Chapter 361 - He Heard
The large black castle was silent. The halls were empty, and the no noise escaped any rooms, but an ominous black aura seethed from the heart of the castle.
Malice sat on her thrown with a bottle of liquor in her hand. She stared at the void, looking helpless. "They tricked me."
All the Vassals were in front of her, standing and tending to the current unstable mental condition of their Queen.
"I woke up this morning and the skills disappeared," Malice said. "Even the growth of my powers vanished."
"My queen–"
"Silence! Malice yelled so loud, it made the entire castle shake. "I did not recall to have ever asked for any of your opinion! I was the one speaking, so let me speak."
The Vassal nodded, bowing his head in shame. The other Vassals learned from his mistake, so they let their Queen be.
They let her exude the dark aura that made the staff leave due to the suffocation. Hell's castle was now barren with only a few people left behind.
–
Four figures went to stop the large woman from taking things further. She was raising her axe, only a moment away from actually swinging it against Irus.
Frederick, Luck, Galaxia, and Jester. All four of them held the woman, struggling to take on her raw physical strength as she forced her arm to swing her weapon.
"Why are you stopping me?!" Gasha yelled. "I just want to hack one arm off this conceited douchebag."
"Oh, promise me, you can't do that," Luck snickered, making Gasha look at him with her yellow tiger eyes.
Frederick managed to elbow his friend, glaring at him. "The hell are you saying?"
"I-I mean, you can't because he's a very valuable asset," Luck managed to blurt out. "If you kill him, we won't have the answers to a lot of our questions."
Gasha relaxed her body and returned her axe in her back. She looked around, confidence not wavering even after a lot of eyes were on her. The inn was destroyed and the wood debris from the established were scattered all over the place.
"I'll sent casters to clean this all up," Gasha said, glaring at Irus. "In the meantime, I'll be in the Solaguer Castle. The king asked for my presence and I shall answer to that plea."
Johnson suddenly stood and ran up to her before she could leave. "Gasha, of you're here, then only one Guardian is on duty?"
"What do you think?" Gasha quirked her brow in annoyance. "You left for some competition that doesn't really mean sh*t, you and Zeus both. You left the safety of the kingdom to Miles and I. Should this happen again, and there were three large Strikes and we couldn't respond on time, it'll be the consequences on your shoulders."
"But nothing happened," Johnson tried to talk to her. "In fact, something happened here. Bigger threat that had been happening so far. If I wasn't here–"
"Were you able to defeat the entities that threatened the safety of our kingdom?" Gasha suddenly turned and walked over to Johnson. The man was taller enough, but Gasha made him look like a child. With her almost seven foot stature and her large muscled body, she made it seem like anyone was a child.
"Look, Gasha–"
"No," Gasha cut Johnson off before he could even finish. "I was guarding North and West, Miles was guarding the other two because you were here. When I found out about the attack I wanted to come. But then I put my trust and faith in you but when I saw the report, you did the bare mininum."
"For the almost three hours that they fought, you didn't stand out," Gasha continued. "You, a Guardian, a peak of the Adventurers, barely survived. And that made me so frustrated about all of this."
"I helped," Johnson said. "If it wasn't for me, then Hope would've have been able to defeat Livor."
"So, you were dependent on somebody else?" Gasha scoffed. "That's even more humiliating. Don't you have pride, Johnson? As the, oh, so mighty guardian of the South. Don't you have any more pride left in you?"
"Lilith is one of them," Johsnon suddenly blurted out, making Gasha's eyes widened in shock. Zeus and Elizabeth were walking towards them, so she focused her attention to them, "What does he mean?"
"Well, it turns out that Miss Lilith is part of Malice's Vassals," Zeus replied. "She had always been part of them she said."
"How come this wasn't involved in the reports?" Gasha took a step back, eyes widened in fear. "You his this, didn't you? I assumed for the greater good?"
"The kingdom's faith in us wouldn't be in such a good position if we reported her appearance," Zeus replied. "It's bad enough that a Guardian suddenly retired. If the mass knows that she had gone rogue, it'll be a bigger problem that what we've ever faced."
"Then we have to act," Gasha said. "We have to–"
A sound of bottles rattled from an alley, making their heads snap to its direction. Gasha took her hammer out and slowly walked to its direction. "Stay there."
She jumped inside the alley, seeing a boy hiding behind a dumpster. Gasha walked closer to the boy who was now shaking in fear.
"Did you hear our conversation?" Gasha asked. "And I do not like repeating myself."
The boy gulped and looked around. His eyes found something to the rightz, making him form an O with his mouth as if he saw an angel. This made Gasha turned to the direction where his eyes were, giving the boy a chance to run away.
"Hey!" Gasha yelled, running after the boy. "Get back here!"
The boy was running in panic. He didn't even try to look behind him because just the aura of the woman alone made his skin crawl in fear. He continued running in the streets, causing a commotion in the busy crowd.
"I said get back!" Gasha screamed. The force of her voice made the stalls shake, and some fall. "I will have my mages come for that later. They'll fix it!"
Groaning in frustration, the Guardian raised her axe. "I said stop!"
The boy turned to another alley. Gasha leaped from the ground and into the alley in hopes to catch the boy there. When she got down, the boy was painting a circle on the wall.
"I said, stop!" Gasha yelled. Her eyes widened after realizing what the boy had painted. "No, don't do that. We can do this peacefully."
The boy finished the circle and activated a portal. This made Gasha shake her head and reach out her axe. "No!"
She threw her axe the moment the boy took a first step inside the portal. It was as if a slow motion occured, the axe flipping in the air as it approached him.
The boy gasped and leaped inside the portal, the axe barely reaching him before he entered and the portal to deactivate. Gasha's weapon failed to reach its target on time, crashing into the stone wall instead.
Several footsteps were running towards her, making her froze even more. Zeus, Johnson and Elizabeth walked to her, all shocked when she didn't have the boy.
"He escaped," she said.. "They'll know about Lilith now."