Chapter 166: Is It the Princess?
Instantly, the three creatures seed frozen. On closer inspection, they were still moving, but with exasperating slowness.
Olivia then rushed forward, her khopesh tracing precise lines. She did not have the raw power of her brothers, but she was a fifth-circle magical warrior, with an aura approaching B
rank.
For a twenty-year-old human, this was a prodigious level, and it was what placed her fifteenth in the academy’s overall rankings.
Her combat showed her strategic intelligence: she accelerated her own ti to strike faster, slowed her opponents to create openings, and her sword always found the flaws in the rocky carapace.
Kris, on the other flank, unleashed more direct power. His spear, enveloped in the flas of his Blazing Lion Art, was a tornado of destruction. He struck with titanic force, shattering the golems into pieces, explosions of fire and stone hurling incandescent shards.
Kaiser, for his part, observed from the rear, hands still in his pockets, a strange calm on his face. His gaze lingered for a mont on Kris, whose power was visibly growing at a disconcerting speed.
A thought crossed his mind: ’Should I kill him here? That would solve many future problems.’
While he weighed the pros and cons, Isabella passed in front of him in a swift movent, her sword deflecting a jet of magma. "Move it, Kaiser!" she snapped, annoyed by his inaction.
This scene reminded him of the novel. In the original story, this expedition was Isabella’s tomb. He now knew that her death was linked to Ariana Hornraven. But he had no reason to kill her.
’Let’s save this damsel in distress... Even if I can’t kill Kris now... She will serve
to do it, when the ti cos.’
An almost imperceptible smile brushed his lips. He nodded, as if agreeing with his own decision. In the sa motion, a blade of perfect blackness, absorbing the surrounding light, appeared in his right hand.
There was no transition; one instant he was motionless, the next he was already in action. His body beca a blurry streak. He did not strike with force, but with absolute precision and speed.
Each movent of his arm launched a clean, silent Black Arc, a discharge of dark Aura in blade form that sliced through everything in its path.
Then, seeing a golem attempt to strike Olivia in the back while she was occupied with five others, he extended his left hand.
The golem, in full montum, was brutally yanked backward by an invisible force, off balance. Before it could recover, Kaiser was already there. A simple horizontal movent of his black blade, as fast as lightning, severed the creature’s "head," and it collapsed into a heap of inert stones.
He turned toward Olivia, still with that faint smile. "Even a foresightful princess sotis needs soone to watch her back."
...
The two days of walking were a constant ordeal. The scorching heat radiating from the cracked ground and distant lava flows was overwhelming.
Worse still, the demonic mana saturating Tenebris’s atmosphere weighed on them, voraciously draining their energy and aura reserves. They had to stop several tis to distribute and absorb heat-resistance reinforcent potions.
Finally, they set up camp in an area they had cleared after a brief skirmish against a pack of magma wolves.
The relative safety of the spot, an elevated rocky platform, was well worth the fight. Zane and Kris took the first watch, scanning the shifting shadows of the infernal landscape while the others tried to rest.
Later, a small fire crackled, symbolically pushing back the darkness and serving to grill pieces of at from their brought rations. Isabella and Kaiser sat on opposite sides of the flas.
"I really didn’t think you would agree to co," Isabella began, slowly turning her skewer of at.
Kaiser, busy inspecting his own, replied without looking up. "Well, how could I refuse a request from you?"
"You could very well have refused," she retorted, her voice neutral. "After all, you objectively have no interest in this mission."
"Who says I have no interest?" he asked finally, lifting his eyes toward her with a faint smile.
Isabella felt a blush rise to her cheeks. She averted her gaze toward the fire. "Then I’ll stop you right there... What... what happened between us that night... I love Julius... I don’t want you to misunderstand."
Kaiser nodded, his smile unwavering, but his eyes taking on a more serious shade. "You’re right. It was a mistake."
Isabella furrowed her brows. "A mistake? Uh... that’s a bit hurtful, what you’re saying."
He had anticipated this move, this attempt to push him into the friendzone by brandishing her attachnt to another. He had simply played the card before her.
’Won are capricious creatures~. Might as well be even worse than them.’ He thought.
"That night, we both needed emotional warmth. We rushed things under the rush of adrenaline. We shouldn’t let it escalate and complicate our lives." He continued, and even though he was smiling, a shadow of genuine sadness seed to pass through his gaze, so fleeting one might have imagined it.
Isabella observed him, intrigued despite herself. "Ah... I see. So you’re in love with soone else, but it’s not reciprocated? That’s why you’re saying this?"
"I’d rather not talk about such private matters," he evaded, biting into his at.
"Wait, you’re piquing my curiosity, Kaiser," Isabella insisted, tilting her head. Without consciously aning to, her mind had started turning.
Who could make Kaiser, the man with the perpetual sarcastic smile and calm, so lancholic? The fact that he himself had admitted he would no longer try to seduce her had piqued her very essence as a woman.
Kaiser tasted another piece of at. "But you won’t find out."
"Is it the princess?" she blurted out, watching his reaction.
Kaiser raised an eyebrow, slightly surprised. "Olivia? What makes you think that?"
"I’ve seen how you two look at each other throughout the journey... I thought there was sothing between you."
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