Assassin's Chronicle

"You like to talk behind people’s backs. When are you going to change this bad habit?" A voice was clearly heard. A middle-aged man in white gown appeared about a dozen yards behind Bruzuryano.

"Who said I am talking behind people’s backs? I knew you were here. I said that to you on purpose. Don’t you get it?" Bruzuryano frowned.

Anfey glanced at the middle-aged man. From the way they talked, the middle-aged man must be the Priest of Light, Slanbrea. Maybe it was the nature of Light magic. He looked humble, honest, and kind.

Two not-so-young mages slowly landed behind Slanbrea. Slanbrea’s face did not change. They seemed to be friends; otherwise, Slanbrea would have been concerned about it. It was taboo to have a person behind a mage without knowing whether that person is a friend or an enemy. It would pose too much of a threat to the mage.

"Don’t you want to introduce your friends?" Slanbrea asked with a smile.

"Armin was sent out to spread the news. This is Anfey. He..." Bruzuryano said.

"I got it." Slanbrea was shocked for a second. He immediately interrupted Bruzuryano.

"Are you the Anfey?" Dardanibry suddenly asked.

"Yes," Anfey answered him curtly.

Dardanibry gave Anfey a long look, but did not ask Anfey more questions.

"Your bravery has won my respect. If you did not send the news out, I would not know how many people would die from necromancers." Slanbrea slowly walked up to Anfey. He held his finger out and pointed it at Anfey’s forehead.

Anfey did not move, quietly looking at Slanbrea. He was wise. If Slanbrea wanted to hurt him, there was no way he could avoid it. If Slanbrea did not intend to hurt him, his move could make Slanbrea misunderstand him. It would be better stand still than dodging.

Slanbrea’s finger lightly touched Anfey’s forehead. He pulled his finger back with a smile. He turned around and said, "Dardanibry, we should go and clean up the battlefield now. We need to find Annunciata’s nest around here and destroy it as well."

"Sure." Dardanibry nodded. He made a path for Slanbrea.

Slanbrea did not say anything before he left. He slowly walked into the forest. Dardanibry and the other mage caught up with Slanbrea in big strides. Seeing the three of them disappearing, Bruzuryano stayed where he was without moving.

"Getting old, getting old. I cannot keep up with the times," Bruzuryano said with a smile.

"You talk too much." Anfey started to look calm.

"You should not blame me for that." Bruzuryano stared with wide eyes.

"But Slanbrea’s response time was a lot shorter than yours," Anfey said.

"I am telling you. First of all, Slanbrea is twenty years younger than me. Secondly, I can call him Slanbrea, but you cannot. You would be punished or torn apart by his manic disciples if you called him Slanbrea. Last, there are a lot of cause-effect relationships in this world. The cause is on you, not me. You cannot blame me for that," Bruzuryano said.

"I did not blame you, did I?" Anfey said.

Bruzuryano looked at Anfey for a while and said, "Are you scared?"

Anfey grinned, but he did not answer the question verbally. However, his facial expression clearly told Bruzuryano that he was not afraid of anything.

"Then I am leaving?" Bruzuryano turned half way around and pretended to walk away, but he still looked at Anfey out of the corner of his eye.

"Take care," Anfey said.

"I am really leaving now," Bruzuryano said.

Anfey felt helpless when he had to deal with this naughty, old, powerful man. He had to nod to signal him to leave.

"Kido, you are too stubborn." Bruzuryano turned around with a helpless look. "No matter what, Saul is my friend. I do not want him to come to my house to kick my ass. In addition, I did make trouble for him. What should I do?"

Anfey continued to keep quiet. He was sentimental at that moment. He thought to himself that he would be treated so differently if he did not have a "well-known" master. If they were not the students of Saul, who would care whether they were alive or dead. Master Swordsman Philip’s chase sounded terrible, but did not actually do anything to them. The chase was stopped by Yolanthe’s constraint, otherwise the worst case scenario might have played out.

"How about I give you one thing?" Bruzuryano held his hand out as he talked. There was a piece of leaf with a fine gold chain on his hand. That leaf looked and felt no difference than a regular leaf. It did not have any magic surges. No one knew what it could do.

"Thank you," Anfey said.

"You are welcome. But let me tell you first, you can borrow it for now. I did not give it to you. Do you understand?" Bruzuryano said.

