Chapter 1468: The War
A view of death and destruction filled the outside of the hotel. Their immediate vicinity was fine, but as they walked farther away, both Jasmine and Tim could see dead people sprawled across the ground.
Body parts were in every direction, blood spilling in every corner. Not only children, but even old men and women cried, either from pain or because they lost someone.
Jasmine walked in her horrified state, looking at the entire thing. People rushed by her, trying to save who they could.
In the distance, smoke piled up high into the sky. Something burned wildly in the distance and everyone shouted incoherently.
“What happened here?” Jasmine spoke softly, questioning Tim who himself had no answer.
“Maybe the military came and attacked at night,” Tim said, wondering how he did not hear any of it at all. But then, he had heard some muffled noises throughout the morning. He had just ignored it mostly.
‘People were dying, while I slept peacefully,’ he thought. Had it been far away in another country, he may not have thought much about it. But for people to die so close by, it made him feel a lot worse than he could have imagined.
He heard footsteps and turned around just in time to see a man rushing at him with a knife.
Tim panicked, and in his panic, he drew in the Time he had stored in the box. Time slowed, and Tim grabbed the man’s hand, twisting it.
Time returned to normal and the knife clattered on the floor. The man screamed loudly as Tim twisted his arm so much that he turned around.
Tim swiped at his leg and made him slam to the ground. He got on top of the man’s back, his knees locking his arm. Additional weight filled him, making it difficult for the man to move.
Tim grabbed him by the hair and pulled his head up. “Who are you? Why did you try to kill me?” he shouted.
“Merthy!” the man screamed. “Hab Merthy!”
Tim stared at the man’s face and noticed two of his front teeth missing. He grabbed his hair harder, making the man scream even more. “Who sent you?” he asked.
“Nobody! I wanted to stheal your treasure,” the man answered. “Hab Merthy!”
Tim felt disgusted when he thought that he had nearly died, and all because this man wanted to steal from him during all of this chaos.
Jasmine kicked him in the head. “Tell us what is going on here? Who attacked the pirates? Did some nation’s military come in the night?” he asked.
“No,” the man answered. “Sthillheart and Redfisth fought againsth the Greenskull pirates this morning.”
Jasmine frowned a little upon hearing that news. “What?” she asked. “Stillwater attacked Yolan? Or was it the other way around?”
“Don’t know. They attacked eath other,” the man said.
Jasmine struck him on the head again. “If you dare try to attack us again, we will gut you like a fish and leave your entrails out for the vultures to eat. Got it?”
“Yeth, ma’am,” the man answered quickly.
“Now go! I don’t want to see you again.”
Tim let go of the man and watched him run away. “We should get out of here,” he told Jasmine. “More people might end up getting some unnecessary intentions after seeing the two of us there.”
Jasmine turned the two of the invisible and they went further ahead to check out the level of destruction.
Guns, swords, knives, grenades, and perhaps even cannons seemed to have been used in this large-scale battle, where from what they could hear, Yolan pirates had been wiped out.
People cursed Yolan and his pirates for having betrayed them, which made the two wonder just what had they found out.
They didn’t find Stillwater or Redfist, so they returned to the hotel sometime later after seeing enough deaths for one day.
“Yolan is dead?” Tony asked in surprise as the two delivered the news over to the rest in the penthouse.
“Yep. All of the Greenskull pirates were killed this morning in an all-out battle. Many from the other two pirates have also died,” Jasmine answered.
“Stillwater did this?” Tony asked.
“She and Redfist together,” Tim said.
“Damn!” Tony exclaimed. “She works fast, doesn’t she?”
“Works fast?” Jasmine asked. “What does that mean?”
“It was just yesterday midnight that I told her about that flute’s origin, and how it was clear that Yolan was working for the Rurian kingdom.”
“I did not expect her to act on it so quickly, going so far as to kill their entire pirate group in just a single morning.” Tony shook his head as thought about it.
