Rise of the Blood Sovereign

Chapter 8: The Duke’s Death

"W-what are you doing, s-stop it, get away from me!" The duke yelled as he tried to get away from Lyle, only to quickly hit the wall with his back as he stared at Lyle with fear.

"I-I'll pay you, yeah, you're an assassin, you work for money, w-whatever you were paid, I-I'll double it, no, I'll triple it, ok?!" The duke yelled out as a slight smile appeared on his face.

Assassins usually took on jobs as long as they paid well, since Lyle had come for his head, he was definitely being paid by someone. Paying him in order to stop with the mission should work well, thought the young, inexperienced duke.

"Money?" Asked Lyle quietly as he scoffed at the duke.

"No amount of money can save you, not from me, or from anyone else they send, you have signed your death notice when you decided to align yourself with the enemy," Lyle said before kicking the ground and charging at the duke.

The floor cracked open while the wall behind Lyle showed some cracks as well, in an instant, he was in front of the duke, his right arm pulled back as the spear glimmered underneath the moonlight that was coming in the room from the window.

Lyle stopped in front of the duke before stabbing him. His spear shone with a bright red color as it disappeared in front of the duke's eyes.

Boom!

The body of the duke that had been reinforced with the body rune was impenetrable to most. One needed to at least reach the realm of the knight before he could include mana in his attacks, which would allow him to break through the powerful defense. As for Lyle, with the boost to power he currently had, coupled with what was amongst his most powerful attacks, he was above a normal knight.

There was no resistance as his spear penetrated through the body of the young duke. The runes glowed brightly, but broke and scattered in the air as the defense they provided was not enough to help Orsted out.

The spear continued through and hit the wall, penetrating through it and making it crumble. A large hole had been created in the room and one was able to see the city that spanned hundreds of meters around the castle.

Orsted stared at Lyle before looking down. He wordlessly stared at the spear that had penetrated his body and destroyed the wall behind him. He could feel the cold breeze on his back as he closed his eyes.

"Aligned with the enemy, so that was it, I was found out." The young duke said in a calm manner.

"They sold me out, huh?" Orsted asked Lyle who shook his head.

"You were found out by a servant girl a couple of days ago when you spoke with a masked man about the murder, judging by how easy it was for her to overhear it, they probably planned it."

"Overheard by a servant girl, as if!" Orsted scoffed before coughing up blood.

"Planned, this was all planned by those bastards, how dare they betray me, after all, that I've done!"

"What you have done, hmm, you have done a great job at being a bastard that cold-bloodedly killed his parents and betrayed the empire which you were supposed to serve, honestly, this kind of death is too good for you," Lyle said in a cold tone as he took his spear out before kicking the duke.

The young man flew out of the room and started falling down.

The beauty of the night sky was on full display as Orsted stared at the stars before trying to grab one with his hand. The wind whistled in his ears as he picked up speed before hitting the ground.

He was dead. His body was mangled to such an extent that it would be hard for people to even realize that it was the duke who had fallen down from a hole in his room.

The guards and servants that were nearby were all shocked by the sight. The maids and servants screamed in terror as the guards stared at the body in shock. They tried to calm down the screaming servants before one recognized the body.

The head of the young duke, as mangled as it was, was still recognizable. His long blonde hair, the amber eyes, even though they had fallen out of the eye sockets, they were still recognized by the guards who started panicking as well.

The duke had died.

From what they could tell, he simply fell to his death, but they had heard a loud boom and seen bricks fall down from above before. The body fell down soon after and after looking up, they could see that there was a hole in the 10th floor.

They didn't know why there was a hole, or who made it, but it immediately made them wary.

As for Lyle, he was currently facing an old man that had entered the room at the same time he had kicked the young duke.

The old man wore a gray robe and had a long beard that came down all the way to his chest. His face was wrinkled and his eyes were black. The body of the old man was skinny, very skinny.

He looked like a frail old man that would get blown away by the wind. His arms were bonny and there was not even an ounce of muscles on them. But if anyone was to underestimate this old man, they would regret it dearly.

He was Irin, one of the archmages of the empire and the one that served the duke. Even though he was considered to be the weakest out of all the archmages, he was still a force to be reckoned with.

With Lyle seeing the body rune on the young duke and the teleportation skill that the archmage previously tried to use, he now knew that the old archmage who was belittled by his peers had kept many secrets.

To create a body rune was something that a High Mage could do, but it was a spell that most would not even try to learn thanks to its difficult learning curve. As for the teleportation spell, it was one that was many times harder to learn.

Not only did the user need to have enough mana to teleport, but there was also the prerequisite of having a high knowledge of space and spatial magic. Only archmages could perform the spell, and usually, it was higher-end archmages that were able to do it.

There were documented cases where a High Mage could use teleportation in larger, more powerful empires, but it was a rare case since those were geniuses that would appear once in millennia.

"What have you done?!" The archmage roared in anger as he stared at Lyle with a murderous glare. A heavy sense of oppression appeared as mana started responding to the old man's anger.

"My job." Lyle shrugged his shoulders as he spoke, he seemed calm and relaxed, but inside his mind was churning with ideas of how he might escape.

Fighting an archmage was beyond his capabilities, he wasn't certain that he could defeat even the weakest of archmages even with a sneak attack, not to mention one that had hidden his capabilities so deeply for so long.

The only way of surviving was to flee. There was no other choice for Lyle as he knew that only death awaited him otherwise.

He flashed a grin at the old mage before jumping through the hole. His spear suddenly turned liquid before it took the shape of a whip.

Lyle coiled the end of the whip to the steel bars of the window next to the hole before he started running down the wall of the castle. He would be unable to do such a thing in his normal state, but in his Blood Knight mode during the night, his overall stats were greatly boosted and he could do something like this without any problems.

The old mage came to the window and scoffed at Lyle before creating a small blade of pure mana. He sent the blade to the whip and cut it off, making Lyle jump off the castle wall as he felt the whip loosen up.

He quickly turned in the air and glanced at the archmage that was pointing his staff at him whilst chanting a spell. A formless ripple was suddenly launched from the old mage as Lyle widened his eyes in shock before quickly using his whip to coil around an open window.

He quickly used the momentum shift and moved his body to the side. The formless ripple hit the place he was previously at and the wall of the castle was suddenly cut with no resistance. Screams could be heard as some blood flew out from the half-a-meter-wide cut, the old mage had seemingly hit someone that was next to the wall.

Lyle used the momentum from the whip and aimed at a window before turning the whip into blood and re-forming it into a shield that he used to shield himself from the glass after he broke through the window.

He quickly rolled and created two daggers before breaking into a sprint. He had to quickly leave the castle, otherwise, the archmage was definitely going to kill him.