Chapter 533: Wouldn’t You Like To Know?

When the commotion coming from outside the dining hall reach their ears, everyone, from Viscount Norah Dunne to the serving maids who were cleaning up the dishes lifted their heads and began looking around.

Commander Anders, as the only Soul Initiate around, tried to release his Soul Sense to investigate, but instantly found that his Soul Qi wasn’t circulating properly.

Drinking a large amount of alcohol, especially Spirit Alcohols, could dull the senses and impede one’s flow of Internal Qi, but seeing how he had only had a single cup of ordinary wine tonight, the bare minimum required to be polite, that couldn’t possibly be the reason.

Brock Anders was shocked at first, then enraged, understanding that he had somehow been poisoned.

"You bastards!" The man, who had a deep hated towards the Rockwell Kingdom, instantly assigned blame to the enemies sitting across from him and reached for his sword, intent on punishing them.

He might be poisoned, and his Internal Qi might not be flowing properly, but he was still a Mid-Rank Martial Initiate, so Commander Anders didn’t believe any of the Sea Establishment enemies here were a match for him.

Sure enough, the moment Brock drew his weapon, the 6 soldiers from the Rockwell Kingdom leapt back from the table, though their movements were also quite sluggish and awkward as surprise filled their faces.

Those from the Darr Kingdom’s side, including the evening’s hosts, were in a similar state, obviously having been poisoned as well, leading Commander Anders to conclude that this whole thing had been a set-up from the start.

As for how to explain why the Rockwell Kingdom soldiers were also poisoned, he simply assumed something had gone wrong with their nefarious plot, or that they were just pawns who had been cast aside now that their usefulness had expired.

What about the prince? Brock couldn’t help worrying, knowing that if something happened to Landon, even if he somehow managed to surviving this debacle, his head would still roll.

Princess Christina seemed like an upright and righteous girl, even in Brock’s negatively biased opinion, but he knew that all high nobles and royalty could be incredibly deceitful and manipulative when need be.

It all made sense now, that wretched princess must have been behind all this, her goal to assassinate all of them and somehow pin the blame on some unknown third party, sacrificing her own subordinates in order to better sell the story!

Brock Anders was anxious and wanted to rush to the prince’s side to save him from that vile woman, but in his current state, that was going to be difficult.

Just as Commander Anders was about to make his move, however, a panicked voice came from his side, "Brock! Behind you!"

Brock had served together with Lani for over a decade, and while he found her softness and naivety annoying at times, she had never once given him a reason to doubt her, so despite not sensing any danger coming from behind him, he swiftly turned and raised sword to defend himself.

The next instant, a stabbing pain struck Commander Anders from behind... the direction he had just turned away from.

Looking down, the man saw a familiar looking blade sticking out through his gut, seemingly having pierced right through the space below his navel.

Feeling his Spirit Qi rapidly dispersing from his shattered Dantian, Brock coughed up a mouthful of blood and creakily turned his head around, asking in a pained voice, "W-Why?"

Twisting her sword, Lani Jess flashed her usual sweet, innocent smile at him, even letting out a peel of cheerful laughter as she casually teased, "Wouldn’t you like to know?"

Brock Anders had seen many sides of Lani over the years, but none of them remotely resembled the cruelty and madness he now saw in her eyes.

What’s more, even if he had been taken off-guard, with her Tenth Step Sea Establishment Realm strength, it should still have been impossible for his once trusted second-in-command to piece through not just his body, but his armour as well.

She’s been hiding her strength, and her identity, all this time! Brock finally realized who the real villain here was, though that realization had come far too late.

"Commander!"

"Captain!"

"What’s going one?!"

The others from the Darr Kingdom fell into a panic seeing one of their leaders literally stab the other in the back.

They tried to back away and raise their defences, but it seemed that attempting to draw out their Spirit Qi had further triggered the poison they had unwittingly ingested, weakening their limbs and causing most to fall to the floor.

