha's blood. At some point ahead, she was a bit hesitant, since both directions had the smell.

…

Ghost Aloe looked completely different from common aloes. It had five long white leaves, as if its color had faded a long time ago. With transparent, long thorns growing on their tips, the leaves were very wrinkly, looking just like the skinny, wizened fingers of an old witch with long and sharp nails.

Natasha was feeling much better. She plucked the aloes and crumpled the leaves up. Some aloe sap came out.

"Lucien, you help me put them on my wounds, and I help you with the blood on your back." Natasha did not feel shy at all.

Lucien knew that this was not a proper time to talk about proper manners between a man and a woman. He nodded and followed Natasha's request. When he was rubbing the small aloe balls on Natasha's wounds, he witnessed the great self-healing power of a grand knight: the wounds on her body were healing in a visible way.

"How do you feel?" Natasha joked, "First time seeing a girl's lower abdomen?"

Lucien thought silently in his mind that girls wearing bikini in his own world were a very common sight, and he should have seen way more girls' lower abdomen than Natasha, but he still answered seriously, "Horrible… many parts of your inner organs are damaged. I feel I'll have a nightmare."

"You should be grateful if we manage to survive the night and you can still have a chance to sleep in a bed while having a nightmare." Natasha laughed, "As long as my inner organs are not destroyed completely, for a grand knight such as me, whose power is close to that of a radiant knight and with a special Blessing, the situation is not too bad."

"We'll see…" Lucien frowned his eyebrows while he was still rubbing the aloe balls on Natasha's wounds.

"You don't believe me?" Natasha giggled, "I'll be alright, Lucien. Seriously, if we got lost in the forest and we needed to eat, you could cut piece of my heart, livers or kidneys off and roast them for food. Isn't that great?"

"Not really… Your Grace." Lucien released a long sigh. Sometimes he really had no idea how to deal with Natasha's sense of humor.

"Well…" Natasha added, "If I didn't get enough food, my body would stop recovering, and I would die, too, just like common people."

"I won't let it happen," answered Lucien calmly. "In ten minutes, we should be close to Massol River."

…

Aalto.

Tiphotidis, the Great Master of Argent, was tightly constrained by the many divine power circles controlled by Sard with all of his power.

In front of Tiphotidis, Rhine lifted up his right hand, and the huge bat wings were fully stretched open. Suddenly, the night sky lit up due to a full moon that appeared with its bright silver radiance.

The moon was becoming bigger and bigger, and also brighter and brighter.

Tiphotidis saw a blurry figure with blond hair inside the silver moon, and only the figure's scarlet eyes could be seen clearly. Slowly, the figure lifted up a sword.

The Great Master of Argent was shocked, "You can borrow the power?!"

With an evil smile, Rhine tilted his head slightly to one side, and he suddenly dropped his right hand with great speed. Simultaneously, the blond-haired figure hacked the sword downwards.

The silver moonlight blinded Tiphotidis's eyes when it heard Rhine's words, "Remember me whenever you see the moon."

Chapter 132: The Place

Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion

Leading the night watchers, the several cardinals of the Church came back to Aalto. The city was still sleeping peacefully in the darkness, as tranquil as they left it earlier.

At this time, the red-robed cardinal, Vila Amelton, who was also one of the actual leaders of the Inquisition, suddenly stopped flying. A moment later, she turned to the Canon Holder, "Salvador, go back and find Lady Camil right now. She's searching for the princess in Melzer Black Forest."

Before Salvador responded to the command, Count Hayward, the vice commander of Violet Knights, burst out, "What happened to the princess?"

"In collusion with the Congress of Magic, Verdi ambushed the princess and tried to kill her. Natasha broke out of their siege and is now hiding in the black forest."

"What?! Verdi!" Rafati and Hayward looked shocked. They could not believe their ears.

The several other noble knights present also looked very shocked. However, the reason that they were astounded was because of the fact Verdi failed.

"Yes. Sard just informed me," Amelton answered shortly.

"I'll go with them." Hayward's brows knitted together tightly. Although he looked just like a twenty-something young man, he was actually more than a hundred and sixty years old. Hayward had witnessed countless conspiracies in his life, and now he had a sense of suspicion crawling into his mind. Hayward's intuition was telling him that the reason that they were sent to Elsinore Lake earlier tonight was much more sophisticated than he thought.

Salvador crossed himself, "Yes, my lord."

"Only truth lives forever." Amelton also crossed on her chest.

...

Following Aaron's special ability of communicating with the shadows, Tod soon noticed a cluster of Ghost Aloe missing a few leaves.

"I knew they were going to use Ghost Aloe… We arrived just a bit too late." Tod was a bit pissed off, but then he turned to Aaron, "Any idea which direction they went?"

