The killing technique had produced exactly the result one would expect from a killing technique. Blood poured steadily from the wound as Amiba clutched the gash, crawled uselessly across the floor, and died.
After waiting outside for a moment and seeing that the magical barrier had not disappeared, Roche entered the room.
Beside the door crouched a naked man. He looked frightened, yet somewhat relieved, staring blankly ahead. Following his gaze led directly to the mage's corpse.
A short distance away, Victor was rummaging through drawers and cabinets with appreciative clicks of his tongue, looking every bit like a true adventuring hero.
Noticing Victor use a key to open a safe, the Blue Stripes commander walked over.
"Well? Find anything good?"
"Some scrolls and books for mages. Oh, and hurry up and thank me!" While rummaging through the safe, the witcher jerked his chin toward the naked man. "You should know that without my help, a few days from now you'd have ended up exactly like him! Completely and thoroughly... explored."
A foul odor reached Roche's nose, sending a chill through his entire body.
"Goddamn it, how did you know there was a mage in here?"
The moment the question left his mouth, he realized how stupid it was.
There had been no other guards outside, so naturally there would be someone inside the ward. He had simply let his guard down when he first saw Anaïs.
"No need to applaud me! The moment I entered the basement, I heard him enjoying himself. Hiding behind a pillar and waiting for him to come out was just basic procedure," the witcher answered evenly.
Roche swept his gaze over the various devices arranged along the walls. Even someone who had seen countless instruments of torture found the sight revolting.
"Fine. Thank you. Now hurry up and get out here so you can break the barrier."
With that, he hastily pushed open the door and left, unwilling to remain in that room for another second.
Victor stuffed the materials he had looted into his herbal satchel, ignored the traumatized man, and left the room to return to Anaïs.
Once again, he took a deep breath and gently pressed his palm against the barrier, sensing the paths through which its magic flowed.
Several minutes later,
"Aard!"
A vibration at precisely the correct frequency shattered the seemingly indestructible magical barrier.
The Blue Stripes commander crouched down and met the little girl's eyes.
"I'm Vernon Roche of Temeria. This is Victor, a witcher.
"We came to rescue you. Are you all right, Anaïs?"
The little girl murmured indistinctly but neither answered nor moved.
She barely knew Roche, having met him only once at La Valette Castle.
Anaïs had seen Victor several times before, happily talking with her brother Aryan. But the throat-slitting motion she had just witnessed looked almost identical to the one performed by the enormous monk, causing her to remember the king who had died in the monastery and leaving her faintly afraid of him.
Seeing the child remain silent, Vernon Roche stood and looked at the witcher.
"We need to get her to Natalis now, but carrying a child around will make us easy to spot. Any ideas?"
Victor gave the Blue Stripes commander a contemptuous sideways glance.
"We fight our way out! There's no other option. If you hadn't insisted on coming with me, I could've carried Anaïs out without anyone even noticing."
Roche wrapped the little girl in his cloak and carried her on his back, then followed Victor out of the basement.
When they approached the square again, Roche stared at the patrols moving back and forth ahead and chuckled coldly.
"Master Witcher, wasn't it, 'Avoid unnecessary killing whenever possible'?"
"Killing them will be faster!" Victor answered irritably.
He waved Roche and Anaïs toward the side, telling them to hide and slip away amid the confusion. Then Victor pulled out a Dragon Shout potion and ran off alone in the opposite direction.
He intended to give the Kaedweni army a truly unforgettable night.
...
Southeast of Loc Muinne, at the extraction point outside the Kaedweni camp.
Moonlight flowed like water.
Ves waited with the eight surviving members of the Blue Stripes, keeping her attention fixed on the movements inside the camp, when an unnatural sound suddenly exploded across the night.
"Awooooo!"
The terrifying howl of a wolf beneath the moon echoed through the darkness.
Her expression shifted slightly.
If it could be heard this clearly from so far away, she could only imagine how frightening it must have sounded to soldiers lying inside darkened tents.
And reality proved exactly that.
Believing that a werewolf had invaded the camp, many Kaedweni soldiers immediately fell into panic. They were perfectly capable of throwing their weight around against other men, but when faced with a monster, their courage evaporated.
Many soldiers woke abruptly from deep sleep and, in their confusion, failed to react effectively. Some even accidentally kicked over campfires, setting tents ablaze and creating even greater chaos.
Again came the savage roar of the predator.
"Awooooo!"
The howl drifted unpredictably across the Kaedweni defensive perimeter.
Watching the flames rise into the sky and the camp descend into noisy chaos, Ves planted her hands on her hips and clicked her tongue in amazement.
Naturally, she did not believe in such an extraordinary coincidence.
Victor and Roche went into the camp to rescue someone tonight, and a werewolf just happened to appear at the exact same time?
The wolf howl was probably another example of Dovahkiin's impressive vocal talents, amplified through a Dragon Shout to produce this astonishing effect...
