The ones who had appeared in Lungmen were a band of Ursus mercenaries.
Several years ago, in order to divert its internal tensions, Ursus had launched a war against Higashi—only to be defeated in the Battle of Bloodpeak.
The result of that war was that the Ursus Emperor of the time, already gravely ill, died soon after, which in turn directly triggered a rebellion that shocked all of Terra: a civil war between the old nobility and the new.
In the end, the old nobles' army groups were defeated, and the new nobles emerged victorious.
The Fourth Army Group of Ursus mentioned by those two mercenaries was precisely one of the losing factions in that rebellion.
To escape the purge that followed, huge numbers of soldiers deserted. The result was the birth of countless bandits and criminals, their chaos spilling over into neighboring countries as well.
Petrov was one of them.
Only, his rank had been higher, his strength greater, and his name had even made it onto the Ursus military's wanted list.
So he had to run. Run far, far away.
And for that, he needed money.
There was no faster way to get rich than kidnapping the direct heirs of a great family.
As for whether that would offend Lungmen—
What a joke. He was already wanted by the Ursus military. Why would he be afraid of Lungmen too?
He had been lying in wait for a week, thinking there would be no chance.
Who would have guessed fortune would suddenly turn?
A few little girls had actually snuck out, leaving fewer than five guards with them.
When Petrov received the news, he almost could not believe it.
He even suspected that they had been exposed, and that the whole thing was bait.
But using the legitimate heirs of great families as fishing bait just to catch him?
Was he really worth that much?
No matter what, the chance was right in front of him now.
As a veteran who had fought through both the Kazdel–Ursus War and the Battle of Bloodpeak, enemy blades and bullets had failed to kill him, yet he had nearly died in that great rebellion.
The late Emperor was dead.
No one cared about old soldiers like them anymore.
So now, all he wanted was to carve out a way to survive—a way to escape Ursus and go on living.
A trap? Bait?
Over more than twenty years of military life, Petrov had learned one thing:
Only the brave survived on the battlefield.
"Ura!"
The Ursus bear man, towering over two meters tall, let out a terrifying battle roar. Beneath the battered remnants of standard Ursus armor, the muscles across his body bulged like carved stone.
Bang!
The dull impact rang out like thunder. Accompanied by the sound of cracking bones, it made the air shudder.
Had he not already been injured, Wei Jiu might still have found a way to maneuver against the Ursus man before him. But at this moment, all he felt was a deep helplessness and despair.
He had once imagined that, as the successor trained by the famed Yan Imperial Guard, the enemies he would face in the future would surely be elites from the great powers of the world.
Only after truly meeting soldiers who had crawled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood did he finally understand the faint sigh his teacher had let out after watching them train.
"Wei Eleven! Wei Thirteen!"
His whole body was drenched in blood, yet the man did not retreat even a single step.
"Protect the young ladies!!!"
In the distance, the other two guards, both wounded by the blast, gritted their teeth and turned away, escorting their last companion as they fled with the children down the open street.
The Ursus men were behaving far too brazenly. All they needed to do was hold on for five minutes—just five minutes—and reinforcements would arrive, wipe out these Ursus bastards, and avenge their captain.
But at this moment, those five minutes felt impossibly long.
The instant they made their move, those retired Ursus soldiers understood perfectly well that their window of time was short. If they did not seize Ch'en Hui-chieh and the others immediately, then what awaited them would be an endless tide of pursuers.
Since they had already acted, there was no reason to hold back anymore.
The flames produced by the earlier explosion suddenly surged as if animated by life itself, and amid a violent roar they rose into a wall of fire that completely blocked the fleeing group's path.
"A caster?!"
Wei Eleven and Wei Thirteen's pupils contracted sharply as they frantically searched for the enemy caster hidden among the mercenaries.
But in such haste, how could they possibly locate the caster's position?
"I'll do it!"
A clear voice rang out from the front.
The female guard, who had been carrying Ch'en Hui-chieh in one arm and pulling Swire along while leading Talulah and Lin Yuhsia away, set Ch'en Hui-chieh down, raised the staff in her hand, and slammed it hard against the ground.
"Raise the Earth!"
She did not try to find the enemy caster. In a situation like this, hurting the enemy was secondary. The priority was getting the children somewhere safe.
"Ascend the Platform!"
The bluestone paving of Lungmen's lower city was forcibly lifted by her Arts, rising into a thick earthen-and-stone archway wide enough for several people to run across shoulder to shoulder. The rolling flames were blocked entirely outside by the heavy layers of stone and earth.
"Well done!"
Seeing that, both Wei Eleven and Wei Thirteen showed joy on their faces.
"Wei Thirteen! Wei Fifteen! Take the children and go!"
With the pursuers practically on top of them, the second guard chose that moment to stay behind as the rear guard.
"As long as the young ladies are protected, Lord Wei will avenge us!"
Wei Eleven planted his shield and blade before him.
From the moment his teacher had pulled him out of the slums at the age of ten and asked whether he was willing to trade one life for full meals until the day he died, he had already been prepared.
He had thought he would starve to death back at ten.
To live eight years longer than that—
he had gotten more than his due.
The remaining two guards did not spare another glance at the companion staying behind. Wiping the blood from her nose, the female guard scooped Ch'en Hui-chieh up with her left arm, Swire with her right, and ran toward the other end of the arch bridge without looking back.
Her companion followed suit.
But they had underestimated just how insane these retired Ursus soldiers truly were.
They killed even their own civilians.
Why would they care how many innocent people got caught in the fighting?
Whoosh!
The sudden shriek through the air made Wei Fifteen instinctively look up.
The moment she saw what was about to fall, only one thought remained in her mind:
"Inspection Bureau, you motherf—"
How in the hell had these Ursus bastards managed to smuggle even a mortar into Lungmen?!
The falling mortar shell directly blew apart the arch bridge she had only just raised. The shockwave from the explosion hurled her and the two children in her arms more than ten meters away.
"Cough... cough..."
Using the last of her strength to form an Arts barrier and shield the two children in her embrace, she dimly heard the Ursus men cursing.
"Who told you idiots to use a mortar? What if you'd injured the little girls?"
"There are so many brats. What's the big deal if one or two die?"
"The most valuable one is the Swire family's little girl. The others can die if they have to—she can't!"
"Hah... good. She's still alive."
Wei Fifteen tried to clutch the children tighter, but her hands were forcibly pried open.
"Move!"
"What about the other two girls?"
"Forget them."
These Ursus mercenaries knew exactly what they had done. They had to get out of Lungmen before the city's pursuers organized themselves. Otherwise, what awaited them would be the full fury of the Lungmen authorities.
The Ursus voices gradually receded into the distance.
Wei Fifteen could feel her own life draining away with them.
Until, at some point—
"Miss, your injuries are severe. All I can do right now is forcibly stimulate your life potential with a secret technique. You won't die, but you'll be unconscious for a long time. Before you pass out, tell me—where did those people go?"
Wei Fifteen forced her eyes open with all the strength she had left.
She saw a tall man and a girl who looked much younger than herself. They seemed vaguely familiar.
Though she could not place them at first, the horns on their heads already made their identities clear.
"...South."
Wei Fifteen's innate talent let her hear the direction those Ursus men had taken when they left. But she had no idea how long she had already been fading in and out of consciousness. Whether it was still in time to chase them now, she did not know.
All she heard was the man saying:
"Zhaoqian, stay here. Stabilize this young lady's injuries and help put out the fire."
"I'm going after them."