Chapter 129
* * *
“Damn it! What the hell is going on? This isn’t what we were told!”
Drip, drip.
Red blood trickled down the blade and fell to the floor.
Hali shook her sword with a bored expression and looked at the man hiding behind her.
“Duke! Didn’t you say this was a passage no one knew about?”
“T-that’s right. It’s a place only I know about, how could…!”
The Duke’s face turned pale, filled with dismay.
A secret passage only he knew about. A tunnel connecting the mansion to Evan’s hideout, built with great effort over a long time.
He had even killed all the workers who constructed the passage to ensure complete secrecy.
“Then why is it filled with imperial soldiers! Damn it!”
“Quiet, Hali. If you have energy to be angry, kill one more enemy.”
Noti dismissed Hali’s anger with a single sentence and cut down another imperial soldier.
“How did they find out…!”
Duke Balkyrino swallowed hard as he followed behind them.
The passage connected to the basement of the Balkyrino ducal residence. There, traces of the Jesentia experiments remained intact.
Never expecting it to be discovered, they hadn’t cleaned up properly when they hastily vacated the residence.
The fact that imperial forces occupied this passage meant that the basement must have already fallen into the hands of the Emperor and Silver Lily.
A painful mistake. He never imagined they would discover anything in such a short time.
The Balkyrino ducal residence was enormous beyond imagination. How could they have found where the secret passage was?
“Duke! Watch where you’re going! If you get hit by a stray blade, who do you think that helps?”
Thanks to Hali who urgently called out and pulled him back, the Duke, lost in thought, returned to reality.
He blinked to gather his wits and looked around.
Imperial soldiers packed densely in the passage. He also recognized a few imperial knights.
Even so, their side had the advantage. Regular soldiers couldn’t match the Jesentia army.
The problem was time. Time was not on the Duke’s side right now.
He needed to break through this defensive wall and reach the execution site before Nella was executed.
“Where is That Person?”
The Duke rolled his eyes looking for Evan.
Only Evan could break through this blockage.
To the Duke’s anxious question, Hali responded irritably.
“He went ahead! Stop thinking uselessly and watch yourself! If you die, I’m also a dead person to the captain.”
Another soldier who lunged at the Duke fell with a spray of blood.
The tip of Hali’s sword continuously dripped with red streams of blood, almost forming a river.
“There’s no end to them!”
Her eyes turned to the back of the passage. The Eastern army they had allied with was waiting in the rear.
Although they had superior numbers, being trapped in a narrow passage meant they couldn’t push forward with sheer force.
“If we can just get outside…!”
We’ll win. We’ll definitely win.
We can sweep them all away. If we can just get out!
Thinking this, Hali gripped her sword again.
Suddenly, the soldiers at the front who had been frantically swinging their weapons began to exit the passage like an ebbing tide.
“W-what’s happening?”
Soldiers were running away as if their lives depended on it, not even looking back.
With the passage suddenly clearing, it was the Duke who was bewildered.
“What the hell is this now.”
Ptui!
Hali spat out blood-filled saliva and irritably swept back her hair.
Noti also looked suspiciously at the empty passage, but currently, they were effectively trapped here.
“We’re going through anyway.”
Though sensing a trap, they had no choice but to move forward.
At Noti’s words, Hali and the Duke nodded.
Behind them, the expressionless Jesentia army followed discreetly.
The army of tens of thousands stretched all the way back to Princess Hae of the Eastern forces moving in the rear.
“My King, the situation doesn’t look good.”
Princess Hae nodded at her guard’s words.
“I see. It seems the battle has already begun… even though we haven’t even started moving.”
To be precise, they had left the hideout.
They had just stepped into the passage leading to the Duke’s residence.
And this passage extended endlessly eastward from the hideout.
In other words, the army coming from the East was currently marching beneath imperial lands.
“Is that person truly trustworthy?”
Distrust lurked in the guard’s eyes.
Princess Hae tilted her head with her characteristic languid smile.
