Miscalculations

The moment Ronald had exited the secret passageway and made it back up to the backstages of the ballroom without anyone noticing...

'What the fuc-' Before Ronald could finish cursing in his head however, a chair was seen flying towards his way.

So Ronald immediately ducked his entire body down to the floor and then quickly crawled over to one of the corner of the backstages, where it wasn't as hectic.

Afterwards, he scanned the whole backstages with a surprised look in his eyes.

Even though he was aware that the entire masquerade party was going to get pretty messy since Luna's subordinates were trying to overtake the place, this wasn't what he had expected at all!

Although none of Luna's subordinates could be visibly seen at the backstages of the ballroom, there was so much criminals fighting against one another that he couldn't even tell who was fighting who.

That's right, despite the fact that only about 200 to 300 invitations usually get distributed every masquerade party and about 100 to 200 staffs usually on standby, there was over 400 people here all fighting here at the backstages alone!

That doesn't even take into account the hundreds of dead bodies laying around or the fights happening in the actual main ballroom, which was at least 3 to 4 times bigger than the backstages itself.

And Ronald definitely didn't take that much people into account when he had decided to use Luna's subordinates in order to cause a stir in the masquerade party.

Luckily it seemed that nobody had noticed his presences yet, so after some quick thinking, he decided he should just quickly dip before anyone ends up seeing him.

And as for Iris, who he had brought along to this party since she apparently had an invitation as well?

'Well, I'm sure she'll manage just fine.'

Sure, although Iris was a heroine and he definitely couldn't afford to let her die, considering that Iris was ranked 10 on the list of Titans, he was sure that Iris would make it out with complete ease...

As long as she doesn't do anything stupid like draw attention to herself or go to war with all of the criminals here.

Just before Ronald could actually disappear from the scene however...

"SHE'S UP THERE!" A man with a hoarse voice could be heard shouting loudly throughout the backstages.

So everyone including Ronald couldn't help but start raising their heads, and to everyone's surprise…

Iris, who was completely covered in blood was currently standing on the ledge of a window that was a few meters below the ceiling, eerily looking down at the entire backstages with an emotionless look on her face.

Upon seeing Iris up there, all of the four hundred or so criminals present at the backstages immediately stopped attacking one another and turned their guns and aimed it towards Iris.

Since all of the criminals' associates, gang members, friends, and allies have gotten murdered in Iris's hands during the last hour, everyone wanted to absolutely shred her to pieces.

Seeing all of the guns and swords drawn towards her, Iris wasn't even remotely afraid at all...

Or rather, she wasn't afraid of getting hurt and potentially dying.

She was more afraid that Ronald might somehow end up hurt amidst the chaos.

That's right, while Iris had been mowing down people left and right in the backstages of the ballroom in an attempt to locate Ronald's position, she had miraculously noticed him hiding behind a pile of dead bodies at the corner of the backstages.

And since there was so much fighting and bullets flying everywhere right now, she knew that Ronald would end up getting hit by a stray bullet sooner or later.

Of course, she could've just instantly ran straight to him and quickly pick him up the moment she saw him, however, there was a huge problem with that.

The problem was that since so many people were trying to go after her, she knew that if she had tried to sprint towards Ronald's direction, then everyone would start shooting at her way, and some of those bullets will undoubtedly hit Ronald.

And she definitely couldn't allow that to happen whatsoever, even if she was certain that Ronald wouldn't die.

After all, she would rather get shot a million times than even allow Ronald to get slightly scratched once.

So in an attempt to make sure that Ronald doesn't even get slightly wounded at all, she decided to divert everyone's attention towards her, hence why she had decided to stand on the ledge of a window, fully exposed to her enemies' line of sights.

And with that in mind...

BANG!

The moment the first shot had loudly echoed throughout the entire venue of the backstages, thousands of other bullets could be seen flying towards Iris's direction.

But before any of the bullets could even reach her however, she immediately started running on the side of the walls while constantly throwing out smoke bombs that she had miraculously sneaked in all over the entire backstage.

Then after constantly throwing smoke bombs for a full minute while still running on the walls and seeing that most of the backstages was completely filled with smoke, she quickly jumped off of the wall while taking a couple of hits of bullets here and there and landed right onto the middle of the backstages.

And since the middle of the backstages was completely covered in smoke, nobody could accurately determine where she was at.

Using that to her advantage, she quickly dashed over to the corner of the backstages while completely slaughtering everyone who dared block her path with her daggers.

Then after murdering countless amounts of people and arriving at the corner, in which she had decided to smoke out last before jumping off of the wall so that Ronald won't get deeply affected by the toxins of the smoke, Iris quickly picked up Ronald, who seemed like he was dumbfounded by the entire situation, placed his entire body on her shoulders, and then completely vanished from the scene before anyone could even notice she had disappeared.