I regressed and became the Sword Ice King
Chapter 431: 431- Festival 162- The Sun Comet 11

Chapter 431: Chapter 431- Festival 162- The Sun Comet 11

‘Why is she here?’

The question dropped like an iron pin in the Pacific.

Starting a whirl of thoughts that only led to confusion.

Nicho’s once calm and lighthearted mood had taken a turn for the worse.

Because, unlike Louis who was amid a moral crisis, Ciara had already long forged hers.

If she so much as decides he was better off dead, then he would be.

‘Hah…how low I’ve fallen.’

He thought as he watched her make her way up the chain of Pipelines to get to them.

As he watched her in the eerie silence, his thoughts broke into different compartments

One searching for a means out, another calculating the right choice of words to use in his carefully laid out predicament. And the last thought questioned her sudden appearance.

‘How is she here?’

Thus, his question evolved as such.

‘There was a clear trap…wasn’t there?’

It dawned on him slowly. Evidently. A finality served cold on a platter.

‘They’re dead.’

But how?

She should have been useless without mana.

‘So…how?’

Just then, the foothold they stood on rattled.

A sudden, frail sound of metal clanging against itself as Ciara landed with the demeanour of a Valkyrie.

A Warrior set out to rule out the deeds of men and judge them worthy of life or death.

“Ciara?” Louis’ voice whipped the air with a calm that startled them.

His once-unfolded emotions neatly clicked back behind the bars that locked them.

“Why are you here and not with Mariam?” He asked.

“Oh, calm down. Louis.” She said with a soft sigh, while glancing at Nicho.

“She’s fine, but like this man said…she won’t wake up without that Miasma being pulled out of her.”

Louis stood silent.

But Nicho didn’t.

As he was completely laid out, armless and with just a hand, he couldn’t let the flow of events be led by the two who could kill him.

“As such, you should let me go.”

Ciara scoffed nearly instantly.

“Let you go? You…a threat not just to the Kingdom but to the Merlin Household?”

The sarcasm dripped with venom as she folded her hands.

“I don’t think so, Mister.”

“Then what?” Louis interjected.

Grabbing both of their attention.

“What…What can we do to help Mariam?”

Nicho smirked, while Ciara frowned.

This was quite a predicament after all.

In which, there was hardly a loophole she could exploit.

And even if there was one, she was yet to think of one.

‘Mariam this…mariam that…’ Ciara chuckled at the thought.

‘He doesn’t even care about the lives of the other students who were captured…just the woman who made him feel emotions…’

The thought lingered.

Then a shiver crawled up her spine as she visibly shook.

‘Love is a scary thing.’

She coughed lightly.

“You don’t need to worry about that either, Louis.” She said as her head tilted to the wall at their far left.

The side she had walked from to get there.

Her gaze landed on the wall, but what she stared at– who she stared at was much farther than any wall.

The two males noticed it instantly, with Nicho raising a brow in curiosity while he turned to the wall as well.

Louis simply observed.

But Nicho seemed to have broken into a smirk. A muffled chuckle escaped his lips as he glanced at Ciara.

“You’re staring at the wall?” He asked with a raised brow.

A matter-of-fact tone, as Ciara flinched and turned to him.

“Have you gone mad?”

This time, it was Ciara’s turn to be amused.

And her expression did nothing but vividly showcase it.

She giggled. “No, I haven’t.”

With a shake of her head, she continued.

“You said you would heal the others if we let you go…how do we not know we are being deceived?”

Nicho opened his mouth to reply, then closed it.

Did it again, then stopped.

Before he picked up his torn-off limb and lifted it with exaggeration.

“The fuck you think I did this for? Comedy?”

Ciara stared at him for a moment.

A second longer than she would have before her smirk grew Wilder.

She shrugged as she replied.

“Perhaps.”

Then, she glanced at Louis.

“Pick him up. Let’s get him to the others…we have a limited time and we must be quick if we want them out of here, alive.”

Nicho flung his arm and groaned as he began to lift himself to the ground.

“No need, I can do that myself.”

Ciara nodded with a plain expression as she headed down the foothold.

“So be it…but…”

Tapping her mana ring, a vibrant hum of energy erupted out in small amounts.

Just as a silver wrist band appeared in thin air and landed in a grasp.

