470. Kill the Enemy! The Pack Has Its Eyes on You!

A sorcerer?

Evenson peered through the gap between the shield guards, staring at Danthe's back—the figure whose face he couldn't quite see—and was completely stunned.

A witcher, carrying what looked like a sorcerer whose gender wasn't even clear, had broken into Drakenborg, the most heavily guarded and arguably largest prison in the Northern Continent.

Since when did witchers and sorcerers get along so well?

Smack!

In an instant—

Padrek Vasquez's urgently cast magic shield was shattered once again by a single swing of Danthe's sword.

The noise snapped Evenson out of his daze.

No!

Padrek Vasquez must not die here!

"Wyatt! Protect Lord Padrek Vasquez!" Evenson turned and shouted order after order. "And where's Karlo? Get that sorcerer killed!"

"Don't give him a chance to cast anything!"

"Yes, Lord Evenson!" Wyatt immediately responded, raising his great shield and leading a dozen shield guards forward like a roaring lion, charging toward the battlefield between the witcher and the mage.

At Wyatt's roar, the shields of the dozen guards lit up with a dim golden glow. From the starry sigils etched at their centers, chains shot out abruptly.

Danthe, wary of their unknown magic, sidestepped to dodge them. But as the chains latched onto Padrek Vasquez's body—

Wyatt and several shield guards doubled their charging speed, like a mountain bearing down with unstoppable force straight at Danthe.

It's over! It's over!

Sam, who had just relaxed seeing Danthe push back the mage so easily, immediately tensed up again.

Danthe wasn't carrying his wounded apprentice—he was carrying a sorcerer who could summon weapons. That was surprising in a good way.

But even the most common soldier in Drakenborg knew—sorcerers were vulnerable in melee combat.

Get close to a sorcerer, crack that fragile shell, and killing one was no harder than wringing a chicken's neck.

Besides, Evenson and the others couldn't make out Allen's features in the dark. But Sam knew—this sorcerer named Allen looked only thirteen or fourteen years old.

How dangerous could such a young sorcerer really be?

Once Wyatt, and Carlo still lurking in the shadows, closed in—it would be over. He would only be a burden.

Thinking of Allen, Sam suddenly recalled those cat-like eyes—so similar to Danthe's—and froze for a second.

He seemed to remember that cat eyes were a witcher trait. He couldn't recall a single sorcerer with eyes like that.

But the thought passed quickly. He shook his head and told himself: 'Witcher or sorcerer, someone that young couldn't possibly be that useful.'

'Master Danthe shouldn't have brought him along just for the sake of disguise.'

'No—wait!'

'In Drakenborg… in this damned hellhole, even if he brought nothing with him, he wouldn't survive!'

'Master Danthe is just too stubborn. Why didn't he listen to me?'

'If we had left then…'

'No—this is my fault too. The Prophet once said the righteous path is never singular. Even narrow trails can reach the end. It's me who lacked the wisdom to convince him…'

Sam closed his eyes in silent regret and sorrow.

He hated himself for not insisting harder back then. He should have lied if he had to—found an excuse to drag Danthe and Allen back to the city gates.

At that moment—

"Gulah~ Gulahgu~ Lagula—"

A strange, mystical incantation echoed suddenly from the direction of the tower, and Sam instinctively looked up.

He saw a familiar face, familiar blue eyes—though the pupils were unexpectedly human-shaped.

It was Allen.

His lips moved gently, clinging to Danthe's back as they charged toward Padrek Vasquez.

That eerie chant—it was coming from Allen's mouth.

"He… he really can cast spells…" Sam was stunned.

Noticing Sam's gaze, Allen even gave him a cheeky wink.

"Aahhh—help me! Somebody help me!!"

Padrek Vasquez screamed in terror. His makeshift shield had just been pierced by Danthe's sword, and he shrieked like a plucked hen, stumbling back two steps before tripping on rubble and crashing to the ground—completely defenseless.

But Danthe's longsword had already pulled back, bracing for another thrust. Only two steps remained between him and the fallen mage.

From Sam's perspective, however—Wyatt was not only faster than Danthe, but also closer to him than Danthe was to Padrek Vasquez.

Wyatt had already raised his massive tower shield, ready to bring it crashing down.

And Danthe—he showed no sign of awareness, still lunging to strike at Padrek Vasquez… as if he hadn't sensed Wyatt's overwhelming presence behind him at all.

Then—

"…Gulah!"

Allen's mysterious incantation abruptly halted.

Wyatt seemed to sense something. His expression changed dramatically, and he suddenly came to a stop.

