KB1 - Chapter XII - The Magus

Chapter XII: The Magus – Book 1: Heir of the Kingdom

Sound of broken crisps.

The glass on a window was shattered into pieces by a figure.

Wearing her silk pajama, Lillian held up a candlestick and was surprised when she took a good look at the figure who had fallen in from the outside.

Is that a handsome man, with short blond hair, and wearing a blue-star -- City Watch uniform?

Would people from the City Watch – Lillian looked at the clock on the top of her head – break into residential property from the third floor’s window at 4:50 in the morning?

It isn’t very appropriate to say that this is a residential property anyway. After all, the Raya Club is one of the best “clubs” in Red Lane Street. It is located in the popular sections between Red Lane Street and Woodlake Street (the famous commercial street in the West Ring District) while Lillian is a well-known beauty of the clubhouse, it doesn’t matter if the customer is an Earl-level nobleman or a high ranking official from the royal court, if Lillian is to accompany him, the price will be twenty gold coins for one hour.

Therefore, when the young man with a promising future from the Western City Watch Department, Captain Cohen Karajan, plunged into Raya Club’s a private bedroom from the third floor, Lillian, who was awakened on her bed, held the candlestick and came to check.

"My lady, I am really sorry for disturbing your sleep."

Cohen awkwardly got up from the ground, hid the sword behind his back, and bowed to the exceedingly graceful and charming Lillian, but when he reached out wanting to take off his hat as to say farewell, only to find that his officer cap had already fallen off in the battle just now.

"To hell with it." Cohen muttered.

It’s all because of the old man losing my night-time operative clothes like that. I can’t just go out and buy it in the middle of the night.

Lillian boldly looked at this polite and handsome -- this was important, otherwise Lillian would go smash him straight in the head with her candlestick — City Watch officer; her big, beautiful eyes gently turned, her hand put up her soft black hair a bit , and her fingers seemed to vaguely flitting across the impressive bosom. She giggled:

"Dear Sir City Watch officer, I’m sorry but we are not open for business tonight."

Certainly Cohen knew where this place is. Putting it in a normal occasion, this should be the period when Raya Club is bustling with noise and excitement.

But facing the beauty in front of him, his mouth only curled up a little. He wasn’t seduced by Lillian’s grace and charm.

"Saying that, so you people did receive the announcement to close off your business tonight?"

"Of course, the Blood Bottle helped us dealing with key difficulties and promised to make up for the losses. Otherwise, with the suspension of the Red Lane Street for only one night, do you know how many losses will it bring to the gentlemen who have worked their heart out with sweets, blood and tears for our kingdom? If they are unable to contribute to keep the second largest country in the Western continent operate normally because of fatigue, physical exhaustion and mental boredom, what should more than 10 million people in Stella Kingdom do? ”

Lillian blinked a few times and astutely smiled.

Looking at the seductive beauty, Cohen’s brows slightly tightened.

It seems that the information I received from the informant is not complete. I thought it was only Black Street Brotherhood’s initiative to attack Blood Bottle’s branch on Red Lane Street. But right now, it seems that the Blood Bottle already set up a trap in Red Lane Street in advance to counter their enemy - a checkmate move.

The main reason I came over here tonight is to probe the two gangs, so with this new development, the main target will be shifted from the Brotherhood.

After all, it is the nearly century old Blood Bottle gang we’re talking about.

"Hey, you there, golden-hair scoundrel dog!" A female voice from outside the building interrupted the conversation between the two.

"Hurry up and come down here to receive your death! According to regulations, we can't enter any house."

Lillian curiously went to the broken window and saw a bloody woman in leather armor downstairs, she was swinging the whip on her hand and angrily pointing upstairs.

Cohen bowed to Lillian.

"Thank you for your advice, beautiful lady, please forgive me for the moment, I need to go to another lady's appointment."

The blond City Watch officer - also Captain of a patrols squad - turned and gently jumped down to the street.


"My dear Miss Bernice, don't be too impatient."

Cohen’s smile suddenly became cold and his eyes emitted a killing intent.

"For the Majesty above and in the name of the Divine Stella Constitution, to the suspects who may endanger the interests of the kingdom and the life of her people, as a second-level City Watch officer, I have the authority to directly put them down – so don't be impatient, I will send you to reunite with your brother immediately. ”

Upstairs, Lillian covered her mouth as she recognized that it was one of Blood Bottle gang’s Twelve Strongest, the younger of the notorious Layton brother and sister, "The Scorpion’s Whip" - Bernice Layton.

Her older brother, "The Stinger" Primo Layton, just came to Raya Club yesterday. Having some “special” desires, he almost murdered a new girl with the oil in the Inextinguishable lamp.

