Book 3. The Long Journey. Chapter 17. Like a Moth to the Flame.

“Kill them for me,” Clementine ordered in a frighteningly calm voice, as if she was asking someone to pass over the salt at the dinner table.

“Are you really going to attack us?” Laien asked with a stern expression on his face. By the looks of it, those eight were making light of them; they didn’t even draw their weapons or rouse their Qi, they must not have heard of their duels from the night before. “You realize my elder brother… Master Rudford will kill you all if you do so, don’t you?” he asked again, at the same time making the white spear appear in his hands.

“Told you we should have run,” Yin murmured quietly as he stood up from the ground and armed himself with the twin swords.

“It doesn’t matter who you are,” the white-eyed man in the front answered casually and took out a sword from his interspatial ring. “Our Lady wishes to see you dead, that’s enough of a reason to kill you. We don’t need to know why, nor would any of us be concerned with the possible consequences,” the young man stated straightforwardly, not at all perturbed by the situation.

“We can make it painless if you don’t resist,” the fiery-haired woman amongst the eight stepped to the white-eyed man’s side and said with a smirk. “You will die either way, but you can spare yourselves the suffering… don’t you think it’s a good deal?” she asked and laughed to herself, causing the white-eyed man to shake his head helplessly. He was simply faithful to the woman who brought him out of hell and gave him everything he never had. He never enjoyed the dirty work… but this new teenage redhead Lady Clementine recruited thoroughly enjoyed this aspect of their duties.

“…” Laien remained silent for a few long seconds, measuring up the eight in front of him. He pursed his lips, conflicted over his own emotions; should he really have had done what Yin wanted? Were they in this situation because of him, because he wanted to help somebody without considering the whole picture? Yet, wasn’t helping those in need… at least those who came across his way the correct thing to do? He simply couldn’t wrap his head around it, not at such a short notice. For now, he had different things to worry about.

“Do it, but spare my friend,” Laien said strongly and gave the fiery-haired woman a challenging look. To empathize his point, he took five steps forward and stood in front of Yin. He even withdrew his spear back to the interspatial ring, though he didn’t know how much this act would mean to those people.

“Ho,” the fiery-haired woman smiled devilishly. “What a brave kid, so admirable! You convinced me, I will only take your head. Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing,” she said with a laugh and began walking towards Laien, having already taken a sword into her hand. She glanced at Yin as she was walking, then smirked to herself. What a coward, she thought, to not say anything when his friend is offering to die instead of him.

“Promise me you won’t hurt him,” Laien spoke up, watching as the young woman was getting closer and closer to him until she finally stopped two steps away.

“I promise, I promise,” the fiery-haired woman said with a laugh and raised her sword, then prepared to take a swing with it. “Just kidding,” she said brightly, then swung the blade at Laien’s neck. Before the blow hit though, she felt a sudden chill when the side of Laien’s lips curved upwards into a wry smirk. Her instinct was telling her to run, to dodge, but it was all too late; she had swung her sword in a casual stance, she had neither time nor way to react quickly enough.

The blade of her sword collided with a small barrier of ice which appeared out of nowhere in its path, whereas she herself had her body pierced by dozens of small spikes of ice.

“I was kidding too,” Laien said with a snort and took his spear back out, but didn’t even need to deliver another blow. The very next instant the fiery-haired woman fell backward and landed on the stone floor, as dead as one could be. Her eyes were lifeless, her body ice-cold; even the blood around the wounds was frozen solid. Given that she took multiple blows from his ice magic without even rousing her Qi, her internal organs must have been all frozen in an instant.

Clementine, who until now was watching with a relaxed, nonchalant expression finally revealed a hint of emotion on her face; a hint of fear. However, even though she was growing nervous, her gaze still wasn’t present. It was as if she was looking at something that wasn’t there, at something that probably was bits and pieces of the nightmare she was reliving ever since that day.

