Lucy Wickshire 102 Chapter thirteen 5

Just as everyone had suspected, the royal guards and the jade hands were a little late to the fight just outside the city. But it was not Lord Torgenn in that carriage, it was Nanny Han.

One seemed to underestimate the Wickshire fortress; this was the stronghold of Lady Wickshire. It would be beneath them to allow Lord Torgenn to come to harm. Half way, Nanny Han had led a replacement entourage and gone the same way Lord Torgenn was supposed to go. Lord Torgenn himself, did not know that his driver and guards had been given secret signals causing them to change their direction. Yet, even that was not enough.

As Nanny Han and her group fought away the assassins, another group approached Lord Torgenn on his way.

Lord Torgenn could almost feel himself fall asleep, when a scream woke him. He opened his eyes to find himself outside the carriage in the grasp of one of his guards. Looking to the side, and see that the carriage that had been destroyed.

"What is happening?" he asked the guard. The guard quickly pressed a pressure point on his neck and he felt himself loose consciousness.

The guard threw his lord over his shoulder and made for the woods. As he moved, he nodded at his colleagues and they flanked the outskirts and defend his rear. But those that pursued were not ordinary assassins, they were high ranking martial artist.

With a flick of the wrists, the guards defending the rear found their heads on the floor. They moved with such speed, yet it seemed as though they were but walking. With one step they were about to grab Lord Torgenn off the guard's shoulder. But at that moment, a feeling of indescribable dread overwhelmed them. A metallic smell stung their nose instantly.

The sudden smell of blood in the air was indescribable, it almost choked them dead.

"Calm yourselves, this is just a man!" the assassin leader scolded his team, but he too could not stop trembling. In their hesitation, the guard carrying Lord Torgenn moved away a distance, before collapsing under the pressure.

"Return." a person cloaked in black appeared before them. The assassins could not truly see his form, safe his shadow, clear on the grass. The assassins gritted their teeth as they glanced at each other. Return? That was not even an option! As though they made up their minds at the same time, they attacked the shadow instantly. As they moved, more cloaked men appeared. Like the other, the assassins could only truly see their shadows. The assassins were fast, but the shadows were faster. One of the assassins felt his hand get ripped from it's shoulder, before he saw it. Spinning to the side, he swayed out of the way and landed with a groan. Without thinking further, he used his leg to draw a symbol with his blood dripping from his torn shoulder. His entire body started to glow a faint red under the dark hood of the forest trees.

"Self destructing?" one of the shadows snorted. But the assassin did not care. He launched forward, straightening his body out to resemble an arrow shot from a bow, thereby increasing his speed. He reached a shadow in the next second. Like a bug he wrapped his only remaining limbs around the shadow and held on. The temperature around the area spiked and the other assassins used this chance to lay down a formation. In seconds, they had locked the space; no one could enter or leave the locked area. It was clear they intended to die in there. Most of the shadows were locked inside and could not see or hear anything outside the locked space. Inside the space, gravity did not exist. They floated with the tree branches and grass blades unlucky enough to be trapped inside with them. With no gravity, every one's speed reduced drastically.

The battle had taken a weird turn, so the assassins all joined to self destruct. Only a second away and they knew the blast wave would kill Lord Torgenn, who was unconscious somewhere outside the locked space.

Suddenly, there was a lazy cough and they felt as though a bucket of cold water was thrown on them. They knew the locked space was broken when they could see outside it. They tried to conjure their internal energy, but felt nothing in their cores. What kind of situation was this?

Chapter end