"The shadow told me…" Aaron scrutinized the surroundings carefully, "they're still around."

"That doesn't make any sense." Tod fiercely hacked the plant with his sword.

"There's only one explanation for this." Aaron said to Tod, "They jumped into the river."

Ghost Aloe often grew very close to water, and this cluster was not an exception. Not far away from the Ghost Aloe, there was a running creek connecting to Massol River.

"Then we just have to follow the water." Tod nodded, "They were injured way more seriously than us. We can catch them."

"What if they left the river and went back into the forest again?" asked Aaron, "I'm not a grand knight. I cannot get information from the shadows in the water."

"Well… then just pay close attention to the possible wet plants on both sides of the river. If they left the river, there must be a trail." Tod looked very confident, and the horrible, long wound on his face had almost recovered.

"All right." Although Aaron thought this strategy was relatively time-consuming, he could not think of a better solution.

Then they started to search along both sides of the river.

...

After floating in the river for a short period of time, Lucien and Natasha left the water and went deep into the woods again.

When Lucien carried Natasha on his back again and was about to run away, Natasha reminded him, "Remember to hide our trail."

Natasha's wet hair was dripping water, and so was his black robe.

"Yes, you're right." Lucien nodded. He carefully put Natasha behind a tall and thick tree and then started to collect a kind of weird-looking bush that looked like hay to dry them out a bit.

"I'm afraid they can still trace us." Grabbing the plant, Lucien was worried, "This is not enough." Lucien was quite regretful that he never really paid attention to some of the first circle spells which were used for cleaning all kinds of trails when he was doing his magic structure analysis. At that time, he never thought they might be very useful one day.

"They're powerful knights. I wouldn't expect that we could completely get rid of them with a bunch of plants." Natasha was analyzing with her clear mind, "I know all the knights who were on Verdi's side and I know all their Blessings. Neither of them is really good at tracing, however, I can feel they're getting closer and closer."

"You can feel it?" Lucien got nervous, "I thought I did a good job…"

"You did, Lucien." Natasha slightly patted his shoulders, "I guess that, very possibly, there's a dark knight tracing us. And I'm thinking… when I recover a bit more, maybe we can try to fight back in order to kill this dark knight."

"I don't agree." Lucien shook his head, "What if it is Tod who's chasing us, instead of some random knights? Or what if the dark knight is also very powerful? What if they're using some magic items to trace us?"

Lucien knew very well that Natasha was a great risk taker, but he was not.

"Well… I hear your many 'what if', Lucien." Natasha slightly lifted her purple eyebrows, "I know that any of your 'what if' can easily kill us, but do we have another choice? Sooner or later, they'll find us."

Lucien lowered his head. He knew that what Natasha just said was correct.

"All right… we still have to be more prepared." Lucien looked up at the several faint stars in the sky and roughly estimated their location, "At least we'll wait until your power reaches the level of an ordinary knight."

"I'm afraid we don't have this much time." Natasha carefully checked herself and said to Lucien, "Although the worst impact on my body caused by my Blessing is gone, I still need a couple of hours to recover to the level that you just said."

Lucien's eyes slightly opened bigger as he suddenly remembered something important. Reaching his hand into his wet robe, Lucien took out a bunch of magic ingredients for making potions that he got from the archmage's storeroom and put them on the ground.

"Can any of these help you?" Lucien was a bit hesitant, "I… I got these from the archmage's place, to… to sell them for some money."

Lucien was a bit nervous.

Natasha did not really notice Lucien's awkwardness, and when she lowered her head, a surprised smile appeared on her face, "Aether… and vampire's blood! Awesome!"

Both Aether and vampire blood were ingredients for a very effective healing potion named Water Song. However, they were just raw materials, so Lucien felt quite worried. "Any side effect?" he asked.

Natasha already grabbed the tube of vampire's blood in her hand.

"Vampire's blood… After taking it, I might be bit afraid of sunlight for up to six months, and my blood might feel burning," answered Natasha casually. Then she pulled out the cork of the tube and smelled the blood, "Wow… It's a high grade vampire's blood! Good for the archmage!"

"Can you recover completely by taking it then?" asked Lucien.

"Well…" Natasha took a deep breath, "Not really… but if I push myself a bit harder and activated my Blessing again, I might get… probably up to three minutes with the power of a level five knight. After that… I'm done."

"Done!?" Lucien was shocked.

"No no no…" Natasha laughed, "I'm not going to die. I mean I won't be able to walk at all afterwards, and you will need to carry me all the way home."

"You'd better explain things a bit clearer in situations like that, you know." Lucien almost rolled his eyes.

"Lucien," Natasha became serious, "If Tod was not among them, three minutes would be enough for me to kill the rest of the knights."