“Everyone, before they can escape,” the white-eyed man said briefly and roused his Qi, causing the rust-colored flames to surge around the blade of his sword. He appeared to be unshaken by his comrade’s death and the other six showed no anxiety or frustration either; their behavior was quite strange, as if they were devoid of human emotions. Be it as it may, to them it mattered little if they lived or died; they existed only to fulfill their Lady’s wishes.

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“I’m telling you, we came too early,” Teira said with a laugh after he and Lucin were let past the gate leading to the core district and the General’s castle.

“Better too early than too late, do you want to miss them?” Lucin asked and glanced at his cousin meaningfully. He also knew what kind of character those two had, no? Given how randomly Laien and Yin liked to act it wouldn’t be surprising if they left right after getting what they needed from the General without stopping to say goodbye to anyone.

“I just hope we won’t be waiting for hours,” Teira said resignedly. Wouldn’t it have been fine if they sat by the gate and waited there? The guards even told them the two hadn’t left yet, so why were they going into the castle now…? Was Lucin planning to try and have them join the breakfast with General Agnes? If they succeeded it would be great, but if not then both of them would get heavily scolded by their fathers for being a nuisance to the General.

“It’s going to be okay, maybe we will even get to talk with General Agnes,” Lucin said with a smile, pretty much confirming Teira’s suspicions.

“I wish I could be as optimistic as you,” Teira grumbled unhappily. Even though the two of them were about the same age, Lucin was always the center of attention whenever they were together. He was stronger than him too; although he wouldn’t admit it, he was quite jealous of this cousin of his.

“You just don’t try enough,” Lucin pointed out. “If you asked them persistently enough they would have agreed to spar with you quickly today before leaving, but you didn’t even try. How can you know something will go badly if you never go through with anything?” he asked and chuckled in amusement when Teira looked away and pretended not to have heard anything. Really, he would always do the same thing when he didn’t know how to reply.

“Oh, you are Tares’s and Tam’s kids. What brings you here?”

The two were quite startled when they hear someone calling out to them from one of the side alleys. Their surprise only deepened when they recognized General Agnes and his son; they instantly stopped and bowed slightly, aware that giving in to nervousness and using the military salute when the difference in rank between the two parties was so huge would be least said inappropriate.

“Hey!” Tan greeted the two merrily, happy to see some familiar faces. “Is it true you saw Laien and Yin fighting? Say, are they really so strong?” he asked energetically, having just heard a few things about it from his father. He knew the two needed to be amazing if they did so well in the Grand Tournament, but he hadn’t thought they would be so amazing!

“I don’t know what you heard, but both of them are incredibly strong,” Lucin answered without hesitation, his voice ringing with excitement just due to recalling the yesterday’s fights.

“Is it true that Yin beat Lieutenant Tares? He is a martial master of the third rank, right?” Tan asked hurriedly, so impatient for the answer he couldn’t even stand calmly.

“It’s true,” Lucin said with a laugh, trying to recall if he had ever seen Tan so excited about something or somebody.

“Wow!” Tan exclaimed in awe and tugged his father’s shirt. “They are as amazing as you were saying!” he said excitedly, unable to wait until he would have a chance to speak with Laien and Yin again.

“Did you think I was lying?” Agnes asked with a helpless laugh and tousled his son’s hair. This boy, to trust his friends more than his father, gosh! “That being said,” he brought up and shifted his glance to the two youths. “Are you here because of that surprise everyone is preparing for those two? If so, then we would like to join in,” he said with a smile, then chuckled a little. Was this so shocking the boys needed to appear so stunned by his words?

It was then when Agnes’s expression suddenly turned serious; he turned to look at the wall of his castle, just about hundred meters away from the main entrance. He had spent most of his life facing constant danger and so his battle sense was more sensitive than that of most, thus he quickly sensed a sudden surge of Qi coming from many people despite being about four hundred meters away from them and despite them being behind a thick wall of stone.

