Chapter 60. The Dragon Riders Arrive, Pursuers Are Coming
The end of the secret passage connected to a desolate woodland outside the city. Damp soil mixed with the scent of rotting leaves rushed toward them.
Tos stumbled out of the tunnel and imdiately found William among the crowd. He stuffed a large handful of faintly glowing Spatial Rings into William’s hands.
“Your Highness, all the supplies we managed to seize from the warehouse are inside these.”
William accepted the rings. They felt cold in his palm. He casually tucked them into his coat, but his gaze passed over the woodland and toward Ningshuang City in the distance, where flas soared into the sky.
Blazing fire licked the night sky as thick smoke billowed upward. It had clearly delayed the pursuit of the Kadiya legion for the mont.
“Tos,” he suddenly said, his voice sowhat hoarse, “how many civilians are still inside the city who did not evacuate?”
A trace of gloom crossed Tos’s face as he lowered his head.
“Probably tens of thousands.”
“Those who could leave already fled through the southern gate during the chaos… The ones left behind are mostly the elderly, the weak, the sick, or people unwilling to abandon their hos. So were simply trapped by the fighting…”
He did not continue. His fists tightened silently.
William remained silent, staring at the sea of flas.
Even if given another chance, he would still order Tos to set the fire.
If the fire had not been set, the few remaining soldiers he had left would never have been able to stop the pursuers behind them. The Shadow Guard his father had assigned to him seed not to be by his side. If that guard had been there, that spell would never have struck him.
A cold wind swept through the woodland, stirring the fallen leaves on the ground with faint rustling sounds.
The surviving soldiers leaned against trees, gasping for breath. Family mbers wept quietly. No one spoke. Only suppressed coughing and the groans of wounded n echoed through the forest.
William cast one final glance toward Ningshuang City. The flas there still burned fiercely.
He took a deep breath and turned around.
“Move.”
There were no unnecessary words, yet his tone carried unquestionable resolve.
Everyone followed silently.
No one looked back.
The soldiers and knights all knew that without reinforcents, if these few hundred exhausted troops and their families were caught by the Kadiya pursuers, the outco would be exactly the sa.
Inside Ningshuang City, the firelight had turned the sky a deep crimson. Waves of heat mixed with the stench of burning rushed outward.
A knight knelt on one knee and reported respectfully to the legion commander before him, whose body was covered in heavy armor. His voice was hoarse from choking smoke.
“Lord Commander, all the supply warehouses have been burned. Our preliminary assessnt shows the losses are far greater than expected…”
“In addition, the Shadow Knights sent to assassinate the Fourth Prince of Kroll have not returned. None of them have reported back. They have likely all perished.”
He paused, then added, “There are still many civilians trapped in the city. Although the fire has weakened, most are hiding among the ruins. How should we deal with them?”
The commander slowly turned around. Beneath the helt, his gaze was cold as ice.
He swept his eyes across the figures crying and fleeing within the inferno, then looked toward the dark wilderness outside the city, where William’s group had long since vanished.
“I did not expect this Fourth Prince to be so ruthless.”
He spoke quietly, with a trace of wariness in his voice.
“To burn down his own kingdom’s city without hesitation… such decisiveness does not belong to an underage prince.”
The knight lowered his head and dared not respond.
“Those civilians,” the commander suddenly said, his voice cold as poisoned steel, “kill them all. Use them for a blood sacrifice to track him.”
The knight abruptly raised his head, shock flashing in his eyes.
“My lord, this—”
“Carry out the order.”
The commander interrupted him, his tone leaving no room for refusal.
“This William Kroll is too troubleso. If we do not eliminate him today, he will beco a grave threat to the Kadiya Kingdom in the future.”
“Besides, that ‘His Highness’ would not want to see such a decisive rival remain alive.”
The “His Highness” he referred to—whether a prince of the Kroll Kingdom or the Kadiya Kingdom—the knight did not dare to guess.
Clenching his teeth, he finally responded with a stiff “Yes,” then turned and signaled the soldiers behind him to act.
Shrill screams instantly erupted from the ruins, intertwining with the crackling flas to form a song of despair.
A Barbarian Shaman stepped forward and knelt before the pile of corpses. Watching the blood of the civilians seep into the charred earth, he began muttering incantations, apparently activating so ancient tracking sorcery.
A crimson glow flickered within his palm, reflecting the firelight and revealing the sinister expression on his face.
Under the influence of his spell, the blood slowly vanished, as if sothing unseen were devouring it.
“William Kroll…”
He whispered the na softly.
As the incantation ended, a vague point of light appeared within the Barbarian Shaman’s mind.
The slaughter within the sea of flas continued.
anwhile, outside the city in the darkness, William and his group were trudging forward with difficulty, completely unaware that a blood-sacrifice tracking ritual had already locked onto their direction.
William led the remnants of his forces and the families through the wilderness. The frozen ground beneath their feet cracked with every step.
The outline of Kokoro Fortress had already beco faintly visible on the distant horizon.
It was the closest stronghold to Ningshuang City and the nearest refuge they could hope to reach.
Yet the unease in William’s heart grew stronger and stronger, as if an invisible hand were gripping his heart and making it difficult to breathe.
He kept glancing back toward the path behind them.
The night was deep. Apart from the wind and snow sweeping across withered grass, there was no other movent.
The pursuers had not caught up.
That should have been a good sign.
Yet the inexplicable dread in his chest only grew heavier.
At that mont, a deafening dragon roar suddenly erupted from the direction of Ningshuang City.
The sound pierced through the wind and snow and reached everyone’s ears clearly.
William stopped abruptly, his face changing drastically.
Inside Ningshuang City, the legion commander directing the clearing of the ruins suddenly raised his head.
Seven or eight dragons burst through the clouds and dived downward like bolts of black lightning. Dragon breath poured down like molten lava, instantly turning the Kadiya soldiers and barbarians on the ground into charred corpses.
The armor of the leading Dragon Rider glead silver within the firelight.
They were clearly the Dragon Rider Order of the Dragon Kingdom.
“Dragon Riders!” a soldier scread as he fled, only to be swallowed instantly by dragon breath.
Watching his n fall like wheat before the scythe, despair flashed through the commander’s eyes.
Without Dragon-Hunting Ballistae or powerful magical equipnt, they had no way to resist the dragons in the sky.
He drew his sword and led the remaining soldiers in a desperate counterattack.
A blazing torrent of dragon breath descended toward him, the heat almost lting his armor.
The commander stopped moving.
He abandoned resistance and looked past the flas toward the direction William had fled.
“To drag a prince into death with … that would not be a loss.”
A strange smile appeared on his face.
The next mont, he was completely swallowed by the raging flas.
Monts later, all resistance in Ningshuang City ceased.
The Dragon Riders circled above the ruins, observing the devastation below.
But they found no trace of any mber of the Kroll royal family.
“They escaped,” the leading Dragon Rider said in a deep voice.
He took a map from his Spatial Ring and examined it.
On the map, the closest marked location to Ningshuang City was Kokoro Fortress.
“Transmit the order.”
He pointed to the fortress on the map. His voice carried through the dragon’s roar to the formation.
“Advance at full speed to Kokoro Fortress. Conduct a thorough search along the route. The Fourth Prince must not co to harm.”
“Yes!”
Seven or eight dragons beat their wings once again and soared into the sky, racing toward Kokoro Fortress.
Their silhouettes cut through the night, leaving faint trails of fla behind them.
At this very mont, William and his group were already approaching the gates of Kokoro Fortress.
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