Chapter 195 - Hands Dirty With Blood

In the end, Zaos took everyone who was hiding in the second building to the mansion, but he was crazy enough to leave his armor behind because he was pretty sure the attack wasn't over, and he didn't need anyone falling back and being attacked by the enemies because they were carrying his things. Besides, Zaos just noticed that he didn't need that old armor anymore. It was leagues below the one his father used, and his skin enhanced with magic could endure the power of bolts. That being said, all his scratches were bleeding, but that was good training.

Your Pain Resistance has reached level 29

"You are already back?" Erean frowned.

"I told you that we might make them run away," Drannor said.

"Don't count on that again, I used almost all my mana," Zaos said.

Erean and his men barely had finished moving all the almost one hundred and fifty unconscious guests to the wine house. Still, he couldn't help but be impressed that three fourteen years old kids managed to make so many assassins run away in the meantime.  Erean had lost five of his men, and Orleand had lost forty of his fifty guards, so he couldn't help but frown…

"Sir, do you have any idea who might have planned this attack?" Erean asked. "We will need to know that before deciding our next plan of action."

"I saw a group of men who seemed out of place just before the first people began to collapse," Zaos said while he was cleaning his face of the blood. "They seemed strangely cheerful, even though they weren't eating or drinking anything."

"… There is this group of men who have been becoming quite influential over the last five years," Orleand said after taking a deep breath. "There are many nasty rumors about them and from the ones we invited, they are the only ones who weren't among the unconscious guests."

"You invited that kind of person to your daughter's birthday party?" Zaos frowned.

"It was rumors… every merchant has heard a few bad rumors about themselves," Orleand said.

"Well, they aren't just rumors," Zaos said. "We managed to make the first group of enemies run away, but there are certainly many others attacking the other mansions right now. We only have a couple of hours before they regroup and try to wipe us all out and we don't have enough manpower to face them."

When the kids heard that, they couldn't help but tremble. Zaos looked like an enemy dirty with blood like that, and his tone wasn't helping the kids think of him any better. Still, everyone knew that he was right. They had one hundred and fifty people on their side, but they were unconscious. Half of them were kids, and maybe one-third or even less had touched a weapon in their entire lives. Fighting back wasn't an option.

Orleand looked at his guards, and they didn't have anything to say. Zaos was completely correct. The group of men who had planned the attack was absolutely ready to kill all the heads of the merchants' families and their relatives in order to become the new power in Vezar. So, the number of mercenaries they had brought was at least on par with the number of guards they had on the island, and since they were caught off guard on such a day…

"We will consider our prospects later," Erean said. "Right now, we need to move away from this place while carrying everyone with us. Zaos, you will have to use your magic on the adults."

"I can't wake up even half of them," Zaos said. "Not with my current mana."

"It is all right, it will be better than nothing," Erean said. "Right now, we need to show to the enemies that we are ready to fight back if things get dangerous. That and the fact that you guys made them run away, will be enough to make them think twice before attacking again."

Ameria was awfully quiet since the return of the fight. She was pale like a ghost once she calmed down, and the weight of the lives she took fell on her shoulders. 

"I told you not to think too much about that," Drannor said. "It was them or us and I don't think that they would grant any of us a quick death since we killed many of their allies. You fought them fair and square while they tried to assassinate us, you have no reason to feel guilty about this."

"I know… it is just…" Ameria hesitated. "It didn't feel real…

"That is because you never considered how frail a single human life is," Zaos said. "Now you had a good idea. If you aren't responsible enough, you might take other lives with the power you obtained. You have the power to protect and to take lives, now it is up to you to accept that your life and everyone's lives can be lost that easily."

"Zaos…" Drannor glared at Zaos.

"Did I say a lie? Do you think that I am wrong?" Zaos asked.

Drannor could only sigh since he realized how frail human beings were and the fact that he had been learning to protect lives with his spear. Still, sometimes, he had to take a life to save others… that was a feeling that he only got used to after a while.

Zaos used Cleanse and woke up more or less fifteen adults. After a while, they heard what happened, and once they saw the corpses outside the mansion, they realized that their lives were on the line. Although some of them were prideful merchants, they gladly followed Orleand's lead. They brought the unconscious people to the back of the mansion, where the carriages were parked. However, Zaos gave them the order to stop.

"I can sense some presents hidden within the forest… they are preparing an ambush," Zaos said.

The number of assassins wasn't that big, but in the darkness, since they were used to fighting there, they had the total advantage. Things might get really messy.