"Kh!" Qiel gritted her teeth, staring at the defeated Nelfer.
Nelfer looked guilty as he looked down, not daring to make eye contact with Qiel.
"Did you enter the city?" Qiel asked a question that she already knew the answer to. She had told him not to enter the city, but Nelfer was stubborn and overconfident.
As a result, Dimitri employed guerrilla warfare and killed the people from the organization one by one. Even Nelfer had a hard time fighting against Dimitri.
There was one more problem. Nelfer couldn't destroy the town because it would cause the Atracaeca Kingdom to deploy its troops to subjugate the organization.
Nelfer ultimately retreated from the town, but by the time he exited the town, five Spirit Master and three Spirit Grandmasters had died. The other two were still alive, but they were no longer able to join the fight.
In other words, it was a complete defeat.
Qiel stomped the ground and shouted in anger, "Can you even follow my order? Do you know that Noel and Dimitri have escaped to the south? And by this time, there is no telling where they are heading right now. If they reach the capital and make a deal with this kingdom, it will become extremely hard to capture him."
Nelfer couldn't say anything. He had indeed made a grave mistake, thinking he could somehow drag Dimitri out.
Instead, Nelfer remembered what happened not long ago.
During the day when they clashed with Dimitri, the group that was going to help him had finally arrived.
Seeing the incoming reinforcement, Dimitri turned around and headed straight to the south, finding a town not far from their location. He had run for quite a while after all, so he had expected this.
"Sir. He is going to enter the town!" One of them reported out loud. "We can't enter this town anymore."
"Are you scared?" Nelfer roared and pointed at the town. "We'll enter the town. Once I get a hold of Dimitri, I will toss him out and we'll fight him again outside the town."
"But Sir, the order was…"
"Shut up! Right now, I'm in charge. Follow my order, not Qiel!"
The people wanted to say something, but Nelfer was a Devil Saint. They couldn't do anything against him.
Hence, they ended up following him inside.
Once they entered the town, Nelfer became confused. He looked at the face of the passerby but didn't find Dimitri.
The town was quite bustling with people, so it was quite hard to look around.
However, Nelfer continued leading his people to go deeper into the town.
After five minutes of walking, they didn't find Dimitri's presence, making them think they had been tricked.
Nelfer said, "Two of you. Go to the roof and find any trace of Dimitri."
They were staring at each other as though they didn't want to do it. However, Nelfer had been glaring at them, so in the end, two people volunteered.
Once they leaped to the top of the building, they scanned the area. It didn't take too long for them to notice the fluctuation of Spirit Grandmaster's energy.
"Sir." One of them pointed to the east, informing Nelfer.
Nelfer hurriedly led the rest in that direction, but in that instant, the fluctuation disappeared.
"Huh?" They were confused, trying to find Dimitri. "Where is—Gah!"
Before he could say anything, a sharp pain jolted his body. The moment he lowered his head, he saw a blade piercing his heart. A black rope suddenly wrapped his mouth, making him unable to let out a scream.
The other person who came with him experienced the same thing.
Before they knew it, Dimitri had appeared behind them and killed them. What could they, Spirit Masters, do against the best assassin?
Dimitri just let them fall on the roof before disappearing again. Meanwhile, Nelfer was advancing at a fast speed, not wanting to lose track of Dimitri.
His subordinates followed him without hesitation, but because of the pace, they had a hard time scanning their surroundings.
Suddenly, someone passed them and a black blade appeared, stabbing one of them to death. The black rope appeared again, gagging his mouth.
However, his position was behind them, so without any sound, the person had disappeared. All that was left behind was the fluctuation of Spiritual Energy.
Sadly for them, the moment they turned around, they couldn't find their comrade anymore.
"Where is he?"
"He is among us?"
All the people began to fear Dimitri while Nelfer raised his eyebrows, confused. He hurriedly checked the two people who were supposed to be on the roof and noticed how they were gone.