It was at that moment that the west-side doors to the dining hall burst open and 30 black-cloaked figures rushed in, each of them wielding sharp daggers.

At the same time, the east-side doors also flew open and Head Steward Myles rushed in, accompanied by a pack of guards, and shouted, "My Lady! The Manor is under attack!"

"I can see that already, you fool!" Norah Dunne cursed loudly as she tried to steady herself.

She might also be a Tenth Step Sea Establishment Practitioner, but she had never focused much on martial training, preferring to live in the realm of politics and administration while leaving physical work to her subordinates.

Her husband, Kapel, wasn’t much better, his main focus having been on doing business, with cultivation something he pursued only to increase his longevity.

Jasper, on the other hand, was a warrior, but given his poisoned state, he wasn’t really in much better condition than his parents.

"Captain!" Several of the Vein Opening soldiers from the Third Battalion dashed over to Lana Gage’s side, their weapons drawn as they arranged themselves into a defensive formation.

Soldiers from the Darr Kingdom’s side, as well as guards from the Dunne Family Manor, did the same for the injured Commander Anders and his officers.

The still smiling Lani didn’t even bother trying to stop them, simply playing with her sword as she walked over to the group of assassins, who she was clearly in league with, and ordered, "Kill them all."

She then went skipping down the hallway, heading in the direction of the balcony.

.....

Commander Anders didn’t know what was happening, or why, but he did know that if he didn’t do something fast, he and everyone else here was going to die, and the fallout from their deaths, especially Prince Landon and Princess Christina’s, would be catastrophic.

Unfortunately, he currently had a hole in his gut, poison in his veins, and his cultivation had effectively been crippled.

Even if he threw caution to the wind and decided to go out in a blaze of glory, he estimated that in his current condition, he could maybe exert 30% of his full strength. That would still be stronger than any Sea Establishment Realm Practitioner, but not by much.

On the enemy side there were 28 Sea Establishment assassins, while on their side, there were 18 Sea Establishment Realm soldiers, 5 Core Formation warriors, and a couple dozen Vein Opening guards.

If it were a fair fight, their side would actually have the advantage, especially now that his traitorous second-in-command had left, probably to hunt down the two royals, but all the top masters around Commander Anders were also poisoned, with most of them unable to even stand up properly.

Reaching into his Space Bag, Brock Anders grabbed a vial of generic anti-toxin and drank it down before forcing strength into his legs and standing up, gripping his sword tightly as he faced the rapidly approaching attackers.

He was going to die here today, of that, he was basically certain, but he was damned if he was going to go down without a fight.

Gathering all the Spirit Qi he could, Commander Anders channeled it into his blade and swung it while roaring furiously. A sharp wave of Qi short forward in a wide arc, forcing the lead assassins to raise their daggers and defend themselves.

Under normal circumstances, this attack would have been sufficient to split at least a handful of these cloaked figures in half, but as Brock had feared, all his desperate move managed to do was stagger the enemy a bit.

Worse yet, the reckless use of his Internal Qi had caused serious backlash in his still clogged meridians, rupturing a number of them and causing him to fall to his knees again.

Before he could curse his own terrible luck, however, a shout came from behind him, "Now!"

6 glowing spears flew out in the next instant, each one of them exploding as they struck the crowd of assassins.

Firestorm Javelins! Commander Anders hurriedly averted his eyes, lest he be blinded by the intense light of the explosions.

At the same time, he looked back to see that the 6 Captains from the Rockwell Kingdom had, at some point, completely recovered and were now holding odd looking metal canisters.

The Rockwell Kingdom officers pulled some kind of pin from the canisters, tossed them out, and a second later thick clouds of smoke erupted from them, filling the massive dining hall and blinding everyone.

"Grab everyone you can and fall back!" Commander Anders recognized Lana Gage’s voice, and though he very much wanted to ask how she and her comrades seemed to have known this ambush was going to happen, he understood that now wasn’t the time.

He could ask all the questions he wanted to later, assuming he and the rest of them managed to survive!