Before he could raise any questions or begin guessing what was going on, a huge explosion shook the castle and a portion of the wall he was looking at blew up. The three boys jumped up from the scare, but he watched the cloud of smoke and rust-colored flames in search of any sign of intruders.

Just split-seconds after the explosion occurred, lightning flashed within the cloud of dust. It then flashed again basically right afterward, this time accompanied by an indistinct blur which some kind of projectiles left as they cut through the dust in the air. Flames appeared in response to those missiles and at the same time, a body came out flying back first out of the dust and crashed into the grass at the courtyard.

Agnes instantly recognized one of his wife’s bodyguards; the white-eyed one who she would always send to him with messages. His first thought was to rush into this chaos and save whoever was attacking Clementine, but he ended up not acting immediately as he remembered he had his son and two other boys by his side. If there were more enemies then he couldn’t very well leave those three unprotected!

This little hesitation used up enough time for two more figures to rush out of the cloud of dust, the sigh of which caused Agnes’s mind to go blank as he totally lost the ability comprehend the situation. Why were Laien and Yin there with weapons in hands; and why were Yin’s twin swords both covered with blood? Did they get into a fight with Clementine’s men? How, why?

Seeing General Agnes emerging as if out of nowhere in their way, Laien and Yin thought little about the situation and dodged to the left, trying to circle around the General before their pursuers could pincer them between a rock and a hard place. However, the white-eyed man who Yin had just kicked out into the courtyard managed to collect himself; he stood up and ran in pursuit; and since he happened to be rather fast for a martial master of the first rank, he managed to close distance in just under a second. He wasn’t nearly as fast a Yin but was definitely much faster than Laien.

“Halt right there!” Agnes shouted in fury and disbelief, wondering if his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. Yet, when the white-eyed man ignored him and four more guards of his wife’s joined the chase, paying no heed to his orders at all, he grew even more baffled and infuriated. He raised his hand and brought out his greatsword, then slashed down, releasing a powerful wave of flames directed straight at the white-eyed man.

The guard had no choice but to attempt to stop desperately and jump back unless he wished to take the full force of the General’s attack head-on. He just barely managed not to get hit by the middle portion of the wave of flames and with the aid of his own Qi, scraped by with some light burns.

“Did you not hear my order?!” Agnes yelled, but then frowned in disbelief when the white-eyed man and the other four once again ignored him and rushed at the two boys, who just before his yell had briefly slowed down and glanced at him suspiciously. “Makes sense they would be distrusting, but why would my wife’s guards betray us out of nowhere?” the thought crossed Agnes’s mind, however, he didn’t stop to ponder on it. There was no time for that.

“Get over here,” he called out to Laien and Yin, intending to protect both them and the other three kids from whatever the hell was going on.

Laien and Yin exchanged a quick glance, after what they nodded at each other and ran behind Agnes. If the man wanted them dead, he wouldn’t have protected them. He would have joined his wife’s guards and killed them when he had the chance; later he could make up a story about them attacking his wife… but would still likely get killed by Rudford, what he couldn’t really realize without having seen how Laien interacted with his master with his own eyes.

With Agnes in front, the five bodyguards finally halted their assault, not sure how to proceed. They didn’t stand a chance against a martial master of the fifth rank and none of them had any idea how to accomplish the orders given to them. They really wanted to kill those two, but wanting and being able to were two very different things.

“So, can someone explain to me what is going on?” Agnes asked sternly. He didn’t need to look over his shoulder to hear that the guards from the gate were rushing over, but before he could calm down he noticed something flabbergasting. When a gust of wind blew the dust away, he saw three bodies of his wife’s bodyguards, two killed by the sword and one by multiple piercing wounds; most likely magic. He was quite astounded to find out that those two kids managed to kill three martial masters in the blink of an eye; had they not chosen to run, they would have probably killed off the remaining five on their own too. This kind of battle prowess in the hands of twelve-year-old boys… he had honestly never dreamed to see any so freakishly strong kids emerge in the young generation of his country.

