Thousands of carriages took off, leaving the Shionel Confederation behind as they traveled forth toward the Kandrian Empire. They stuck to pre-established paths, picking up on speed as they accelerated further and further.
They traveled much faster than any domestic carriage that frequented the roads of nations and were pulled by powerful domesticated Apprentice-level creatures, powered by esoteric engines, or a combination of both.
How else could relatively quick travel occur between nations that were separated by gigantic distances?
The carriages would reach the Kandrian Empire in just a matter of days.
That was also why Chairman Deacon was a lot more confident with the execution of destroying all the carriages en route due to how far away the carriages would be from the Shionel Confederation.
Soon enough, the day had arrived.
A veiled figure stood high in the sky as he observed the convoy of carriages speeding through the international carriage paths.
One moment he was standing still, the next moment, he dove down toward the convoy of carriages balling his fists as he tensed his body.
Every sentient lifeform in the region quivered at that moment. The very seemed to begin boiling as the sky seemingly darkened.
The surrounding world had changed.
The animals pulling the carriages stopped in their paths as they froze in primal terror. Almost every single sapient being felt was paralyzed in fear and despair.
Almost.
Just before he reached them, ready to launch his attack, a second aura enveloped the entire convoy, soothing their addled hearts within the span of a microsecond. A woman leaped out of one of the carriages of the convoy as her body lit up with glowing red lines streaking across her body, she dashed upwards, racing to clash against the plummeting veiled figure.
BOOM!!!!
A devastatingly titanic shockwave emerged from their collision!
In an instant, the blast wave expanded ten kilometers, threatening to annihilate everything in that radius!
Yet, that was not to be.
She narrowed her eyes as she deftly manipulated the very sky with her Senior-level breathing technique!
The shockwave simply disappeared before it could touch the carriages that she had been tasked with protecting.
The veiled Martial Senior widened his eyes in shock. He recognized her, she was one of the Martial Seniors that was employed by the Bradt Distribution Services.
Patroning a Martial Senior was far more expensive than doing the same for a Martial Squire, only the Cabinet Merchants possessed the ability to patron them, and only the richest cabinet merchants could afford to deploy them on such trivial operations, seemingly.
He hadn’t expected there to be a Martial Senior protecting the convoy. This was not what Chairman Deacon had informed him.
(‘The intelligence may be wrong but…’) His eyes narrowed as he grew serious, radiating a skyrocketing sense of peril. (‘That isn’t enough to stop me.’)
What happened next caught him off-guard.
A second Martial Senior appeared out of nowhere.
BOOM!!!
A thundering bolt of lightning crashed into his shoulder, instantly knocking him more than a dozen kilometers away! The sheer speed at which the impact blew him away ignited the very air.
Yet he couldn’t feel the pain from being electrocuted as he was overwhelmed with bewilderment.
He recognized both of them.
The burly woman who gave one the impression of an unshakeable mountain was one of the most powerful defensive Martial Seniors of the Shionel Confederation. Her Martial Art, the Landborn Armor Style was a Martial Art that employed the power of muscle defensively at the point of collision to withstand impacts.𝞸𝒱xt.𝒞𝐦
The man who had struck him just a moment ago was a powerful close-range striking-oriented whose Thundering Lance style harnessed the power of lightning in its attacks!
Both of them were part of the Bradt Distribution Service. They were both quite prominent in the Shionel Confederation, which was precisely why he was so surprised by their surprise appearance.
(‘The Thundering Sovereign and the Earthen Empress were both deployed to protect a measly Martial Squire?!’) He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
As a Martial Senior, he had never been bought into the hype of the Voider. No matter how strong, smart, or incredible a Martial Squire is, at the end of the day, they were still a Martial Squire. The Voider’s disproportionate value and importance were tied to the Shionel Dungeon because it only tolerated Martial Squires. That was the only reason that he momentarily gained more infamy and value than even Martial Seniors, now that the whole debacle surrounding the Shionel Dungeon had come to an end, and the Voider was fleeing, he was no different from any other Martial Squire weakling.
That was why he couldn’t fathom the idea of protecting two Martial Squires, no matter how promising, with two Martial Seniors. The cost-benefit analysis didn’t make any sense at the moment, the Voider should have lost all value, or so he thought.
He quickly put aside such thoughts as his mind returned to the battle considering the prospects of the fight momentarily. Fighting a close-range defensive Martial Squire and a close-range offensive Martial Artist as a close-range maneuvering-oriented Martial Artist was definitely not something that he should consider doing rashly.
Frankly, it appeared that neither of them intended to actively pursue him. They stood their ground as they waited for him to make his choice. Each of them was aware of what they had to do, and what the other was considering doing.
(‘Retreat it is,’) He shrugged inwardly, sky-walking away at tremendous speeds. The intelligence that he had been briefed with on the mission was fundamentally wrong and egregiously wrong. The difference between standard protection, and being protected by two Martial Seniors was incredibly large, and he was well within his right to avoid fulfilling the mission.
Ten minutes later, he had already returned back to the Shionel Confederation at lightning speeds, covertly entering the nation through the channels maintained by Chairman Deacon, before heading back to the main branch office of Deacon Industries to report to Chairman Deacon.