Chapter 224: A Desperate Gamble
Wang Yu's heartbeat gradually quickened. His ripples dampened his presence as he crouched behind the courtyard wall of a modest three-story dwelling.
Fighting spirit surged in bursts from his limbs and core, coursing through his body as he sharpened his senses—a warm-up, in a sense, but with no room for error.
Blood slid from his fingertips, creeping across the ground and slipping through the cracks in the wall. Guided by Blood Tempest, it spread out in fine threads. His ripples clung to each line of blood, relaying the information they touched back to him.
"Mana and void energy are both rising in the vicinity. This isn't natural... Someone's here. But are they here for me?"
Eyes half-closed, Wang Yu focused his senses entirely on sound.
That was when he noticed an eerie stillness. The absence of people was expected in this corner of the city, but now, even the faint stir of air and the crumbling of loose stone had gone silent. Something was wrong.
"A dome of silence... I'm likely their target, then. And if that's the case... who might it be?"
The rising mana levels all but confirmed the presence of a dome of silence. No one cast that kind of magic for no reason. Whoever had come was not a friend.
"The Abyssal Gate? No... that's unlikely. Then... could it be the royal family?"
That thought crept into Wang Yu's mind. The more he considered it, the more plausible it seemed. From the very beginning, this entire affair surrounding the descent of the God of Terror had reeked of politcal intrigue. Setting aside the chaos caused by the Perfected One's subsequent rampage, who stood to benefit the most?
Selwyn was effectively ruined—it couldn't have been them.
Some noble faction? Impossible. No noble held that much power alone, and those who attended the celebration had been wiped out to the last.
In the end, there was only one plausible suspect: the royals of Aleisterre. With all the new nobles dead and their seats on the Elder Council newly vacant, who else was left to oppose them?
And the old aristocracy, whose estates had stood for generations, would never rebel over a single grievance. If not for the catastrophic damage caused by the God of Terror's unexpected possession, this entire affair would have been a profitable purge for the royal family.
"And the estates of those dead nobles likely went straight to the crown. Add in the wealth and land of Selwyn... whatever was lost in the capital is more than covered."
Wang Yu quickly came to a conclusion. He had a good idea just who had come for him. If he were able to confer with Sieg or Charles, he might be able to confirm it fully.
But with his magitech communicator broken, and the Prayer Network unusable for him, he was flying blind, cut off from the rest of the Nightblades.
A metal boot landed atop one of the fine threads of blood. His ripples instantly penetrated the dome of silence, relaying the sound right back to Wang Yu.
A moment later, a forceful impact shattered the ground, scattering the threads of blood and dispelling the fighting spirit within them. Wang Yu lost contact with his blood.
"An advanced knight—he must have sensed the blood."
His aura had brushed against the intruder's. In that instant, both of them learned of each other's presence. The enemy's shockwave had wiped out his surveillance in a single blow.
"Time to move. There's nothing to gain from fighting someone who's prepared and out for my blood, especially when I'm all alone."
Casting a glance at the plume of rising dust, Wang Yu crouched low and darted along the base of the wall, retreating in the opposite direction. If he could regroup with the Nightblades, the situation would change entirely.
A soundless emanation sliced the air above him. Space fractured under the pressure of void energy. A razor-straight line split the stone wall beside his head, the cut so clean it gleamed—and the wall collapsed toward him.
But Wang Yu, having sensed the anomaly with his ripples, quickly dove forward in a slide, barely avoiding the spell designed to behead him.
"Wang Yu, member of the Nightblades' special ops team. You no longer have a choice. Stop resisting. Come with us."
A deep voice came from beyond the crumbled wall. At the same moment, stone walls erupted around the courtyard—thick, earthen barriers shooting up to cut off Wang Yu's retreat.
"..."
Wang Yu said nothing. He turned his eyes toward the source of the voice. An armored knight steadily advanced toward him, his sword drawn. His armor was unmarked.
Given the fluctuations in his fighting spirit, Wang Yu was certain this was the advanced knight who had dispelled his blood for surveillance.
Behind him came a magician—younger, in light armor rather than robes, wielding a dagger in one hand and a staff in the other. Three glowing orbs hovered around him in constant motion, their nature unknown.
"An advanced knight; an advanced magician and possibly a beginner knight; and a wizard skulking about... They must think very highly of me."
Wang Yu's eyes narrowed. He scanned the two steadily closing in on him as he extended the range of his ripples to their limit. He monitored every shift of void energy and mana in the area as he ran through possibilities in his mind.