But that distraction had given another opportunity to Dimitri, allowing him to kill yet another Spirit Master.
"What is this? When did he appear?" One of them gasped, not knowing what happened. Dimitri felt like a ghost. Every time he appeared, one person would be gone without a sound.
Even though the heat from the sun was intense, they could feel chills down their spine. A certain thought appeared in their minds.
'I will be next.'
Nelfer gnashed his teeth. The situation didn't develop like how he predicted it.
Obviously, Nelfer had prepared a few sacrifices to draw Dimitri out. By using his speed and strength, he should be able to react to Dimitri's actions and catch him in one way or another.
But once Nelfer's anger started rising, Dimitri disappeared. Just like the Supreme Devil Organization, he didn't plan to involve the Atracaeca Kingdom in their conflict. While it would surely cause a huge problem for the organization, the Ardagan Family would be dragged in as well.
Hence, Dimitri disappeared for a moment, waiting for Nelfer to calm down.
After that, he continued eliminating Nelfer's subordinates until Nelfer thought it was enough and decided to escape the city.
This time, Dimitri went on the offensive and attacked Nelfer with all his strength, injuring him and the remaining subordinates.
But Dimitri had spent a lot of Spiritual Energy as well. Seeing that the sun was about to set, instead of continuing the fight and utilizing the darkness to kill him, Dimitri actually retreated.
Still, the damage had been delivered. And Qiel had to see all this.
"Argh!" Qiel roared in anger. It was already hard to chase Noel and Dimitri normally but to think that Nelfer would be this injured.
Qiel was wondering whether they should cancel the pursuit or not. The situation wasn't looking good. If they continued, there was a chance that Dimitri would unleash his full attack on them.
But after talking big, there was no way they could fall empty-handed.
Qiel recalled the time she infiltrated the second prince's chamber. She said, "We will change our target. It appears that Noel Ardagan and Dimitri have made contact with someone in this country.
"I'm not sure of the exact details, but this person is important enough to be given the runes. If I'm not wrong, the person is a boy, so I don't think he can go that far. Hence, we will change our objective. Instead of going after Noel Ardagan, we will head after this guy."
Nelfer finally raised his head and asked, "But is this guy really important?"
"Just think about it; the boy shouldn't have Spirit yet, but he is important enough to know about runes. I'm assuming that this boy is somehow related to him… I'm assuming he is his student. If we can capture this boy, we should be able to lure him out. At the very least, we can somehow learn his position."
"Let's just admit it first that Noel Ardagan is a formidable opponent. Even in this situation, he manages to split us up and deal this much damage. Hence, we will treat him as the top target of the organization."
"I will forget about your mistakes for the time being and I'll handle everything. Use that time to recover and prepare for another fight with Dimitri."
"I understand." After his mistake, he didn't dare to refute her anymore. "But where will we go? Is it the south?"
"No. I'm assuming that they are not going to the capital."
"But Dimitri…"
"That's just a distraction. If you think about it, the only way for that boy to escape is through the opposite direction."
"Then, he is heading straight to the Muivell Kingdom?"
"This is why…" Qiel looked at him with a sigh. She added, "Obviously not. They are heading east… but the Ardagan Family should have no connection there, so they won't have anything to stop us. But it'll be a different case if we look at the north."
"The Greenwood Kingdom?"
"Yes. I'm assuming that Noel Ardagan is planning to escape from us through the Greenwood Kingdom, utilizing the power of the Ezenholm Family…"
"Ezenholm Family… Isn't it his grandfather…"
"Yeah. The former court magician, Raincart. If that person joins hands with Dimitri, we will definitely be the ones to die. So, we have to chase after him before reaching the Greenwood Kingdom's territory. So, hurry up and tend the wounded. I'll only give you fifteen minutes before moving again."
Nelfer took a deep breath before nodding his head. He was determined to fix his mistakes.
