Chapter 57 - 55: The Correct Way to Run Away

Xiahou Yan was consumed by regret!

He felt like an absolute fool—truly!

He only knew that the Desolate Wind Mercenary Corps had stationed guards in the church, but he had no idea they had also set up a Magic Alarm next to the safe!

In truth, the principle behind this Magic Alarm was extremely simple. He figured it out the moment the alarm was triggered:

A thin thread was attached to the back of the safe, connecting to an incredibly well-hidden small glass vial filled to the brim with gleaming golden Magic Dust. The moment anyone attempted to move the safe, they would knock over the vial, spilling the dust onto a pre-drawn Magic Array, thereby triggering a piercing, magical buzzing!

The Desolate Wind Mercenary Corps had used such a crude yet effective method to construct a simple Magic Alarm!

Since the Igor Family’s party had thought of bypassing the Magic Lock to directly steal the safe containing the Flower of Abundance, there was no reason the mercenaries of Desolate Wind wouldn’t have thought of it too!

For a moment, as the five master thieves of the Igor Family were still standing there in a daze, a cacophony of noise had already erupted upstairs. The chaotic stomping of boots against the floor echoed through the monastery like rolling thunder.

However, the few guards stationed at the monastery’s entrance arrived even faster than the mercenaries scrambling out of their beds upstairs!

In the blink of an eye, the silhouettes of several mercenaries appeared on the basement stairs!

Upon seeing the five fools of the Igor Family and a Babylonian Secret Pattern Steel safe floating in midair, they didn’t hesitate for a second. Brandishing their sabers, they charged straight down!

A split second later, a sharp arrow and a Fireball the size of a sandbag slammed ruthlessly into their heads!

After all, Chris the archer and Master Laurie naturally wouldn’t show an ounce of mercy to this group of villainous mercenaries!

"Quick! Run!" roared Master Laurie, well aware that the situation was dire.

And so, led by Master Laurie and Alice, the group of five rapidly fled back up the way they came—they had to escape the Monastery of the Summit of Glory before the people upstairs arrived!

A mere five people had absolutely no chance against a large swarm of highly trained mercenaries!

The safe containing the Flower of Abundance wobbled and floated behind them. It looked exactly like a premium cash-shop pet bought by a player in a pay-to-win MMO—absolutely useless in combat, but incredibly expensive!

By the time they reached the first-floor monastery hall, a particularly fast-moving mercenary had already arrived on the scene.

However, rather than making the wise choice of waiting for reinforcements, this lone mercenary raised his saber and charged forward with a furious roar!

He was charging right at the master-class swordsman, Alice Comstock!

Alice’s Light of the Firmament was unsheathed in an instant. A glint of cold light from the tip of the blade flew toward the mercenary’s throat like a firefly darting through the long night!

In that fraction of a second, the mercenary felt true fear!

He shrank his neck back, wanting to retreat. But a cast-iron crowbar, dyed a faint bloody red from being steeped in countless lives, blocked his path of retreat!

The Lord’s crowbar swung directly into the back of his head!

Alice’s Longsword pierced right through his throat!

Striking in a pincer attack, the crowbar and the tip of the sword met perfectly in the dead center of the mercenary’s neck, producing a crisp CLANG!

SWISH! Alice retracted her Longsword, flicking a gorgeous line of blood across the monastery’s painted tile floor.

As for Master Laurie on the sidelines, he had decided to go all out and spare no expense!

While maintaining control of the safe with the Floating Technique, he fished a Magic Scroll out of his robes. With a solemn, tragic look in his eyes, he tore off the wax seal. This scroll was precisely one of the few top-tier treasures containing a Master-level Magic Spell, which they had brought back from Adrian’s Laboratory!

Had the situation not been so critical—where any further delay would trigger a larger-scale chaos and encirclement—Junior Mage Victor Laurie, a man as stingy as a miser, would never have whipped out his most prized possession and life savings!