According to the words of this City Watch officer, it seems that "the Stinger" has died in his hand?

"Scoundrel dog! Even your boss doesn't dare to taint Blood Bottle gang’s face! You - how dare you -" Bernice snarled, as a more independent strong woman in the Twelve Strongest, she shaved the hair on the left side and combed the rest to the right, making her features look a lot tougher.

"I will whip every piece of flesh on your body into torn meat!"

Finishing her words, Bernice's whip swung in a circle and rolled toward Cohen. The barbs on the whip seemed like as if they had lives of their own, launching out to attack all together!

"So this is how it works!"

Cohen's figure suddenly stared to blur, only experienced fighters would be able to sense that it was him using movement with a speed that can't be seen with naked eyes, quickly changing his position.

"Cha-ching! Cha-chunk!"

Like mirages, the long sword swiftly flipped over and pared off the barbs next to his body!

"If your brother was still alive, depending on his ability to control these barbs, maybe the two of you could cooperate and even cause some trouble."

But Bernice's whip was as flexible as a snake, the whiplash and the fluttering barbs formed attacks that left no gap to defense as it unceasingly stroked the target.

"If I were only ten seconds early, Primo wouldn't die." Bernice’ voice was full of hatred.

"And you, scoundrel dog, will be shredded by us!"

Cohen's expression didn’t change, he cut off another five barbs in a flash, but the whiplash had already been drawn to in front of his eyes!

At this time, Cohen suddenly had a solemn face.  He rushed forward and didn’t even look at the whip that was drawing closer to him!

"Suicidal fool!"

"Torn!"

Bernice sneered at Cohen who was running toward as her whip ruthlessly tore his right shoulder! At the same time, three whiplashes shot out again!

My whip is coated with a poison that magnifies the pain, with a lot of barbs and also the thorns in them, once it hooks you, the pain will be --- eh?

Cohen made a move that Bernice couldn’t anticipate.

Facing the three whiplashes, the rushing silhouette of the City Watch officer, with an unrelenting spirit, raised his left hand and blocked the upcoming flying whip!

The barbs penetrated deeply into the City Watch officer's arm, one of them even pierced his palm, but his complexion remained the same as if he only had just been bitten by an ant.

Bernice looked at Cohen with bewilderment - under the effect of this poisonous whip, not a small number of her enemies had been rolling under her feet with twitching movements, deformed faces and aguish wails.

But he – How could he didn’t have a single reaction?

Did he not feel any pain at all?

"Your street performance stops here!" Cohen coldly said.

Being shocked to see Cohen who rushed toward her in a flash of light, Bernice hastily responded by swinging her whip in a hurry with the intention to raise a protective shield in front of herself.

But in the blink of an eye, an overwhelming force from Cohen's sword already broke out!

Bernice's expression changed instantly.

This can’t be!

It was as if that Cohen’s sword was sharpened countless times and there were flicking stars upon its blade. In that instant, the whip was pared into several pieces!

In Bernice’s vision, Cohen’s cold face and sword were getting bigger, and bigger.

The next moment, the plain but sharp sword ruthlessly thrust into her left chest, and the tip of the sword pierced through from the back!

At this point, these words finally came out of her mouth.

"The power of the termination force! You are a transcended -"

But she couldn’t finish it.

"Law enforcing, completed."

Cohen gently pushed the horrified Bernice out of his sword as if he was doing something trivial.

"I have an advice for you: Whatever trump cards you have next time, use them right at the beginning."

He gently pulled the whip out from his hand, the overwhelming force rushed back into the palm and forced out a few drops of blue liquid.

"If I were wearing armor, even if it was only light one, you would have died for 10,000 times already."

"In the eyes of those who have experienced war, even the supreme masters are as naive as a bunch of thugs fighting on street. And you, you are just like a child playing with toys."

Bernice closed her eyes and fell to the ground. Not far in front of her, her brother leaned against the wall, throat pieced by a sword.

Cohen bowed to Lillian upstairs who was still very much surprised by this event, and then headed for the deeper part of Red Lane Street.

This man, although he looked like a gentleman with courtesy, Lillian covered her mouth and thought:

But for real, he won’t show any mercy to woman.

——————————————————

In another lane of Red Lane Street.

Yara’s coldly pulled out her wolfleg knife from the belly of the last red-scarf lackey in front of her, and shook off the blood on her face in disgust.

Thales tried to convince himself not to think of Yara's killing anymore, which always reminded him of Clyde’s wide-open eyes before he murdered him.

All of those people were aware that they joined a criminal gang and clearly understood the consequences.

Thinking about it in this way, his mood became much better.