“At this point, what becomes of us if we don’t trust our collaborator? We have already made our move. There is no retreat now.”
At the Princess’s firm white eyes, the guard spoke no further.
“All shall be according to the King’s will.”
The guard bowed at the waist and refocused, gripping the hilt of his sword.
He needed to protect his lord, Princess Hae, from any possible attack.
Although Princess Hae was said to be an unmatched warrior in the East, to her guard, she was the lord he had sworn to protect with his life.
“Don’t tense your shoulders from the start. We are still…”
Princess Hae, who was trying to ease the guard’s tension, couldn’t finish her sentence.
It seemed the Duke’s army had cleared the way ahead, as the Eastern army and her direct knights began to slowly advance.
This situation was certainly positive, but strangely, an ominous feeling wrapped around her entire body.
“Your Highness?”
The guard worriedly called out to Princess Hae as she stiffened.
The Princess swallowed hard and looked around.
An ordinary passage: dark, neither particularly narrow nor wide.
A place with no notable features. And the enemies were clearly ahead.
‘Why do I feel so uneasy?’
Sensing something amiss, Princess Hae raised one hand.
It was to give a stop order to the Eastern army.
Unfortunately, it was a moment too late.
BOOM! CRASH!
A series of massive explosions reverberated. Before they could grasp what was happening, the passage filled with thick dust and screams.
“ARGHHHH!”
“M-my arm! My arm, urgh!”
“Hey, stay with me!”
“S-save me! AHHHH!”
“T-the ceiling has collapsed! The passage is collapsing!”
Princess Hae looked up, past the guards who had moved to protect her.
The previously pitch-dark passage, without a ray of sunshine, was now flooded with dazzling sunlight.
In that bewildering situation, Princess Hae gritted her teeth and said:
“While I’m also the type who doesn’t discriminate between means for victory.”
The advancing Eastern army was instantly buried under bricks and soil.
They had lost a significant portion of their army without even seeing the enemy’s face.
To such lifeless, inanimate stones!
“It seems the Empire also has quite the aggressive type of soldier.”
Princess Hae calmly surveyed her surroundings with steady white eyes.
Half. No, perhaps even more.
“My King, it’s dangerous. Would it not be better to return to the hideout?”
“Enough. Given that they’ve already figured out the location of the passage, do you think the hideout hasn’t been discovered?”
Retreating now meant defeat. They couldn’t return to the East like this without accomplishing anything.
Princess Hae grabbed the spear strapped to her back.
“I will go to the surface. I need to see the face of the famous Imperial Emperor to feel satisfied.”
* * *
“Oh no…”
The Hye-wang emerged above ground and frowned. Her cold eyes took in the imperial forces densely surrounding the area.
“We’ve been completely ambushed.”
She clicked her tongue and readjusted her spear. Perhaps she had placed too much faith in the passage remaining undetected.
A glimmer of regret flashed in her eyes, but it was too late now—the milk was already spilled.
She had underestimated them. She’d heard the Empire’s emperor had nothing but brute force, and believed conquering the Empire would be easy.
“Your Majesty!”
“You must retreat!”
“Please protect yourself!”
Her guards rushed forward, a step too late, positioning themselves in front of the Hye-wang.
And before them stood a black-haired man with a displeased expression, commanding the imperial forces.
Hearing the guards address her, the man looked at her with peculiar eyes.
“‘Your Majesty,’ is it? Has the Eastern king truly come all this way?”
Despite knowing she was the ruler of a nation, the man addressed the Hye-wang disrespectfully.
His tone lit a fire in the guards’ eyes.
“Show proper respect, even to an enemy!”
“Identify yourself, Imperial knight!”
At the guard’s sharp words, the man snorted dismissively.
“Imperial knight? How amusing. Evan, I suppose he didn’t tell you what I look like?”
After saying this, the man tilted his head slightly and surveyed the Eastern forces.
The collapsed passage and the Eastern soldiers trapped beneath it, their lives hanging by a thread.
MrsHokage
Make this quick hadel