Chapter 61

"Still no response? " asked the middle aged man wearing a black robe and a white mask who was also second in command under Crown Prince Voight to his subordinate.

His subordinate had been trying to contact the mages who had been entrusted with the job to ambush the second Prince's forces but to no avail for the past half hour.

Initially as per the plan set up by the crown prince, they had set up a strategy to simultaneously attack the snake palace while the mages conduct an ambush on the death squad members.

They had also set up the plan to conduct series of kidnappings of family members of the Second Prince's trusted aides/faction members, but the entire plan seem to be on a temporary hiatus because of lack of response from the forces sent to the jungle.

Finding that delaying the mission was not advisable the middle aged man made a call to the crown Prince explaining the current situation including the lack of response from the three mages sent in the jungle. After a brief period of silence, the crown Prince while gritting his teeth asked the middle aged man to commence the mission.

Meanwhile inside the snake palace, the situation was not good as well. Finding out from his second in command 'faceless' that there was lack of response from the death soldiers sent inside the jungle set the second Prince Lux in a temporary rage as he threw all his expensive wine bottles at the wall across his desk dying the wall red with wine stains. His second in command gave him a few minutes to gain composure before saying

"Only the main force of fifty death squad members selected as a decoy to fight against the crown prince's forces are not giving any response. The other 20 composed of our main forces sent for covert operation to assassinate Ms.Cornelia are still there and are currently in the process of setting traps. I had them concentrate on their mission and not to check on the situation of the decoy team. From what I have heard the crown Prince had even sent three mages and I am pretty sure that the decoy forces have been completely annihilated. Our only chance of succeeding this mission is by attacking Ms.Cornelia before they meet up with the three mages and their subordinates. In other words we are still in this game your highness".

Hearing this the second Prince eased his tense mind and was about to ask where they had planned on setting the ambush when the entire snake palace shook and alarms set off followed by the runes activating for the first time since the erection of the snake palace. The second Prince had shock written all over his face and his entire body tensed up as if he had a panic attack as this was the first time he had encountered such an event.

He had received enough education from his mother to know that runes lighting up is to protect the structure of the building and this meant that they were under a siege from a strong enemy. Moving towards the window, faceless looked to get a view on the intruders and upon the sight of four men wearing uniform blue robe with wand on their hands followed by as many as 35 to 40 elite warriors equipped with swords, spears and light weight armour making them easy to move.

Looking at the forces, faceless's eyes zeroed in on a blue robed man wearing white mask while carrying a huge sword on his back and instantly recognised the other as the second in command under the crown Prince. Knowing that it was the crown Prince's forces, faceless turned to look at the covering and nervous second Prince and said "Your highness, it's your brother's forces".

Hearing this Lux was nervous and acted as if he was having a mental breakdown. He did not expect the final battle to arrive this soon as he was not prepared for it as well and from the looks of it he figured that there were mages amongst the attackers as well. With a somewhat shaking voice Lux asked "What should I do".

" Your highness, For now make your presence known to our forces in order to give them the needed moral support they need and activate our palace magic runes for the defence. We will see how our forces fare against them but be ready to retreat anytime using the underground sewers" said Faceless in a rather monotonous tone.

As if like a puppet, the second prince acted on faceless's advice and made his appearance before the guards and the mercenaries under his payroll and made an inspiring speech trying his best to boost the morale of these guards who were rattled by the sudden attack.

With the appearance of the second prince and his second in command the mercenaries quickly regrouped and started their defence and counterattack. In terms of quality and strength of these mercenaries and guards, whether the crown Prince's or second prince's, they were all of same level and despite on the outside looked as if it was a heated battle no faction could gain a significant advantage.

A level 5 would get killed by a level 6 of crown Prince's faction who would inturn get killed by another level 6 through sneak attack. It was an utter chaos on the ground and the middle aged man with white mask had yet to make his move.

The mages under crown Prince's faction were either of apprentice level or Rank 1 mage and they were met with two of Rank 1 mages under the second Prince's payroll.

Faceless had his eye locked on the middle aged man with white mask and the both level 10 warriors emitted a terrifying aura making the ground under them to crack a bit. Within seconds Faceless who was beside the second prince in the second floor balcony arrived near the middle aged man and struck his sword which emitted lightning in every attack of his.

Time seemed to slow between them but to the other warriors both of them were so fast that they only heard the sounds of sword clashing and lightning which created a shockwave with each attack making the other warriors to keep distance from them lest they get caught in between them.

The second prince had an anxious look while looking at the fight between faceless and the middle aged man as to him faceless was the most important subordinate and the rest were replaceable pawns. Just as he was distracted two groups of long ranged attack unit launched their arrows aiming at the second prince looking to end the fight as quickly as possible.

The guards who were near the palace were shocked by the sudden attack from around 500 meters distance shouted anxiously at their boss, the second prince to take cover but it was already too late as almost 20-30 arrows with eery blue glow were at striking distance of the second prince.

The look of despair was obvious from the second prince as he regretted that he did not take training seriously at young age making his growth as a warrior stunted to level 6 and the arrows were travelling at too high speed for him to even dodge. Just as he closed his eyes waiting for pain to envelop his body an audible snort could be heard reverberating throughout the snake palace as a man wearing black robe appeared before the second prince and stopped the arrows with a shake of his hand throwing the arrows off course making them hit the ground.

"Uncle Sheppard" shouted the second prince both in shock and in happiness. Looking at this scene faceless sighed in relief before concentrating on defeating the man before him.

"Lux get inside and go towards the underground facility. You shouldn't be here" said Sheppard while floating out of the balcony of the snake palace and raising his wand as if to perform a large scale magic on the forces of crown prince.

The middle aged man's face was ugly as he did not expect a Rank 2 mage to be serving the second prince and he was Sheppard, the third brother of her highness, the mother of second prince.

Many knew this man called Sheppard as being the brother of a concubine of the king makes one famous but no one knew him to be a mage and that too a Rank 2.

"Fuck!! This man hid his strength deep" thought the middle aged man while knowing that this assault was going to end in their defeat.

They too had a Rank 2 mage, however considering the dangers Cornelia could face during her travel and whose support to their campaign being absolutely necessary had assigned the Rank 2 mage and now they did not have the means to defeat the man before them unless the crown prince who is also a Rank 2 mage personally decides to take action and even then the fight would be close and terrifying with the crown prince possibly being injured in the process.

Though the second prince by himself was quite weak his mother who had planned for such a scenario for quite a few years had pooled together a great number of talented individuals making her dream of having her disappointing son on throne an achievable goal.

With his arms spread Sheppard chanted in mysterious tongue and the entire palace was quickly covered in mist making warriors loose their visibility. Using this cover the second Prince's men quickly retreated inside the palace leaving the fist Prince's men face the full power of a Rank 2 mage.