Thales pressed on the black cloth which was covering his nose and mouth. Watching as Yara had just slaughtered a team of about seven or eight Blood Bottler members, he then skillfully and tacitly climbed out of his hiding place and lied down on Yara’s back.

"How did you overcome it?"

"Hm?"

"This - nausea and guilty feel – when taking a human life?"

Yara sighed.

"I was taught since I was a child," she said, carrying Thales, moving lightly with her feet. Her voice was cold: “What can be killed by me, is not my kind."

"Just like stepping on an ant."

Thales no longer spoke, only clinging on Yara's neck tighter.

After they got pass Sebas, on the road to Red Lane Street, there were corpses and body parts everywhere along with the traces of clashing swords and sabers. In a few places, even Yara’s scalp was numb by the fighting intent coming from them.

The two were careful all the way through, but in such a chaotic situation, it was extremely difficult even with Yara’s stealth skill.

Under the piles of corpses everywhere and the screaming killing sound, despite trying to cover up their existence, they inevitably encountered two teams of thugs, one team from the Brotherhood and another team from Blood Bottle.

Yara mercilessly went all out and didn’t leave any living man behind.

They then left quickly.

For some reason, Thales has been accustomed to such bloody scenes.

This isn’t a good thing - he reminds himself that psychological insensitivity will almost inevitably bring forth the deviation of behavior.

"This is the fifth crossroad, and I still can't get through." Yara stopped, she frowned and touched the air in front of her.

Thales also came down and put his hand to the front.

Obviously nothing was there, but somehow his hand could touch an invisible and solid barrier.

"Is this a mystical power?" Thales asked in surprise.

So far, Thales hasn’t seen too many mystical power users but enough to tell. For example, in the Brotherhood, big boss Maurice, who is in charge of human trafficking, is one of them. Using his eyes only, he once forced an escaped beggar to suffocate and die.

"No, mystical power users do not have such powerful ability. At the same time, blocking the crossroad of five or six streets in such a large area - I suspect that the remaining crossroads are in similar situation, is a very difficult task to do this even for mystical power warriors.”

Yara pushed up the goggles and said with a serious expression.

The female bartender carefully "observed" the transparent barrier in front of her eyes. She remembered the old guy and that man - when Yara thought of him, her mind couldn't help but pause for a while - telling her those terrible legends.

She put on her goggles again.

"From now on, we must be even more careful, try to avoid all battles, so as not to expose our whereabouts."

"As far as I know, this is probably masterpiece of a magus."

"I hope our luck isn’t so bad that we will meet him face to face."

Thales’ eyes widened.

The Magus.

During his five-year of beggar career on streets, he already heard that word more than once from the drunkards of Sunset Bar, the regular customers of Red Lane Street, the gamblers of the Black Gold Casino, and the lackeys of the Brotherhood.

The transmigrator thought at first that they were similar to characters from fantasy novels in his previous life, a "wizard" and "witch" like existence, but later he discovered that it was not the case.

No one would supplement Thales, who was only a filthy beggar child, with the common sense of this world. Even if they did, most of what he could come into contact with was something like peasant’s rumors, housewives’ gossips or baseless horror stories.

However, with the professional experience of field research found and regained from his previous life, Thales has learned a lot of common sense through observation. The following is some of his observation notes on the term "magus":

First, during almost all the moments of discussion about "magus", the talkers were accompanied by negative emotions such as fear, hate and cursing, and the keywords that appeared at the same time were "powerful", "terrible", "damn", "hell", "illegal" and so on.

Second, in this world, magi are quite rare (here it means truly rare, not the kind of "rare" in those pandering self-insert novels, which claim something to be "rare" but the supposed “rare” things are running around everywhere on street), Thales judged that, during five years, among the countless people who have talked about "the magus", only the words of one alcoholic and one regular customer of the brothel have a certain degree of realism in it. Obviously they have indirectly or directly contacted the information about the magus.

Third, he has never heard of any organization or order of magi, even if it is only a gathering, but there was a rumor on the street that there are two magi among the top leaders of the Blood Bottle.

Fourth, the City Watch officers and guards who are responsible for the patrolling of the West Gate are armed with military equipment called "anti-magic weapons."

Fifth, the Magus, along with people’s other favorite subjects to talk about, like "Mystical power user", "Mystical power warrior", "Termination swordsman" and "Termination knight", are completely different things. While the latter may be natural-born abilities or requiring some form of training, as for the Magus, Thales had never heard of how their fearful powers were acquired.

Sixth, in addition to the magus, there is a kind of weapon with suspicious name, called "magicen gun", and it is only allowed to be used in the kingdom army, any illegal possessor will be convicted of felony.

The above is Thales's full information on the magus.