Yet, the shock of seeing those three corpses could amount only to that much of a surprise in comparison to what he felt when his gaze turned a little more to the right. “Clementine?” he asked aloud, thus drawing everyone’s gazes to the person of his wife who was standing there in the corridor and was looking at them with a slight frown on her face.

“What are you waiting for?” Clementine asked in an irritated tone. “I told you to kill them! If my husband knew what they had done he would have beheaded them himself! Kill them for the justice!” she ordered, her words sounding so loud that even the arriving gate guards heard them clearly.

“What are you saying, have you gone mad?!” Agnes called out in shock, taken aback by this unthinkable behavior of his wife’s. Clementine, however, appeared to not have heard or noticed him in any way despite him yelling so loudly and standing right in front of the two boys she was looking at. She kept looking at Laien and Yin and ignoring everything else, looking to be mildly annoyed to see the boys with heads attached to their bodies.

The five guards of Clementine’s acknowledged the order once again and this time went at it with the mindset of sacrificing themselves in order to kill the two boys. They didn’t understand why their Lady wanted the two dead… but if it was to benefit her in the end, they wouldn’t mind dying for her sake. There was no place for questions in their reasoning; all that mattered was absolute obedience to their life-savior and eternal benefactor.

“Step back you crazy idiots,” Agnes growled in a low voice and brandished his greatsword. He never expected the five to actually ignore him thrice and all attack at the same time; the white-eyed man charged at him, while the other four went from the sides and targeted Laien and Yin. “If only the gate guards got closer sooner!” he cursed silently, angry with himself for not telling them to come over when they stopped a few dozen meters away after they had seen that everything was ‘under control’.

Having no other choice, Agnes swept with his greatsword, striking at the white-eyed man with the intention of disposing of him with one blow. His attack hit the man’s guard and that should have been it… but the guy somehow prevented the greatsword from directly slicing him in two despite his own sword breaking into pieces. Then, with his intestines falling out of his torn stomach the white-eyed man forced himself to jump at him, if just to buy another half a second of time.

Momentarily a fear for his son’s life was he to be caught in the crossfire appeared in Agnes’s heart, but then he saw Laien and Yin rushing out to meet two opponents each before they could reach them on their own. He couldn’t help but smile to himself as he punched out with his left hand, his fist crashing into the white-eyed man’s head and splattering it into a mass of gore. Those two boys truly were admirable!

He saw out of the corner of his eye how Yin swiftly disposed of one of his opponents with two quick slashes of his lightning-engulfed swords, then used a genuine movement art to dodge a full-strength attack of the other one and cleanly behead him from behind.

At the same time, he noted how Laien badly wounded two of his own opponents with ice magic, despite the flames with which the man and the woman were protecting themselves with. He then proceeded to draw their reckless, suicidal attacks in with a strange water-based defensive technique to finally finish each off with a single thrust of his spear.

Overall, it took Laien half a breath’s time longer to finish the clash compared to Yin. This much alone didn’t necessarily mean much, but with Agnes’s experience, he could tell that Yin was considerably stronger than his friend. Also, judging from the relaxed way Yin fought he appeared to be still hiding the true extent of his abilities… how frightening.

“What a ridiculous day,” Agnes said resignedly and put his weapon away. He looked at his son, worried the boy could have been terrified by what he saw, but he was pleasantly surprised by the nervous, though still collected way Tan handled himself. The way he was glancing at Laien and Yin too… he perhaps would have preferred the boy to be a bit more concerned with the situation at hand than to focus so much on admiring the strength of those two boys.

“Oh no, oh no, what do I do?” Clementine began walking around in circles and gesticulating vividly, acting as if she was a lady in distress. She was being fairly quiet though, so not much of what she mumbled about could be heard by those in the courtyard.

“What for all Gods happened with her?” Agnes asked with a groan, not expecting to hear an answer to his question.

