Chapter 59

Cold and harsh wind almost sharp as if cutting a persons face, wildly fluttering dress and hair making one disheveled and torrential rain with an extremely dense downpour and flashing lightning enough to lighten the entire forest and the roar of thunder following the lightning as if a dangerous beasts lay within the forest.

The change of weather couldn't be anymore contrast to that which the group experienced during the day. The carriage ran through the pathway in the jungle and the sound of horse galloping was muffled by the sound of rain, wind and the loudest of them all thunder.

The closed carriages continued to remain tightly closed while the semi open carriages had covers placed around them to shelter themselves from the rain and the cold wind. The ones who were in a terrible condition, drenched in rain while feeling the full brunt of the cold wind were the carriage drivers. Thankfully though it is cold and wet, people who train as warriors or knights or mages don't get affected by cold as their body is a lot tougher than a normal person.

The shadow guards went out every once in a while to conduct surveillance on the proximate area to see if there were any spies or ambush from assassins. They had been in contact with the group who were arranged to intercept the second prince's death squad and knew that they were at least 50 - 60 kms away from them and it would take at least 3 hours to reach their proximity.

The forces prepared by the crown Prince had already formulated an attack plan and were ready to ambush the assassins in exactly 1 hour which meant that by the time the group guarding Carmella reached the supposed ambush spot marked by the second Prince the battle would have been long completed. Even if the death squad knew about the forces they wouldn't be able to find their hiding spot as there were quite the few low level sorcerers in the group able to mask their presence using mysterious spells. This could be considered a rather reasonable perk available due to his identity and ability as a mage.

Apart from Sean who took his rest during the day to be alert at night, the members of the squad took turns to rest their body by closing their eyes to maintain their peak state when the attack actually happens.

With his assault rifle hugged to his chest, Sean listened to the splashing sound of rain against the ground as well as over the roof of the semi covered carriage as it ran through the forest.

....

A beautiful waterfall surrounded by dense of colourful roses but could not be appreciated as it was raining heavily with flashing lightning and rumbling thunder every once in a while followed by absolute darkness.

The almost fantasy like scenic spot during the day had turned into a place of tragedy as scenes of corpses strewn could be seen, some mutilated, some beheaded and some burnt and charred.

Blood flowed like a river but was rapidly being mixed along the rainwater and flowing down the edge of the creak which during the night without a moonlight resembled that of an abyss leading down to endless darkness.

A group of people wearing a black robe covering their entire body but their face could be seen at the place of carnage with a solemn look on their face.

Few checked the condition of the corpses and ascertained their status and looked towards their partners before shaking their head.

One by one the group of people went towards a man who was standing by a tree getting some cover from the torrential rain and spoke of the status of the men. This group was none other than one of the teams prepared by Crown prince Voight to ambush and kill the assassins sent by the second prince.

The corpses at the scene of carnage belonged to the assassins sent by the second prince. Not a single one had been spared and though this should have been a sight of happiness for the men of the first prince, not a single one of them were smiling.

After getting a signal from one of the mages belonging to the private forces of the crown prince that something wasn't right within the enemy's camp this team had ran towards the camp to check the situation and walked upon this massacre. The thing that was truly making them go solemn wasn't the fact that they had been killed in a gruesome way but the fact that their enemies now former had been killed without giving much struggle.

'Who could have killed a group of around 50 suicide soldiers without having them put much struggle' contemplated the man who was the leader of this. At this moment a total of two dark hooded figures landed near the group making them almost jump in fear before recognising them being one among the Prince's private forces.

The leader with much respect towards these two ran towards them and explained the situation in detail. While a hooded figure remained near the leader of the group to listen to his report the other hooded figure strolled towards the corpses and inspected them. The group members gave adequate space to the mage while whispering amongst themselves, speculating about what might have happened here.

The mage on the other hand placed his hand near the naval area and removed his hand before doing the same thing to the other corpses while his facial expression was unknown as his face was hidden under the hood.

The hooded figure quickly moved towards his partner who had by now obtained all the information from the group leader and whispered something. The leader moved back giving them adequate space and watched them, waiting for his next orders.

As the group leader was standing straight. to these two he could discern the situation based on their facial expression which one the other hooded figure explained his findings from examining the corpses turned from a frown into a grim look making the group leader speculate the graveness of the situation.

With much hurry one of the hooded figures asked them to return to the camp before flying away hastily.

Going towards the bigger tent in the camp both the hooded figures entered quickly and met with the sight of a man sitting behind his desk with his foot placed up and his back leaned against the chair.

Knowing of their arrival the man opened his eyes and without much change to his position the man asked them to speak.

"A total of 47 were killed without having the ability to put up a fight. The entire fight happened silently and before they knew what had happened they had been killed. The most blizzard of all was that apart from their core, their soul had been taken away. In other words we are dealing with a sorcerer, possibly a rogue one" said one of the hooded figure who had now removed his robe to reveal a handsome blue haired man. The most fascinating thing was that both the hooded figure despite standing under the rain for so long, not a single drop of water could be seen on them, setting them apart from the warriors.

The man who had his foot on his desk remained casual until he heard that their soul had been absorbed sat straight with a solemn face and asked "Did you find any trace of them or can you speculate how many had done the deed".

With a shake of his head, the blue haired man said that he couldn't be sure as there was little to no evidence left behind. By now the other hooded figure had also removed the robe to reveal a pale green haired rather slim and pale looking young woman who almost seemed suffering from malnutrition.

However it was far from the truth as she was pale skinned because she had spent lot of her time in a lab performing experiments. Despite having such a weak looking figure, it couldn't hide her beauty as well and as a mage they could change their appearance anytime they want making most mages not care about their appearance.

Knowing the seriousness of the situation the man took his communication talisman and was about to infuse his mana on the communication talisman, to warn the squad escorting Carmella, asking them to be vigilant and about their conjecture of a presence of a rogue mage, at least of level 3 when the three mages inside the tent felt a slight but obvious elemental fluctuation.