287: Chapter 281 All Sacrifices

Mihe led a squad of Soldiers through the city at high speed, though it was certainly not the "Swift Travel Technique."

The Soldiers were ordinary humans and could not withstand the tearing forces of spatial distortion.

Thus, Mihe could only accommodate them, traveling on foot alongside them.

Fortunately, since joining the First Army, the food provided by Zhang Mu had been abundant and nutritious.

Coupled with the Soldiers' diligent training, they managed not to run too slowly.

The group ducked into an alley, dealt with the few Guards on watch, and then kicked open the door of a low-roofed house.

In the empty living room, a miniature array drawn with thick black lines lay on the floor; its patterns were complex yet very clear.

This was a mana node of the Blood Sacrifice Array.

Mihe sized it up for a moment, confirmed it wasn't a decoy node meant to mislead them, and raised his hand to blast it with a spatial blade.

Before the billowing dust could reach them, the group retreated from the house.

"Contact the other squads and ask about their progress."

While the Soldier pulled out a walkie-talkie, he looked up at the luminous figure suspended in the sky, muttering secretly to himself.

What a cautious fellow.

He hadn't expected that even though he was responsible for the easiest task, it would still be difficult to execute.

After Blova learned the conspiracy had been exposed, he appeared calm and confident on the surface, claiming with conviction that there was no need to worry about any trouble the city lords might cause.

But in reality, he had immediately added a large number of fake mana nodes.

Furthermore, he hadn't revealed this to anyone, not even Pestoya, setting up the fakes exactly like the real ones, so much so that even Zhang Mu had been deceived.

After Mihe destroyed the first one, he immediately noticed that the blood-red hue shrouding the Royal Capital and filling the air did not weaken in the slightest.

In fact, as the ordinary citizens were unable to resist the array's extraction, it became even more intense.

At this moment, the surrounding void was filled with the scent of blood, and his vision felt as if it were covered by a layer of blood-colored gauze.

Mihe sensed the crimson all around him, which had barely diminished, and felt a bit anxious.

He was a Magister and could judge the authenticity of mana nodes with his powerful Mental Energy, but the Soldiers could not; they could only dismantle them one by one according to the map's markings.

This resulted in extremely slow efficiency; some unlucky ones hadn't encountered a single real node from the start until now.

"Report!" The Soldier seemed to have finished the contact and tucked the walkie-talkie into his jacket pocket. "The fastest among the other squads is currently at the third node."

Only the third?

Mihe frowned, wanting to urge them on but holding back.

It wasn't slow anymore; after all, they had to dismantle them one by one and deal with the guarding Guards.

They had to speed up the training of the First Army's own Professionals; otherwise, whenever mana-related matters were involved, actions would always be clumsy.

Of course, that was a prospect for the future; the most urgent matter now was to dismantle the Blood Sacrifice Array.

Since the other squads were slow, he would have to take on a bit more.

Mihe's eyes narrowed as he pulled out the map, glanced at it, and set off toward the next location.

Perhaps because too many fake targets had been added, the nodes were distributed densely, and the distances between them were not far.

It took them only three minutes to reach the outside of a street-side shop.

As usual, they first took out the Guards, and the group stepped over the corpses into the shop.

Closing his eyes to sense the mana fluctuations of the array on the floor, Mihe felt a slight joy; he was lucky, two in a row were real.

He tapped his staff forward, and a silvery-white curved spatial blade shot out.

Just as the sharp edge was about to touch the array, a withered palm appeared out of thin air in the middle. The wrinkled fingers clenched, and the curved spatial blade was crushed like glass, dissipating into large irregular shards.

Mihe was stunned for a moment, then his gaze followed the arm upward, and a familiar old man's face came into view.

"Servant?!"

He was about to go over in surprise to catch up, but the Soldiers behind him strode past him, raising their guns to block his path. "Sir, he is an enemy!"

Reminded, Mihe came to his senses and glanced at the array glowing with red light. "I know you are a subject of the King, but... why?"

The Resistance... no, the Freedom Army. The Freedom Army was suggested to him by Servant, who also provided various supplies to ensure its daily operation.

Even the grand sealing array in the Silent Forest, the base where they hid their tracks, had been constructed by his own hands.

From Mihe's perspective, why would such a person who had done his best to support the "Freedom Army" stop him now?

Servant's spirit seemed to have withered quite a bit more.

He raised his head with some difficulty and answered with a question. "'Resistance Army' is more appropriate than 'Freedom Army.' Who came up with it?"

"Lord of Gur City called us that. I thought it was quite good, so I adopted it."

"Hehe..." Servant's voice was hoarse and low, as if squeezed from his throat. "They... where were those Soldiers behind you recruited from?"

"They are now Soldiers of the Gur First Legion, joined voluntarily by former members of the Resistance Army."

