Veil 3

The rough surface felt numbing underneath Lia's delicate and soft fingers. As they sneaked along the wall, Lia kept her head straight, looking in front of her. In the night, only the fire in each watchtower gave them the assurance that on top of the walls soldiers were there.

Until a gust of wind came around and fiddled with Lia's hair. She stood still and slightly moved her head up. The fire in the watchtower that was directly above her spot was extinguished by the strong wind.

Lia waited a few seconds. She could feel Xavi's and Lily's stares at her but she concentrated on the situation above her.

1, 2, 3

There was no fire lit up which meant that currently no soldier was patrolling.

If the fire went out, at least one soldier would light it up again yet the fire stayed out.

With a push from the wall, Lia pushed herself away.

30 metres away, she turned on her heel and sprinted towards the wall to gain momentum.

Only a short distance away, she leapt from the floor and jumped onto the wall. In the past two weeks, her physical abilities have considerably gone up.

With just one jump, Lia was able to cover half of the twenty-metre wall. She flew up to a certain spot, her feet neatly secured in the thin gaps of the stones in the wall and her fingers grabbed from one gap to another, helping her to quickly climb up.

Her hands felt the border of the wall before she swung her body from the wall over the railing and landed on the path on top of the wall.

To her right and left were each a watchtower. The right one was right next to her and she saw the ashes of the remnants of the fire lying in the black pot, in the middle of the wooden watchtower.

She crouched down as the left watchtower which was 20 metres away still had its light on but she couldn't make out a person. Just approached the left tower while crouching.

Lia has guessed right. There was no one here in this area, however, she still needed to be careful because not far from here, there might be still soldiers patrolling.

Lia hurried back and cautiously peeked over the wall to wave at Xavi and Lily. Both of them could faintly see her outline, however, they weren't as flexible as Lia to climb up the wall.

Lily alone would be no problem yet Xavi had no physical strength, much less expected Lily to be able to carry him up.

Lia looked around and saw to her left a gate. She took a deep breath.

At the gate there must be at least a few soldiers. Left with no other choice, Lia pointed to her left. Xavi and Lily understood what Lia hinted on but neither of them moved. It was a huge risk and they couldn't let Lia take on the soldiers alone.

They were running out of time to waste. It wasn't clear when soldiers would come patrolling the area. If Lia had a rope, Lily and her could easily pull up Xavi but there was nothing even remotely useful here.

However, she found an empty paper cup. Leaning over the wall, she threw it at the two below her and then with her arm pointed aggressively to the gate, telling them to head over and trust her.

Reluctantly, they continued to move until they were out of Lia's sight. Lia rushed along the path and just before the gate, there was a small tower with stairs leading downwards.

As Lia suspected there were at least four guards patrolling. She could hear them shouting and from the staircase voices echoed back. There were soldiers on top of the wall, on the stairs and on the ground where the gate was.

The question was how many guards were in total.

The only thing Lia had with her was a dagger Xavi gave her. It had no power to kill an immortal. However, the weapons the soldiers had were embedded with the faint green light of the Ghost King.

If she was able to steal one of them, then she could kill the soldiers but the problem was that if she killed them, their corpses or missing bodies would attract attention, but if she simply knocked them out it would also attract attention.

Either way, Lia, Xavi and Lily would inevitably be chased as intruders, however, as long as those that saw either of them died then there were no witnesses to know who they were.

Making up her mind, Lia removed the dagger from her thigh and snuck up on one of the soldiers.

With quick reflexes, she nimbly jumped behind him and matched his form, so the others couldn't see her outline.

Then in a brief second she swiped the dagger across his neck without even giving the soldier the change to figure out what was going on. Then she grabbed his sword and once again slashed over the same wound.

Without being able to heal anymore, blood sprayed from his wound as he dropped to the floor. Even while he was falling Lia zig-zagged between the other three soldiers. Each time, she passed them she only used another second to cut their throats open without even giving them a glance as they dropped dead.