Even though he was less than a step away from Danthe, with his shield already raised, he suddenly slammed it down with a loud thud, embedding it into the cracked stone tiles, shouting: "Defend! Now! Get into defensive formation!"

Almost simultaneously—

Less than a second after Allen's chanting stopped, nearly at the exact moment Wyatt's tower shield struck the ground—

BOOM—

A flash of earthen light burst forth. The grey stone beneath them rumbled like thunder, and in an instant, turned from solid rock to churning muck. A two-meter-high wave of black-brown mud and stone surged forward, crashing down on Wyatt and his shield guards.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

The deafening impacts echoed like massive bells being struck.

The starlit emblem on Wyatt's tower shield flickered under the impact, and though Wyatt and the shield guards who reacted in time staggered back a few steps, they still managed to block it.

But those who didn't react fast enough—any part of their body touched by the surging sludge—instantly sank like wet clay. Screaming, they spat blood as the mudslide swept them away.

The force was enough to terrify the surrounding guards, sending them stumbling backward in panic.

Fortunately—

This mudslide spell, an ancient hex that Allen had obtained from the treasure chest of a Bog Nymph, had never been upgraded due to its terrain-destroying nature and limiting movement effects.

Even with nearly 120 points of Mysticism amplifying it, once the brown sludge swept past Wyatt and his shield guards, its force gradually faded, settling and solidifying. A few unlucky guards who had rushed too far ahead were sent flying, landed in heaps, convulsed a few times—and clearly weren't getting back up.

Of course—

This was exactly the result Allen had aimed for.

Wyatt and his elite shield guards had not only been forced to halt their assault, but once the mudslide ended, their legs were deeply embedded in the thick, sticky muck—rendering them completely immobile.

"There really are no useless spells," Allen said with a satisfied nod, looking at the furious, humiliated faces of the burly men now stuck in place, "only useless casters."

This is where incantation-based sorcery surpasses glyph-based magic. Though the chanting takes longer, as long as one's Mysticism stat is high enough, even a low-level hex can unleash formidable power.

"That… that kid is actually this powerful?"

Sam stared, mouth agape, at the muddy battlefield in front of the tower, filled with groans of pain.

At this moment, he even began to doubt himself—maybe he had been seeing things earlier.

How could a child capable of casting such a powerful spell possibly be a witcher?

But it wasn't just Sam who was stunned. Evenson, too, subconsciously shrank further behind the shield guards, his expression twisted in disbelief.

"Who is that warlock?" a chill shot down Evenson' spine. "A spell of this magnitude… there's no way a mere hedge mage could have cast that…"

Before he could think any deeper, Evenson' pupils suddenly trembled violently. He let out a heart-wrenching scream:

"Stop!!"

But it was too late.

Danthe had already stepped within a single pace of Padrek Vasquez—so close their faces nearly touched, and Padrek's expression had twisted with terror.

Under the tower's heavy shadows, the gleam of the longsword flickered like a phantom dance.

Shhk!

A soft sound.

Danthe twirled his sword with a flick, slinging the blood from the blade onto the stone floor.

The headless body collapsed, and Padrek's head—still wearing an expression of terror and disbelief—rolled through the muddy ground, leaving a trail of blood, then lay still.

A moment of silence fell across the tower front.

Evenson, Wyatt, Sam… everyone stared as a pool of thick blood spread out beneath Padrek's corpse.

"Damn it! Do you even know who you just killed?" Evenson shouted hysterically. "He was an Of—"

"Shhh~"

Danthe, with Allen still on his back, pressed a finger to his lips, his beast-like gaze sweeping coldly over everyone present.

"I don't know who he was. And I don't care."

"But you should know who I am. And more importantly…"

He paused, his amber, wolfish eyes narrowing at the frozen Evenson.

"…the wolves are watching you now."

With those words—

Danthe lifted his sword, pushed open the wooden door, and stepped into the tower. No one dared stop him.

Thud—

The door shut behind him.

Danthe finally let out a long breath as silence settled outside the door.

"That was badass!"

Allen praised him in his mind.

He truly hadn't expected the usually conservative Master Danthe to actually use the name of the School of the Wolf as a threat.

"The wolves are watching you."

That line definitely wasn't part of their original plan.

Originally, after killing the warlock, they were supposed to charge straight into the tower.

After all, the killing and revenge were secondary — rescuing Bond was their primary objective on this mission.

The warlock couldn't be left alive. If he had managed to teleport to Bond's location, it would've put Bond in serious danger.

But now, it seemed that Padrek Vasquez was just some rich mage — his strength probably wasn't enough to use teleportation in actual combat.

