Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation

"It's a long story..."

I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized he wasn't blaming me, but it was too much to ask me to explain what had happened with Blanche in this situation.

Fortunately, there were only some lower level grunts around us now, many without much intelligence, just charging recklessly forward. So I could barely manage to deal with these cannon fodder.

"Focus!"

Suddenly, Alfreed's voice rang out, followed immediately by an order to everyone.

"Follow me out now..."

With a sweep of his long sword, a large group of monsters in front collapsed all at once, suddenly clearing a path.

"Charge!"

Under his lead, all of us broke through the siege and raced wildly towards the west outside the city, with the monsters behind us giving chase.

"Let's get further away first before talking! It's too dangerous near the city."

Adrian called out while fending off some faster pursuers at the back. Seeing him overwhelmed, I immediately went over to help.

"Wasn't the plan to sneak back into the city? You call this sneaking in?"

Taking the chance, I snarked at him.

I didn't need to run with them. I could just fly behind them. So I was the most relaxed now, swinging my sword in midair to hack at the grunts.

"I was just about to sneak in as planned!"

He shot back, looking wrongfully accused.

"How would I know Alfreed and the rest would choose to break out of the city gate collectively? I had no choice but to reveal myself and help them when they were discovered."

He was just about to enter the city? I was puzzled, but quickly realized what had happened.

Unlike me, Adrian couldn't fly. He had walked all the way here.

And it wasn't like he could enter the city immediately after arriving. He would still need to observe the surroundings for a while to find a chance.

So while I was interrogating the prisoner at the volcano, he was still loitering outside the city gates.

"Then who came up with this harebrained idea of escaping through the city gates?"

I already had a guess, most likely Blanche. But I figured Alfreed wouldn't have readily listened to her suggestion.

"It was me!"

I nearly flipped! Never would I have imagined it was Alfreed himself confessing. Today was just full of "pleasant surprises". Both Adrian and I had guessed wrongly?

Now everyone was running desperately ahead. Just Adrian and I were left holding the rear. But we weren't too far. We could still hear each other loud and clear.

"What were you doing?!"

Adrian was also completely bewildered. He didn't expect the usually cautious captain to mess up like this.

"The captain had no choice!"

Eleanora, who had been silently following behind Alfreed, spoke up to clarify.

"For some reason, our hideout was exposed. Blanche came back early to warn us while scouting outside. The captain could only lead us to hastily retreat. The city was also undergoing house searches everywhere for some reason. With nowhere else to hide temporarily, we saw the city gates opening by chance. So the captain brought us there to see if we could get a chance to escape."

Adrian and I exchanged glances, instantly realizing what had happened.

"Where's Blanche?" Still running, Adrian gritted his teeth and asked.

"Don't know. Maybe she got separated in the chaos at the city gate."

Eleanora and the rest still had no clue.

"How were you all discovered?"

With a stab, I pierced through the body of a monster chasing us from behind. I had fallen too behind, so I grabbed the nearby Adrian to fly us both back to the fleeing group ahead.

"It was really strange! We were about to retreat back into the city after seeing the strict checks at the gates that only allowed lowly creatures like laborers to pass. Suddenly...suddenly..."

Selene replied breathlessly. Out of everyone, her stamina was likely the worst. She was already out of breath after the long run.

Finally, Eleanora helped her finish the second half of the sentence.

"Suddenly, some creature shouted 'Humans trying to escape the city!'. The guards at the gate immediately demanded every single person there to show their identity. We were left with no choice but to fight our way through."

"That Blanche sold all of you out!"

Adrian yelled furiously the moment he caught up.

"She intentionally caused the ruckus then slipped away alone amidst the chaos!"

"No way. Why would Blanche do that?"

Eleanora refused to believe it.

"But I really didn't see her leave the city gate! I was staring at it the whole time, worried that monsters from outside would come and block our path of escape. If Blanche had left via the gate, I would definitely have noticed."

Alfreed wasn't entirely convinced either. But his eyes should not have been mistaken.

"She did go out. Because I met her outside just now. She's currently headed towards that volcano."

I didn't hide anything and directly told them about my earlier encounter with Blanche. Seeing the monsters left further and further behind, I grabbed the severely lagging Selene and flew above everyone's heads.

"She even lied to me that you sent her to scout that mountain. But I didn't tell her it was already empty."

"You two suspected her all along?"

Alfreed finally realized this point.

"Why didn't you say so earlier! And how did she even get out?"

"She escaped by climbing over the dragon skeleton!"

Glancing back at the city gate and the motionless dragon skeleton still stuck high up on the city walls not far away, Adrian immediately figured it out.

