The Devil’s Cage

As the evening sun began to set, Naveya City which had a curfew swiftly quieted down.

Only patrolling city guards were left on the streets.

The situation that night was different from before, all the city guards were armed and opened their eyes wide, searching for suspicious characters in the corners and shadows.

The assassination of the Thorn Temple priest in the afternoon market had startled the higher ranks of Naveya City and orders were given to the guards to arrest the culprit in one week.

However, the city guard commander was clueless, so ultimately he could only vent the pressure from his superiors on his subordinates.

As for what the final outcome would be, only the Gods knew.

“Delinkt is really a douchebag. If he didn’t rely on Lightning Temple’s gold offering, how could he end up as city guard commander?”

Atrina was full of disdain when she mentioned the city guard commander but she was careful enough to not get spotted under the city guards’ sight.

Atrina led Kieran and Starbeck through the alley outside Charging Stable Inn. Slipping past four outposts and three patrols later, they had entered Nevaya’s dock area.

After shuttling through a huge area of garages, Kieran’s eyes suddenly opened up.

Six straight stone bridges extended towards the sea; huge sail ship after sail ship were parked there in the middle of the waving sea.

Loud waves clearly entered Kieran’s ears and the sea breeze that blew against his face had a unique scent to it as well.

“It’s in front there! I hid the Holy Thorn Grail under one of the stone bridges. Only the monstrous presence of the sea can fool the priest’s senses,” Atrina spoke softly.

Kieran nodded blankly.

He knew after reading “Analytics of the temples developments in Naveya City” that although Naveya housed 25 temples, other than the highest temple, the Lightning Temple, the commonly known Gods like Sun and Moon, Day, Night or Sea didn’t exist.

Quite the contrary, all sorts of terrifying monsters lived in the sea.

Each year, the people of Naveya will hold an “ocean festival” to calm the monster down in order to assure smooth sailing for the ships. Besides, most of the citizens of Naveya thought that the sea had its own magical power, the bad kind.

Other than that, there were customs that forbid people from approaching the sea during the night but it was also because of such customs that it was a lot easier for Kieran and co. to proceed.

Most of the city guards patrolled around the garage area, hence none of them were near the sea.

The only outpost among the six stone bridges felt unreal. Starbeck followed Kieran and noticed the lit but empty outpost, he couldn’t help but feel curious about it.

“A year and a half ago, the last night watcher vanished inside the outpost, so no one dared to take up the position there after that. Including the night watcher, ten more went missing in less than six months and even the priest from the Sin Temple has no measures for this place,” Atrina explained softly.

However, her eyes were not looking at Starbeck but at Kieran from the start to end and obviously, the explanations were meant for Kieran.

Starbeck? In the eyes of an arrogant temple deacon, Starbeck was just a cowardly servant and didn’t possess anything good except for his cooking.

“My lord, you shouldn’t have brought this servant with you. He is useless,” Atrina said as they moved forward.

Such comments struck panic in Starbeck’s heart, he unconsciously grabbed Kieran’s mantle because he was afraid that he would be abandoned.

“Knowing how to cook is enough,” Kieran replied vaguely.

After realizing Atrina was also a pawn piece that didn’t know why the mastermind would specifically target a traveling merchant, if Kieran really left Starbeck at the inn, he would be really out of his mind.

Even Atrina could reach the inn, why couldn’t the mastermind? More so, the mastermind had made their move.

Kieran quietly stood up while inside the shadows and shifted to the stone bridge further ahead. He then slightly moved his steps and blocked Starbeck behind him.

Atrina, however, didn’t notice Kieran’s action but it didn’t mean she didn’t realize something unusual.

One needed to know that Atrina has been through the baptism once and she had already triumphed over common men in many aspects, therefore when they were closing in on the stone bridge, her heightened cautious gaze spotted something and it halted her steps. She even signaled Kieran to step back.

However the moment Atrina halted her steps, seven to eight figures jumped out from the shadows behind them; each of them was armed with blades and knives, looking ferociously at their targets.

While on the stone bridge, two men wearing leather armor and dressed like mercenaries were walking towards them.

One of them wielded dual blades, he had a fit physique with and was wearing a sneer. The two blades were swung around as the man twirled his wrist, cold glares were shining off the blade as it spun.

The other one was bare-handed but his body physique was much bigger than common men. His face had a huge scar over it and would cause one to gasp hard with just a glance.

“Dual Blade Xeriche and Wild Beast Anderson!”

Atrina cried out in shock when she clearly saw their faces under the dim moonlight.

Doomed! When Atrina saw the two men, her heart was filled with despair.

Both of them were infamous mercenaries of Naveya, not just among mercenaries but the temples as well.

The two of them caused quite a commotion in Naveya a year ago after intercepting and killing one of the priests from the Wealth Temple.

Everyone was astonished by their bold move. Even during the pursuit after the killing, the two of them performed outstandingly by dodging all three pursuing strikes from the Sin Temple and fled to the north.

Atrina has no idea why the two of them snuck back into Naveya at this particular time or maybe the two of them didn’t even leave the city but went in hiding instead?

But none of those mattered anymore, the most important thing was that she needed to figure out how to escape, otherwise, she would die at the dock.

“Sigh.”

Just as Atrina was grinding her gears in how to escape alive, she heard a sigh.

It was Kieran.

Kieran was sighing as he shook his head, “Much more cautious than I thought eh…”

Then, he went straight towards Dual Blade Xeriche and Wild Beast Anderson.

“Wait, they are…”

Atrina wanted to stop Kieran but her words stopped abruptly.

Xeriche who claimed that his dual blades were as fast as the wind itself had both of his wrists crushed by Kieran with his bare hands when he started to wield his blades.

Anderson who could ignore blades and arrows had his neck snapped by Kieran.

Everything happened within the blink of an eye.

Atrina didn’t even see the process, what she saw was the outcome.

She was dumbstruck and her thinking froze until she heard the blade slashing flesh noise behind her, she was knocked out of her blank state and when she finally turned around, she saw the scene that she would never forget for the rest of her life.

A tenacious thin long rapier shuttled through the shadows and human bodies.

Each time the rapier went through, a person would fall to the ground.

Each time the rapier killed one, their dying soul would wail.

The thin long rapier was like the scythe of a grim reaper, reaping target after target.

The group that surrounded her were all dead on the ground within a couple of breath’s time.

The thin long rapier buzzed in delight as it flew back to Kieran like a sparrow returning to its nest.

Under the night breeze and moonlight, the long rapier and crow-feathered mantle danced along with the wind.

The long sword glared brightly; the mantle fluttered loudly.