The Duke's Passion



833 Kraken

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"Knock them out. It's best for the both of them."

The knight gazed at Claude in surprise as the latter drew his head back. Seeing the resolve in Claude's eyes, the knight nodded without a word. With that being said, the knight ushered the children to the other soldiers to ride with them. But just as they reached the chariot, the other knight pressed something on the children's shoulder, knocking them out as quietly as possible. Claude rocked his head as the knights glanced back in his direction before Claude set his eyes back on I leliot. Claude marched in Ileliot's direction, stopping several steps from the latter.

Since Claude would separate ways with them, he instructed Heliot of the places he was certain there were survivors and then the safest mansion on the outskirt of the capital. Heliot listened carefully to the instruction, gazing in a particular direction while nodding.

"Very well - ahem!" Claude cleared his throat, assessing Heliot's side profile. "Good luck on your mission."

Heliot cast Claude an indifferent side eye, only to see the latter wave dismissively. As Claude walked away leisurely before he started skipping, Heliot's attention shifted to the building before them. His eyes narrowed, catching little cracks in the wall.

The cracks crawled and gradually picked up its pace. In a blink of an eye, the entire establishment erupted into smithereens.

"Ahh..." Heliot protected himself from the debris by turning them into sand, creating thicker smoke of dust.

Heliot had been wondering how Claude stopped the impact of their abrupt clash. Even though Heliot was aware Claude stopped Heliot's attack with brute force, there was still an after-effect of the impact. This establishment wouldn't survive the impact as it was the nearest to them. The establishments and houses were ruined in the arca, losing their roofs or showing clear effects of the impact.

But this house, for some reason, wasn't affected. Now, Heliot understood that wasn't the case. "What a convenient ability," he murmured, realizing it wasn't that the establishment where the children hid wasn't affected. In fact, it inflicted the damages that was expected. The only reason it didn't give in immediately was that Claude stopped its time.

From Ileliot's understanding, Claude didn't stop the general time since everyone didn't notice. However, he stopped or probably extended the life expectancy of the establishment. No wonder Heliot felt this strange aura when he went to check inside previously. It was just faint, and he didn't have the time to dwell on it.

"A convenient ability matched with a quick thinking... that young man is surely admirable." Heliot turned on his heel, telling himself, admiring Claude's ability and how quickly the latter's thinking wasn't their priority.

Right now, Heliot had met another agenda, and that was to evacuate and rescue all the survivors. It was a shame he couldn't end Zero himself, but more than his opinion, he couldn't just turn his back on the people of Spade. He wasn't his subject, but these pitiful citizens were simply victims of being born in a land ruled by a cruel king.

Heliot stepped out of the thick fog and was welcomed by several units, who were waiting for his orders. He scanned the knights' determined faces, drawing a deep breath before his lips parted, briefing them on the important details and giving out his royal orders.

************

Meanwhile, near the seacoast of the Spade Kingdom, warships could be seen from the edge of the land. One could tell there was also a battle that was going on despite that Claude could barely see the ships. They were as tiny as ants from his vantage point, but the smoke billowing in the night sky was an enough indicator of a fierce battle.

Sparks were also flying, creating distant explosions from the cannons and causing large waves. Just looking at it made Claude a little nauseous as he wasn't that fond of sea travel that much. Good thing they traveled with a small group and thus, they took the route on land instead of

going via ship.

"Amazing..." Claude breathed out, narrowing his eyes.

His gaze caught the proud flag of the Heart's Kingdom fluttering wildly on top of the several warships. If Claude's calculation was correct, Stefan shouldn't have advanced this fast with the warships that welcomed them from the Spade Kingdom.

However, considering most of the important limbs of Zero were in the Capital, it wasn't that surprising. Even so, it was still amazing. After all, whoever was in charge of these warships was a capable individual. It was the same with the person defending the cast border. They managed to force Heliot to exert more effort to breach the border, after all.

"Should I wait?" Claude wondered to himself, looking around the coast if there were more troops. There was no one but himself. "Considering the plan was to mislead Quentin and force half of his sea warriors into the other fort, they'd probably realized late that the arrival place is this one and not the other one"

Claude rocked his head in understanding, assuming that those who were expecting Stefan's ships on the other fort didn't realize this was where Stefan's people would arrive. If those soldiers realized this, they would surely gallop their way into this place to stop Stefan from stepping foot in this land.

"That's right. There's no way Stefan would just leave the fort unguarded. He must've had other plans..." just as those remarks rolled out of Claude's lips, his breath hitched as his pupils went wide. His heart suddenly thudded against his ribcage, making it skip a beat for a moment. There, on the sea, appeared gigantic tentacles from the underground. It appeared so suddenly that some ships split in half. Compare to the tiny size of the ships that appeared from Claude's vantage point, those tentacles looked monstrous.

"Kraken..." whispered Claude, holding his breath as a warship from the Heart's Kingdom got wrecked in one swift move. It reminded him of those dark threads in the Colosseum, but this one was twice bigger than those. "... just what sort of sorcery did that man do to deploy all sorts

of things?"

Just then, Claude realized that Zero might've known the diversion Stefan planned, and thus, he prepared such a monstrous and legendary creature to fight them. This wouldn't be an easy match... that was for sure.

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