Dance with the Nightingale-Chapter 84 - 79: Infiltration II
[Upper City, Lueurre]
[A few moments earlier]
The rest of the infiltration was easy for the group. They had all the cards they needed and they played them well.
Taking on the appearance of the three knights, the group went to the Mistress’s house, who already had received the message that someone was going to pick her up.
So, with no reason to doubt the people sent by her lover, the Mistress or Ms. Rifa Moder, agreed to come with them, dooming her fate with her own hands. Not that resisting would have helped her anyways.
A short walk and a few minutes later, the group reached their destination, one of the secret entrances to the Baron’s mansion.
It was a house that was adjacent to the Baron’s mansion and had a secret door which could be used to get in or out of it.
The group disguised as knights entered the house and stood before one of the bookshelves, taking out a specific book from the shelf, revealing the keyhole behind it.
With a little key, that they found in one of knight’s clothes, coupled with the knight’s blood was all it took for the group to open the door of the secret entrance and get in.
The wall in front of them creaked and slid open. A pair of stairs appearing in the view that led lower into the darkness.
Scared, Rifa finally spoke, "Is it safe down there?"
From what the group knew, Rifa was a young woman in her late 20s, and was the only daughter of an influential businessman in the city of Lueurre, who had died a few years ago. With no support and knowledge to do business, along with many people eyeing to swallow her father’s business, the then young girl minimized all business activities and sold the volatile businesses she owned.
This gave her the money to survive and time to think...to no avail though. Her businesses were shrinking, and so was her wealth until 5 months ago when she caught the Baron’s eye.
And with her rose gold hair, dreamy green eyes, fair skin and slender figure…it was no wonder she did.
Normally, they wouldn’t answer whatever their hostage asked, but in this case, they had to give her a sense of security, atleast for a while.
So, with a slight delay, it was Nadol who answered, as he had the friendliest voice amongst the three, "Don’t worry, Ma’am, it is safe. Since we have to keep you hidden, we will enter the mansion through the basement. And this is just a secret passage connecting to the mansion’s basement, it’s completely safe."
"...okay, Sir knight.", she said with pursed lips, still not relieved.
"We will protect you with our lives Ma’am. So, please be at ease.", Nadol reassured, before finally moving forward.
The Mistress followed, slight hesitation still in her steps.
-Tap
-Tap
-Tap
The sound of footsteps echoed in the darkness as the group kept walking for a while and reached the illuminated checkpoint where all the secret passages connected to the basement intersected.
A guarded checkpoint where two pair of knights stood on duty.
"Halt!", one of the knights shouted. "State your purpose and confirm your identities."
Nadol opened his mouth, about to say something, but before he could do so, someone moved.
It was neither the group nor the knights, it was the frail little Mistress who moved. It looked like she slipped and was about to fall down. So naturally, as a knight, or someone disguising as one, Nadol tried to catch the lady before the fall.
Alas, that was a mistake.
Sparks of light gathered near Rifa’s arm and buzzed lightly. A buzz he was all too familiar with, a buzz of summoning an object from the inventory.
Nadol’s eyes widened as sparks of light gathered, manifesting into a sword, which got covered in red hot flames, while closing in on him the next second.
Death.
That was what Nadol saw as he looked at the sword and judged himself uncapable of dodging its blade with its current distance and speed.
The blade was going to pierce his throat and kill him.
And that’s what would have happened, if not for a timely pull on his soldier, that jerked him out of the blade’s way, and granted him the mercy of life.
But the blade wasn’t that merciful. A single step, another hand on blade and twist through the bodies core, all executed seamlessly, was all it took to turn the thrust into a slash.
A slash that was aimed not at him, as he was thrown out of the way, but at the one who pulled him out, this time unexpectedly Lekas.
The move left Lekas wide open, no sword or armor on his body as he was still disguised as an disguised knight. The only thing he could do was to tilt his body back.
-Sizzle…!
The smell of burning flesh spread through the dimly illuminated intersection, as something strange happened right before Rifa’s eyes.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from freeweɓnovel.cѳm.
The charred flesh, the cauterized wound, was disappearing right before her eyes.
Without a second’s delay, Rifa jumped back, and cursed through gritted teeth, "A damn Vessel!", her voice powerful and clear, unlike the frail voice from before.
It was at this moment that knights processed the scene. With their weapons and spells pointed at the whole convoy, the one leading them first called for reinforcements before shouting at them, "Intruders! Lower your weapons and surrender now! Or die!"
In response to the knight’s words, Rifa didn’t say anything. Rather, just like her enemies, she dropped the disguise and summoned her armor, artifacts and a small token which she threw back at the Knight Captain.