"That's right!"

Seeing the empty skeletal frame, I understood too.

"The creatures around the dragon skeleton were probably also drawn to the commotion at the city gate. Blanche took the chance to climb up the skeleton and slip over the city walls."

Both Adrian and I had underestimated Blanche. She was very clever. While she did intend to sell us out, she didn't make a deal with the monsters as we had imagined.

She first chose to anonymously tip off the monsters, but didn't reveal herself to the monsters either, forcing Alfreed to abandon their base with no choice but to check out the situation at the city gates. Of course, this probably also involved her egging things along.

Then, she immediately sold everyone out by telling the guards at the gate that humans were trying to escape. While everyone was surrounded and the attention of nearby creatures was drawn away, she took a roundabout way over the dragon skeleton to make her escape. Finally, she headed straight for her destination.

Not only did Blanche make use of everyone in the squad, she also utilized the monsters while avoiding the risk of directly dealing with them. She managed to smoothly get close to the volcano and would likely have truly escaped unharmed back to the Astralrealm Kingdom if not for the last-minute change of exchange venue.

She really didn't need to go so far. The rest could still have escaped together even without selling us out. From my gathered intel, Val City didn't even know there were other humans besides Selene and me until now. The high alert before was mainly to defend against me as the angel. With me taking Adrian the only human away in the enemies' eyes, the security would likely be lifted soon.

This really harmed others without benefiting oneself!

I gave Adrian a wry smile after he briefly explained to the others.

The grunts were simply too low ranked after all. Soon, they either lacked the speed or stamina to keep up and were thrown very far behind, finally ceasing their chase.

But Val City didn't give up just like that. Some Face Flies had already risen from within the city and were flying rapidly towards us. This was my first time seeing their appearance clearly in broad daylight.

As the name suggested, their heads did resemble masks with human faces, but their bodies were no different from ordinary dragonflies, only far larger.

Ugly freaks! That was my one and only impression of these Face Flies as former enemies I had fought before. As losers, they posed no threat to me now.

Seeing them about to unleash those lightning attacks, I quickly threw out several Purifications. As expected, seconds later, all the Face Flies lay sprawled helplessly upside down on the ground struggling.

"Well done!" Adrian turned back from the front to praise me.

"It was nothing..."

Actually repeatedly casting so many Purifications in a short time consumed a lot of energy. I was just about to modestly express humility when I suddenly sensed an enormous shadow passing over my head. Then in the sky ahead, a skeletal dragon appeared.

Everyone immediately halted their steps upon seeing it. Alfreed at the front held his long sword raised to his chest in a defensive stance, while Adrian kept his long sword and switched to his preferred bow instead.

"We got chased down after all..."

I sighed. Just when I thought we could smoothly escape this. But reality was always cruel.

Didn't expect the enemy to still have reserves of dragons even after crippling two of them. And there wasn't only one dragon blocking our path ahead. Another creature also stood on its head. Even from this distance, I could still feel the tremendous pressure emanating from it. Clearly another high-ranked existence.

"That's the vampire!"

Adrian spoke gravely to me while feeling the bow in his hand. From the ring, he took out an arrow glowing with white light.

"This is bad. He's at least 5th order. Possibly even 6th..."

"So how do we fight?"

My heart tightened. With two enemies at the 6th order, if Blanche hadn't run off we might still barely stand a chance...

No! Still no hope. The gap between the 5th and 6th order was massive. Even with all the others combined at the 4th order, we couldn't make up for this ravine.

Moreover, she wasn't here with us.

Realizing the huge disparity in power, everyone currently present other than Alfreed was subconsciously stepping back.

"You almost got away from me!"

The vampire leapt gracefully from the head of the dragon to elegantly stand before everyone. His attire was a long coat. To be honest, paired with that pose, I felt it looked kinda pretentious.

"Didn't expect there to be so many hidden humans in the city other than the angel. You're courting trouble by creating chaos while I'm resting. If the Lady Michelle gets disturbed, the blame falls squarely on me."

Michelle? I heard this name yet again. The fire goddess that the demi-human miner Borg spoke about. Could she really be in Val City?

But the others had never heard of her and were gazing confusingly at one another.

"Michelle?"

Alfreed was the first to ask the vampire.

"Hmph! She is the goddess of all creatures of darkness. You inferior humans have no right to know!"

The vampire seemed very disdainful about explaining anything more regarding Michelle. Suddenly extending a hand, he waved, and the dragon skeleton above him immediately dove down towards Alfreed standing right at the front, mouth open for a bite.