Chapter 168 Three days
The man glanced at her and then chuckled. “You have no idea the depths nor the horrors that lay beneath the waters you are rippling,” he said.
“There are no depths, nor are there horrors. All you have built is a network of facades. A facade that soon would be shattered,” Melissa replied.
“By you princess?” He asked her. “You are not even going to leave these woods alive,” he said.
“Even if I don't, my legacy remains,” she answered.
The man laughed again. He was awfully confident that it had given Melissa a lot of concern that she was trying to hide. She knew her team was feeling the same way. If experience has taught her anything when your enemy is confident, they actually do have an ace and they're not bluffing. No one needs a poker face when there is nothing your opponent can use to counter whatever you have. It also means, they can be tilted to being overconfident.
Melissa breathed, ready for an onslaught of fire that she had no way of dodging other than taking it to the chest because as she now realized, her danger awareness ability has been dampened. She raised her eyes to a minor little detail she'd forgotten. If Beatrice were here now she was getting swiped off the ground.
She needed to twist this somehow, keep them from shooting until Melissa had a good time to maneuver the situation but fortunately for her this regional leader was a talker.
“By the way, my name is Abbot. And I find you mildly and stressfully annoying. I say that with every fiber in my bones. But due to your stupidity and inability to read the situation, you have led your wolf into an entire state of being corralled and split up by superior firepower,” he said with a chuckle.
As if on cue, a noise was heard from the haunted house. “For some reason,” Abbot said. “You really thought you could have found them before us,” he broke into a hystMelissal laughter and everyone was shaken.
Melissa however wasn't done maneuvering the situation, in fact this was the perfect moment to bluff again. That moment when the team's morale is so low and she throws in something to get them all to believe in her again. “You didn't know why I left the demon wolf with her?” She asked.
“And that is?” He asked with a raised eyebrow, not a curious one but a condescending one.
“Because there is no greater security than him,” she said with a grounded voice and in the heat of time like before the words left her mouth darkness submerged from the middle of the field and a soldier was the first to step out, backing away as Richard and Clarissa stepped out too. Richard had blood stains on his shirt and in an instant the poor man was smacked and knocked out cold with a bar of steel.
“What about the Sentinels?” Melissa asked as he walked towards her.
“Half of them turned on us,” he replied. “I couldn't tell who was who from the heat of the battle and thank God, in the nick of time she recalibrated her own rune. I had to kill people though,” he said with a sigh.
Melissa looked at him and a little smile lingered on her lips for a short while. Even in the heat of all these he still remembered her inconvenience. She nodded at him though and turned over to Abbot.
“Your move,” she said, flaring her aura.
“Then watch this,” he said as headlights started to turn on behind them and more people stepped out.
“Richard,” Melissa asked urgently. “How many people can you transport?”
“I can get us all to a wider place…” he began.
“No straight to the castle,” she said loudly so all could hear. “About seven of us excluding me,” he said. “And that is me pushing my luck,” he replied.
Melissa made a head count and they were exactly eleven excluding Richard. Her head was stuck in a lot of reasoning as she remained quiet, but as usual, she didn't expect to think in a battlezone. Abbot made a shocking statement and gave an order that sent Melissa into the mode she enters during battle a bestial feeling of a wolf trying to protect her cubs.
“Let us help you cut that number,” Abbot announced and the entire team opened fire on them.
Melissa flashed her aura as Richard wanted to join with his darkness but she held him. “Don't,” she said. “We can't lose more than four of us to this,” she declared. She flared her entire aura as the bullets halted in the middle of a death rotating movement.
Blood fell from Melissa's nose, to hold so much firepower all at once without even thinking of the damages gave her a backlash. She grunted and fell to her knees but in her instant, she spread her arms, causing the aura to escape from within herself, bullets scattering against their assaulters as they dropped to the ground. Some were hit and some were not. Still they outnumbered them three to one.
However due to the fact that Sentinels were trained soldiers they returned fire with fire immediately dropping bodies as their bullets found their marks in the disoriented soldiers.
Eric rushed to Melissa's side and she glanced up in inquisition. “What is it?”
“Your majesty, it is your time to leave. Hashar, Jacob and I have decided to wait,” she said.
“No go with…”
Eric didn't let her speak. “God help me, I will knock you unconscious if I have to. We made up our mind, that is our decision and we have to stand by it,” he said.
Melissa stood up and then turned to Richard. “Take Clarissa and the others,” we will meet you in three days.
“No, Richard said.
At that ! moment the disoriented henchmen already found their foot and started to open fire on them. Melissa did her aura again. “Richard! You have to go, we can survive if the numbers reduce. Trust me this once son of Ashfall and leave,” she said, glowing her eyes as she added a bit of her alpha's will. Bullets rained on her walls as Richard came closer to her and kissed her on the forehead. “Three days,” he said and the familiar darkness descended and Richard left with Clarissa and six others.
For the first time in a while, Melissa was alone again.