"My Lord! I've brought the old man!"
Alongside Wilin's voice came a dull thud, as though a body had been thrown to the ground.
"All right, let's go out and meet your 'brother'!"
Leilin smiled and stepped out first, with Jemos and Janni following behind like attendants.
Outside the carriage, Wilin held a massive steel sword in his hands. His clothes were somewhat torn, revealing his lean, powerful muscles, which seemed to gleam with a faint sheen on the surface. He was staring down at an old man in black lying on the ground.
The old man bore a scar branded with a black skull mark on his face — none other than Rhode, who had tried to flee just moments ago.
In terms of pure strength, a Third-rank Apprentice would never have been caught so easily by Wilin, a Great Knight. But Leilin had tampered with Rhode beforehand, and Rhode himself had completely lost his will after witnessing Leilin's terrifying power, which was why Wilin had been able to seize him and bring him here so effortlessly.
"My Lord! How should we deal with him?"
Wilin pointed the tip of his great sword at Rhode, a malicious grin spreading across his face.
But Leilin, who knew Wilin's character all too well, understood that he was merely trying to scare Rhode.
Looking at this errant brother, Jemos wore a complicated expression, opening and closing his mouth several times but never speaking up. After all, the one in charge here was Leilin. Rhode had been captured by Leilin's apprentice, so the decision of what to do with him was not in Jemos's hands.
"You… you can't kill me!" Rhode panted heavily. An invisible restraint seemed to bind his body, and blood rushed to his face, turning it a deep red.
"Oh? And why is that?" Leilin asked with a smile.
"I… I'm a member of the Augustus family! If you kill me, Lord Siegfried will never let you get away with it…" Rhode struggled to speak.
"Dream on!" Before he could finish, Janni cut him off bluntly.
Disdain was written across the young woman's face. "You're nothing more than a vassal of our family. Even if you are a Third-rank Apprentice, do you really think Lord Siegfried would choose between a formal Wizard and an apprentice the way you imagine?"
Those words struck Rhode's heart like a sharp arrow, and his face went deathly pale in an instant.
A lord's vassal, so long as he didn't hold actual territory, might sound flattering when called a retainer — but in truth, he was nothing more than a high-ranking servant of the Augustus family. And Rhode belonged squarely in that category!
Moreover, even Siegfried would not offend a Wizard of equal standing just to protect a single apprentice!
"I'm afraid that in my grandfather Siegfried's eyes, even if my two uncles or even my father offended a formal Wizard, he would hand them over without hesitation to apologize!"
The young woman watched Rhode, who seemed to have lost his backbone entirely, and rather than satisfaction from her revenge, there was a trace of pity on her face.
Siegfried was already very distant from them — an ancestor separated by at least seven or eight generations.
For him, it didn't matter whether it was Janni's father, her uncle, or any other clan member who controlled the Augustus family. As long as they carried the Augustus bloodline, everything was fine.
And a clansman who had lost the only remaining bond of kinship would have far less influence over Siegfried than they imagined.
"Wizards! Only by mastering sufficient power can one build the true foundation for interaction between equals!"
Janni secretly clenched her fist, her thirst for power growing ever stronger.
"One day, I too will advance to become a formal Wizard!"
In that instant, Wilin seemed to see infinite starlight blazing in Janni's eyes.
"So what about him? What do we actually do with him?" Wilin scratched his head, glancing at Jemos, who kept opening and mouth but saying nothing, and felt a headache coming on.
"Let him go." At that moment, Leilin suddenly spoke up.
"My Lord!" Joy lit up Jemos's face, and he dropped to one knee immediately. "On behalf of my worthless younger brother, I thank you for your magnanimity!"
He clearly still cared deeply for his own brother. But the one truly in charge here was Leilin, and before he had a clear sense of Leilin's intentions, Jemos didn't dare speak up rashly and bring trouble upon Miss Janni.
Now, seeing that Leilin was genuinely releasing Rod, gratitude shone in his eyes at once.
"Since Lord Leilin has said so, I naturally have no objections," Janni added, though Jemos could only smile bitterly to himself.
That tone of voice clearly carried a great deal of resentment toward him. But for his brother's sake, he felt he had to endure it just this once.
Whoosh!
An invisible restraint was pulled back into Leilin's hand, and Rhode scrambled to his feet on the ground.
"Go. And don't let me see you again!"