"Then, what if Tod is the one coming after us…" Lucien needed to have a backup plan.

"Then I'd cover you by distracting Tod and the other grand knights, if there was any." Natasha said to Lucien, "Meanwhile, you handle the rest of them."

Natasha leaned her head against Lucien's shoulder to take a rest. Her purple eyes were bright, and her lips were pressing together in a thin line.

"You want to sacrifice yourself to let me survive?" Lucien asked her.

"Of course not!" Natasha suddenly straightened up her back as if she got scared, "I cherish my life a lot. Without Thunder, you wouldn't be able to face the knights on your own. Besides, I'm not gonna really fight against Tod. My duty will be to distract him. That's all. And you gotta lend me your sword, Alert."

"That's too dangerous for you. I don't agree." Lucien refused Natasha's suggestion, "You keep Thunder. I have a plan which can possibly kill them all, as long as they have no more than five knights chasing after us, and we can get to the place before they find us."

"What plan? What place?" Natasha was very surprised.

"You'll see when we get there." Lucien looked at Natasha's eyes seriously, "I cherish my life a lot as well. Trust me, Natasha."

Natasha confounded a moment, then she smiled, "I trust you, Lucien."

Chapter 133: Lucien's Identity

Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion

"My Lord, the shadows say they're close." Rosan Aaron reported to Tod in a very low voice.

Grabbing his sword tight, Tod looked around with great caution.

He saw tall firs, assorted kinds of bushes… and there was a unique smell of earth in Tod's nose. Everything here looked identical to the rest of the black forest, except for a strange-shaped huge stone.

"There's no river here… and the shadow doesn't lie… Where are they?" Aaron murmured.

"Watch out!" In the next second, Tod fiercely pushed Aaron away, knocking him down, and at the same time he lifted up his left hand and produced a square-shaped iron shield with his Blessing.

When Aaron was slammed to the ground, Natasha had already jumped down from a big tall fir and attacked with her Thunder with all her strength.

Tod's shield cracked instantly, and he could not believe his eyes.

However, Natasha's sword, whose momentum was greatly reduced by the iron shield, also did not go as far as she intended. A big dent appeared in Tod's armor, but he was not hurt.

"Damn it! My power's not full yet!" Natasha swore a bit in her mind. She was very confident that she could kill the dark knight Aaron with that one strike, but she failed.

Although he felt rather confused, Tod immediately produced a new iron shield out of the pieces of the previous broken one.

Knowing that she had lost her chance, Natasha turned around and ran away at her full speed toward the other side of the black forest.

Tod soon realized that it must be a potion that was boosting Natasha's remaining strength. He knew that this kind of boosting would not last long. Pulling out his sword, he started to chase after her.

He did not care about Aaron. As soon as Natasha showed up, Aaron's job was done.

With one running in the front and the other chasing after, soon they both disappeared among the tall trees.

Using the momentum of the movement that knocked him down, Aaron quickly rolled backwards to get on his feet. He was also very surprised that Natasha could burst out that kind of power after being injured so seriously. When Aaron was about to follow Tod, a second black figure fiercely jumped down from the tree, and the sword lifted by him was shining with a terrifying light.

…

After a bit more than ten seconds, the distance between Tod and Natasha became smaller and smaller. Tod could tell that Natasha's power hadn't recovered to level five, since Natasha was definitely faster than him in the past, but right now he would be able to catch her!

When Tod was only a few steps away from Natasha, the princess turned around and started to fight back.

Easily blocking her strike with his sword named Blood, Tod sneered, "This is not going to be enough, Your Grace."

Natasha's eyes turned into light gray again as she kept hacking, thrusting, blocking and dodging.

The loud bangs from the metals colliding with each other slightly shook the ground, and the strong airflow caused by that overthrew the nearby bushes, stones and some rotten branches of the firs.

"I thought the more seriously injured you were, the more powerful you would be." Tod was good at disturbing his enemy's mental state, "It looks like your potion doesn't really help you that much, uh?"

"Are you a knight? Or you're just a talker, Tod?" Natasha's Thunder never stopped attacking. Her eyes were full of determination.

After blocking all of the princess's fierce attacks, Tod started to fight back following the formal knight training he received, "There's nothing wrong with talking while fighting, Your Grace. After all, it is good that I can still spare the effort to talk, isn't it?"

Natasha could not deny that. She felt that her boosted power had started to fade slowly.

"Were it not for the annoying sword you're using, you'd be dead already!" Tod continued talking to distract Natasha.

Thunder was a perfect counter to his Iron Blood since Tod's iron skin was an ideal conductor.

"However, your power is not gonna last long, Your Grace. I'm not in a hurry," said Tod sarcastically.

