Veil 4
With rapid speed, four swords searched for their target. They cut open the thin fabric of the robe and shallowly pierced the skin to draw red and paint the brown ground into a sea of determination.
While the tip tried to bore deeper into the flesh, the target turned leaving the only option for a scar behind. The edge of the swords missed and parted in the air.
Narrowly escaping the sharp blades, Lia quickly spun around and threw her arm behind her to press the black shiny button. Immediately afterwards, she rolled along the wall hearing the slow rustle of the gate opening.
For a moment the soldiers were distracted by it, taking advantage of that, Lia fell back to the tower and grabbed two more swords.
"Quick, you two go after her! We'll take care of the gate! She must have allies!"
Hearing that the soldiers split up, Lia rushed out of the tower until she was only a distance from the gate again. She saw two soldiers charging at her but her eyes moved past them to briefly catch Xavi and Lily rushing in, while the other two soldiers closed the gate again about to attack them.
Without thinking twice Lia raised one of the swords, spun with it and let it go just when the soldier was almost in front of her, "Here!"
The sword flew straight, cutting through past the soldiers towards Lily. Lily, seeing the shining glint in the darkness, jumped over a soldier who was about to attack her and pushed Xavi back.
Then with one hand in the air, she caught the sword swiftly throwing it to Xavi before effortlessly catching the second sword. Then she immediately stabbed the soldier she jumped over who still bowed.
The whole exchange only took two seconds and the soldier had no time to react until the sword was already stuck in his chest. Lily drew the sword back and put it over her shoulder. The dark red seeped into their clothes and tiny blood splatters clung onto her skin.
With the wind blowing around, her loose hair swayed and Lily was the pure definition of a knight who protected her master.
Xavi was slightly stunned by Lily's visual at the moment and the sword in his hand almost dropped.
"Young Master!" Lily's panicked face came into his vision. Yet Xavi's painfully trained body moved on its own through muscle memory and evaded the sword that got stuck in the ground next to him.
The attacker looked at Xavi viciously. Xavi took a deep breath and brought his sword down. Painful wails escaped the soldier's mouth, his bloodshot eyes watched his two severed hands on the ground. He fell and rolled in agony.
The sword was too heavy for Xavi and he dropped it. He was barely able to move it.
"Young Master," the impact of Lily's hug almost caused him to lose balance but he witnessed how Lily's sword cleanly cut off the wailing soldier's head.
"I'm fine, Lily," Xavi helplessly patted Lily's shoulder. It was a hassle, she was treating him like a vulnerable child but it was no lie his hands trembled from the act of hurting someone.
As the head of the hidden family, there was no shortage of danger and he long got accustomed to seeing people die and hurt. However, just as in the case of the G family, the rare times he had to do it himself brought nausea. He wasn't cut out of this.
"You both seem alright?'' after Lia threw the swords at Lily, she managed to kill both soldiers without any problems. It was obvious they were barely trained, so Lia had an easy time against them.
If it were Min's private army… Lia was afraid, she'd be the one lying dead on the ground.
"You… were too reckless!" Lily finally let go of Xavi and hit Lia in the shoulders. With surprised eyes, Lia looked at Lily's red ones before she got crushed in Lily's bear hug.
"Stupid! What if something happened to you?"
"It won't," Lia said it indifferently but her nose itched. It really felt good to have someone care for her.
Not being able to endure this emotional tumult within her, Lia pushed Lily away, turned around and said, "We need to hurry. Soon there will be other soldiers coming for a shift change. We need to hide the bodies!"
Lily and Xavi didn't waste any time and hurriedly buried the corpses at the top of the watchtower. They heard noises coming from the Veil and had no time to wait until all of the corpses were burnt before rushing towards the small gate leading into the Veil.
Once they've passed the gate, they left the border area and were met with light white smoke and translucent hazes that swayed with the wind and glistened under the moonlight.
It truly looked like a thousand veils hung from the air crowding every millimetre.
