novelraw Chapter 215 : 【Bloody Hand】Isabella
Chapter 215 : 【Bloody Hand】Isabella
Chapter 215: 【Bloody Hand】Isabella
Ram’s body began to melt like wax.
In the blink of an eye, the figure of a young woman with smooth golden hair, fair and delicate skin, and exquisitely beautiful features appeared inside the tent.
Her eyes were crimson like blood, forming an intense contrast with her pale, flawless complexion—so striking that anyone who looked at her would be drawn to those eyes. Yet her gaze was not as soft or gentle as her features; it was sharp, fierce, and radiated a predatory dominance that forced anyone meeting it to instinctively lower their head in submission.
Because before her, it felt as if all your secrets were laid bare.
【Bloody Hand】Isabella William Hastings—current Grand Duke of the Obsidian Duchy, Head of the Hastings Family, granddaughter of the 【Duke of Blood】 and 【Conqueror】 William Hastings.
Commander of the Invisible Guard.
Of course, in private conversations among certain circles, Isabella had another name.
【The Blood-Soaked Tyrant】.
For Isabella never cared about casualties—only the results.
Her “bloody hands” were stained not only with the blood of her enemies but also with that of countless of her own people.
At this moment, Isabella, having resumed her true form, unfastened the top three buttons of her outfit, letting her chest—so tightly constrained that it was making her breathless—finally breathe. Unlike the broad-shouldered physique of the Black Hawk Family’s patriarch Ram, Isabella stood tall at 1.78 meters, her figure full and well-shaped, her legs long and straight, her chest astonishingly full. As such, the clothes Ram had worn appeared rather short and tight when on her.
“Still more comfortable like this.” Isabella sat down in the chair, placing her long legs upon the table. “Speak. What happened? Why did you fail?”
“There’s a young man from the Soderbell Family named Aches. He seems capable of perceiving our Invisible Ones.”
Isabella’s once-calm expression tightened slightly, and she said in a low voice, “Seems? Did you forget the first rule of the Invisible Guard? The intelligence we obtain is never based on assumptions, but facts. And now you tell me ‘seems’?”
“We lost a Silent One to get that information,” said the leader of the Faceless Ones, bowing his head, not daring to meet her eyes. “The first Silent One who contacted Aches Soderbell was exposed during the mission. He was captured by Yam Soderbell. They used a Bloodline Suppression Potion and nailed him with a Spike Needle. Before dying, he transmitted this message to me.”
“And you didn’t verify it a second time?”
“There was no time.” The Faceless One’s voice trembled; she knew Isabella’s temper well, and her tone already revealed her fury. “I was afraid that further probing would result in all our gathered intelligence from Bayor Territory being lost—our embedded agents there have already been completely rooted out.”
Isabella’s gaze sharpened instantly. “Rooted out?”
Although she hadn’t participated in the Southern Strategic Plan directly, as William Hastings’s granddaughter, she naturally knew parts of it. After all, her Invisible Guard played a critical role in its execution.
Her mission within the Black Hawk Family was nearly complete. All that remained was to find a proper time to withdraw.
Under her direction, the Western nobility coalition had already severed ties with the Tyrella Kingdom, and war had broken out—bloody and costly on both sides. Reconciliation was impossible now. The Western Region and the Tyrella Kingdom were fully divided.
Her next mission was to move into the Southern Region. According to intelligence previously gathered by the Invisible Guard, she was to initiate the first stage of the Replacement Plan.
The key step in that plan was to choose a suitable target.
The target had to be Fourth-Tier or lower, as her current ability could only mimic a Fourth-Tier Bloodline User. That was why she had previously disguised herself as Hales Atar Siger for years—because the Black Hawk Family still had powerful upper-tier combatants back then. She couldn’t replace them. So she had lain dormant within the family until, later, the old patriarch fell in battle. After most of the Fifth-Tier nobles in the Western Region were slain in the war, she immediately orchestrated the succession ceremony and completed her replacement.
This time, their eyes turned to Red Eagle Territory—for good reason.
According to their intelligence, the Marquis of Red Eagle was dying from his wounds, and the next confirmed head of the Kasein Family was only a Third-Tier Bloodline User, not yet advanced to the Fourth Tier. Thus, her grandfather launched a fierce offensive on Count Garris’s Territory, sacrificing the Iron Cavalry Legion’s presence on the frontline to gain time for replenishment and training—creating the perfect opening.
After that, instead of storming directly into Red Eagle Territory, they moved northward to entangle with the Gaulta Family, creating the illusion that “he couldn’t wage war on two fronts.” Even their apparent defeat and retreat from Red Eagle Territory had been a deliberate feint—part of a grand strategic plan to both eliminate the threat in the Death Camp and lure Tyrella’s southern forces into Garris Plains.
Once Red Eagle’s defenses were left weak, she could infiltrate, complete the replacement, and from there, manipulate the region—perhaps even replicate the Black Hawk Family’s defection, leading the entire Southern Region to side with the Aust Empire.