Natasha did not bother bickering back, instead, she stayed even more focused on her movement, attack and defense. She was a very well-trained knight, and she was also one of the most talented knights ever of the Church. She believed that her hard training was worth a lot, even without her Blessing.

Her powerful Blessing enabled her to manage almost every one of her breakthroughs relatively easily, and in her previous fights she had was always been in a more advantageous position. However, the battle she experienced earlier tonight and the one she was facing right now gave Natasha the first chance to learn more about her own power.

The power of her Blessing and her physical strength started to blend together in perfect harmony. If it could be commented that she usually fought using the power given by God, now Natasha was fighting as a human being, relying on her own willpower and the lessons that she learned before in her tough training.

Tod noticed the difference in the way that Natasha positioned herself in this fight. Although she did not burst out any astonishing power, and neither her strength or speed were improved, Tod knew that he needed to be more cautious.

…

Grabbing Alert with both of his hands, Lucien jumped down toward Aaron from above, hacking with his sword.

Aaron's reaction was fast. He raises the black dagger in his right hand to block the fierce attack, summoned his black fire on his left fist and aimed a punch at Lucien's abdomen.

"Clang!"

When the weapons touched, Lucien's sword left a small gap on the edge of Aaron's weapon. In the next moment, Lucien pulled back his sword and dematerialized his body into moonlight to avoid Aaron's fist.

"Not even of a real knight's power!" Aaron sneered. When he recognized Lucien, he became more confident.

As a dark knight, Aaron was even faster than Lucien, not to mention his reaction speed and strength.

Lucien kept a distance away from Aaron by using his sword, which was longer than the enemy's weapon. However, Lucien noticed that the black fire covering the dagger could slowly corrode the Alert's blade.

Aaron chose not to launch his attack in the front, instead, he tried to approach Lucien from different angles, and his movements were not meant to actually damage, but more to probe.

It was not a waste of time for Aaron, and he was actually very smart. Since Aaron was much more powerful, there must be a reason why Lucien would be confident enough to ambush him like that. The only possible explanation, based on what just happened to Verdi, was that Lucien had some magic items.

Aaron needed to keep moving around, in case any of Lucien's magic item could lock him as the target.

Lucien was not as fast as Aaron, and soon his body was covered by wounds left by Aaron's dagger. Although these wounds were small and not deep, they were covered with small clusters of black fire. As if they were alive, the clusters of fire were trying to enter into Lucien's body through the small wounds to suck his strength.

With another quick attack, Aaron's dagger tore down a piece of cloth in front of Lucien's chest, revealing the amulet Sun's Corona, that Lucien was wearing on his neck.

"Look at you." As he was swiftly moving around, it sounded like Aaron's voice was coming from all directions, "You're nobody, but you have a fine sword, a nice magic ring, and even a badge from the Church. I wonder if you are Natasha's secret lover, haha."

Lucien was still wielding his sword to block Aaron's attack as much as possible.

"But that's okay," said Aaron. "Soon, they will all be mine."

As Aaron was talking, he was trying to recall and calculate how many times Lucien had activated his magic items. Then, Aaron's attack became fiercer and fiercer, since he wanted to force Lucien into using the two items in case there was still any power left in them.

Lucien seemed to be pretty weak, and all he could do was stand there and wield his sword. For a couple of times, he could not even stand on his feet since the black fire was eating up his strength.

After testing Lucien by pushing him into his limit countless times, Aaron believed that the young man had already used all the power in his magic items for that night.

Before Aaron launched his new round of attacks, Lucien's legs were already too weak to support his weight. With a twist in his ankles, Lucien fell over in front of the strange-shaped stone.

Aaron almost felt amused by this scene, "Are you kidding me? Jumping toward me from the tree was all that you had prepared? Very touching… you want to die for your beloved princess?"

Lifting his dagger again, this time Aaron targeted Lucien's back neck!

Suddenly, a thin, arc-shaped shield appeared above Lucien and stopped Aaron's dagger.

Neither of his magic items was shining. It was Lucien's own power.

"A sorcerer?!"

Lots of memories and thoughts flashed across Aaron's mind, his eyes suddenly opened wide,

"You're… Professor?!"

"Am I?" Lucien turned around and a mysterious smile appeared on Lucien's face. At the same time, Lucien pulled out his right hand from the dirt, in which there was a dark red bracelet.

Before Aaron managed to turn himself into a shadow and back away from Lucien, a powerful fire ball suddenly burst out from the bracelet and pushed Aaron backward fiercely.

"Farewell, Mr. Aaron." Lucien nodded, smiling.

Level three high rank magic item, Fire Weaver Bracelet, previously owned by Fire Wolf, which was enchanted with two magic spells: Flame Shield, a second circle spell, twice a day; and Fireball, third circle spell, twice a day.