Anfey smiled and nodded. Bruzuryano gently put the leaf on Anfey’s neck. "Tell Saul I do not owe him anything anymore."

Anfey was shocked. His first reaction was to take the leaf off and return it to Bruzuryano.

"I am just joking. I do not owe Saul anything," Bruzuryano smiled.

Anfey’s hand froze in the air. He did not know if he should take it off or not. He was confused and could not tell if Bruzuryano was telling him the truth.

"Ok, you guys should leave now." Bruzuryano waved his hand and strode into the forest. Others had to walked around the ancient trees. They would not be stupid enough walk into the trees, but Bruzuryano walked straight forward. The bushes and ancient trees turned into objects that could walk and made a path for him.

"Anfey, should we go back to Moramatch now?" Riska did not understand their conversation, but he was not interested in it anyway. He cared about when he could go back to Moramatch to see the rest of the legion.

"We are not going back." Anfey shook his head. "Let’s go. We need leave as soon as we can. We will talk as we walk."

The dark clouds in the sky had gradually disappeared as Annunciata fled. The sky started to look clear. It was sunset as Anfey and the two others were running towards the direction of the sun.

Riska was indeed flying, while Anfey and Suzanna were running. Without knowing how long they had run, Anfey started to be out of breath. Suzanna and Riska were still fine. Anfey was physically stronger than Suzanna, but Suzanna was a lot better than Anfey when she used combat power.

Anfey took a deep breath and calculated the distance in his mind. He waved to signal Suzanna and Riska to stop for a second.

"Anfey, what happened?" Suzanna immediately asked. She had no idea what this running was for. Anfey looked as though he was in thought when he ran. She did not want to interrupt his thinking. She finally found an opportunity to ask.

"That Dardanibry would not just let us leave like this," Anfey said in a low voice.

Suzanna and Riska gasped quietly. The news that Anfey wiped out a Griffin Aerial Unit had spread. Dardanibry must have known about it. He was as a palace mage of Shansa Empire and would not easily just let Anfey go.

"I got it. Bruzuryano slipped. Damn it!" Bruzuryano was one of the most powerful men, but he was not here. Riska did not care what he said about him.

"It was not that simple," Anfey said slowly.

"Of course. Top powerful men are never simple," Riska said.

"I did not mean it that way. I mean he slipped on purpose and then..." Anfey said.

"Then he took the opportunity to give you that leaf?" Riska said.

"I know these conclusions sound a little ridiculous, but I just have a feeling that he did it on purpose. I could not figure out why he would do it." Anfey held the leaf in front of his chest. "Do you know what this is?"

"Let me take a look." Riska felt it with his fingers. "This just looks like a regular leaf."

"You are talking bulls*#t. I should not have shown it to you." Anfey did not know whether he should laugh or cry. He pushed Riska’s hand away from the leaf. "Suzanna, can you tell what this is?"

"It looks like a badge a druid would wear. Anfey, do you feel anything different when you wear it?"

"Nothing different." Anfey went quiet and pulled the leaf with his hands. He pulled slightly on both sides. The leaf seemed to have really good elasticity. When Anfey let his hands go, it went back to its original shape.

Anfey gradually pulled the leaf harder, but the leaf would always go back to its normal shape when Anfey let his hands go. Anfey even used half of his strength to pull the leaf apart, like he was tearing a piece of paper at the end. Suddenly a bright light flashed and Anfey’s hands released the leaf.

Anfey, Suzanna and Riska looked at each other, confused. The moment the light flashed, they all felt strong magic surges. Obviously, this was not an ordinary leaf.

"Never mind. We will study it when it is dark." Anfey gave it up. The magic surges were too strong. If Dardanibry chased after them, the magic surges would allow Dardanibry to find them easily. Anfey dared not experiment with it anymore.

"Oh, right, Anfey. Did that Slanbrea do anything to you? I saw him pointing to your forehead," Suzanna asked in a low voice.

"I feel something went into my head, but it seemed like nothing happened either." Anfey looked confused. This difference in ability make him feel helpless. If a patient had surgery and the doctor refused to tell the patient what organ he had cut out, that patient must be confused as well.

"Do you think it was a good thing or bad thing?" Suzanna asked in a worried tone.

"I do not know," Anfey sighed. "If they wanted to hurt me, they did not have to go through so much trouble. If they wanted to help us, what is the reason? I still do not get it."