"They were prepared. They timed it perfectly—just after the event ended, when no one had time to contact me. I misjudged the royal family. They didn't even bother coming up with an excuse. They moved on a Nightblade openly... just because I have no backing. I'm alone, with no allies."
There was a faint shatter of glass. The sound vanished, dampened by his ripples. He had crushed his vial of Recaptured Glory. The potion seeped into his veins, conveyed by his own blood. It began to take effect immediately.
He couldn't afford to hesitate. Fleeing was no longer an option. With three high-level foes closing in, he could not turn his back. He would burn through every last trump card he had and fight with all the strength he possessed. It was the only choice.
"Don't resist needlessly," came the knight's voice again. "We're not here to kill you. There are simply things that must be investigated. Your life is not what we're after.
"If you insist on fighting, I can't guarantee that your body will remain whole. Based on our investigation, you're a rational man. You must understand that we have every advantage."
The knight and the magician halted, ten paces away, their gazes cold, watching as Wang Yu assumed a guarded stance. He gave no reply. He simply stood there, silent.
His breath grew heavier by the second, though his ripples blocked that out too. To them, he merely bowed his head, panting, as if wrestling with the weight of the decision before him.
"Our time is limited. You don't have the luxury to hesitate. Either surrender now and drive this spike into your gut, or we fight—and then drag back what's left of you, barely breathing and missing however many parts."
The knight's voice rang out cold and firm. His tone brimmed with absolute confidence.
He tossed a silver spike at Wang Yu's feet—long, engraved with intricate patterns, and clearly forged from an unusual material. It landed with a clatter, spinning to a stop near Wang Yu's boots.
They had every reason to be confident: an advanced knight, an advanced magician, and a hidden wizard lurking somewhere in the shadows.
This was a lineup formidable enough to make even a grand knight think twice. To deploy them against an intermediate knight like Wang Yu was, frankly, overkill.
"Don't waste time. Take him down. If he resists, disable every means he has to fight back."
The magician sent a phantom eye into the air, piercing through the illusions cloaking the area. He took in the surroundings, then whispered covertly to the middle-aged knight beside him.
The Nightblades and the city guards were closing in from the outskirts and advancing steadily toward the city's heart. They'd arrive in about ten minutes—perhaps even sooner if they sensed anything amiss.
"Have the royal guards block their path. Delay their approach. It won't be too disastrous if the Nightblades or the guards learned what we're doing here, but this man works with the grand duke's son who just saved the capital. It's best to avoid unnecessary complications," the knight replied.
Then, the knight raised his sword and aimed it at Wang Yu, whose head was still bowed. They were short on time. The knight intended to cripple Wang Yu right away—a mere intermediate knight wasn't an issue.
But Wang Yu moved first. His hand flew to his waist in a blur as he drew Fury of the Forge. The alchemical revolver roared to life. Six bullets tore through the air, aimed straight at the magician behind the knight.
For all its power, Fury of the Forge had its flaws. In a formal duel, if one could anticipate the wielder's movements, its ballistic trajectory was far too easy to counter.
The magician's trio of glowing orbs twisted and reshaped themselves. In an instant, three semi-transparent shields of light unfolded, catching every bullet fired from a variety of angles. Though the arcane shields shimmered and cracked under the impact, all six bullets clattered uselessly to the ground.
The advanced knight's body blurred into motion. With a hum of fighting spirit, he melted into the ground like a shadow before appearing behind Wang Yu's back. This was his potential, Shadowstalker's Step.
He'd moved the moment Wang Yu began to act. He hadn't even bothered to shield the magician because he knew such attacks posed no real threat.
His momentum carried him forward. Though his back was still facing Wang Yu, he had preemptively reversed the blade in his hand, which he drove backward in a deadly thrust.
With an advanced knight's strength behind it, the strike was swift and brutal, enough to pierce steel and shatter stone. But Wang Yu caught the blade with his enchanted Voidblade gauntlets. Metal screamed against metal.
Shock flickered across the knight's face. Wang Yu's strength was monstrous—far beyond what an intermediate knight should possess.
It should have been a one-sided fight, but not only had Wang Yu stopped the blow, he was holding the blade in place and refused to let go.
Wang Yu whirled and tugged on the knight's sword in a surge of fighting spirit. Then, with all his might, he swept his leg in a vicious arc at the knight's arm while the knight was dragged off-balance by his seized blade.
White fog spurted from Wang Yu's mouth and nose like a furnace venting steam. It was reminiscent of Bloodburn Drive—but this time, the power surging through him came not from the void, but from the Elixir of Recaptured Glory.
The sweeping kick collided with the knight's raised arm in a deafening impact. Both combatants unleashed their full strength as they clashed.