The Magic Spell was called the Wellington Thistle Barrier!

The "Wellington" in its name specifically referred to the Wellington Canyon of the Eastern Empire. Back when the Half-beastmen of the Glory Federation launched a surprise attack, an eighth-tier Grand Mage of the Empire single-handedly used this exact Magic Spell in the canyon. By repeatedly summoning towering Magic Thorn Walls as hard as steel, he managed to stall the Beastman Army for a full half-month, holding out just long enough for the Empire’s garrison to finally arrive with their belated support!

Ultimately, that Grand Mage had exhausted his Magic Power and died a tragic death under the blades of the Half-beastman Wolf Cavalry, sacrificing his life for his country!

It was exactly to commemorate the heroic deeds and supreme magical prowess of this Grand Mage that the Magic Association deliberately added the word "Wellington" to the name of this Magic Spell as a mark of honor!

Of course, Junior Mage Victor Laurie’s skill level was miles behind that of the Grand Mage, and a Magic Spell stored within a Magic Scroll would inevitably suffer weakened effects.

Therefore, it was naturally impossible to use just this scroll to summon the kind of large-scale magic that once filled an entire canyon and obstructed millions of iron hooves.

But all Master Laurie needed was to stall the Mercenary Corps upstairs for just a brief moment!

As the emerald-green light of plant-based magic bloomed from the scroll, the previously pristine monastery floor tiles abruptly shattered into countless porcelain fragments. From the exposed soil underneath, an innumerable amount of dark green magic thorns, as thick as a grown man’s arm, surged out!

The wildly proliferating magic thorns filled the front of the monastery hall in an instant, thoroughly barricading the staircase leading down from the second floor!

From the other side of the thorn wall, the mercenaries’ furious cursing immediately echoed out, accompanied by the muffled THUDs of people hacking at the vines with their sabers.

"Run!" Master Laurie urged frantically. "These thorns won’t hold them for long!"

The Lord didn’t say a second word and bolted.

The party of five dashed out of the monastery’s entrance, only to see that quite a few onlookers from Yanxi City had already gathered around, drawn by the strange noises and eager to watch a spectacle.

Upon suddenly witnessing five mysterious individuals in black cloaks sprinting out of the monastery—with a floating safe trailing behind them—an uproar rippled through the crowd of spectators.

Xiahou Yan couldn’t afford to care about any of that. Glancing left and right, he spotted a few old horses tied to the hitching posts outside the monastery. It was obvious at a glance that they belonged to the stationed Desolate Wind Mercenary Corps.

Making a prompt decision, he leaped onto a horse, chanted a Flame Technique, and extended his finger to burn through the hitching ropes. Squeezing the horse’s flanks with his legs, he shot off like an arrow released from a bowstring, causing the nearby bystanders to stumble and scatter in his wake.

The other four members of the Igor Family followed his example, each stealing... er, borrowing a horse, and locking their sights on the outskirts of the city before galloping away.

Of course, that safe was still floating steadfastly right behind Master Laurie’s horse’s rear—

They had taken such a massive risk this time precisely for the Elf Plants inside the cabinet; there was no way in hell they were going to leave this safe behind!

Not long after the five horse-stealing Wilderness Bounty Hunters scurried away, an even more baffling and shocking scene unfolded before the bewildered crowd!

BOOM! The stained glass windows on the second floor of the monastery violently exploded outward from the inside, sending glittering shards of glass scattering through the air like fireworks!

Then, a hulking man clad in Steel Armor leaped out of the window, crashing onto the cobblestone street below with an earth-shattering BOOM!

It was a sheer drop of seven or eight meters from the second-floor window to the ground, yet the armored giant—who had plummeted at high speed and landed in a half-kneeling posture—appeared completely unharmed!

Harrison Mustafa, the Grand Commander of the Desolate Wind Mercenary Corps, fiercely raised his head.

Beneath the shadow of his helmet, a raging inferno of fury burned within his ferocious, falcon-like eyes!