novelraw Chapter 1632 - 1631 - Escape
Chapter 1632 - 1631 - Escape
Flames licked all around them as black smoke curled various craters. The group looked disheveled, covered in both blood and ash.
There were only a dozen left out of the hundreds that had started the journey.
"We–we can't go on!" A heavily wounded young man began to scream but no one paid him any attention. They were all looking up at the floating people on top of 3 large platforms.
They were not in pristine condition but they were in far better shape than those on the ground.
They had dark green robes lined in black with the symbol of a lightning bolt striking a tower. They were the elite mercenary band, Broken Tower. Supposedly they had once been part of an imperial power but it had collapsed from treachery and total extinction of their leaders.
Few records of reliable nature were left to be certain but their abilities were not in doubt at all. Escort duty to assassination, they would do it all if someone had enough to pay.
The group was currently led by a young woman with tightly wrapped blue hair and heavily tanned skin. She held a rapier in her right hand as it shimmered to life.
"3rd Prince Trey, you are hereby allowed 2 options: Surrender and be crippled, or die." The young man flinched but his guards in bloodied silver robes only moved to protect him as best they could.
The pathetically tiny number was not what mattered. The fact that 3 of the guards were Journeyman Tiers made things a bit even as only the same number was on the Broken Tower side.
Yet, their conditions were worlds apart. The prince's guards were nearly exhausted while the Broken Tower's side was merely winded. Some would die in the exchange but the outcome was nearly certain.
"You dare attack a prince of–" The woman slashed and he screamed. The dozen men were shocked as none saw anything move between sword and target! It just was instant damage!
A new cut sliced open the prince's left arm.
"Answer, or the choice will be made for you." The woman was cold and unmoved by the positioning of her enemy.
"KILL HE–" Another slice ended his life. His headless body burst into particles of light as it was torn apart, soul included.
He had only been a Radiant Tier Immortal Realm but True Death was his fate in a single attack!
"I KNOW HER! She is the Goddess of Execution!" The survivors lost all will to fight but the woman merely waved her hand and her men swarmed the blasted area.
She turned to another woman at her side, a young Sliver Tier Immortal with a dark jade slate artifact held up for inspection.
"That makes 3 of the branches confirmed dead. The last branch is all that remains, Mistress." The woman's pale grey eyes narrowed briefly but then became calm once more.
"What do you mean one remains? Did that fool indulge himself again?" The previously deadpan voice now had a deadly chill to it but the young brunette hardly shivered. She was long used to her Mistress' ways.
"No. He is dead. Princess Yue had a bodyguard sacrifice his Divine Realm cultivation to slaughter our people. We lost ⅔ of that force to his detonation. That includes Senior Rey." A long pause followed but the artifact was snapped out of her hands as the woman reviewed the information.
Her cold features twisted in rage!
"The Ruined Islands?! If they were that desperate, he should have waited and asked for reinforcements! The fool!" There was no real grief or any sympathy in the words, just cold anger at the target that escaped.
The only good thing in the report was the princess was essentially alone. Her final retainer was the suicidal one that decimated their platoon sent after her.
[Clean up the mess and get ready to move south! We have one more to kill!] Her words streamed into all the minds of her followers. They all saluted with a fist to the heart before obliterating all physical evidence of their attacks and victims.
No plundering was done nor any cheering. It was just a cold extermination.
The young Immortal waited for the next orders she expected.
"Delia, you will command my brother and sister to move on the capital. Inform them the branches are all pruned but one and I will kill her myself. There is no need to hold back now." A smile finally spread on many faces.
It had been a little over 3 billion years since they were betrayed but they had never forgotten. The powers that destroyed their ancestors' happiness and home were marked for total extermination since they founded the band.
Further incidents had only solidified their fate over that time such that the fire of hatred never waned but was kept controlled.
Wild vengeance only destroyed the avenger as well as their target. They had plied their trade, become large and powerful, before weakening their old foes, some who had even forgotten how they rose to power!
The Western Lament was large and many histories were lost but so long as a few survivors endured, the past could return to destroy the descendents of the traitors!
The final power was falling and it was the most hypocritical of them all! It had stolen the most powerful artifacts and resources from their ancient home and then buried any connection before becoming a 'righteous power.'
A power that had quietly enslaved or passed on commoners to the Fiends or slavers for power and profit.
It was true that the last few millennia were actually clean but Broken Tower did not care. Sins are not wiped away by pretending they never happened!
"As you command Lady Executioner!" The woman had a human name once but no longer. She had been alive for nearly 500 million years and was the oldest of the mercenaries.
She was one of the few with older relatives that had been alive when their ancestral power fell.
She was also the last of the bloodline of the royal house but only she knew that. She never cared for it. Only seeing through the vendetta remained.
Once it was done, she did not care what came after.
"We are ready, My Lady." A brawny soldier knelt and she simply waved her hand. The 3 platforms shifted in color as barriers and other formations activated. The artifacts flew up into the sky a bit before causing a shockwave as they shot forward.
They were heading south, and their prey would not escape them!
⬧⬧⬧⬧
Tears and red puffy eyes marred the beautifully pale face of Princess Yue. She was only 20 years old, barely in the Moon Tier of the Heaven Realm, but she was using a grade 7 flying artifact to escape certain death.
She was only able to do so by the sacrifice of her friends and family. Once the last charge was used up, she would tumble into the Void Ocean and die.
Even if a beast did not get her, she could not survive that place.
Her auburn hair was frayed and partially loose from her braids. She had not bathed in months as she fled on what was supposed to be a safe path to freedom.
No one had seen the Broken Tower coming for them. No intelligence warned of them being hired or any movements by anyone to come after them at all!
She remembered her mother's broken face as she ordered the guardians of each scion to take them away in various pre-planned directions. The hope was to divide their enemy's forces and get a chance for true escape!
Yue clearly saw her oldest brother's flying artifact made for combat not even last to the border of the capital before it exploded. His ephemeral soul was then ensnared and torn apart for all of them to see!
His screams haunted her nightmares!
It was only when old Hu was about to die that he told her the truth. Their ancestors' sins were the cause of the current threat. Her great grandfather had uncovered the full truth in royal records and lamented being unable to find the descendants of those their country once betrayed.
He then excised the vile slavery and Fiend alliances at great cost and near civil war. He had died from severe injuries long before his time and his son with him so that her father assumed the throne with a clean kingdom under him.
Yet, it seemed that only left the door open for the very wolves that had been waiting. Without the Fiends in the dark and the slavers quashing any unwelcome spies, her family was now being slaughtered and her kingdom destroyed!
All she could do was run and scream in her soul at the loss of all her happiness. The warm days under her favorite cherry tree with her family during a picnic or the lessons with her tutors as they guided her on her future duties were all ash.
She wept once more but then the shaking of the artifact around her snapped her back to the present.
She glanced at the crystal gauge and saw there was still plenty of power left. Yet, she was falling?! It was as if the formation to defy gravity was no longer working!
She panicked but there was nothing she could do! Was she going to die? After all that she had lost, would her death be an accident?
She wanted to rail against it but she knew after all that happened, no one would come to save her. Heaven and Earth were fair but not kind. She truly understood that phrase now.
She closed her eyes and only asked the spirits for a painless death.
Just as a dark stretch of stone was going to smash into her artifact did her momentum suddenly halt. She was launched from the metal floor to the panel and hit her head hard!
Her vision went blurry but she looked up and saw an impossible thing. A boat?! A boat with emerald light was latched onto her and a man was looking out at her from the deck. His emerald eyes were full of concern and her last thought was silly.
[I shall marry you.]