The knight grunted, releasing his weapon and abandoning the clash without any hesitation. He leapt backward in retreat.
The force behind Wang Yu's strike had stunned him. He felt as if he were facing a magical beast rather than a man.
With a squeeze of his gauntleted hand, Wang Yu bent the enchanted longsword into a twisted, useless scrap of metal, right in front of the knight's eyes.
The blade hadn't been designed for a direct confrontation. Its enchantments for speed and precision were utterly unsuited to brute force. Against the current Wang Yu, it never stood a chance.
More and more power surged through his veins. A faint golden hue glimmered in Wang Yu's pupils, which seemed almost draconic. The effects of the Elixir of Recaptured Glory were nothing short of astonishing.
It was derived from dragon blood, and the potent factors within it had bonded strangely with Wang Yu's unusual physique to trigger a unique reaction.
As the golden potion broke itself down, it flooded Wang Yu's body with energy. But its rarer ingredients were also stimulating his internal systems, coaxing power from his organs that he'd never accessed before.
It wasn't a berserk state. Wang Yu could feel it: there was an unfamiliar force filling the space between bone and muscle, like an internal exoskeleton with its own cushioning and power. Not only did it amplify his strength, it also shielded his body from harm.
As long as the potion lasted, Wang Yu's strength would be terrifying—enough for him to overwhelm even an advanced knight.
He turned his back to the magician. No one would pass up such an opening. A spear of ice, laced with invisible blades of wind, came shrieking toward the back of Wang Yu's neck.
With his ripples, Wang Yu activated the Spellweaver's Tome at his waist. As he channeled mental energy into one of the formations, an earthen wall rose behind him, catching the brunt of the attack just long enough to buy him a chance to act.
The alchemical tool could not fully block an advanced magician's spell.
The wind blades shredded the earthen bulwark, slowing only briefly. The spear of ice exploded on impact, blasting a gaping hole through the wall. Deadly shards of crystal shot out like shrapnel, streaking toward Wang Yu in a deadly fan.
Wang Yu spun around, crossing his arms to shield his face. The wind blades tore through his leather armor, slashing across his forearms. The ice shards embedded themselves in his flesh.
Spells that could have killed a knight outright only wounded him. The wounds looked horrific—but to Wang Yu, they were trivial to handle.
His muscles writhed, forcing out the ice blades lodged within. The gashes from the wind blades closed rapidly, the potion's bolstered regeneration knitting them shut in mere seconds.
Across the surface of his skin, something new began to manifest—rigid scales, faintly reminiscent of a dragon's hide. Wang Yu couldn't tell whether this phenomenon was some new adaptation of his own evolving body or merely a temporary byproduct of the potion's extraordinary power.
Whatever its origin, it had undeniably bolstered his defenses. He felt as if he were wearing an invisible coat of armor: these scale-like growths were both flexible and resilient, offering protection without impeding his movement.
But even as Wang Yu turned, seeking an opening, he was assailed from both flanks. After all, he had multiple foes.
The advanced knight's potential stirred. In the blink of an eye—during the mere fraction of a second it took Wang Yu to parry a spell—the advanced knight had already closed in from behind. A black dagger flashed in his hand, sweeping out in a silent arc toward Wang Yu's back, aiming straight for his heart.
The ambush left Wang Yu no time to pivot or raise a proper guard. A full-powered blow from a knight of this caliber would cripple or kill him outright.
A hand burst forth from behind Wang Yu, catching the knight's wrist in a sudden, jarring grip. It was not especially forceful, but it was enough. That slight tug gave Wang Yu just enough time to twist aside.
The dagger missed its mark, plunging instead beneath his shoulder. Flesh tore. Muscle split. A jagged, grotesque wound opened across his back.
He retaliated with a backward elbow strike. The blow landed flush against the knight's chest, smashing into the point where their bodies had pressed together.
There was a sickening crack. The knight paled, staggering back several steps, his gaze heavy—not on Wang Yu, but on what now loomed behind him. From the gory, bloodless rupture in Wang Yu's back, a man emerged. It was a humanoid figure wrought entirely of blood, radiating a dire, formless menace.
With the aid of his Elixir of Recaptured Glory, Wang Yu had managed to summon his Bloodsurge Doppelgänger. He needed an ally, and the only one he could rely on at this moment was another version of himself.
The tide seemed to shift, if only slightly. But Wang Yu knew better. The true danger had yet to descend. Somewhere in the shadows, the hidden wizard still waited. The advanced knight and magician had been caught off guard only by the ferocity of his sudden outburst, but they would rally soon enough...