"Joined voluntarily?"

Servant's hunched figure suddenly vanished from the spot and reappeared almost face-to-face with the Soldier blocking Mihe.

"Why join the First Army?"

"I will not answer an enemy's question!" The Soldier was clearly nervous; the knuckles of his hand gripping the gun were white.

He knew the old man was a powerful enemy; after all, he had casually crushed Mr. Mi He's magic.

Being rejected, Servant didn't look cold; instead, a smile appeared in his eyes. "A brave Soldier, isn't he?"

The latter half of the sentence was asked while looking at Mihe.

Mihe nodded. "Although the First Army was established not long ago, they have been through blood and fire; they do not fear death."

As he spoke, Mihe pulled the Soldier behind him. "I'm sorry, Mr. Servant, now is not the appropriate time for reminiscing. I am also a Soldier of the First Army."

"As a Soldier, it is my duty to obey orders."

"Oh, you're actually not the Legion Commander?" Servant didn't seem to care about the threatening tone in his words and asked curiously.

"It's Domit, whom I've mentioned to you."

"Domit... was he appointed by 'him'?"

Mihe knew who "he" referred to and shook his head. "The First Army appoints officers based only on ability. He became the Legion Commander through his own merit."

"An interesting little fellow." Servant turned his head toward the center of the Royal Capital, his gaze seemingly piercing through the walls to look at the young man who was fighting.

"Mr. Servant." Mihe didn't want to waste the already tight time, and slowly raised his staff. "I think we must..."

"Hehe... look at that serious look on your face."

Servant chuckled a few times, then whispered a sentence in a voice only he could hear.

"What did you say?" Mihe took a step forward, trying to hear his words clearly.

But he had already finished his murmur and said, "I'm leaving now; I still have things to do."

As the words fell, his figure became illusory and transparent until it vanished.

What did he do?

Mihe looked at his own body in confusion.

After finding no abnormalities, he felt a sense of relief. "It's for the best that I don't have to fight him."

He raised his staff, preparing to release a spatial blade to destroy the array, but as his gaze fell on the array, an awkward feeling suddenly welled up in his heart.

It was as if there was a discrepancy between reality and his memory; he tried to recall but couldn't find any blurred parts. The image in his mind was exceptionally clear, yet the physical object was right before his eyes.

Where was the problem?

Mihe almost scratched his scalp raw.

What on earth happened?

Not just him, but the dozen or so Soldiers behind him were also scratching their heads.

If the First Army Soldiers were to gather now, they would be shocked to find that everyone was exhibiting the same symptom.

...

Servant walked on the flagstone road, seemingly slow but actually fast. As he approached the Magic Tower, the ground beneath his feet turned into uneven gravel, but it didn't affect his steady pace in the slightest.

"Time is running out." He glanced at the roadside not far away, where several Soldiers were squatting on the ground, their fingers frantically scratching through their hair as if they hadn't washed it in half a month.

The God, as the owner of the lost property, was reclaiming the items Servant had stolen from Him.

Slowly, yet unstoppably.

If it were before today, Servant's True Word Spell would certainly not have weakened in effectiveness.

Warning himself to speed up, his pace became even more hurried.

After about half a minute, the old man stood before the main entrance of the Magic Tower.

He looked up at the encirclement battle high in the sky, and then his gaze intentionally or unintentionally turned toward one of the people.

"Piaou... you should have run."

After talking to himself, he stepped toward the closed door of the Magic Tower. Just as his body was about to collide with the towering ice door, he activated the Shadow Technique and passed straight through.

...

"Eh, where did he go?"

In the midst of weakening the middle-aged Saint-level, Zhang Mu took a half-second interval to look down at the open space in front of the Magic Tower door and was surprised to see Servant's figure flash and disappear.

"He went into the tower.

Was the one who went in before him the Senior?"

Worried that Avril would encounter danger inside the tower, he had secretly withdrawn from the siege a few minutes ago to try and sneak into the Magic Tower to confirm her identity.

However, that broad, towering door solidified from Ice and Snow could not be blasted open no matter what.

Because the tower body was made entirely of magical materials, the Shadow Technique also lost its effect, and he had no choice but to return to the battle circle.

Who would have thought that a glance in the middle of his busy schedule would reveal Servant at the tower door, passing through the ice door without any hindrance.

"Looks like the Shadow Technique." Muttering to himself, he took advantage of the city lords' attention being on the middle-aged Saint-level and threw out several mutated Ice Cones without slowing down.

After pondering for a while to no avail, Zhang Mu temporarily set it aside and focused on dealing with the enemy before him.

Once the obstacle was cleared, they would gather everyone's strength to find a way into the tower.

It's just...

His gaze shifted to the Middle-aged Man surrounded in the center.

Looking at the reflective shield that was only slightly dimmed, Zhang Mu felt a bit of a toothache.