The fireball covering Aaron's upper body blazed. When Aaron's body hit the ground a second later, only the lower part was left.

When Lucien stood up holding the bracelet, he heard Natasha's familiar voice, "Professor…?!"

Turning around, Lucien saw Natasha standing on the other side with Thunder in her hand, looking rather shocked.

Chapter 134: The Ring

Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion

This idea occurred to Lucien when the surroundings in the black forest became more and more familiar to him. He remembered that, after he found Fire Wolf dead, he buried his two magic items there.

During the past couple of months, Lucien had gained a better understanding of the inner structures of the two magic items, Fire Weaver Bracelet, and the black iron dagger, called Grimsteel Dagger, and had also become capable of properly using them.

That was why Lucien was being that confident when he was talking to the princess. What was out of his expectation was that, although Aaron was only a level two knight, he was surprisingly cautious, and his carefulness forced Lucien to spend more time on killing him. Also, Lucien did not expect that Natasha would come back within such a short period of time.

Although Lucien was not sure whether Natasha witnessed everything or just a part, he clearly heard Natasha repeat the word "Professor".

…

A little while before Lucien pull out the bracelet.

Natasha gradually started to get an upper hand in this fighting. Although Tod's body was fully materialized into iron, he felt the great power in each of Natasha's attacks, and he could tell that the aura surrounding her had changed.

The princess' movement was becoming more and more aggressive, and her whole will was dedicated to this fight. Her attacks were as fast as raindrops hitting the ground. Even Natasha herself had no idea how many times she wielded her sword.

She did not feel tired anymore. She could not feel it.

The color of her eyes switched back and forth from silver gray to purple, and finally the two colors blended. At the same time, Natasha's soul and body integrated.

With a sudden shout, the princess burst out great power. Her legs were bent slightly and then fiercely pushed off the ground with her maximum force.

She bounced up high and, at the same time, lifted up her sword with both of her hands.

Tod looked up and decided to fight back, since it seemed his tactic of attrition was not going to work anyway.

He lifted the square shield in front of him and adjusted the angle of his wrist a bit, so his sword would target Natasha's waist.

However, by the time Tod lifted his sword, Natasha's figure suddenly became transparent, and the great power of her sword was like from another world, which directly hacked his shield into two halves.

As a matter of fact, what was hacked into halves was more than Tod's iron shield, but also his own body. The iron shield did not manage to reduce the great momentum of the sword at all.

The astonished look on his face suddenly froze when he was split into halves.

"Bang!"

Tod's iron skin was still covered by metal when his body fell on the ground, colliding with his sword and making a loud metallic sound.

Natasha landed heavily and quickly rolled over to the side. After gasping a few times for air, she stood up and started to rush back for Lucien.

When she arrived, Natasha ran into the scene where Lucien was kneeling on the ground, looking rather weak, and the dark knight was about to stab his dagger toward Lucien's back.

At that moment when Natasha was about to jump out to rescue Lucien, she saw that Lucien activated his magic shield again, and then, Lucien pulled out a scarlet bracelet from the dirt.

She heard the dark knight calling Lucien… Professor.

Natasha's mind suddenly buzzed.

She recalled that the Church did mention a dark red bracelet missing in the case related to Professor.

The potion that helped Lucien with activating his Blessing… the missing heretic who was following Lucien from Argent Horn… Lucien's great interest in the ancient books… and his great memory… and the fact that Lucien suddenly showed up tonight from the magic lock.

"Professor…?!"

Natasha could not find any excuse to lie to herself.

…

Lucien could tell the mixed emotions in Natasha's beautiful eyes, in which there was astonishment, pain, sadness and anger.

Grabbing the bracelet tightly in his hand, Lucien was ready to activate it at any time, although he clearly knew that, facing a level five grand knight, these spells would not really work.

At the same time, there was a voice in Lucien's mind telling him that he might still be able to lie to the princess again, to make another garbled story.

When Lucien was about to talk, Natasha said to him first, in a deep and low voice, "Go to Holm, then."

"…?" Lucien did not really get it. And he noticed that the color of Natasha's eyes had changed. Instead of dream-like purple or silver gray, now her eyes looked purplish gray, which was a mysterious but also pure color.

"You should go to Holm. The headquarter of the Congress of Magic is there. If you want to become a great sorcerer like Silvia, you should go there, Lucien." Natasha repeated, then she squinted her eyes a bit and slightly lifted her chin, "Or should I call you Professor… No one is a better actor than you, do you know that?"

"I never meant to hurt you." Lucien relaxed a bit seeing that Natasha was not planning on killing him, "I admit that I lied to you many times, but I had no other choice."