“Woah!”
Jasmine and Tim were too surprised for their mind to go anywhere for the time being. It took them some time to remember that they still had to complete the mission.
“We need another treasure, don’t we?” Tim asked and only then did Jasmine remember what she had read.
“Right, that register said someone named Darkwind would be at one of the other penthouses in this hotel. We should go and check him,” Jasmine said.
“Wait, wait, wait. Where are you going?” he asked.
Jasmine and Tim had to explain to Tony about their hypothesis and how they believed the last treasure to belong to the person in the other penthouse, who they believed to be the one who had stolen Yolan’s treasure, causing this entire debacle.
“That’s a lot of leaps you are taking in your assumption to reach your conclusion,” Tony said. “Not only do you believe that only someone staying in the penthouse would be someone Stillwater wouldn’t talk about, but you also believe that someone would need a treasure to steal from others. Traditional thieves exist too, you know?”
“It might be difficult for you two to understand, but most people in the world don’t have a treasure they can use. Just having a single one makes you a one-in-a-million person. So, it is very unlikely that the other person staying in the penthouse has any.”
Tim and Jasmine felt a little silent after hearing Tony’s words. It was true that they had jumped through many assumptions to reach where they had, but they also believed it to be true.
“It won’t hurt to check though, right?” Tim asked. “We’re on our last leg. We have, what, 4 hours before we need to leave? If we don’t find it in 4 hours, we’ll fail the mission.”
“Yeah, we need to check,” Jasmine said. “If we are wrong, we are wrong.”
Tony supposed they weren’t wrong in the end. “You can go and find out if you’re right or wrong,” he said.
Tim and Jasmine nodded and walked away.
Tony sighed and turned toward Ning who was sitting with a wide smile on his face.
“What?” Tony inquired.
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just smiling because they found out who owns the final treasure. Now I’m just curious to see if they can get it from the other person.”
Tony gave a surprised expression. “Wait, so the other person in this hotel owns the final treasure?”
Ning laughed a little when he heard the question. “Why did you think it was that I chose this hotel in the first place?”
* * * **
Jasmine and Tim walked up the other stairs completely invisible. They made as little sound as they could while arriving at the top of the stairs.
Only when they arrived there, two guards stood on either side, which they weren’t doing for Ning and the rest.
‘What?’ Jasmine thought to herself. ‘There are damn guards here?’
Tim poked at her and made a gesture to ask how they were going to get in.
Jasmine thought for a short moment and told him to calm down. She had an idea.
Using her treasure, Jasmine created an illusory door outside of the real one, made to look firm and steady. Then, she gestured to Tim to push it slowly.
Tim nodded and tapped into the strength he had stored in the box, pushing the door as silently as he could. The doors were thankfully well lubricated and thus did not creak beyond some small sound that the guards ignored.
They slowly walked into the room through the open door and closed it behind them while Jasmine let go of the illusion of the door outside.
Inside, the penthouse was the exact replica of the one they were staying in. It was easy to navigate such a place.
“How many people do you think live here?” Tim asked.
“There was just one name on the register,” Jasmine mentioned. As she did, she remembered that Ning had only named himself on the penthouse too.
So there could be a lot more than just the single man in this place.
‘Shit!’ she couldn’t help but curse under her breath as she moved through the place. There were equally as many rooms in the penthouse, so they had to search through them silently while making as little noise as possible.
So, Jasmine went to the first of the many doors and opened it.
The room inside of that was empty, so she went to the other one. Tim went to the one on the furthest side on the other end and began checking those rooms.
There was nobody there.
One by one, they checked through all the rooms, but not a single person was there.
Tim sighed and walked back to meet Jasmine. He found Jasmine as she came out of one of the rooms. As she came out, he noticed something different about her.
“Hey, where’s your ring?” he asked her.
Jasmine looked down on her fingers. Her ring was missing.
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