Having cleared the floor on top of the wall, Lia moved down the staircase without making any sounds. Her steps were light and her speed fast as she one by one took care of another three soldiers, the same way she did with the previous ones.

When she arrived at the bottom of the stairs, just before the stone tower's entrance, she hid herself in the dark and peaked only out to assess the situation.

She had to figure out how many more guards there were and how to open the gate. Lia was tempted to use her power and control the corpses but because Xavi told her to use it as little as possible, she thought this was also a good opportunity to test how good he has become physically.

In the moonlight, few shadows hushed across and Lia guessed there were a handful of soldiers at least patrolling around the gate. They held their swords in their hands and unified repeatedly walked in two straight lines until one of the soldiers shouted,

"Hey, Luka time for shift change…. Luka! I'm talking to you."

Lia looked at the corpses behind on the staircase, seemingly one of them being Luka. She quietly walked to one of them and picked up a short knife.

"Luka, Lu-" the soldier didn't finish what he said as a knife stuck in his head.

The knife was pulled out from his forehead with a large string of blood attached to it.

A second later, Lia dragged the corpse further inside the tower away from the entrance when she was already discovered,

"What's taking you so long? Are you fighting with Luka? I swear, the Lord won't be pleased, bloody hell Matt- You!" the soldiers caught Lia in the act of hauling his dead companion away.

"Intruder, everyone!" while he attacked Lia, he shouted for support.

Lia couldn't afford to be backed into a corner nor up the stairs again. The sword viciously grazed her cheeks as she barely dodged it. Without caring for another attack, she rushed towards the soldier and stretched her hand out.

The sword stabbed her shoulder but she managed to get ahold of the back of his head and throw him to the ground.

Jumping over his crouched form, she ran to the entrance before sharply turning around, ripping the sword out of her shoulders and stabbing the soldier in his back.

Just in that moment, four other soldiers came. Lia quickly removed the sword and swung it in a half-circle, creating enough distance between her and the soldiers who had to back off her attack.

Her range was limited to that of her sword as the soldiers circled around her like wild hyenas waiting for their prey, inducing fear and hopelessness into them.

However, Lia's lips curved and she put her sword down. The soldiers were briefly stunned but their guards didn't drop.

"I just want to pass," with her arrogance and confidence she exuded an aura that made her aloof yet charming.

The soldiers narrowed their eyes, "You killed them! What's your real goal?"

"I really just want to pass."

"Nonsense. Call the others!" one of the soldiers motioned for others to run and alarm more people.

"You surely don't want to make such a foolish mistake, no? If with your numbers, you can't even catch a lone person like me, how angry will your Lord be?"

"Shut up!" however the soldier's voice slightly trembled.

Lia had no idea about the Lord but judging from what the previous soldier said, then the Lord seemed to care about the most trivial things like a shift change.

"You say that but how are you sure I don't have allies that are waiting at the other gates and I'm only the distraction? If you call for help, then the defence in the other places would be pretty weak and you played into my hands."

"Fool yourself! You already said, don't think I fall for that," yet again their voices shook.

"Up to you," Lia's smile widened and she trailed her fingers along her sword, "What I'm actually trying to say," Lia adjusted her position slightly to the left until she could see the gate,

"I'll take you all on myself. There's no better situation to practise than now."

"Do you think-"

"Stop don't waste any more time. The Lord will be angry," the soldier stopped the other and held his sword up.

"Attack!" immediately all four charged at Lia.

It would be a lie to say that Lia wasn't startled by it, but in the fraction of a second, she checked for any way to break through their formation.

She jumped to the ground as the swords clashing with each other sounded above her head. The soldiers cursed and the tip of their swords raced towards Lia.

Lia defended with her sword and rolled to the side, the blood of the shoulder wound mixed with the dirt of the ground. Despite being stabbed with a sword that could kill immortals, Lia knew her wound was starting to heal.

But she had no time to think about it. Pressing her hands on the ground, she threw herself up and leapt to her left. At the side of the iron gate, on the stone wall, there was a black button.