"You're not the only one who was lying to me all the time, and I'm used to it already." The corner of Natasha's lips slightly curled up in a sad way, "But I could tell, when you were playing Pathetique… I could tell the pain and stress that you were suffering. After all, Aalto is not a good place to study magic."

"You don't hate me… as a sorcerer?" asked Lucien. Although he knew that in the past, Natasha's attitude toward sorcerers was actually relatively mild compared with the Church and other nobles, after Silvia's betrayal, Lucien was not sure about the princess's standpoint now.

Looking at Lucien, Natasha answered seriously, "My mom was a very talented sorceress, and she was the most beautiful and nice lady in the world. To me, one being a sorcerer does not mean they must be a vicious person. I don't judge a person based on his or her identity, but on the person's behavior."

Then, she smiled gently, "Of course, I'm very angry and sad knowing that you were lying to me all the time, but like you said, you never tried to take advantage of me, or hurt me, instead, you've been helping me all the time, and you saved my life tonight, carrying me on your back all the way here."

"I regarded you as my friend all this time, although you're the honorable princess, and although there were lies between us," said Lucien sincerely.

"I know," said Natasha, and then she slightly shook her head, "Honestly, the moment when I heard that you were the notorious Professor, lots of details flashed across my mind… those details about you that I felt suspicious, but refused to dig into them. Even when I met you earlier, when we were besieged, I was almost certain that you were a sorcerer, and I still believed that you'd be on my side and fight for me. I would never link you to Professor, though, who killed so many night watchers. I think I trusted you even more than I knew."

"I killed them because they wanted to kill me," Lucien confessed sincerely. "I never wished to kill, never, but, again, like I said, I did not have another choice."

Then both of them fell silent.

After a long time, Natasha released a long sigh.

"You know what?" said Natasha, "Although your hands are covered with blood, I still want to be your friend."

Lucien suddenly became speechless.

"Thankfully, you never hurt my royal knights, or I wouldn't be able to have you as my friend anymore." Natasha started to walk toward Lucien, "But you never, and you never tried to hurt me, so why shall I care?"

A sweet smile appeared on Natasha's face, as if she had got rid of the negative emotions from the shock. As she stopped in front of Lucien, the princess asked, "Dear Mr. Professor, except your identity, did you ever lie to me about something else…? Say… your love experience? I've always felt you're pretty experienced."

"No… I'm totally not experienced…" Lucien's face flushed.

Then, Natasha took a small step backward and started to look at Lucien up and down, "Actually your face is quite good-looking. You would be a very beautiful girl if you were a girl."

"Uh?" Lucien was confused. He could not really follow the way Natasha changed the topic.

"I mean… magic is sure wonderful and powerful. Although it's hard, it's not impossible to change your gender. I heard that a grand arcanist once made a girdle that could help people do that, and maybe you want to give it a shot?"

Lucien rolled his eyes and said seriously, "That's not gonna happen. I'm a man."

Noticing that Lucien did not like this kind of joke, Natasha's sense of propriety made her stop. Then, she said to Lucien seriously, "I have something to give you."

She took off an old ring from her right hand and handed it to Lucien.

"This is…" Lucien took it over.

"You don't know anything about Holm Crown prize?" said Natasha, "It looks like you never received any formal sorcerer training following a mentor from the congress. If you did, you would certainly recognize this ring."

"I'm pretty much on my own… when it comes to studying magic, unfortunately," Lucien answered.

"Well… I told you that my mom was a very talented sorcerer, and this ring was the award she received for winning the Holm Crown prize in her early twenties… should be twenty three." Natasha explained.

Honestly speaking, Lucien felt this ring was very ordinary, which looked just like a common iron ring people wore for practicing archery.

"I know… it doesn't look any different, right?" Looking at the ring, Natasha's voice became softer, and there was a gentle smile on her face, "The ring was a very powerful level seven magic item back in the days, but now it is damaged and is beyond repair. It was once called the finest ring across this continent."

Lucien turned the ring around, and he noticed that there was a small word "Mo" on the surface of the ring, and a small line of letters carved on its inner side, "Year 781. Holm Crown. To Ms. Meredith Hoffenberg."

"Holm Crown prize is the award co-established by Holm Royal Magic Academy and the organization named the Will of Element from the Congress of Magic. The purpose of setting up Holm Crown prize is to acknowledge the great contribution made by the great sorcerers and sorceresses in the Element School."

"So, your mom won the prize at the age of twenty three? That's… that's brilliant." Lucien gently rubbed the ring with respect.

"She was really a genius!" said Natasha with great pride, "She was awarded the prize for her finding of a metallic element which is lighter than water by introducing electromagnetics to the field of element study. She named the metallic element 'Mo', and so the ring was also named 'Mo'."