"Uh... yeah... I got a little emotional and just said it without thinking…" Danthe chuckled awkwardly.

"But it worked well," Allen said, glancing back. They had already reached the first floor of the tower, and yet there was still no movement from outside.

"It might not have been because of me, or even the School of the Wolf…" Danthe shook his head. "It's possible that Padrek Vasquez was the one orchestrating this whole scheme."

"There have always been deranged sorcerers who try to reverse-engineer Alzur's or Cosimo Malaspina's techniques by experimenting on witchers. It's just that nothing this crazy has happened in a long while."

"Evenson, the steward of Drakenborg, may have made some sort of shady deal with him and then abused the authority granted to him by the king. But ultimately, he belongs to Redania, not Rissberg or the Brotherhood of Sorcerers."

"With the mastermind dead, there's no longer any reason for them to risk offending the School of the Wolf…"

"Still…"

Danthe paused, then added: "Until we rescue Bond, we can't afford to drop our guard. So Allen, stay on my back a while longer."

Allen nodded, guiding him forward by following the crimson trail on the floor.

Danthe's reasoning was certainly sound, and Evenson' reaction only served to confirm it.

But for some reason, Allen couldn't shake off a lingering feeling that something wasn't right.

Mad warlocks obsessed with witcher technology weren't unheard of.

But the problem was—

How could a warlock doing research in Drakenborg — one who might not even be capable of casting teleportation — have known that four witchers had arrived over a hundred kilometers away?

It wasn't just a question of whether Padrek Vasquez could use a crystal projection to contact the House of Hoss over a long distance.

A sorcerer's influence always depended on their standing within the Brotherhood, and that standing was directly tied to power.

A mage of Vasquez's level couldn't possibly be part of the Brotherhood's High Council.

So how did he have the sway to command a noble house like the Hoss family to act on his personal whims, risking the wrath of the School of the Wolf — and even ordering the steward of Drakenborg to take such drastic action?

"Allen, which way now?"

As they reached a fork in the corridor, Allen pushed aside his swirling thoughts and replied: "The room at the end of the right-hand hallway…"

"Bond should be in there."

----------------------------

Meanwhile—

Evenson stood motionless in the shadows, staring at the backs of the two figures long after they disappeared behind the tower.

He wasn't frozen in place because he was intimidated by the name of the School of the Wolf.

To him, the School of the Wolf was indeed a significant force—but nothing more than that.

Kaer Morhen's entire population of witchers reportedly numbered less than a hundred. No matter how one looked at it, they couldn't possibly stand against Drakenborg, which could rally two to three thousand troops in full wartime readiness.

Moreover, their strict adherence to neutrality made what should have been a politically dominant paramilitary force in the North feel more like a weakling easily pushed around.

So—

What kept him silent wasn't the School of the Wolf, but something else entirely:

Who was the sorcerer on Danthe's back?

Compared to witchers—lone wolves detached from everything—sorcerers occupied the true pinnacle of the political ecosystem in this world.

Even the leader of the School of the Wolf couldn't force him to leave this wretched place called Drakenborg, but a sorcerer? A sorcerer certainly could.

"No way she's from Ban Ard or Rissberg… could she be from Aretuza?"

"Yes... judging from her build, she's either a child or a woman. And to cast a spell that powerful—it must be a woman…"

"But why would someone from Aretuza get involved in this?"

Evenson furrowed his brows, his lips pressed tightly together.

"L-Lord Evenson… what do we do now?" Wyatt, the burly man with the tower shield, awkwardly pulled his legs free from the mud and asked cautiously.

Evenson shot him a glance and said coldly: "Keep going! Avenge Lord Padrek Vasquez!"

Wyatt and the surrounding guards looked at one another in hesitation. No one moved.

"The witchers' real target is the lab in Rissberg," Evenson sneered. "Don't forget who—and what—is still hidden in there."

"Y-Yes… right away, Lord Evenson!" Wyatt shivered and immediately charged toward the tower.

The other guards, as if awakening from a trance, quickly followed.

"You didn't act."

Evenson watched the soldiers swarm toward the tower, then suddenly spoke toward empty space.

The air beside him rippled faintly: "Padrek Vasquez died too quickly. I didn't have the chance."

Evenson was silent for two seconds before replying: "Don't fail this time. You know what the consequences will be."

A breeze passed through. No one answered.

Evenson didn't seem to mind. He looked up.

Thick layers of clouds had drifted in from who knows where, blotting out the stars and moon. The tower, already grim in appearance, now looked downright eerie.

"…Offending one is still better than offending three."

He let out a faint sigh toward the empty air.

.....

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