The Male Lead isn� Chapter 326: Outnumbered?

Chapter 326: Outnumbered?

Adeline’s voice stayed low. "I’m going to get you out of here. Okay? Tell

everything you know, tis when the guards co, anything that helps us not get caught."

The man coughed and tried to speak. Words stuck in his throat like sothing blocking them. He blinked hard, then forced out, "They... eting is being held." The sentence sounded loud in the quiet halls. A eting. That explained the quiet, the empty halls.

She eased to the corner and peeked around, careful not to show more than the side of her face. The corridor was still. No footsteps, no voices. She counted with her eyes: two lanterns, a closed door at the far end, shadows that might be people or might be nothing.

But then the prisoner thrashed a little. His shackles scraped the floor loud, ugly tal on stone. Adeline’s heart lurched. The sound made her jump, and for a second she pictured alarm bells and shouting n.

She hurried back and crouched beside him. "Shhh," she said sharply, but softly. She put her hand around his wrist to stop the shaking. The tal still clicked, but quieter now.

She kept her voice steady and warm at the sa ti. "I won’t leave you. I promise. My brother’s outside, he’s the one who can help. I need to go talk to him, get him to cover us. I can’t do this alone." She didn’t want him to panic. She also didn’t want to waste ti, no one knew when the eting began or when it would end. She needed to make sure those two were inford.

The man looked at her like he was trying to decide if she was real. Adeline squeezed his hand once, hard enough for him to feel it and calm down. "Stay very still. Don’t shout. If anyone cos, don’t say a thing. I’ll be right back."

She stood up, forcing her face to be calm, but inside she had the tight, buzzing worry of soone trying to hold too many things at once, the man’s fear, Layla and Aaron’s safety, the chance of getting caught.

She took one last look at him. Her feet moved fast but quietly. Every step felt counted. She had to get back to Aaron and Layla.

Adeline’s footsteps were light but shaky. The stone floor under her boots felt cold, and every sound seed louder than it should be. She tried to retrace the way she had co, but after three turns and two staircases, she realised she was lost. Completely.

Her chest tightened. She’d always been bad with directions or directionally challenged as Layla would call it, and tease her about. Even now, in the middle of enemy territory, that sa flaw had co back to haunt her. Every hallway looked the sa: long stretches of stone, locked doors with rusted handles, and torches giving off just enough light to make shadows jump.

She kept moving, hugging the wall, her fingers brushing it to steady herself. Locked door. Another locked door. No sign of Aaron. No sign of Layla. Just her and the echo of her own breathing.

Her pulse spiked. She wasn’t just lost; she was going deeper. She could feel it. The air got heavier the further she went, colder, like a basent or a cave... Except she was in what was considered both a basent and a cave.

She thought about the prisoner she’d left behind, his glassy eyes, the promise she’d made. What if she couldn’t find her way back to him? What if Aaron or Layla ran into trouble without her?

Then she heard it.

Voices. At first just a faint murmur, like water running through pipes. She froze and tilted her head. The sound grew clearer, people talking, more than a few. She crept forward, her heart hamring, following the noise. She should have moved away from the clear group of people, but... She instead followed the voices.

One turn. Another. The sound grew louder with each step until she reached an archway at the end of a hall. She crouched low, pressed herself to the wall, and peeked inside.

It was a large room, like a grand hall, but less grand, it was grand only in size. Dim light glowed from hanging lanterns. Figures sat around a long table, at least ten of them, maybe more. All masked. And all around the room stood many others, they faced the centre, the table.

Adeline pressed her back to the wall and strained to listen.

"...the monsters..." one voice said. "They’re unstable, but the experint must continue."

"Without the Archmage, progress has slowed," another said. "His death ca sooner than we planned."

Adeline’s fingers clenched against the wall. Archmage. Dead. Experints. Monsters. Her mind raced, trying to fit the pieces together. Were... Were they involved, too? That couldn’t be? Could it?

Then another voice spoke, lower and angrier. "Dimitri wrecked everything. Without his interference, we would already be done."

"At least he followed the story... Though he did do so things earlier..." Another tried to defend.

"And now he is controlled by that ungrateful bitch. Archmage? So Archmage. Nothing could withstand our power, the forbidden magic." Another chid.

"Forbidden hah... More like no one had the capacity to wield it with greatness. No one except our master, indeed."

And then she heard it, the part that made her blood go cold.

"Adeline is not our only problem."

Of course, she had always been a thorn in their eyes, she was not surprised.

She backed away slowly, careful not to let her boots scrape against the stone. Her hands shook, but she held them tight against her chest to still them. She needed to find Aaron. She needed to get the prisoner out before this turned into sothing they couldn’t control.

There were too many people, hundreds... Maybe even a thousand! And fighting them alone would not be enough. Fighting them with Layla and Aaron would still be extrely difficulty, their strength is in their numbers. They needed to be clever with their approach, they could not just headbutt their way into a fight.