"I never realized that you had this profound knowledge of the world of magic," said Lucien, "You never mentioned."

"We are in Aalto, and I'm the princess. I can't mention anything about it. Besides, what I just introduced was not profound at all. When you get to Holm, you'll see a completely different world," said Natasha. "Since the prize was set up, within the past two hundred and seventy years or so, only twenty four sorcerers and sorceresses were qualified for this prize. Now I'm giving this unique ring to you as a keepsake, and also a proof of your identity when you get to the congress."

Chapter 135: Life is More than Just Magic (The End of the First Volume)

Translator: Kris_Liu Editor: Vermillion

Holding the ring in his hand, Lucien said to Natasha sincerely, "Thank you, Natasha. Your mother was a real genius. I hope one day I will be able to make such a contribution as well."

"Yes, she was, and I believe you will as well." Looking at the distance, Natasha was immersed in the memory of her mother, "When my mom won the award, she was only a junior-rank mage, but later she left the best place for studying magic and came to the city, a city which was notorious for its way of treating sorcerers and sorceresses, all for her love."

"For the grand duke… Your parents' love story is probably the most romantic story across this continent." Lucien smiled.

"My mom was clearly aware of what she wanted." Natasha nodded, "After she tried many times to use different potions to awaken her Blessing, but failed because of her fragile health, she found her own path in the world of magic, which matched her perfectly well."

"Each person has his or her own value." Admiring the grand duchess very much, Lucien asked out of curiosity, "May I know what happened later to your mom?"

"I've mentioned my mother's health was fragile, and it was not getting any better after my mother and father got married. Her body and soul had been corroded by many magic elements over the years, and when my elder brother died in battle, her health condition took a sudden downwards turn and since then she never really managed to recover from it."

"I'm very sorry, Natasha. I believe she must be very proud seeing her daughter becoming such an outstanding knight in heaven," said Lucien sincerely.

Natasha slightly shook her head and grinned, "You're a sorcerer. Do you really believe in heaven?"

"… I'm not sure." Lucien was speechless for a while before replying, since this question never occurred to him.

"I wonder if my mom believed in heaven, as a sorceress." Natasha looked up in the sky, "But I know that after she got married with my father, she was still secretly studying magic."

"Really?" Lucien was very surprised, "What about the Church?"

"She missed Holm so much, the wonderland for learning magic, and my father loved her too much to forbid my mom from doing her magic experiments. Besides, her health condition didn't really allow her to do something else too much. And the Church…"

She put on an ambiguous smile.

"This ring must mean a lot to you, Natasha." Knowing that Natasha somehow could not explain the reason for him, Lucien switched the topic, "I don't know if I should accept it."

"It's okay, Lucien." Natasha also lowered her head and looked at the ring, "The object is not important. What's really important is my love for my mom. Whether the ring is with me or not, my love for her is life-long."

Lucien nodded and put the ring back into one of the pockets of his robe.

"By the way," Natasha reminded him, "don't casually just show this ring around. Sometimes an extra help can also bring you trouble, you know."

"I understand," said Lucien seriously, "Is the vampire's blood affecting you right now? Let me carry you back to Aalto."

"I appreciate it, but look at me… I'm fine now." Natasha waved her hands, "You'd better leave as soon as possible. People from the Church might be on their way here right now."

"Then… Natasha, you take care." Lucien suddenly had no idea how to say farewell, especially he was not sure if they would see each other again.

In contrast, Natasha remained relatively calm, and something just occurred to her, "Lucien, you want to keep using your current identity, Lucien Evans, the musician, after you leave?"

"Can I?" Lucien was very surprised. He was planning on changing to another brand new identity when he arrived at Holm, in case the people he knew would get into any trouble because of him.

"I believe it's fine. After all, your name's not unique at all, even in Aalto. Just don't tell people in Holm that you are a musician." Natasha shrugged, "I suggest that you continue to publish some new music pieces, if you can send any to me, which will be a pretty good disguise for you."

"I'll try my best." Lucien also did not want to just give up his music completely after leaving Aalto.

After agreeing on how to send letters, Lucien took the Fire Weaver Bracelet, Aaron's Asthenia Dagger, Grimsteel Dagger and Alert with him, and left the triple-headed flail to Natasha, since it was too clumsy for him to carry.

"I'll take care of your friends. No worries, Lucien." Natasha smiled.

"Thank you. I'm so lucky to have you as my friend, Natasha." Lucien expressed his heartfelt thanks, then he turned around.

"Lucien…" Natasha called his name from behind.

"Yes?" Lucien looked back.

"Remember, life is more than just magic. You have music, and you have friends." Natasha waved her hand.