Nicho’s eyes flared open at the sight.

A sort of realisation was dawning on him.

‘Of course…artefacts.’ It was like a bitter cold under the umbrella of a rainstorm. ‘That’s how she defeated my subordinates.’

He watched as Ciara closed the distance between them and grabbed his left arm.

Then with a swift motion, she locked his arm with the arm band.

The silver artefact made a series of mechanical sounds as it locked itself tightly around his arm.

A shrill pain assaulted his body in that moment.

He groaned slightly, glancing at the silver band before looking up at Ciara.

“What is this?”

“A will bind.” She stated as she turned around. “You won’t be able to act according to your will while that thing is juiced with mana.”

Her lips curled into a frown.

“Sadly for us, and luckily for you, the amount of mana supplied to it is limited. Still. It should be enough until we get what we want.”

Louis stood behind the two, observing for a few more seconds as they began to descend down the series of Pipelines.

He hesitated for just a second.

Then took a step forward and quickly followed after them.

For a few seconds, they had all marched down the series of Pipelines and into the opening without a word.

Letting their feet do the talking with their goal set in motion.

Nicho walked in front of the two.

Left hand hanging aimlessly behind him with the vibrant hum of the silver band and his right stump leaking bits of blood.

It was impressive already how he walked like he was still invigorated despite the blood he had lost.

‘…and he had lost a lot of it.’ Ciara thought.

Her tone laced with amusement. An amusement, she knew all too well.

A dangerous curiosity she had locked away for a while.

“Hah…” She hummed silently. ‘I wonder how the Magic towers are doing these days… it would be nice to take a good trip in the experimental labs and history libraries.’

As she sank into the warmth of old memories resurfacing, a cold chill crept next to her.

Cutting off that warmth in an instant, together with the smile that had somehow found its way on her lips.

She turned.

“Louis?”

The boy had been staring at her for a while.

Well, it was expected.

After all, he was left in a loop since her arrival.

‘He must be conflicted…’ She thought as she observed him a bit.

The once careless murderer had been reduced to something docile.

Humanity was given to a breed of the La Teuer Household. A household called the Hunting Dogs who kill the Blind.

Emotions were nothing but glass to them.

And they didn’t need their senses to do what needed to be done. Kill.

‘He must want to kill Nicho as badly as I do…maybe a lot worse, but his emotions for Mariam are in the way.’

The thought made her shiver.

‘Love…I need to stay away from it.’

“Are you worried about him?” She asked as she stared at the back of Nicho.

“Aren’t you?” He asked. “I understand that you’re doing this for me…perhaps because I threatened you, but that man…he’s too dangerous.”

“Hah…” She scoffed internally.

‘That’s right…he captured me hostage to find her.’

“True. But…you don’t have to worry…we have contingencies in case he does escape our midst.”

Nicho whipped his head back, his eyes burning with curiosity.

“What was that? Contingencies?”

Ciara arched her brow. “Eavesdropping is wrong.”

Nicho scoffed. “And talking behind someone’s back isn’t?” He asked, more of a statement than a question. “What contingencies? I’m curious how you intend to hold an Executive prisoner.”

Ciara stood quietly.

Not slipping another sentence as she let the weight of her words settle in the air.

They continued to walk straight, but their attention was half split at this point.

This included Louis too.

He had to admit, he wanted to know what this contingency was– Needed to know, in fact.

“Well…” She said with a sigh, her eyes sparkling brilliantly as if she were done calculating what required calculation.

“Kira Merlin is in the Academy.”

Silence.

That was the only definitive way of describing what occurred after her statement.

Because this wasn’t just a physical silence, but one that had as much weight as the Executives at their peak.

Kira Merlin. The Witch of the West.

They froze on the spot, stopping mid-track just as their line of thought came to a sudden halt.

This was, in fact, not in the plan they had concocted.

Nicho especially.

A second passed by and they remained in position.

Then it stretched into a minute before Ciara made a resounding clap with her hands.

The two males snapped at the same time as they turned to her.

Before resuming their trek to the unconscious students.

Nicho turned around and lowered his head. He let his thoughts finally submerge as a coolness, contrary to his predicament took over.

‘This is bad.’

Terribly so.

‘I have to run.’