For this, thousands of Aust soldiers and dozens of Second- and Third-Tier Bloodline Users had been sent to the south—all merely to cover the infiltration of the Invisible Guard.
This operation was called by Isabella the “Tyrella Southern Puppet Project.”
It was her core mission.
The so-called “nails” referred to the two armies planted in Bayor Territory—one in the north, one in the south—not members of the Invisible Guard.
The northern force was the decoy, meant to draw attention. They would cross the northern mountains into Heye Territory and join William Hastings’s main army, bringing back all intelligence from Bayor.
The southern one was the covert support unit, waiting for the right time to act.
If necessary, they were to expose themselves to divert Bayor’s army’s attention, making them believe that the northern forces were merely a distraction hiding the southern Aust army’s real infiltration.
To Isabella, aside from the Invisible Guard, all Aust soldiers in the south were expendable.
Ordinarily, by the time those two “nails” were pulled, Isabella would have already entered Bayor Territory and begun her replacement. She was not naïve enough to think they could remain hidden forever—no commander would be so foolish.
And if one truly were, that would only make things easier for her. She could use the southern Aust troops to her advantage.
Her ideal outcome was that the northern force would attract enough attention, keeping Bayor’s army occupied while she completed her replacement of the local commander. She would then present the southern army’s victory as her own accomplishment, earning a place before the Marquis of Red Eagle—and perhaps even perform a replacement during the commendation ceremony.
The lesser outcome was if both the northern and southern forces were exposed—then she would have to find another way into Bayor and replace the military commander by other means. For that, she had dispatched Invisible Guard teams to conduct initial investigations and facilitate her infiltration.
But now, before even the first step of the plan began, the agents in the south had informed her—the plan had failed.
Isabella chuckled. “And how were they pulled out? Don’t tell me that man named Soderbell single-handedly annihilated both the northern and southern Aust armies. If so, I’d start questioning whether you still deserve your place in the Invisible Guard.”
The Invisible Guard, due to the cost and difficulty of cultivation, was small in number.
Out of millions in the Obsidian Duchy, only a dozen candidates had suitable bloodline compatibility. They now served as Faceless Ones—Third-Tier operatives. Later, when recruitment expanded across the Aust Empire and its other duchies, several dozen more were found, but due to time constraints, fewer than twenty Silent Ones were combat-ready.
After all, the Phantom Demon Bloodline’s First Tier lacked shapeshifting abilities, rendering them unfit for infiltration missions—they remained in training.
Only Silent Ones of the Second Tier could shapeshift and be deployed.
Thus, including the Faceless Ones, Isabella had fewer than thirty operatives at her command.
She had sent one Faceless One and four Silent Ones as a team into Bayor—proof of how seriously she took the Tyrella Southern Puppet Project. After all, infiltration and replacement required a web of “base stations,” not a lone effort.
Even among the former Western nobles now posing as the Aust Empire’s Black Hawk Legion, seven Faceless Ones had already replaced their targets. Silent Ones could only mimic ordinary humans, lacking bloodline abilities; Faceless Ones could imitate some Bloodline Power but only at roughly half its strength—often less. Thus, having just one or two was not enough to sustain a deception.
Only when the number reached a sufficient scale could they verify and reinforce each other’s disguises.
That was how Isabella’s replacement of the Black Hawk Family’s patriarch had led to the Western nobility’s swift defection to the Aust Empire—with the other Faceless nobles echoing her move.
Still, the small size of the Invisible Guard didn’t mean Isabella would tolerate incompetence.
Her words now carried the chill of death.
“Hales isn’t dead,” the Faceless One spoke quickly. “The northern Aust army used as bait was destroyed by Hales. He gathered the survivors from the Death Camp and formed a new army. Through constant battle, they’ve absorbed refugees and deserters from the Tyrella Kingdom—now forming a force both fierce and disciplined.”
“The only thing limiting him now is weaponry.”
“As for the south—Aches Soderbell exposed one of our Silent Ones, alerting Commander Yam Soderbell ahead of time. He assembled three thousand troops and crushed our southern army in direct combat. According to Baron Manlor, Yam Soderbell’s strength far exceeded our expectations.”
“Manlor failed to kill him?”
Isabella knew Manlor well.
【Swift Wind】Manlor—he was the hidden ace of the southern Aust army, tasked with executing decapitation strikes. Within the Aust Empire—not just the Obsidian Duchy—he ranked among the top thirty of all Third-Tier Bloodline Users. As such, without deploying Fourth-Tier power, he was considered the optimal choice for southern operations.
“According to Baron Manlor, one-on-one, he could suppress Yam Soderbell—but not kill him. Forcing it would’ve meant his own death. And Yam Soderbell has a brother named Akar Soderbell. Together, even Manlor cannot defeat them.”
Isabella’s expression turned grim. “If that’s the case, then this situation is… quite troublesome.”
“Looks like I’ll have to visit Bayor Territory myself.”