The small token was a proof that she had an executive level of authority in the army, higher than any Knight’s, and only when the Knight Captain caught it, did she finally open her mouth, "I’m your superior, you idiots! Now, issue an level 0 alert throughout the mansion. We have a damn Vessel attacking the estate!"
Though the situation was a little confusing, the knights adopted swiftly. The Captain about to contact the estate again to issue the alert while the rest moved forward, ready to intercept the remaining intruders.
But before the contact could be established, the Captain suddenly vomited blood and looked down at his chest, only to find a huge horn sticking out of his torso, right where his heart was supposed to be.
"Fuck…", he weakly uttered his last words, as he fell on the ground.
"Captain...!", the knights bellowed, but stood their ground, getting in a three-man back-to-back formation to guard themselves from this invisible enemy.
’That’s bad.’, Rifa thought as her eyes glowed bright red. It was a spell she dubbed as [Heat Vision]. It allowed her to see the world in a different perspective, using heat of the objects to keep a track of them.
If Rayne knew about her spell, then he would say, "Shut it bitch, it’s just thermal imaging.", but of course he didn’t. After all, spells weren’t something magic users actively shared with themselves.
Anyways, thanks to this spell, she knew that only two of her three opponents are real, with the last one rampaging behind her.
So, paying no heed to the huge figure lunging at her, she focused on the one she confirmed as the vessel.
And just as she predicted, the huge figure was just a illusion as it phased through her.
His spear collided with her sword, the pulsing darkness fighting with her raging flames, both at a stalemate.
"You can see through the illusions."
The pale faced villain spoke unhurriedly as Nadol joined the fight.
The petite speedster came hard and fast, his whole visage covered in a light blue aura.
"So, what if I can!?"
Rifa shouted as she disengaged the vessel by firing fire bullets at point range at him, and jumping back, causing the speedster to miss his aim.
But Nadol didn’t mind. As if direction meant nothing to him, he turned at a right angle, and chased right after his target, without losing any power and speed.
"Nothing. I will just stop using that trick. Not like I have to.", the same unhurried voice replied.
Caught off-guard, Rifa parried the strike with an awkward swing of her sword, exploding the flames on her sword to make up for the lacking power. A move that used a lot of her mana.
This fended off Nadol, giving Rifa the space she needed, or so she thought.
The speedster flawed her plans with a relentless charge, that didn’t give her any breathing room.
He just kept coming at her without a break, somehow maintaining both his power and speed as he attacked again and again and again.
Nothing she did seemed to slow him down, cause even with flames dancing in his path, the speedster just kept on charging, and even if he did dodge few of her more powerful attacks that didn’t change anything.
His speed and power stayed the same. In fact, she could feel his attacks getting stronger, as slowly but surely, she was being pushed back.
-Tang…!
-Screech…!
-Tang…!
-Tang…!
-Screech…!
It was after a few minutes of a such exchanges that she finally got somewhat used to the attacks, and had the leeway to check the surroundings, only to notice two things.
First, the reinforcements had arrived and were fighting the huge beastman.
And second:
’The Vessel! He is gone!!"
But before she could do or even think about doing anything, the wind fluttered as Nadol, who had gritted teeth came out of the dust cloud left of their previous exchange. Now covered in a blue aura of noticeably darker shade, another ferocious attack left his sword aiming at her.
But now, she wasn’t having any of that. Before she held back because of her surroundings, as the underground passage could collapse if she used a lot of her powers or that her allies could be caught in the crossfire, but now…she had enough!
Suddenly, Rifa closed her eyes and the flames around her grew quiet, even the remnant flames from her previous attack extinguished, as only a lick of flames circling her remained.
Nadol felt that something was wrong as his instincts warned him, but he kept on attacking, or rather he couldn’t stop attacking.
And then, just as the sword was about to slash her in half, Rifa opened her eyes. Eyes that didn’t look like eyes anymore, instead pure orbs of lava meet Nadol gaze as Rifa opened her mouth.
[Explosion]
And what happened next was exactly that.
A raging explosion took place in the underground passage. Intense heat melting the surroundings and the passage, as a pillar of fire large enough for everyone to see in the Uppercity erupted from the ground.
-BOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!
***
"Tch, they escaped.", Rifa said while clicking her tongue as she stepped on the melted ground. Then, with a strong jump, she got out of the underground passage, thanks to the hole her spell made in the ceiling, thinking, ’I better report this to the Baron, it’s my job after all.’
Meanwhile, a strange coincidence was happening with Rayne.
