Free Web NovelChapter 25: 25. Assassination Attempt (I)
"Are you sure you didn’t reach the last floor?..." the captain asked for the thirteenth time.
Alaric calmly answered,
"I just cleared a single floor..."
" How... you are just a zero resonance? " He narrowed his gaze suspiciously at Alaric. frёewebnoѵēl.com
" He is the son of the thunder Princess, does it matter his rank? " Raika said with raised eyebrows.
" Of course not Princess" the captain scratched his head awkwardly forcing a smile.
Noticing the captain had kept mute, eyes narrowed as though thinking of something, Alaric finally asked a question that had been bothering him.
"So what does it do?" he inquired.
"Ah... It’s an ingredient for stamina potions... But the whole flower can be taken as it is," he explained.
His eyes gleaming with envy.
No matter how much mana one has, if one’s body gave out before their mana heart, then what worth is it?
And most mages had no use for physical exercise, thus stamina potions were like everyday supplements.
Red Lotus Towers around the world were thus frequently visited, but now...
The towers were out of commission, and most of the stamina potions were on the battlefield.
"Don’t think of coveting his reward," Raika hissed, noticing the captain’s gaze.
"Sorry, I didn’t mean..." He quickly averted his gaze, the middle-aged man behaving like a dog that had been denied a bone.
"Then I don’t need it..." Alaric threw the lotus flower the captain’s way, the latter catching it with such speed that it even missed the thunder princess eyes.
"Huh!" she exclaimed wide-eyed.
"Thank you, young master..." He bowed respectfully, pretending as though he hadn’t shown such an embarrassing side of himself.
Raika stared daggers at the captain, the latter averting his gaze.
"Hey, are you sure? It tastes really good..." She turned to Alaric.
"I don’t need a stamina potion at my age..." He shrugged.
"Are these people going to ignore the fact that he entered a closed tower?" Philip thought internally as he looked at the people walking by him.
The question on everyone’s mind should have been why and how he entered a closed tower.
But each had their own thoughts.
The captain was preoccupied with the lotus flower, Raika simply believed it normal, and Alaric didn’t know why.
"Well, whatever, he is an anomaly after all..." He pushed it to the back of his mind.
"Wait..." Alaric raised his hand, the other three coming to a halt.
"Son, what’s wrong? I can’t sense any..." Raika paused, eyes narrowing as she felt that something was off.
She couldn’t hear anything, not even the very words she had spoken.
She pulled Alaric closer.
This was surely an attack.
"..." The captain stuffed the flower into his pocket, his sword unsheathed, eyes darting around as he took a combat posture, and as for Philip, he could only hide behind the captain.
"Something is coming." Raika sidestepped, hugging Alaric tightly.
A soundless arc of water shot past her, cutting a few strands of Alaric’s blue hair.
Before another attack could follow, Alaric felt an intense pain wash over him, not from an attack but from Raika’s lightning steps.
She had flashed forward toward the direction the attack had come from, Alaric’s small frame tightly held to her chest.
Crackle!
The sound of lightning momentarily broke the silence, but it was brief.
"Where is it?" Raika looked around, the source of the attack nowhere to be found.
She felt a tug at her side, her gaze moving toward it.
Alaric’s hair stood on end like a shrub, his body slightly charred.
"Oh, sorry..." Raika panicked and let go. She had momentarily forgotten Alaric could not handle her power because of his affinity, not that most fire mages could handle the lightning element.
"Sorry, son, are you..." Another attack came, no, three.
An arc of water and two ice spears approached rapidly.
Raika noticed, but it was too late.
As she moved to grab Alaric, the arc of water separated the two, the two ice spears instantly descending on Alaric.
All of this happened in a second.
"NOO!!" Raika roared, a burst of lightning erupting from her form.
Crackle! Crackle! Booooom!!
It shattered the ice spears, charring about a fifty-meter radius black, the ground levelled, everything apart from Alaric reduced to ashes.
"Alaric..." She turned to her son, the latter unconscious, a gaping wound in his chest.
She had destroyed one before it hit, but unfortunately the other struck its mark.
"NOO!!" Her body quaked, tears streaming down her face, hands hovering above Alaric’s body, unable to help yet unable to withdraw from him.
"Vel?" Alaric coughed out the word.
Raika was momentarily confused.
"The potion."
A green vial materialised in her hands, which she quickly poured into his gaping wound.
The liquid seeped into his wound and, at a visible speed, regrew what was lost.
Muscles regrew, bones reformed, nerves rejoined.
The wound closed in a matter of seconds, leaving behind an irregular circular scar about the size of an adult’s fist.
Alaric puffed in a mouthful of air, allowing his lungs to relish the breath they had almost lost.
"What the f*ck!" He sat up, eyes widened, breaths steady yet his mind raced. freewebnσvel.cѳm
Raika hugged the boy tightly, her quick shallow breathing in contrast to Alaric’s slow and deep breaths.
"What the f*ck was that? An assassination...? From where? When? Demons? No, this was too meticulous. Humans? Who...?"
"Young master..." Philip and the captain’s voices echoed simultaneously as they rushed toward them.
They had been separated when Raika rushed toward the first attack.
"..." Neither Alaric nor Raika paid them any heed.
Raika was afraid that if she let go, another attack would harm her son, while Alaric was lost in thought trying to understand who could be responsible.
"Mother, can we go back to the inn?" Alaric asked, Raika shaking her head.
"No!!" Her body quaked.
"She is truly shaken..." Alaric hugged her, reciprocating her embrace.
"Don’t worry, Mother, they won’t attack, at least not for a while..."