His mana is way too damn deep!

And as the battle continued, the city lords suffered heavy losses, especially the knight classes responsible for close-range containment; not many were left.

If this dragged on, they might all die here.

"What should I do..."

Zhang Mu stopped shooting Ice Cones in distress, intending to think of a strategy, when an old voice suddenly sounded in his ear.

"Continue, it's almost time."

Stunned for a moment, he came to his senses and looked around in surprise. More support? Whose person?

He did a bit of elimination in his mind.

The two Archdukes and Jarvis were still fighting in the cathedral; Zhang Mu could faintly hear the commotion even from the Magic Tower.

Andre had entered the Magic Tower himself, and his trump card—a Saint-level—was being besieged by them.

The King was the first to enter the tower, and Servant followed closely behind.

As for Avril, whether she had entered remained a question, but it was certain she didn't have a secret Saint-level.

Potter, the only one who supported him, was currently thousands of miles away.

Then the person who spoke could only have been sent by the missing Second Prince.

After analyzing the result, Zhang Mu's eyes lit up.

To be entrusted with a heavy responsibility by the Second Prince, they must be a Saint-level.

Thinking of this, he immediately went full power, firing mutated Ice Cones as if they cost nothing.

The reflective shield was hit, and the mana in the middle-aged Saint-level's body stalled for an instant before immediately flowing smoothly again, and he then looked suspiciously in the direction the Ice Cones were coming from.

Sure enough, it was that annoying fellow.

He frowned in disgust. I'll save you for last, to be granted death only after experiencing a series of cruel punishments.

Having planned Zhang Mu's end, he urged his mana, accelerating the slaughter of the city lords.

But Zhang Mu seemed to have gone mad, firing Ice Cones without the slightest regard for mana consumption, forcing him to divert some energy to deal with them.

With such a release speed, ha, you won't be able to last long at all.

Things indeed went as he expected; in just one minute, the violent rain of Ice Cones suddenly stalled.

But before the middle-aged Saint-level could be happy, he saw Zhang Mu pull out a bottle of magic potion and gulp it down, then bottle after bottle.

After replenishing his mana, the rain of Ice Cones shot out again.

To save time on drinking potions, Zhang Mu simply condensed Ice Cones while drinking.

The middle-aged Saint-level was a bit dumbfounded.

Is he crazy?

Taking magic potions like this, isn't he afraid the violent mana will burst his mana core?

Even if he luckily stabilized, releasing magic and taking potions at the same time would bury serious hidden dangers in his body, likely affecting his future path of advancement.

What on earth is he—

In the midst of his churning thoughts, the middle-aged Saint-level didn't notice his reflective shield becoming dimmer and dimmer.

By the time he noticed, at the moment he prepared to infuse mana to reinforce it, a faint trace of killing intent brushed against his skin and seeped into his internal organs.

An icy chill spread throughout his body, and his heart seemed to stop.

A Saint-level!

With his mind racing, he ignored the Sky Knight swinging a sword from the front and poured all his mana into the reflective shield behind him, which was where the killing intent had first appeared.

Unfortunately, such a long-brewed strike from the person in the shadows was not something this negligible remedial measure could stop.

An unremarkable straight-edged dagger appeared inconspicuously amidst the brilliant magic.

It was held by an old man's hand and pushed toward a spot slightly to the left of the junction between the middle-aged Saint-level's back and buttocks—in other words, the kidney.

As the sharp blade slowly approached, his soul nearly left his body. Knowing that the reflective shield, which was about to reach its limit, could not block this strike, he twisted his body desperately in an attempt to dodge.

But the dagger was like a maggot on a bone; its owner slightly turned his wrist and continued the pursuit.

Finally, the tip of the dagger pierced the light-mixed shield. Without pausing, it penetrated as smoothly as if it were piercing tofu.

Then, under the middle-aged Saint-level's despairing gaze, it sank into his lower back, stopping only at the hilt.

This turn of events stunned all the city lords present, who all stared blankly at the person who had launched the sneak attack.

He was completely shrouded in a black robe, making it impossible to see his gender or appearance.

All they knew was that he was thin and small, like a child. He was turning his wrist, controlling the dagger to churn inside the middle-aged Saint-level's body.

"Did the Second Prince send you?"

The black-robed person turned to look at Zhang Mu, who had asked the question. Without a word, his free left hand tossed out a silver key, and then he extended his index finger, pointing toward the Magic Tower.

Zhang Mu understood. "Thanks!"

He immediately turned and rushed to the tower door. After searching for a while and not seeing a keyhole, he was about to turn back and ask when the ice door suddenly lit up with a blinding light. He instinctively raised his hand to cover his eyes.

When his vision returned, he was already standing in the midst of a blizzard.

A faint, frenzied shout came from above: "You, all of you are sacrifices!"