The Thorne of Destiny-Chapter 130: The Toxic Rose

"T-That’s not it, my Lord. We got there as quickly as possible and were told he ran into an alley. We immediately tried to chase him down, however there was no trace of him there.

It was almost as if he had -".

"Vanished." It was Julian who completed the sentence.

As soon as Julian spoke the words, a heavy silence fell over the room. Both father and son were now in deep thought, pondering over the matter.

Well, Julian wasn’t doing much pondering. In his mind, this individual was definitely the same person he had encountered in the Misty Mountains.

That meant that he had somehow successfully avoided him during the inspection and was now residing in the city, his city. The thought of this made him very angry.

Thinking about all the humiliation he had suffered because of him, his anger intensified, and he wanted nothing more than to crush him.

However, City Lord Richards had different thoughts. This was the second time he was hearing about a Foundation Establishment realm cultivator supposedly vanishing.

At first, when he heard Julian telling the story, he had not paid much attention to it. He merely thought it was Julian embellishing the story to hide his embarrassment from failing to capture a Foundation Establishment realm cultivator.

As for the part of the story where he was a righteous cultivator saving him from beasts, he didn’t believe it for a second. Julian was his son; he knew his personality best.

Later, when they were alone, he got the true story from him. Although Julian still hadn’t told him how he was doing in the inner region. He knew his son was still hiding some secrets, but didn’t press further.

However, now that the same vanishing act was used and now inside his city, he had no choice but to pay close attention to it. For a Foundation Establishment realm to be able to escape capture twice by those stronger than him and quite easily at that, it had to be the work of an artifact.

And it couldn’t be a low rank one at that. His eyes shone at the prospect of gaining such a useful artifact. It would be a very useful trump card that would be handy in escaping.

Greed overtook his mind, and he was about to give an order to the guard captain. However, just before he could speak, he heard a slight chuckle coming from the hall.

"Heh, to think I would hear such interesting news," Bella said as she and Elder Glenda stepped into the main hall. As soon as both women stepped, all the attention shifted to them.

The City Lord was surprised at the sudden appearance of the two women. However, he quickly composed himself and stood up to welcome them.

"L-Lady Vyre, welcome. How has your stay been?

If there’s anything you’re unsatisfied with, please feel free to tell me. I’ll make sure to correct it right away." He said with a smile on his face.

"Don’t bother with useless pleasantries. I was bored staying in that room for the past few days, so I decided to take a stroll. Who would’ve thought that I would hear a piece of interesting news?"

She said with a light wave of her hand.

The smile on City Lord froze as he cursed inwardly.

’Shit.’ She heard everything.

He wanted to avoid that happening. Now it seemed it was too late.

Bella’s amber eyes flicked from Julian to City Lord Richards, then to the kneeling guard captain. "So," she said casually, "a Foundation Establishment cultivator killed two Golden Core realm guards... in a single move?"

She laughed lightly, though there was no humor in it. "Are your guards truly so weak? Or is this ’Foundation Establishment cultivator’ not what he appears to be?"

City Lord Richards cleared his throat. "Lady Vyre, this incident, while unfortunate, is being handled swiftly. I assure you, once we locate the culprit, we’ll bring him to justice."

"Are you going to do it by running your mouth in this place?" She asked sarcastically.

City Lord Richards felt the corners of his mouth twitch. He could feel himself losing control whenever he spoke to this girl.

Would it kill her to speak to him with a little more respect? He was far older than her. Even if she didn’t respect his age, shouldn’t she respect his strength?

One had to know that squashing her would only take him a finger. Yet she was still speaking so brazenly towards him. He had heard rumors of how deadly her personality was, and it wasn’t because of the poison.

However, he didn’t know it was this bad.

’As expected of the toxic rose.’ He muttered inwardly before turning his attention back on her. He quickly calmed his anger when he felt the gaze of the woman behind Bella on him.

"I will immediately dispatch my most trusted men to deal with this matter. Rest assured, Lady Vyre, that man will be in front of you soon." He said with a resolute expression on his face.

"Hmm, alright, don’t disappoint me... again," She said that last part while glancing at Julian before turning around and walking out. Seeing the two women leaving, City Lord Richards couldn’t help but release a small sigh.

Then, turning his attention towards the guards’ captain, who was still on his knees, he gave him his order.

"Send out all the guards. Search every house, every inn, every pub, every restaurant. I refuse to believe that that bastard can hide indefinitely in my city."

He ordered his previous subservient attitude replaced by a cold, ruthless one.

"Yes, my Lord." The guard captain replied swiftly and, after receiving his orders, immediately departed in order to act on them.

The rest of the night passed in a blur, and soon, it was the next day. However, instead of being woken up by the morning rays of sunshine, the residents of Stonehold city were woken up by the sound of the boots of the guards marching through the city.

The whole city was crawling with guards on a scale far greater than before. The guards were searching through every building without discrimination.

Even the residences of the noble families were not spared. Those of the small and medium noble families were searched wantonly. Only those of the Large noble families were spared.

Well, it wasn’t as if there were many of them. There were only four large noble families in Stonehold city, including the Richards family. They might not be as powerful as the Richards family, but they couldn’t be messed with easily.

Sure enough, when the guards went to search their residences, they were chased away like thieves.

It wasn’t as if City Lord Richard didn’t know that this would be the outcome. However, he still ordered it. The Richards family wasn’t exactly on the best of terms with the three families.

They were all competitors, waiting for the opportunity to get one over on each other. The only reason City Lord was brazen enough to give the order was because of the presence of Bella and Elder Glenda.

If something went wrong, he could simply blame those families that failed to cooperate with the search.

However, for the ordinary population, it was not so easy. They didn’t have the right to refuse, or they would be accused of treason and immediately arrested.

That was how determined City Lord Richards was to capture this elusive cultivator.

In the inn in the outer regions of the city, Adrian stood with a grave expression on his face. He was not expecting a reaction to this extent. He knew that there would be a reaction from the guards, seeing as he had killed two of them.

But c’mon. This was just overkill. Now Adrian had to find a way to escape from the city guards. If he were alone, he wouldn’t have been so worried.

However... Adrian glanced back towards the two kids who were still sleeping on the bed. With them with him, escaping was multiple times harder.

However, Adrian wasn’t one to give up. His mind had already formulated a plan. It was almost impossible for them to leave now.

If that were the case, then he would divert their attention from this place. The guards would still take a few days to get to this place, since it was so far from the center of the city. However, he wasn’t going to wait for them to get close.

He put on the Veil of a Hundred Shadows once again and was about to step out once again when he heard stirring from behind him.

Jayson was the one who woke up. Seeing his big brother preparing to leave once again, Jayson’s sleepy eyes quickly cleared up before asking.

"Big brother, where are you going?"

"Don’t worry. I’m just going out to take care of some annoying things." Adrian replied with a smile. Jayson knew that his big brother wasn’t telling him the full truth, but just before he wanted to ask, Adrian spoke again.

"You guys shouldn’t go anywhere today. It not safe currently in the city."