Thales had envisioned countless encounters with a magus, but based on the information available, it seems that neither situation is too optimistic.

For example at the moment.

Thales put the black cloth into his pocket and lied down on Yara's back again.

——————————————————

A few seconds ago.

Center of the Red Lane Street, a gamble room in the underground warehouse.

A handsome man in blue clothes, with long curly brown hair, sat quietly on the edge of a table that held an ancient the-march-of-armies chessboard. There was a map on the chessboard with some pieces for the game on it: there were two kinds of colors, black and red, ranging from knights, swordsmen, catapults, and shield warriors to royal guards, prime ministers, and kings.

This is a game from the Exeter Kingdom. Drawn from historical allusions and common sense of war, it’s the most popular chess game among the nobles nowadays - "Rise and fall of the Empire", which simulating the human kings and their two armies during the period before and after the Ancient Empire. For the noblemen of honor and dignity that live like princes, of course this would be the best way to embody masculine and attract the ladies’ gazes. It’s not like they want to take the risk of finding amusement on battlefield.

Of course, there are also a large number of nobles with unique interests who love to use real people as chess pieces.

Under the light of the Inextinguishable lamp, if one looks closely, he will discover that the map in the middle of the-march-of-armies chessboard was the street map of Red Lane Street.

The handsome man easily moved the pieces with his right hand. One after another, black or red pieces were removed from the map, but the removed pieces from the scattered blacks were far more than from the concentrated force of the reds.

Two black prime ministers were in the inner part of the map, surrounded by a lot of black royal guards or swordsmen, while several red knights were holding them. On the outer, each group of numerous black knights and shield warriors were being decimated by two red prime ministers leading the swordsmen and the royal guards.

In the center of the map, there was a crimson king, and standing next to it was a royal red guard.

The handsome man in blue was playing his own game with pleasure. When looking at him closer, it was noticeable that his free left hand was gathering a sphere of light-blue energy, breathing slowly like it had life of its own. And contained inside the energy sphere, there seemed to be a shrunk storm.

From time to time, the man in blue opened his mouth and said something. Next to his mouth, the trajectory of air being vibrated and dissipate into the void could be seen clearly.

But strangely, no sound was made.

This scene, in the dark and lonely silence, appeared to be much more bizarre.

At this time, the man in blue suddenly frowned.

His hand reached out and removed a red catapult without hesitation from the edge of the map.

However, after a few minutes, the man in blue's brows twitched again. He slowly extended his hand and took away the only remaining red swordsman in that position.

The blue energy sphere of the man in blue's left hand flashed a bit, the storm inside became quite unstable.

He took a few deep breaths and spoke for the first time.

“Who is responsible for watch duty and intercepting in the direction of Undercity districts?”

Like he was asking the air.

In the scary darkness, a strange and affirmative reply came: "The transformer Drano and the immortal Sebas."

The blue man closed his eyes and shook his head. Then he moved two red swordsmen from other places to the two eaten chess pieces’ position and moved one of them deeper, as if it was to catch the thing that ate Sebas and Drano.

Next to his mouth, ripples of the air spread out again, and his lips opened silently for a while.

Then gradually, he told the void these words.

"The Tiryns brothers and Moria have already been eaten by us an hour ago..."

"So this is reinforcement?" he muttered.

He hesitated and took one from the only two red prime ministers on the map and moved it along.

"This is all right."

But the next moment, the expression of the man in blue changed again.

He moved his right hand to the other edge of the map and removed two red swordsmen almost at the same time.

The man in blue's face looked a bit unsightly.

"Who is responsible for the direction of the inner West Ring District, who is it?"

"It is the Layton brother and sister, the Stinger and the Whip."

This time, the voice in the darkness seemed to be a little cautious and careful.

The man in blue didn't speak, his gaze darted back and forth on both ends of the map while his face showed doubts and dissatisfaction.

"Is it a chess piece that came from outside of the battlefield? This is really a headache, didn’t we already pay a good visit to the City Watch before the curfew?”

Finally, he sighed helplessly.

It’s been a long time since I play these human games, so my skill has degraded?

Alas.

The man in blue gently raised his head with complicated look on his face.

"Gaston, you know."

"The meaning of traps and labyrinths, is to block the entrance and the exit, then trap the rat who walk right into it."

"But if the entrance and exit of the trap are both opened."

"Then we can’t catch even a rat ass."

After that, the man in blue, with a cold face, decisively moved from the center of the map the crimson king and the guard next to it to the place where the two red swordsmen were removed just now.

In the darkness, the sound of howling wind echoed.

There was no more voice.

Only to see the energy storm in the hand of the man in blue gradually stabilized.

End of chapter XII – Next chapter: The sound of Knife and Sword (Part 1)