Chapter 189: Turmoil Rising

Wu Qingsong dispatched the enemies before him with incredible speed and rushed into Ram’s room, accompanied by the agonized screams of souls shattered and invading bodies.

The assassins fell to the ground, screaming in agony. In the crisis, Wu Qingsong frantically unleashed all the soul fragments he could muster onto them at once. The souls of these beastfolk felt as though they were being devoured and torn apart by countless monsters, leaving them shattered and their consciousnesses almost entirely obliterated, with only pain remaining.

“Ram! Ling!” Wu Qingsong anxiously shook their bodies. The sleeping smoke had put them into a deep sleep, but the only relief for Wu Qingsong was that they were still breathing and uninjured.

“Wake up!” 

Wu Qingsong didn’t know who these attackers were or if they had more tricks up their sleeves, but no matter what, leaving this place was their only option.

He pressed hard on the pressure points under their noses and between their thumbs and index fingers, finally rousing them from their stupor.

“Wu?” Ram asked groggily.

“Can you walk? Get up quickly!” Wu Qingsong urged.

He heard faint footsteps in the hallway outside and rushed out immediately.

Four beastfolk, also dressed in black and with their faces covered, stood outside. They were Klaus’s backup team left outside the inn. Upon hearing the screams, they cautiously entered the inn and the hallway, only to find the bodies of Klaus and his men.

Seeing Wu Qingsong, they hesitated for a moment before raising their weapons and charging at him.

However, the sudden, intense pain in their heads incapacitated them. 

Wu Qingsong swiftly dealt with each of them with a single strike of his sword. Returning to the room, he found Ram and the others still moving sluggishly under the influence of the sleeping smoke.

“Hurry up!” 

Wu Qingsong had to help them hastily dress and pack their important belongings before they stumbled out of the room.

The inn remained eerily silent, but the screams of the assailants outside had already alerted others. Since this was the capital of the Grand Duchy of Yagata, it wasn’t long before someone ran to inform the city guards, who were now on their way.

“Ram!” Wu Qingsong had to slap Ram’s face lightly to bring her back to her senses. “Wake up! We need your abilities now.”

There were already many onlookers outside. Given the current state of Ram and the others, it was nearly impossible for Wu Qingsong to lead them through the crowd and escape the pursuing city guards alone. He quickly realized that their only option was to hide somewhere and use Ram’s abilities to evade the imminent search.

“Wake up! Wake up!” 

He kept shaking her, finally managing to bring her back to partial consciousness.

“Someone came to capture us, but I killed them,” Wu Qingsong briefly explained to her. “We need to hide now.”

Ram struggled to stay alert and nodded.

Wu Qingsong led them through the inn, finally choosing an empty room.

Here, they wouldn’t need to constantly rely on Ram’s abilities. If someone came to search, they could see from the doorway that it was an empty room, making it less likely for them to enter.

As he closed the door, the sound of hoofbeats grew louder.

***

Twelve people had died in the inn outside Yagata City, one of them a half-elf with a clear connection to the Sentalus family. This incident was no small matter for the Grand Duchy.

The innkeeper and all the guests who had stayed that night were arrested and subjected to several rounds of intense interrogation, but no useful information was obtained.

The dead were clearly spies. At the time of the incident, the innkeeper and the other guests had been in a deep sleep, and the items found on the bodies, such as the sleeping smoke, confirmed this. It was obvious they had come to assassinate or capture someone. According to the inn’s records, their targets were a raccoongirl merchant from Polopolore Port and a half-elf from Umber. The city guards obtained detailed descriptions of them from the innkeeper, but despite an extensive search, they were unable to find these two key individuals.

There was no doubt that they had seen through the Sentalus people’s plot and turned the tables on them, killing them instead. 

But the question remained: why did the Sentalus people choose this time and place to act against them? Who were they, and what secrets or value did they possess?

For the people of Yagata, another equally important question was, how dare the Sentalus people use such tactics on their territory?

“There must be a conspiracy here.” 

The elves stationed in Yagata City unanimously believed this.

They quickly contacted the Sentalus office, demanding a reasonable explanation. However, after examining the scene, the Sentalus representatives reached a seemingly similar but fundamentally different conclusion.

“There must be a conspiracy here.”

They were not entirely clear on Klaus’s mission. They only knew that he had come from Yamara to capture a murderer who had killed a family member and that he had already identified a suspect.

But judging from the scene, it looked less like they had ambushed the others and more like they had fallen into a trap and were subsequently ambushed.

Klaus was a trusted and highly trained subordinate of the Sentalus Grand Duchy’s Chief of Security, not an incompetent fool. His subordinates were also carefully selected beastfolk. If they hadn’t been ambushed, there was no way they could all have been killed so quickly and completely, without even one person escaping to report.

According to the city guards, they arrived at the scene shortly after the incident. 

So, where did the murderers go? Why were there no clues about them? Why were the Yagata people focusing on holding the Sentalus people instead of pursuing the real killers?

This was Yagata City—who else could have such abilities?

So, questions arose. 

Why did they choose this time and place to act? 

What was the connection between the earlier murder and the deaths of Klaus and his men?

Was this a premeditated operation? What were their true intentions?

With these considerations, the Sentalus people refused to acknowledge it as a spy mission and were unwilling to provide details. Consequently, the Yagata people seized all the bodies and restricted the movements of the Sentalus Grand Duchy’s office in Yagata City, leading to a rapid deterioration in bilateral relations.

Unaware of the consequences of their actions, Wu Qingsong and his companions carefully avoided the city guards’ search under the cover of Ram’s illusion magic. 

The next morning, they reunited with Bernar and the others, bypassing Yagata City and resuming their journey to the imperial capital.

After agreeing on a meeting place and method in the capital, they split up. Ram and Ling joined a caravan of itinerant merchants, while Bernard and his group took on a low-profit escort mission, becoming guards for another temporary merchant caravan.

Wu Qingsong and Liuli posed as travelers and took a public carriage bound for the imperial capital.