Chapter 84: Fight with Guards

She didn’t even know who this man was, but she had been so pampered from her childhood and so adored by all males that when this man refused to look at her, give her face, or even get into a bargain with Vesper, she instinctively felt offended.

Refusing to admit defeat, she raised her chin and said proudly, "Right. Who are you to be recognized by me? I just liked that bracer."

Moon ignored her and turned to the salesman. "Tell me the sum."

The salesman hesitated, looking at Manager Daus, who gave a slight nod.

Clearing his throat, the salesman bowed respectfully to Moon. "Sire, for the daily tunics, the high-grade leather jackets, canvas cloaks, hunting boots, and sheath harnesses for your entire group of eight... the total comes to one thousand nine hundred siki."

The Vesper boy’s eyes twitched violently. One thousand nine hundred siki for travel gear?! That was enough to buy a courtyard house in the city!

Lyra’s chin remained high, though her fingers tightened around her purse in shock.

She snapped her head toward Moon, then toward the manager. "What do you mean by this, Manager Daus? We are regulars in your shop. We have come here three times. Are you really not selling that bracer to me?"

Manager Daus was indifferent to her tantrum.

He smiled softly and cleared his throat. "Lady Lyra is misunderstanding me. We didn’t say we only have one piece available. You can still buy one. It is only one hundred fifty."

He turned to the salesman beside the cloth rack and asked him to get another bracer.

Lyra suddenly felt her face burning, and her eyes welled with tears at once.

"You... do you have to be so mean?" she uttered in despair, looking at Moon.

Moon watched her amusedly.

By all logic, it should have been the Vesper boy getting angry at them since the five thousand siki spent last night had come out of his pocket.

Yet, here was Lyra, looking far more agitated and throwing a fit over a common shop item.

His eyes dropped as he looked at Nox with pure disdain that clearly said, ’Look at your sweetheart. Look at what you chose.’

Nox coughed lightly and stepped forward. "Miss, we didn’t even talk to you. You were the one who kept wanting things from us."

His sentence seemed to hit Lyra’s nerves even more, and her tears started to flow.

In the end, it was the Vesper boy who wrapped his arm around her and took her to the other side to comfort her.

"Evan..." She cried in the Vesper boy’s arms.

Moon tsk’ed his tongue.

"Wasn’t she engaged to Liam? Really, you brothers are meant to be cuckolded to death."

Nox’s face turned red after hearing this.

He protested at once, "I wasn’t engaged!"

"Okay, I know. How great you all are," Moon sneered and turned to leave. ’So, this boy’s name is Evan.’ He thought and noted the name down.

Evan’s eyes narrowed into slits as he stared at the group leaving them behind.

The way Moon moved, the quiet confidence of the men standing behind him, and the unmatched attire and siki—it didn’t add up for common wanderers.

A memory flashed in his mind from the marketplace gossip about the Vaelis Pack a few days ago, but before he could piece it together, Moon’s group had already finished their trade and walked out.

"Something is wrong with them," Evan muttered to a guard in black clothes standing in his shadow.

He signaled to his guards, and soon, several shadows followed silently behind Moon’s group.

Moon led his group down the bustling market road, but his mage’s intuition suddenly picked up the subtle shifting of footsteps behind them.

He pressed Nox’s wrist hard and tilted his head.

His voice rang in Nox’s mind directly: "Take Marina down another road."

He then glanced sideways at Axe, giving a short, barely noticeable nod.

They silently turned off the main road, slipping into a narrow alley blocked by high stone walls.

The moment they entered the dead end, six guards in black clothes dropped from the rooftops, blocking both exits.

The leader stepped out, holding a rolled-up parchment.

"Heh. Got you, you rats!" He unrolled the paper to reveal a pack bounty. "Ah... let me see. Alpha Vaelis issued a bounty of 1,00,000 siki and a legendary treasury item for whoever brings in the witch Moon and his defective sons alive. You masked rats seem to be a perfect match. Let me see your beautiful faces."

He took a step forward.

Axe clicked his tongue. "Should I just stab them, darling?"

"No," Moon whispered. "First, beat them to a pulp and make them senseless. I need them alive."

The guards snorted. "Alive? We also want to capture you alive, dear!"

In a flash, six black shadows blurred into motion.

They lunged forward like hungry wolves catching their prey. Their movements were lethal and fast, but they were still not faster than Moon and Axe.

One was a hidden mage who could tread through the void air, and the other stood but a single step away from awakening his legendary wolf spirit.

They pivoted to the side, and the space became empty all of a sudden. The black-clothed men slammed into the opposite wall, their eyes shocked wide awake.

That was not the right move.

If the intel was correct, the witch and the defects should have been poisoned in the Black Sea and recuperating somewhere. They should not possess these reflexes.

The leader among them instantly stood on guard. Turning sharply, he lunged again. His wolf-fang claws aimed squarely at Moon’s vital pressure points.

Yet, his claws were blocked by something hard and unbreakable.

Axe stood in front of Moon, catching the black-clothed man’s iron-clawed hand with his bare palm.

"You want to die so badly?" he whispered.

A mischievous, dangerous smile played on his lips as he slowly but sharply twisted the man’s hand.

The black-clothed man heard a sickening crack as his wrist became dislocated.

Axe moved first, bringing his hand down like a blade, slashing onto the man’s neck and pushing him down.

On the other side, Ugo punched the third guard who was trying to come help the leader. His body was so flexible that the black-clothed man had a hallucination that the man before him had no bones at all.

But then another guard came behind him. A sharp dagger came down fast on Ugo’s back.