Shortly after Solana went to the entrance to receive Lord Silvaria, she ordered her tense people to lower their weapons and relax. The Lord of Wolfwater was her guest.
They stood no chance against a High Witch either way.
It was imperative that Solana learn the purpose of Silvaria’s visit, seeing she did not come with ill intentions.
“Excuse me for not welcoming you with a proper reception, Lord Silvaria,” Solana politely apologized. “Our situation hasn’t been exactly great these days. Anyway, I assume your purpose here is to negotiate the central property prices?”
“Negotiate the central property prices?” Silvaria shook her head with a cynical smile before she replied, “You look down on me too much, Lady Solana.”
“Who am I? I am the Lord of Wolfwater City. The situation in Wolfwater City isn’t so bad that I would come to Sunpeak Town just to act cheap. It’s true that I am a little bit interested in purchasing a property or two, and I don’t mind buying at the current market value.”
“However, the reason I am here is something else entirely. I think you should be able to figure it out by now,” Silvaria stated.
“You came to confirm my daughter’s recovery?” Solana asked, quickly realizing Silvaria’s purpose.
“Precisely,” Silvaria calmly acknowledged before she mentioned, “You should understand that all witches fear berserk transformations. Thus, Lord Aeliana recovering from her abomination state is no small matter.”
“I heard many scholars had paid a visit to Sunpeak Town to confirm the validity of this rumor in the past month, only to leave with disappointment due to Aeliana’s absence. As a result, most scholars already concluded the rumor to be false.”
“However, I think differently. I doubt someone like you would use your daughter as a gimmick to raise Sunpeak Town’s value if she were dead. Thus, there must be some truth to the rumor.”
“Why don’t you share the details with me and tell me where Lord Aeliana is now? I am interested in listening to the story,” Silvaria stated.
“Alright,” Solana agreed with a thoughtful look.
Afterward, Solana chatted with Silvaria in the drawing room for several hours. She only mentioned vague details regarding her daughter’s recovery before informing Silvaria about the Thousand Fog Mountains.
She also brought idle topics to draw out the time and keep Silvaria entertained.
“I know what you are trying to do, Lady Solana. But if you wish to borrow my power to overcome your current crisis, you should have requested me formally. Not use some roundabout tactic,” Silvaria suddenly said, standing up. “It’s getting late. I should go.”
She was disappointed to learn there was no further news of Lord Aeliana after she headed to the Thousand Fog Mountains.
The person was unlikely to be alive after staying inside the Thousand Fog Mountains for so long.
Meanwhile, Solana regretted she couldn’t make Silvaria stay for longer.
Nevertheless, just as Silvaria stood up to leave, she suddenly picked up a subtle yet strange sound outside the lord’s estate with her sharp hearing. Soon, she frowned, feeling it was too quiet.
She immediately asked Solana to call out to the guards stationed outside. But when Solana did as she requested, no one outside replied.
“It seems your enemies are anxious to get rid of you,” Silvaria commented with a sigh. “There’s still a couple of hours until midnight, but they have already made their move.”
Even if she wanted to leave at that moment, she couldn’t. She was caught in their mess.
Solana’s expression changed before she hurriedly summoned everyone in the estate to gather together.
“Keep close! The enemy wants to take us out silently. But, if we stick together in this formation, they can only confront us head-on!” Solana informed everyone.
In that instant, everyone was in the most spacious room on the ground floor. They stood close with their backs to each other to cover all their blind spots.
“I know you didn’t want to be here, but I hope you can at least protect Cyrena and Lady Dahlia, Lord Silvaria,” Solana sincerely requested.
Silvaria glanced at Cyrena and Dahlia in the center of the formation. Because they were the most vulnerable, they were kept in the center for protection.
A few moments later, the front entrance and numerous glass windows shattered at once as dark figures shot inside.
“Here they come!” Solana alerted, readying her sword to slaughter as many foes as soon as possible to minimize their casualties.
However, the harsh blade of reality quickly crushed Solana’s hopeful expectations during the first clash.
The enemy was far more powerful than everyone could have imagined.
The enemy’s single blows shattered the Senior Witches’ defensive spells, and the Aura Masters at the forefront were all mercilessly cut down instantly.