Quite confident in her deduction, Ves remembered the Dragonborn's remarkable mouthwork and couldn't help curling the corner of her lips upward.
A worthy opponent indeed.
Sure enough, she did not have to wait long.
The officer soon spotted someone in Kaedweni clothing running toward their hiding place from afar, waving a leather cap over his head as he came.
She stopped her men from shooting and allowed the figure to approach.
Under the moonlight, Ves clearly recognized the man's face.
Vernon Roche.
And the person carried on his back was unmistakably Anaïs La Valette.
They had actually accomplished something that had seemed nearly impossible.
With only two people, they had infiltrated the Kaedweni camp and rescued the hope of the kingdom.
Excited, Ves led the others forward to meet their commander.
She helped the little girl down, pulled away the cloak, and comforted her.
"Where's Vic?" Ves asked while embracing Anaïs and gently patting her back.
Roche shook his head.
He had no idea.
...
At that moment, Victor was lying sprawled in the sewers, panting heavily.
Killing Amiba had not removed every mage from the Kaedweni camp. There were still other spellcasters, along with heavily armored guards and crossbowmen.
Victor's original plan had been to cover Roche's escape and then flee at full speed.
But an army was still an army.
A handful of guards who actually took their search seriously quickly exposed the disguised witcher, forcing Victor to take three crossbow bolts before he finally managed to shake his pursuers.
"Pop! Hiss! Oh!"
Suppressing a cry of pain, Victor pulled out a bolt.
Although the bolts had neither been smeared with shit nor fitted with barbs, and none had struck a vital area, he still obediently began disinfecting the wounds.
In theory, witchers did not need to worry about tetanus.
But once bitten by a snake, a man feared ropes for ten years.
After he finished bandaging himself, his formidable regenerative ability had already begun closing the wounds.
Following a roughly northern route through the sewers, Victor considered whether he should rest at Felicia's place or return to the Scoia'tael camp.
At that moment, however, faint light flickered in the distant sewer tunnels.
He heard voices.
Then the light vanished.
The voices stopped.
Curious, the witcher moved as lightly as a feather toward the place where the sounds had originated.
The surrounding area looked like an ordinary sewer.
The light and voices from moments earlier seemed almost like an illusion, but a freshly charred corpse lying on the ground proved that something had definitely happened here.
The air carried the scent of magic.
An illusion was probably concealing something.
Victor could have unraveled it through resonance with his Magic Sense, but then he remembered that he possessed a better solution.
"The Eye of Nehaleni."
He took out the black disc-shaped artifact Keira had given him, an extraordinary tool capable of dispelling illusions.
When she had placed it in his hand, she had told him,
"Remember, every time you use it, you have to think of me."
Victor shrugged and smiled.
He gently waved the Eye of Nehaleni.
A flash of blue-green light swept forward like an eraser wiping away dust, and the sewer wall suddenly dissolved into mist.
Behind it stood an activated ancient structure.
Its doors were forged from sturdy black-steel alloy, and above them loomed an enormous magical guardian eye, bright and watchful.
Victor looked at the eye, which resembled that of some gigantic beast, then glanced at the freshly burned corpse on the ground.
The possible connection between the two left plenty to the imagination.
There was no point in hesitating.
Victor stepped forward and entered the guardian eye's field of vision.
It spoke in a low, hoarse voice.
"Capable of kindness and cruelty, I take victims when I sour. I can be on your side or wrong you. I bring gifts, though you already have me."
A riddle combined with a classic mage's trap.
Answer correctly and the next path would open.
Answer incorrectly and the device would spew flames and burn you to a crisp.
Victor rubbed his chin.
He had no idea which great mage had created this place, but he was confident he could evade the flames even if he answered incorrectly.
Besides, the question was not especially difficult.
It was an old riddle, nostalgic and somewhat ancient.
Back when Victor was training at Kaer Morhen, old Vesemir had loved playing riddle games with him in the evenings.
"Fate!" Victor answered clearly and confidently.
The kindly face of the old witcher flashed through his mind, along with Vesemir's explanation of the riddle.
"Fate can be kind, and fate can be cruel. Fate sometimes takes its victims. It walks beside me, yet sometimes harms me. Fate grants me gifts, and I walk the path of my own fate."
After receiving Victor's answer, the magical eye paused for a moment.
Then its low, hoarse voice replied,
"Correct!"
The black-steel door silently slid aside.
Considering the logical construction of the riddle mechanism and the craftsmanship involved, this was most likely the laboratory of a high-level mage.
Victor considered whether to continue or simply turn around and leave.
After a moment, the witcher chose to proceed.
The riddles would probably become increasingly difficult, but he wanted to know what was hidden deeper within the ruins, and he naturally had certain expectations regarding the potential rewards.
This chance discovery had thoroughly awakened his curiosity.
Besides, the opportunity was rare.
Someone else was already ahead of him, clearing the way and triggering the traps.
