The Assassination I
The second prince watching a few meters away was floored. Who would have thought, a little kid could beat someone bigger than her, and quite brutally at that. Suddenly feeling a slight pity for his good friend, he tried to talk things out with the girl.
"Little girl, we truly apologize for hurting your family's tiger." He started.
"Will your apology be able to heal my Shasha's wound?" Ying Yue asked gravely. Her eyes were as frosty as her voice.
For the first time in eighteen years, the prince was rendered speechless. Ying Yue then proceeded to make her way towards him. The prince truly didn't want to hurt this little girl thus he kept on stepping back praying for heavens to help them reason with the little angry girl.
As if the heaven heard his prayer, Ying Yue stopped when she heard footsteps. The guard that was left behind in the river finally made their way over.
Although Ying Yue had confidence in being able to fight them, she only wanted to teach those two lessons and didn't want to complicate things. So she promptly decided to write this one down to the list of people who owed her. Besides, it would be easy to find these two in the capital and one of them would also become her brother-in-law.
"You shouldn't indiscriminately hurt the animals here. Noting the fact that they are meat for you people to eat on the table, don't you think you also owe it to them to protect them too?" Ying Yue said meaningfully before turning back heading towards her tiger, leaving them to that place with a lot of things to ponder.
Seeing the little girl was gone the prince woke up from his stupor then made his way towards his friend helping him out.
"Your highness, should we give chase?" One of the soldiers asked, not sure what they were supposed to do.
The prince waved his hand in dismissal. "I never thought she would beat you like that… " laughing joyfully at his friend's misfortune he then remembered asking for his friend's well being. "Are you hurt somewhere?"
Shoving the sly fox he calls friend, he then taunted, "Well, in any case, I still put up a fight, unlike some other people who ran away from that same little girl." How dare he mock him when he was just running back with tails tucked between his legs?
The prince was about to answer back when he suddenly paused tensely. He felt the familiar tinge of bloodlust heading their way. Looking at the other people meaningfully, they also felt it. Thus they positioned themselves getting ready to fight for their lives.
On the other hand, Ying Yue who finally made it far away from the two stopped at the familiar cave where she used to stay with Shasha when she was training here.
"Shasha lay down, I will staunch the bleeding. I'm very sorry for not making it much earlier." Ying Yue felt very guilty. She just now felt how weak she was. She cannot even protect her own.
Shasha who perceived its mistress' distress rubbed its bloody head to her hand as if to show that she was okay. Ying Yue smiled at this then she immediately started cleaning the tiger's wound.
The tiger finally slept after she treated it thus Ying Yue now had time to catch her breath and to instruct Bao'er to proceed with channeling the spiritual essence. But before she could open her mouth to speak, Bao'er cried in surprise.
"Yueyue, those two are being attacked by assassins. Their fluctuations are getting dimmer and it looks like they are in grave danger."
"Bao'er can you check how many people they are fighting?" If she can help them, they would be able to harvest a pretty good amount of good karma.
"It looks like there are 20 people fighting them and there were just 4 of them."
This truly sounded very bad. Without thinking any further, Ying Yue asked Bao'er to monitor the fight while they make their way back.
In the forest, the prince, Wei Feng, and the two guards had their hands full fighting against four to five opponents for each of them. They have gravely underestimated the guts of these people who could assassinate in broad daylight.
"If it isn't the ghost mercenaries." Wei Feng ridiculed. "So unbridled as to dare assassinate people in their own kingdom."
The people in black wore a mask and were disinclined to answer and continued slashing their swords with the sole aim to kill.
These people were not really strong and were not their opponent but they have the numbers. Even a scorpion won't be able to withstand blows after blows from a united colony of ants.
They could only rely on a sheer will and determination to come out of here alive, even if it's just a single breath as long as it could make them live, they won't mind being reduced to that state.
"This prince's eyes are truly opened just now. Such low-flies relying on underhanded means don't have the right to fight with this prince." Once they go back to the capital, they must mobilize all their forces to get to the bottom of this.
Sounds of metal clashed and blood dyed the ground red. The smell of blood intensified as bodies fell down the ground lifeless. This hunting trip truly made people's blood boil to the point where you could only grit your teeth and try your utmost to survive.
Both Wei Feng and the prince had spent their energy earlier fighting the beast, although they weren't critically wounded, they weren't unscathed either. So trying to fight these assassins were simply exhausting them to the limits.
The assassins were no pushover either. When they saw the two having a hard time, they increased their attacks and aimed at the spots where it would be hardest to defend even at a peak state. With this, they were able to gain an advantage.
Wei Feng knew that the chance of perishing here was quite high thus he gritted his teeth to defend all his critical points but let the others open. So by now, he had numerous wounds and his energy was about 70 percent spent.
Looking at his right where the crown prince was, he saw that he was also in the same state. He needed to figure out a way to at least let the prince escape. Even if he died here, they would still be able to turn things around once the prince made it back to the capital alive. He will be avenged by the second and the fourth prince.
Making up his mind, he leaped towards the prince while looking for a loophole he could make use of to let him escape. Since he has fought so hard and expanded a lot of energy and the fact that he got his concentration divided, he did not notice when one of the assassins he was fighting with, mounted a sneak attack using a poisoned dagger.
The moment he noticed it it was already too late, the knife was already a breath away from his heart so all he could do is brace himself and shift a little bit to protect his heart from the impact.
However, the piercing sensation did not come as he expected but instead, a waft of flowery scent with a hint of seductive musk hit his nose. The smell made his mind dizzy as he tried to swallow his saliva as he felt his throat suddenly becoming dry.
Looking up, he saw a girl with her sword unsheathed, beside her was a dagger buried in the ground halfway. For the first time, he felt his heart heat up and an unknown emotion started to grow. He never thought that a gory battle like this would be this beautiful.