Even Solana felt like a giant sledgehammer struck her when she attempted to block some attacks with her sword. The crushing blows made her hands numb and shook her body.
“Shit!” Silvaria cursed her luck.
She expected Solana’s side to be at a disadvantage. But even she did not expect the outcome to be so one-sided. She immediately realized she had to fight with everything she had if she even wished for the tiny possibility of making it out alive.
Silvaria didn’t hesitate to conjure her most powerful defense spell.
A large volume of water quickly burst into being, momentarily pushing back all the attackers. Then, the body of water formed a dome around the survivors, revolving at high speed and becoming a water barrier.
“A High Witch! They had a High Witch among them!”
“What?! Quickly take her down fast! We can’t waste too much time here!”
The group of black-cloaked men was evidently startled by Silvaria’s presence. However, their eyes quickly gleamed with ruthlessness.
Shortly after, they attacked Silvaria’s water barrier with increasing ferocity.
“Who the hell are you people?!” Silvaria roared with a hint of fear.
If she relaxed her water barrier for even a moment, it would result in the complete annihilation of their group.
At the same time, she was also aware that it was impossible to escape alone, even if she abandoned Solana and the others. Enemies of similar caliber surrounded the entire estate.
Nevertheless, the group of black-cloaked men did not bother answering Silvaria’s question as they pressed their attacks.
“Dammit! Think of something, Lady Solana! I can’t keep this up forever!” Silvaria cried desperately, too focused on maintaining the water barrier to be distracted by other thoughts.
However, Lady Solana remained unresponsive. Instead, she stood still with a blank and lost look.
The enemy was too strong.
Dahlia knew they were only still alive because of Silvaria. Thus, she channeled all her mana into Silvaria to support the water barrier.
Silvaria was surprised by Dahlia’s action, but she quickly acknowledged her assistance.
“Dammit, Lady Solana! If you’re not going to do anything, then at least reinforce me with your mana!” Silvaria urged. “You might have given up on living, but I haven’t!”
Solana finally recovered from her daze before she supplied all her mana to Silvaria.
Cyrena stood on the side with a helpless look of despair. She didn’t have a single ounce of power to contribute to their survival effort.
All she could do was blindly pray, hoping her teacher would return with Headmaster Astoria and Lord Aeliana to save them.
“Cease your struggles and just accept death. Why must you force yourself to suffer for a few more minutes when it can all end in an instant?” Infamous Enigma persuaded Silvaria and the other to give up, having lost his patience. “Even if you survive a little longer, nothing but death awaits you, High Witch.”
“Piss off!” Silvaria cursed venomously, stubbornly resisting. She wouldn’t give up until the very end.
Her persistence infected Dahlia and Solana.
“Hmph! Then keep struggling! No one can save you!” Infamous Enigma snorted coldly.
…
While the lord’s estate was under attack by a couple of dozen men in black cloaks, there were still more than a hundred men stationed on the roofs of the nearby buildings.
They had the lord’s estate and the entire central town under watch. Still, no one noticed a spatial portal silently opening in the dark airspace above them.
They were only alerted when Vaan fell out and softly landed on the rooftop beside them.
“Huh? Who the hell are you? Where did you come from?!” the men in black cloaks were alarmed by his sudden presence.
They didn’t expect anyone to appear so close to them without them noticing. It was like the person appeared out of thin air.
Nevertheless, Vaan only responded to them with a slight frown before his Omni-Sense covered the whole town.
After he sensed the situation inside the lord’s estate, his eyes turned sharp with a cold glint.
“Why are you questioning him instead of killing him—!”
Boom!
Just when the men in black cloaks drew their weapons, flames exploded from the soles of Vaan’s feet, causing his figure to disappear as they thrust his body toward the lord’s estate at a breakneck speed.
He went sonic.
At the same time, the nearby men in black cloaks caught in the trail of flames were reduced to black ashes and dispersed into the wind.
Vaan directly smashed through the wall and slammed the heads of two men in black cloaks into the ground with his hands, crushing them into pulps and stunning everyone else in the lord’s estate.
As for the two men with their heads crushed like popped watermelons, they naturally died instantly.
It took some time for everyone to register what had just happened. However, Cyrena’s eyes quickly sparkled with hope and joy.
“Teacher!”