Chapter 474: Chapter 35 The Princess and the Hero
In the dark, winding secret passage, Misaela padded softly in her small leather shoes. The expensive gem on the staff she held illuminated the path with magical light, casting a slender shadow.
“Lily…”
After a slight hesitation, Misaela gently pulled at her skirt with her fingertips and spoke in a huscripted voice towards Lily, the maid walking ahead of her. “Do you feel like something is wrong?”
“Wrong?”
The maid girl turned around and saw the slight worry reflected in the little princess’s slightly opened, crystal-blue eyes. “Your Highness, have you sensed something?”
“Sensed… No, it’s just that my mind feels a bit uneasy…”
“Is that so…?”
Lily tilted her head in thought, then suddenly smiled. “But, we’ll be at the exit soon. Why don’t we go have a look first?”
Persuaded by Lily, Misaela nodded. Soon, the two girls reached the exit of the secret passage. With effort, they moved the partition, and through the narrow crack in the wall, their gazes once again fell upon the familiar colors of the royal palace.
However, Misaela’s delicate, slender brows furrowed once more.
“It still doesn’t feel right.”
A subtle voice came from the girl’s youthful lips again.
Misaela widened her clear eyes, gazing at the quiet atmosphere in her line of sight. Her spiritual power attempted to activate a detection spell, but it still only encountered silence.
Even though this was a secluded area of the royal palace, how could there not be even a trace of a guard around?
Just then, the sound of hurried footsteps approached, and several figures clad in black appeared in the girls’ sight.
“I’ve never seen these people before?”
Maid Lily pulled Misaela, her eyes showing a hint of curiosity. “Are they guests that His Majesty the King invited into the royal palace, or perhaps attendants of some Grand Duke?”
“Attendants of a Grand Duke… But, I feel some familiarity with these people.”
Misaela said with a slight frown, her eyebrows knitted together, as she expanded her detection spell and continued to observe them.
Misaela was certain she had never seen them before. Yet, these people gave her a sense of familiarity, as if… as if…
Her crystal-blue eyes widened. Misaela suddenly recalled where this sense of déjà vu might come from.
—It was like the desolate and evil aura emanating from Albert, who was parasitic within the fragments of the Seed of Destruction in Count Reel’s territory, beside Lichen!
At the same moment, Misaela’s expanded magical perception picked up the sound of intense combat. The released magical fluctuations roared and rippled between the golden and silver pillars!
Misaela’s long eyelashes fluttered involuntarily, and her crystal-blue eyes showed a trace of panic.
“There’s someone over there!”
The figures in black robes detected the emanating aura. They shouted, and the pitch-black flames they drew exploded, blasting through the wall where Misaela was hiding.
Seeing the slender jade hand holding the staff to block the attack amidst the flames and smoke, and the silver hair cascading down from the moon-silk fabric, revealing the slightly upturned, stubborn little face of the princess, the black-robed figures were first stunned, then their expressions turned to ecstatic joy.
“Ha! It’s the Princess of the White Iris! Viscount wanted to know how to capture you, but I never expected you’d deliver yourself right to us!”
The black-robed figure pressed the staff in their hand, and the black energy of the Seed of Destruction, similar to what was on Albert that day, spread out, forming terrifying fluctuations that swept towards the girl’s small body.
“Brothers, ten years of preparation culminates here! Capture his daughter, and even that shameless usurper will be apprehensive!”
Following the leader’s voice, over a dozen attacks imbued with the same corrosive, destructive black energy boomed forth, unleashing terrifying power in the royal palace corridor.
Even though Misaela was exceptionally talented, her magical aptitude was even compared to Verafia by Dofiraia. However, under the terrifying attacks that far surpassed her level, caused by the erosion of destructive auras, she could barely resist.
“Waaah…”
The magic crystal shield was almost instantly covered in cracks. Misaela’s jade arm, supporting the staff, trembled heavily, feeling as if boundless, destructive darkness was about to engulf her.
The girl suppressed the pain, holding back the tears in her wide eyes, and laboriously turned her small face. “Lily, you should go quickly…”
However, the response she received was not Lily’s usual cheerful tone. A beautiful little face was swallowed by intense fear. “Waaah, Your Highness, I don’t want to die, save me—”
The followers of the Seed of Destruction had no intention of sparing the princess’s maid, nor any pity for her. The surging black tide instantly swallowed Lily’s body.
Misaela’s eyes widened slightly. However, the pervasive, surging dark demonic power gave her no chance to even make a sound, and she was almost engulfed as well!
Suddenly, a bright sword qi swept through, and rolling waves of light burned away all the destructive black energy that had spread around.
“This is—that brat who drew the Sacred Sword, the so-called candidate hero!”
The voice of the black-robed figures was filled with fear, but it instantly turned sinister.
“But what does it matter, a mere golden brat wielding the Sacred Sword! Brothers, first kill this dog of the usurper!”
Misaela placed her small hand on the broken floor and forcefully lifted her face, looking at the black-haired boy holding the glowing Sacred Sword and charging towards the followers of the Seed of Destruction.
The energy, which was terrifying and more than enough to easily destroy a hall, was easily severed and annihilated by the Sacred Light-burning sword edge.
Even as the black-robed figures roared and forcibly embedded fragments of the Seed of Destruction into their flesh, corrupting them into strange creatures like Count Albert, they could not last a single moment under the boy’s unstoppable sword edge. They were directly sliced by the white light, their distorted black flesh turning into burning dust!
In just a few breaths, Igert’s final swing of the Sacred Sword, a straight downward sword light, destroyed the last unwillingly roaring sludge monster. The bright light, like the dawn, instantly illuminated the space.
“It’s… him…”
A soft, trembling, delicate voice escaped Misaela’s tender red lips.
Her small, tender hand supporting the broken floor, the girl’s uplifted face, her crystal-blue eyes stared blankly at the black-haired boy immersed in the endless, blazing golden radiance.
Even though his face wasn’t particularly handsome, it was delicate. Bathed in the golden, sacred radiance, he looked like a messenger of light descended from heaven, making one unable to help but be captivated.
However, Misaela was not unfamiliar with this boy’s face; in fact, she had thought of him many times… The last time she saw him was in Count Albert’s lair, before the black storm formed by the Tree of Destruction.
“So, the hero Lily mentioned is him…”
Muttering to herself, Misaela’s delicate lips curved upwards slightly as she thought of the boy standing before her.
But then, she remembered the maid girl before her, being swallowed by the pitch-black vortex with her own eyes. Her eyes gradually filled with crystal tears, which then slipped down her fair skin.
