Chapter 152: Shedding the Golden Cicada's Shell

Leost, your great dragon can reach the royal capital in just a single day, right? I will return with you tomorrow morning, but today you must focus all your efforts on capturing Chu Yun. You needn't worry about my safety, as the personal guards will protect me. The First Prince was preparing to make his escape, and therefore intended to dismiss Leost first.

As for capturing Chu Yun, it was merely an excuse he had fabricated; even without Chu Yun, he would have found other tasks to assign to Leost.

"By the way, what about that Laysa from Viscount Carl's estate? Bring her to me first." The First Prince was deeply interested in Laysa, partly because her flying wings could help him escape at night, and partly because she was someone the Second Prince had once favored.

The thought of defiling the Second Prince's beloved woman right before leaving filled him with excitement.

However, Leost had already made his choice by this moment—he chose to fully support the Second Prince and abandon this unreliable First Prince, Mura. Upon hearing the command, he replied with a completely expressionless face, "My apologies, His Majesty's orders are extremely urgent, and I must take you back right now."

Hearing Leost drop all honorifics and refer to the Second Prince directly as "Your Majesty," the First Prince's face instantly turned cold.

"Leost, do you intend to defy my orders?" the First Prince asked, staring straight into Leost's eyes.

As a Tier 5 Dragon Knight, Leost naturally felt no fear toward him. He shook his head and explained, "Naturally, Your Highness's orders must be obeyed. I will have my subordinates continue searching for Chu Yun and Laysa, but Your Highness, you should leave this place with me first, lest complications arise from dragging this out."

At that moment, the black dragon poked its head out from behind Leost, its ferocious countenance startling First Prince Mura.

"What—what are you trying to do?!"

"Come with me, Your Highness. Your plan... has already failed." Leost was referring to the Divine Spark Fragment project; from various signs, he had finally deduced that something seemed to have gone wrong with the Holy Lance.

"Wait, I still have business to attend to." The First Prince had no intention of submitting so easily.

"Oh? What business does Your Highness still have to take care of? I can handle it on your behalf. Please do not leave my sight; otherwise, if we encounter another assassin, it will be quite troublesome." Leost stepped forward to block Mura, preventing him from leaving.

"Audacious! I... I need to relieve myself." Mura wanted to scold Leost, but the black dragon behind him bared its fangs and snarled, frightening him into hurriedly changing his words.

Such personal matters were naturally something Leost could not handle on his behalf, leaving him with no choice but to wait outside the restroom for the First Prince to emerge. For an imperial prince to be reduced to such a plight was truly lamentable.

Leost waited outside the door for a short while, but gradually, he began to feel that something was amiss.

"Your Highness the First Prince?"

"Are you still inside, Your Highness the First Prince?"

"Your Highness, if you do not come out soon, for your own safety, I will have to force my way in," Leost said, his brow furrowing as he questioned again.

Just at that moment, a powerful surge of elemental fluctuations rippled outward, and Leost rushed into the restroom without hesitation.

However, what met his eyes was the First Prince's vanishing figure, casting a gaze filled with bitter hatred at him just before disappearing.

"Not good! It's a teleportation spell! He actually had a teleportation scroll on him!" Leost cried out in shock.

"This is going to be troublesome. Judging by the signs of the spell activation just now, it must have been a targeted teleportation. When on earth did this First Prince record the coordinates?" Leost's mind was filled with doubt.

Teleportation spells are generally divided into two types. The first is random teleportation, which transports the target to a random location within a certain radius—a radius determined by the tier of the teleportation scroll.

The second type is targeted teleportation. In the case of a scroll, the destination coordinates must be pre-recorded onto the scroll before it can be activated.

Recording a scroll takes time, and Leost had not been watching the First Prince every single second; he had no idea when the other party had recorded the coordinates.

Leost deduced that the targeted teleportation scroll used by the First Prince was likely of Tier 3. Calculated from this starting point, the transmission distance of a Tier 3 scroll extended far beyond the boundaries of Blackstone City.

By now, the First Prince had probably fled far away from Blackstone City, with no telling where he might have run.

"Damn it! He must have been planning to escape all along. No wonder he didn't stay at the City Lord's Mansion, but instead chose to lodge somewhere relatively close to the city wall! Damn it!"

"Right, the First Prince also sealed off Blackstone City to prevent anyone from entering or leaving. That way, any witnesses in the wilderness would be severely limited. So it was all planned from the start! Detestable!"

"Men! Everyone, gather at once..."

Realizing he had been outmaneuvered, Leost hurriedly ordered his men to search for the First Prince, while also commanding the black dragon to fly out of the city ahead of time to scour the surrounding areas.

***

Meanwhile, the First Prince had already arrived outside Blackstone City. However, contrary to Leost's guess, he had not been teleported to the eastern city wall close to his lodging, but rather to a spot just outside the western city wall.

This teleportation point was not something he had recorded himself; rather, it was a spot recorded and handed to him by his most trusted and loyal confidant.

Leost and his party had never visited this location, so they would certainly never expect him to have teleported here in a targeted manner. To ensure Leost knew he had used a targeted teleportation rather than a random one, he had deliberately lingered in the restroom for so long, all for the purpose of letting Leost witness the activation of the scroll.

"I've finally managed to escape successfully, though it's a pity I didn't get the flying wings." Although the First Prince also possessed a levitation magic scroll, that was meant to be used as a life-saving trump card.

There was no telling what kind of magical beasts might be encountered along the road ahead, so it was better to save it for later. Once he reached the Carlos Riverbank where the border legion was stationed and crossed the high altitude to enter the Kingdom of Karachia, he would be relatively safe.

What the First Prince did not know was that from the very moment he activated the scroll, a pair of eyes had been watching him the entire time.

Inside the mirror world, Chu Yun had witnessed the entire process of the First Prince casting the teleportation scroll, rather than just catching the final glimpse like Leost had.

Chu Yun's inscription proficiency had recently increased quite a bit; although he didn't recognize every single rune on the scroll, having spent some time studying Earth coordinates, Chu Yun possessed a certain understanding of spatial inscriptions.

Even without knowing the exact destination of the First Prince's teleportation, observing from close range allowed him to discern the general direction of the escape.

Killing the First Prince inside Blackstone City would bring trouble to the city and Keli's parents, and moreover, Chu Yun could not launch attacks recklessly since certain spells might expose his identity.

Now, however, things were different. Once he located the First Prince, he could kill him without any worries and then use the mirror world to destroy the corpse and eliminate all traces.

By then, no one would suspect Chu Yun; people would simply assume he had fled and gone into hiding where no one could find him, and he would never be tracked down—he would vanish completely from the face of the earth!

Inside the mirror world, Chu Yun unfurled his flying wings and soared swiftly toward the west like a demon. Since it was daytime, looking down from the sky to search the land for Mura was relatively convenient.

As he flew, Chu Yun pulled out a map and began to speculate on the other's route.

[Map] Please refer to the pinned post in the book review section.