"I'll keep that in mind." Lucien grinned.

…

After a while, when Lucien had completely disappeared in the woods, the smile on Natasha's face faded, and she commanded seriously,

"Show yourself. You've been listening for quite a while."

"As you wish, Your Grace." Salvador, the leader of the night watchers, slowly appeared in the sky and landed in front of Natasha. His hand was tied with a piece of white handkerchief.

"Why didn't you take any action right away?" asked Natasha directly.

"Apparently, you care for this guy a lot, Your Grace. I wouldn't have any chance of killing him in front of you, although, yes, I wanted it very much… This damned Professor."

"I see," said Natasha coldly. "Then why did you choose to stay? You want to talk to me?"

"Yes, Your Grace." Salvador answered, "I want a deal for keeping this secret for you, Your Grace."

"Ah?" Natasha was almost amused, "You don't want to take revenge for the dead night watchers anymore? I thought you were pretty determined."

"I was and I still am," said Salvador calmly. "But I cannot miss this chance… the chance of climbing up towards a higher status in the Church, and cooperating with the princess. I already gave up so many things and now I'm walking in the darkness… all because…"

"Not interested." Natasha cut him off directly.

"All right…" Salvador paused a bit, "Let's get to the main point. To be more specific, I want…!!!"

Before the next word jumped out from Salvador's mouth, Natasha rushed and hacked her sword directly toward him, without any hesitation.

In the next second, Salvador was split into two halves by the sword.

"No one dare threaten me," said Natasha coldly.

There was no blood coming out of Salvador's body, and his body was dissolving into small shining pieces in the air. Before his body completely disappeared, his last remaining awareness turned into his voice, "Radiant… knight?"

After another ten minutes, Camil showed up from the other side of the forest, carrying Wyon and Cacharel under her arms, who were both unconscious.

"Natasha, you're a radiant knight now." Camil recognized Natasha's change right away, "It seems like this bitter fight turned out to be your great chance to make this breakthrough. Congratulations, Natasha. I'm very proud of you."

Natasha smiled, but in a sad way.

…

When Natasha and Camil came back to Aalto, the sun was rising above the horizon. After comforting the grand duke who had been tortured by his worry and anger for the whole night, Natasha went directly to the Golden Cathedral.

In a confessional, Natasha found Sard, who was praying silently there.

"Grand cardinal, I need to confess," said Natasha in a low voice.

"God's here." Slowly, Sard opened his eyes.

"I killed a night watcher… I killed Mr. Salvador." Natasha crossed herself.

"I don't see your penitence." Hearing that the leader of the night watchers was killed, Sard showed no emotion.

"I feel no regret. This was my choice, and I'm willing to accept the punishment for the choice I made," answered Natasha seriously.

"Why did you kill him?" Sard asked.

Natasha did not answer.

Sard slowly stood up. Compared with yesterday, he looked much older, "I'll report to the pope. He will be deciding the punishment to your sin. You stay here, Natasha."

After Sard left, veins in Natasha's face and her hands started to swell and burn. Her beautiful face contorted out of the great pain. However, she kept kneeling on the ground in front of the big cross without giving out a single groan.

…

In a bright, simple study, there was a white-haired elder sitting in front of the desk.

He said to the cardinal gently, "Natasha confessed her sin, and God forgives anyone who's willing to confess. Natasha's honest, and now she's a radiant knight. The punishment shall not be too harsh. Send her to the lowest abbey in Aalto for three years."

"Yes, my pope." The cardinal slowly left the room.

The pope picked up a small pile of paper in front of him, on which there were a bunch of fractions of words which did not really make sense,

"He seemed to be okay with my speech…"

"He often looked confused…"

"Maybe he started to vacillate now…"

…

Following the instruction for anti-tracking given by Natasha, Lucien came back to Massawa around nine in the morning. The sun was already shining brightly in the air.

Before entering the small town, Lucien took out all the stuff from the pockets and burned down his black sorcerer robe.

Lucien did not see Joyce and his coachman around. After talking to the owner of the hotel, Lucien got to know that they all fled away because of the chaos happened in Bonn last night.

Putting on a worried look, Lucien was actually cheering in his mind. He said to the hotel owner, "That's too bad then. I gotta hire another coach and some guards on my own. Can you please send word to the association that it was me who terminated the contract with them on my own? This way, the association won't trouble them. After all, I understand their fear."

"What a kind gentleman you are!" The owner of the hotel took out a pen and paper and praised Lucien, "And it won't be too difficult for you to hire some new people, sir, since lots of adventurers and residents from Bonn are right now staying in our town."

After signing his name on the letter written by the hotel owner, Lucien went back to his room and started to prepare for his new journey.

(The End of the First Volume)