Judging solely from the scholar's corpse on the ground, Victor could be certain that they were not the owners of the laboratory.
...
He proceeded down the broad, abandoned tunnel.
His ears detected no voices.
Had the first group been completely wiped out, or had they already reached the next stage?
Victor noticed a rope ladder hanging through a broken opening in the ceiling.
Clearly, another group had bypassed the first defensive mechanism and entered the ruins by a different route.
Considering how many heroes, soldiers, mages, and schemers from every faction were currently gathered in Loc Muinne, Victor found himself increasingly interested in what unknown developments awaited him.
He kept walking.
At the end of the tunnel stood another steel door.
Pushing it open revealed a circular laboratory whose equipment and furnishings had been almost completely destroyed.
Numerous statues of uncertain meaning surrounded the chamber.
At a glance, Victor saw an hourglass, a dragon, a white rose, a naked woman, and several others.
More eye-catching, however, were the corpses of Redanian soldiers scattered across the floor, several charred scholars, and the remains of a defeated giant gargoyle.
"Ah... another mysterious situation waiting to be solved..."
Muttering to himself, Victor approached the gargoyle to harvest useful materials while casually examining the corpses.
One should not underestimate such an action.
An experienced witcher could look at the fatal wounds on soldiers' bodies and the traces of destruction left throughout a room and easily reconstruct the entire course of a battle.
Yet this seemingly miraculous ability was actually quite easy to understand.
If an ordinary person observed the world in 480p, a witcher saw it in 1080p.
The difference in detail was simply on another level, so naturally the density of information available to them could not be compared.
As for Victor, his experience might not yet qualify as extensive, but he was extraordinarily gifted!
After all, one person could not always be measured by the standards of another.
Legendary Mutation combined with a Second Mutation gave him the equivalent of 2160p ultra-high-definition vision, making every tiny clue and trace perfectly visible to his eyes, enough to compensate for his lack of experience.
"Hmm... the battle ended recently. These Redanian soldiers rappelled down through the shaft. They had no spellcasters with them. Meanwhile, the group that passed through the magical-eye guardian had at least two mages.
"The two groups ran into each other here. At first, the mages were at a disadvantage, so they activated the gargoyle installed in this room. After a chaotic fight, the mages ultimately won."
Having examined the scene, Victor now had a rough expectation of the scale of combat he might face ahead.
Feeling the effects of the potions he had consumed earlier gradually fading, he refreshed his usual trio of Thunderbolt, Blizzard, and Tawny Owl, then drank an additional Full Moon to reduce magical damage.
Once his battle preparations were complete, he gently opened the next door just a crack.
A frivolous male voice drifted from inside.
"Our expedition is becoming terribly dull. What a pity. Those two scholars earlier were actually rather entertaining."
"Shut up! I need you to remain quiet."
The answering voice belonged to a woman.
Victor recognized it.
Cynthia, Philippa Eilhart's beautiful apprentice.
"No problem, my lady," the man replied.
Victor widened the gap slightly.
At a glance, he saw an obsidian golem lying on the floor.
That material was expensive stuff.
In theory, obsidian of that quality could reflect lesser spells, so bringing the golem down should have been anything but easy.
Yet this machine, created solely to obey and kill, had somehow been defeated by those two mages?
No...
That wasn't right.
Its exterior was still in remarkably good condition.
Its magical core must have collapsed for some unknown reason.
Having reached that conclusion, Victor continued pushing open the door.
His attitude toward Cynthia had originally been orange-level caution.
But after learning yesterday that Philippa had been captured, it had rapidly escalated to red alert.
Inside the room, the dangerous woman wore a black traveling cloak. Her slender back faced Victor as she lowered her head and read through some documents.
The other mage was a young-looking man wearing a thick red-and-black robe, currently inspecting the laboratory's furnishings.
Wait...
A Black One!?
Victor spotted the unmistakable Black Sun emblem embroidered onto the collar of the man's robe.
Combining that clue with the conversation he had previously overheard between Shilard and Vanhemar, Victor instantly understood why Philippa had suffered such a catastrophic defeat.
Cynthia was a Nilfgaardian spy.
The enemy had been sleeping beside her.
No wonder even a woman as cunning as Philippa had been caught in an ambush.
Putting down the test tube in his hand, the male mage looked toward Cynthia and asked doubtfully,
"Honourable Lady, Dearhenna's laboratory doesn't seem quite as miraculous as the legends claimed. Is the thing His Imperial Majesty wants really here?"
"Adalbert, if you want a promotion, learn when to keep your mouth shut!"
The sorceress did not even lift her head as she coldly suppressed him.
Victor slipped silently into the room.
He was preparing to bestow a Righteous Backstab upon the fortunate Mr. Adalbert.
He had quite a few questions he wanted to discuss with Cynthia.
He simply had no interest in having that conversation with two mages at once.
//Check out my P@tre0n for 30 extra chapters //[email protected]/Razeil0810