Going back in time a bit.
In the opposite direction, inside of a forest.
The crown prince’s group were currently camped out in the middle of this forest.
After they had left Dungeon City, they had also met up with a group of guards and had quickly made their way away from that city.
However, instead of heading to the closest town like the second prince’s group had done, they had gone to this forest.
That was because they had already set up a proper fortress in the middle of this forest.
This was something that had already been set up before the crown prince’s group had set out to Lin Fan’s dungeon town.
This fortress had been created for a different reason, but it was where the crown prince’s men had gathered. Since it was also close, the crown prince decided to send men from this fortress to the dungeon town to take care of this business for him.
Now that they had finished, they naturally returned to this fortress.
Inside of this fortress were many soldiers, much more than what a single fortress was supposed to have.
Not to mention that they all had shiny bright armour that were clearly new and well made.
As well, they all had an aura that normal soldiers wouldn’t have.
These were clearly elite troops under the crown prince that had been deployed to this place.
As for the reason…it was something that only they and the crown prince knew.
After entering the fortress, the person the crown prince sent went to the command tent to report in.
The person sitting in the center of the tent saw the leader of the group and said with a nod, “Commander, come and sit. Tell me how everything went.”
The one called commander was naturally the leader of the group who had gone to the dungeon town.
As he sat down, everyone in the command tent all turned to look at him. Some of them with kind eyes and some of them with unkind eyes.
It was clear that there wasn’t a united front in this fortress, but that was to be expected in a place like this.
After the commander sat down, he turned to the one sitting in the center and said, “General, we delivered the present as ordered and then safely made our way out of the town. Based on the interactions between the new City Lord Lin and the envoy from the second prince, it seems like the relationship between them is on tight ropes.”
The general gave a nod when he heard this before turning to someone else and asking, “How did the ambush go?”
The one that he spoke to shook his head and said, “We’re currently watching over them, but they are hiding inside of a residence in the nearby town. We’ve detected traces of an array, so we haven’t attempted to break into the residence just yet. We’ll keep watching them and wait for a chance.”
The general gave a nod in response for this without a surprised look.
This was the result that they had already expected, so it wasn’t as if they would be surprised.
The second prince’s forces couldn’t be looked down on or they wouldn’t be able to threaten the crown prince in the race to the throne.
Once the reports were done, the general said to the commander, “Commander, you and your troops can go and rest. It’s been hard on you, so you can all take a few days off.”
The commander stood up and saluted the general before saying, “Thank you general.”
Then without hesitation, he headed out while everyone else continued the meeting.
They didn’t mind him leaving since he wasn’t qualified to be in this meeting in the first place.
Even though he had been sent to the town, he was actually disposable.
He was only the commander of his small group of soldiers while the rest were all commanders of battalions or generals of armies. So he wasn’t qualified to stay in this meeting with them.
The only reason he was allowed in was to report on his mission.
After coming back to the tent that his group was located in, he revealed a smile and said, “We have some time off for our efforts.”
Hearing this, all of his men who had been sitting there waiting for him all broke out in cheers.
It had been a long time since they had some time off, so of course they were happy.
After all, it was only when they had time off that they were able to meet their families again.
Normally soldiers, especially elite soldiers like them would be on duty full time and would always be with the army. So they rarely had the time to go and see their families.
But now that they had some time off, it was time to go home.
However, before all of that…
After that cheering and that celebration, all of them headed to their own beds.
They had been running on low amounts of sleep for a long time now.
As soldiers, they wouldn’t allow themselves to relax when in enemy territory which was what they regarded the dungeon town as. So they had been sleeping in rotation, always keeping someone on watch.
But now that they had left the dungeon town and were back in their own camps, they no longer needed to remain alert.
Many of them were very tired from their trip to the dungeon town, so they fell asleep as soon as their heads touched the pillows.
The commander also went to his private tent and quickly fell asleep as well.
They all had pleasant dreams and were looking forward to seeing their families again.
However, when they woke up, they woke up in a completely different place.
When these people woke up, they found that they were inside of a cave that they didn’t recognize at all.
When they looked around, they found that it was only their group that was in this cave and there was no one else around.
As soon as they realized this, all of them turned to the commander who was there with them.
The commander saw this and shook his head to show that he didn’t know what to do either, but then he said, “For now, investigate the area and see if you can find anything else.”
All of the soldiers nodded before spreading out through this cave.
This cave around them was only big, there was nothing in this cave at all.
The only thing that they could find were two passages in front of them.
There were some marks on the passages that they couldn’t understand at all, so they were no help to them at all.
With nothing else in this room, they had no choice but to choose one of the passages to go down.
After all, while they didn’t know how they got here, they knew that someone must have brought them here for a reason. Since the people who brought them here kidnapped them while they were sleeping, it was clear that they didn’t have any good intentions.
So it was in their best interests to leave this place as soon as possible.
The only thing that they couldn’t understand was how they had been kidnapped from that secure fortress in the first place.
This was a place that was filled with the elite troops under the crown prince, a place that even the best trained assassins wouldn’t be able to break into that easily.
So how had they been kidnapped?
But this wasn’t the time to think about that since they needed to find a way to escape.
So they all grouped up and took a formation.
As expected of these well trained soldiers, the formation that they took was perfect for the situation that they were in.
There were those in front with abilities to defend, there were those in the middle with abilities to attack, and there were those in the back with support abilities. The only problem that they had was that they didn’t have a single weapon with them.
They had been sleeping after all, so they had taken off everything that they would normally have on them.
Once they were in formation, the commander gave a command, “Forward.”
It was one simple word, but it had the full might of a commander who was a master of his craft. The full might of a commander who had survived countless battles with his soldiers.
There was a clear difference between these soldiers and the second prince’s envoy group.
Instead of only caring about their own survival, these soldiers entrusted each other’s safety into the hands of their comrades and worked together to survive without hesitation. Instead of sending their weakest members forth to scout out the area, they entered the passage in this formation.
They continued forward at a slow and steady pace, but they found that nothing happened.
Of course, they didn’t let their guard down as trained soldiers, so they were on full guard as they made their way forward.
But of course, none of that mattered in the end.
When they were about to reach the end of this passage, when they could see that they were about to escape, that hope was crushed.
The floor underneath them suddenly gave way and they found that they were falling.
As they fell, they couldn’t help looking at the exit to the passage in front of them.
They had come so close, but they hadn’t been able to reach it in the end…
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