Chapter 1422: An Imperial Blood

In an extravagant office that smelled of wild leather and faintly of soil, a young man with snow-white hair sat with one leg crossed over the other. Behind him stood a man with the physique of a bear. He was donned in soft linen that wrapped his body from his right shoulder across his torso and was cinched by a large golden belt. His bald head was small compared to his body, with a fine mustache that covered his lips and a gaze that appeared calm and, at the same time, ruthless. Opposite them sat a man with vermilion hair braided behind him. He had eyes of the same color and stared at the young man seated before him with restrained tension. The silence in the room was deafening. Clearly, a conversation had been happening before now, and it seemed the outcome was becoming quite uncomfortable for the vermilion-haired man. He hesitantly opened his mouth to speak, but at that same moment the door to his office flew open. "Lord Warden! Lord Warden! The wall is under attack! We have mobilized the Wardens, b-but it—it’s futile! That thing... it-it’s a monster!" The Lord Warden’s naturally hard gaze hardened even further, his vermilion eyes turning threatening. "What? We are being attacked by a monster? Just one, and you’re panicking?" The soldier who had come to report could not stop breathing hard. He shook his head frantically, paling by the second. "N-N-Not one—two! Two of them!!" Lord Vermilion’s gaze darkened. "What insolence is this? Coming to report with such fright and it’s just three monsters!" His voice thundered. "I would advise against underestimating your assailants." The Lord Warden turned to the white-haired young man. "I sense a very overwhelming presence behind the wall. It’s suppressed—and still so terrifying..." The Lord Warden sank into thoughtful silence for a moment. ’The wall is over thirty miles away and he can sense someone powerful all the way from here? I can’t even sense the sun falling if that were happening.’ He was in awe of the young man despite having known him for so long. His growth over the past year had been startling, and now he had turned into a fearsome young man like his brother. ’If only he weren’t as problematic.’ The young man readjusted his posture, placing his leg down. "How about this, Lord Thord. I will go out there and help you quench whatever is laying siege to your wall. And then you keep this away from my siblings... and especially my mother, please. I will also keep this embarrassment from reaching anyone else." Lord Thord was silent for a moment. Of course, the Prince made a reasonable offer. He had been the Lord of the Third Wall for only ten years. It would be disgraceful if word ever got out that he had been sieged at all. But it would be even worse if it ever got out that an Imperial blood had to quench the siege. That would damage his reputation among the other generals while elevating the Prince’s among the entire populace. However, the Prince had said he would make no mention of it. Of course, the payment for this assistance was to be allowed to sneak out of the wall. Thord had done the prince a favor before by allowing him to sneak out with over ten thousand armed men, in the name of an unsanctioned subjugation. He understood the Prince’s valiance in trying to gain his father’s approval, but they never knew when to stop. He certainly wasn’t going to be the one to point that out. ’It’s not like we can’t take care of three monsters, no matter how powerful... but an Imperial blood.’ Having a prince deal with it was the safer route. That also meant the battle was going to cost more men. Thordrel’s thought about it for a few more seconds and sighed. "Your Highness... your mother will kill me, and she would not spare my family." The Prince let out a light laugh. "Lord Thord, that’s dramatic. Who dares touch the Blood of Flame?" The Lord Warden was silent for a moment, looking between the snow-white-haired prince with crimson eyes and the soldier kneeling at the entrance, awaiting a decision. "Okay. I will keep this a secret again. You must hold your word." The prince smiled, his face radiating an almost heavenly charm. He stood up, straightening the plain, unimpressive casual shirt and pants he wore. "A Reimgard blood never jokes with his words. It’s all we have to our name." He said this as he walked out of the room, the large man following right behind him. The Lord Warden stared at him darkly as he left, unsure whether he had made the right decision. ...Or the greatest mistake. "That... is the greatest understatement of all time..." *** Through the hallways of the vast citadel of defense, the prince walked with hurried steps, almost excited. "Young Lord, Young Lord..." The bulwark of a man called after him, trying to caution him, but the prince moved with almost childlike excitement. "Walk fast, Bull!" "They aren’t going to run away..." the man said in a weary tone. But the prince treated his caution as noise. The moment he burst into the open air, he launched straight into the sky, eating up a vast distance in a trailing arc. The man frowned deeply and vanished after him. For a moment, his leap made no impact. A random soldier looked at the two with awe. It wasn’t every day one got to see a prince and his guardian. A moment later—caught unaware—a devastating shockwave tore outward, severing the soldier’s upper body from his lower half. The ground followed, shattering in a chaotic upheaval. The soldier’s torn fell to the shattered ground, his eyes forever open and glassy. *** Annette could not give up. Despite bombarding the wall with most of her abilities—summoning pillars of fire and endlessly launching flames at insanely high temperatures—it had barely received a scratch. And to make things worse, the wall was capable of repairing itself. ’What macabre thing did my Clan go and create?’ Her ancestors truly were frightening crafters. ’What a disappointment I am!’ She suppressed a groan and unleashed a flood of flames that crashed violently against the wall. Several waves of undulating heat warped the air as the flames raged in an unrelenting effort of destruction. Then Annette’s Transient-rank senses spiked as she suddenly felt a maddening presence overwhelm the world around her. The next moment—without seeing anything coming despite expecting it—a jarring force slammed into her chest, seized the breath from her lungs, and hurled her away. Her body rolled across the ground for several hundred meters.