“Let him go!”
The cold voice entered Lin Nuo’s ears, snapping his crisis-shrouded mind back to the present reality.
Out of the corner of his eye, Lin Nuo saw Amidina, who was both fighting and retreating, just one step away from breaking the Sound-Sealing Magic that bound her.
But instead of escaping as he expected, she pressed a cold-colored arrow against her own throat:
“I’ll go with you. Let him go.”
“If you’d said that earlier… it would’ve been fine. If you’d said that earlier… I wouldn’t have had to laugh like that!”
“Bang!”
Parkes, whose face was already filled with shock, slammed the book shut and charged forward.
With one kick, he struck Vitz’s face, sending the gaunt figure flying and scraping several meters across the ground until he crashed into and shattered the marble flowerbed.
“Wretched slave!”
“Next time you want to die, don’t drag us down with you!”
“Hehe… My honored lord, Vitz—your most humble slave—will obey all your orders next time,” Vitz crawled out from the flowerbed, snapping off his right arm, already showing white bone.
Ignoring the blood spurting from the severed limb, he knelt and gave Parkes the most abject bow.
“Why didn’t you run away at such a perfect opportunity?”
Lin Nuo swallowed twice.
Facing Amidina as she came over to check if he was hurt, he asked this utterly pointless question.
He was confident that, for some reason, his father and the mages in the manor were inconvenient to appear directly.
But their strict restriction on leaving the range of the Sound-Sealing Magic, unwilling to expose the matter openly, already meant they had no guts to make a blatant move against Amidina here.
She had decided with her current strength to fight to the death against Parkes, whom she definitely couldn’t defeat… at this point, she surely knew that being taken away wouldn’t end well.
From Parkes’s words, Lin Nuo could even hear that the matter of taming the Magic Whale was happening within these two days… just stepping one foot forward earlier might have changed her tragic fate…
No one understood this feeling more than Lin Nuo.
On his father’s side, Lin Nuo knew that the Clemence family’s ruling powers would at worst topple the Angekesai House if he were killed…
Since they decided to favor Amidina, his father must have prepared to never blame her no matter what happened… the escape option was purely beneficial.
If he were Amidina… then he… he…
“I don’t want to run.”
The still cold, clear voice interrupted Lin Nuo’s increasingly chaotic thoughts.
It was as if she recalled his unsatisfactory answer to why he didn’t just abandon her, and Amidina’s elegant, willow-shaped brows relaxed slightly, as if she wanted to retort.
But in the end, she said nothing, only lowering her peach blossom-like eyes quickly:
“Please give this to Yulilian. I won’t be able to celebrate her Coming-of-Age Ceremony with her.”
A silver recurve bow was pressed into Lin Nuo’s arms.
Amidina looked at him seriously, her lips trembling as if she wanted to say something quickly, but when she turned away, the tight line of her mouth pressed slightly, making Lin Nuo’s gaze blur for a moment…
“Since you’ve already made your farewell, then Your Highness, please.”
Parkes closed the book and stepped aside to give way.
Vitz still wore a twitchy, neurotic smile, humbly trailing behind Parkes.
“Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—”
The wind blew through, bringing the damp scent of the air.
Left alone inside the Sound-Sealing Magic, Lin Nuo stared in surprise, recalling the faint smile that had just appeared on that beautiful face.
And the tone that seemed to only truly see him at their parting, but couldn’t see any more:
“Lin Nuo, it’s been a pleasure knowing you.”
Lin Nuo stood up without any other movement.
His expression was as calm as water, as if unaffected by everything.
His voice was indifferent: “Come out. If you don’t dare to kill me, what’s the point of hiding?”
“You’ve figured it out already, Lin Nuo Clemence!” A figure flipped down from the rooftop, a man with a reckless expression playing with a short dagger in his hand, wearing a fine one-piece suit and long robe.
“Seems like you still remember that damned knight who threw me into the river on his Gryphon. So you guessed I haven’t come for revenge yet… Hah, should I praise the wit shown by a good-for-nothing without magic power?”
Alongside him, the second son of Parkes, Luding Angekesai, toyed with his dagger:
“I’m not daring enough to kill you, Lin Nuo Clemence. I can’t even harm you, but… I’m still here…”
“Guess what I’m waiting for?”
His eyes narrowed, gradually revealing a fierce light: “I’m just waiting for the chance to tell you—what I can’t have, neither can you!”
His voice carried jealousy and resentment, Luding gritted his teeth and forced out the words between clenched teeth: “Not even one… will you get!”
“Whoosh!!”
The dagger in his hand was suddenly hurled out, accompanied by a rapid rushing sound and a burst of magical power Lin Nuo couldn’t possibly resist, flying straight at the back of his head!
Lin Nuo didn’t dodge.
Instead, as if he guessed a conclusion he didn’t want to see again from that sentence, his eyelids suddenly widened:
“Don’t come any closer!”
But the words didn’t even have time to leave his mouth.
Just as Lin Nuo was about to take a step forward to intercept the dagger, a small figure—who had no idea how long they had been hiding in the shadows watching—spread out both small arms and appeared before him first—
“Thump!”
As if sensing something bad, Amidina, who had already walked far away, suddenly turned back and looked toward the mysteriously rising dust in Clemence Manor…
And at this moment.
Still within the Sound-Sealing Magic’s coverage, Luding, having just finished his attack, had already vanished without a trace.
Only a figure blocking the exploding dagger’s attack remained, soft and limp in Lin Nuo’s arms.
‘Why did you have to protect me again, Yulilian…?’