“What happened to her?” Yin asked angrily, but just barely stopped himself from straight-out shouting everything into Agnes’s face. He was the one who warned Laien to act more cautiously; he wouldn’t rashly reveal a problematic secret of the General’s family to the soldiers who rushed over and were now watching the scene in heavy confusion.

Agnes frowned a little when he heard Yin repeat his question angrily, then recalled how the boy reacted to his wife’s favorite tea during the breakfast and grew suspicious. Did this youth know the reason why his wife was acting in this crazy way? If so, he needed to learn it as soon as possible! Thus, he couldn’t help but frown when he saw even more guards from the castle and from the inner district rushing over to see what was going on. He didn’t want to discuss his family’s private matters in front of all those prying eyes.

“Everything is under control, go back to your posts,” he said loudly, pushing down the awkward and unpleasant feeling in his chest.

The over two dozen guards exchanged baffled looks, but none of them dared to question the General. Had one of his close aides been present, he surely would have demanded an explanation… but they weren’t qualified to do so. As such, they saluted the General and left, all of their questions remaining unanswered for better or worse.

“You two go back too,” Agnes said in a more gentle tone and gave Teira and Lucin a brief look. The boys had countless questions they wanted to ask, but neither of them voiced any. They bowed to Agnes, then left as they were told to.

“Father, what’s happened to mother?” Tan asked worriedly, the sight of his mother acting as if she was really, really drunk causing him to stop paying attention to Laien and Yin.

“I wish I knew,” Agnes said bitterly. He raised his eyebrows slightly when he saw the two boys walk up to each other while keeping their distance from him; he sighed, thinking that it couldn’t be helped they would be somewhat on guard against him after his wife ordered her bodyguards to kill them.

“Eh? Dear?” Clementine suddenly stopped in place, looked at Agnes and asked in honest confusion. “My bodyguards… they are all dead! What happened here? Is everyone all right?” she asked anxiously and disregarding the kind of dress she was wearing, jumped from the hole in the wall in a very much unladylike way and landed on the grass, then hurried over to Agnes, her son and the two boys she couldn’t quite recognize.

“Mother…?” Tan asked as he partially hid behind his father’s back, his voice sounding very genuinely scared and confused.

“Clementine,” Agnes shook his head in disbelief. “Are you trying to tell me you don’t remember anything? The breakfast? The fight just now? How you ordered your guards to kill those two boys?” he inquired, worried for his wife’s sanity. Yes, she had been acting strange for quite some time now, but he didn’t think it was this bad!

“I… no, what?” Clementine’s forehead furrowed with wrinkles as she tried to remember anything of what her husband was speaking about. She looked at her son ever so briefly and was started when Tan hid even further behind Agnes, escaping from her gaze. Her frown deepened and she turned to look at the two boys, one black-haired and black-eyed and the other amazingly enough, green-haired and green-eyed. She was sure she would have remembered if she saw such a characteristic pair, but she couldn’t recall anything at all no matter how hard she tried.

Yet, suddenly she groaned as her head began hurting really bad. She staggered a little, blinked a few times and looked around once again. Her gaze stopped at Laien and Yin for a long few seconds before her expression turned frightened and alarmed. She threw herself at Agnes, tugged his shirt with her hands and cried out hysterically.

“Dear, what are you doing?! We need to kill those two! We can’t have them taint our family! They were sent by the devil to corrupt our daughter! Please, please do something before it’s too late! Before my little child sins like I once had! Cut their heads off, then crush them with your foot!”

Agnes was so taken aback and dismayed by Clementine’s words and actions that he momentarily forgot to think and just stood there, thoroughly stunned. Tan reacted similarly to his father, unsure of what was going on or why did his mother appear to have gone crazy.

Laien watched the scene with some sympathy for Agnes’s family, but Yin, on the other hand, stared at them with a cold, contemptuous look in his eyes.