"Wow," Lily stretched out her hand but brushed against the air, "So it only looks like veils?"
The veils seemed to have the same consistency as ghosts but once touched, the hands just moved through it. They were also 100 times more beautiful and pleasing to the eye, shining in different colours.
As if bubbles sprang around to merge into long, thin veils to grace the landscape into a beautiful dream.
The border consisted of the wall. On the core's side, there was only a large part of barren land around the wall with occasional forests popping up.
After the wall on the Veil side, there was another wall, confined an area between the walls solely for the soldiers to patrol. The other wall with the entrance led to the veil, where it looked like the outskirts of a city.
Instead of barren land, grass covered the ground and several paths led to the distant cities in the back where no lights, only outlines of the buildings could be seen.
In the dark of the night, this area was dyed in dark blue and black with the veils swaying around in the wind, giving it the magnificent tint this almost dead surrounding needed.
"We're lost," Xavi was the first to leave the trance the veils put them into, "I'm not sure where the location is we need to be."
"Then we should head to a city and ask for directions," Lia concluded and made her way over to the paths.
"It's for the best to first get away from the border and hide somewhere," the tumult behind them got louder and it worried Lia.
Xavi and Lily had the same thought and they decided to randomly go towards any city seen in the far.
They had to hurry because soon they saw that behind them, torches of flames. Lia grit her teeth, trying not to hurt the wound on her shoulder that still hasn't completely healed.
And the hug Lily gave her made it even more painful but Lia didn't want to worry them so she kept quiet.
In a sense, she already had the assumption that because Min's lifeforce was already inside of her, the weapons had no effect on her. It seemed like her body has grown or evolved to the point it's gotten accustomed to Min's power and regards it as part of herself.
So, her body regenerated normally when she got hit by his power. But that was all solely just a guess. She had no proof and it could also be it had something to do with her power to control the dead.
Once they got closer to the cities, they saw that the amount of Veils surrounding each city was so humongous, it literally looked like a thick white wall.
"Is that the thing where people have to have the permission of the Lords to traverse?" Lia couldn't explain it any other way.
"Yea, I guess so. I suppose within the area of the Lord, it's easier to get from city to city but to enter the area of another Lord will be harder."
Lia watched Xavi's small figure and sighed. The white wall surrounded all sides of every city, only the outlines of several buildings reeking out indicated that there was something at the core of this phenomenon.
"How can we get inside?"
No matter how they looked at it, they couldn't just enter, right?
"We should just go for it."
But Lily's hopes were crushed by a reckless and uncaring Lia.
"Stop being like that!" Lily cried in anger and frustration.
"Be like what?" Lia sincerely had no idea why Lily acted this way.
"You can't just be like 'Let's go for it' There's a reason why the white veil's there."
"That's true but the veils aren't part of any of the Lords' power, I assume, so the only option they have is to use men to guard and check if anyone's traversing freely. They can't do that 24/7. It's night now, so there's chance-"
"Exactly that! Your stupid calculations that might be true but always involve a high risk!" Lily grabbed Xavi by the shoulders and shook him, "Young Master! Say something to her! It's hopeless! She's hopelessly into danger!"
Lia's lips formed a thin line and her seemingly indifferent eyes induced fear into Xavi's delicate heart, "L-Let's just do what she says."
"Young master! You coward!" Lily was even more frustrated but didn't dare to say any more as the torched of the flames got closer.
Lia took both Xavi and Lily by the hand and dived straight into the white veil before them. It was literally air on their skin but they couldn't see anything but the white.
Lia tightened her grip on both of them. If they go lost here, they might wander for eternity. Blindly heading forwards, Lia went straight, disregarding anything. Xavi and Lily firmly clung onto Lia but the endless white was tiring on their minds.
No wonder, the citizens didn't freely traverse. This was indeed a nightmare. The white smoke went on and on, playing cruel tricks on the mind before finally, Lia's foot stepped out and soon they emerged from the white hell and took a deep breath.
What awaited them in front of their eyes went against their expectations.