Chapter 308: The Regicide
The guards of the House of Nobles are actually young masters of aristocratic origin. If an enemy attempts to assassinate the king, they may risk their lives to protect him and fight for a chance for prosperity and glory for their family.
But they really don't want to get involved in a royal murder case like this - it's a matter between the king, the princess and the queen consort... Who knows what the consequences will be if they get involved?
So they obediently disarmed themselves and waited for the result outside the House of Lords.
No one was running around, no one was leaving, and no one was even talking.
Maybe there were indeed followers of the Three Prophets among them, but no one showed any suspicious behavior - Leon stared at them coldly, and no one wanted to be suspected of being an accomplice to murder or having ulterior motives.
The female rangers were watching on the wall. The Court of Nobles had been tightly sealed, but Leon was still in no hurry to enter the tower.
He is delivering orders.
The first order was to seal off Sarleon City.
Order the garrison to return to the base and not leave the camp without orders.
The garrison had no intention of objecting. After all, the guards of the House of Nobles had been disarmed, and these mob-like garrisons naturally would not say a word.
At the same time, Leon ordered the Noldor Rangers to close all the side gates of Sarleon City separately, leaving only the main gate that was controlled by the guards.
Sarleon City has five gates for entry and exit, but only the main gate in the north is open on a daily basis.
Because identity checks are required when entering and leaving the royal city, opening only one main city gate can save manpower. Of course, the most important thing is to facilitate the collection of city gate taxes.
The other city gates have different uses, including the entrance to the military station dedicated to the troops, the South Water Gate connecting to the Sava River dock, and the two side gates on the east and west sides for transporting large quantities of supplies.
The entrance to the military station is usually closed for a long time because the entrance leads to the passage inside the city wall, which leads directly to the military camp and is a restricted area.
The South Water Gate will not be opened when there are no noble ships docked. It is the exclusive entrance for nobles to reach the royal palace directly. This water gate will only be opened if it is a task executor holding a royal decree or an envoy from other countries visiting by water.
This is also a quick waterway for the royal family to evacuate Sarleon City directly from the royal palace when necessary .
The east and west side gates are also known as the 'Morning and Dusk Gates' because generally at dusk a large number of vehicles carrying vegetables, fruits, grains and other supplies enter the city, and in the morning a large number of vehicles carrying waste leave the city, so they are opened once in the morning and once in the evening, serving as a green channel for maintaining daily life in the City of Fierce Lions.
But it was noon and none of the doors were open.
What Leon had to do was to make it impossible for all these city gates to be opened in a short period of time - he asked the Noldor rangers to destroy the capstans that opened these gates separately.
If the capstan is destroyed, the heavy gates usually cannot be opened.
The guards Leon brought were not numerous, only about two hundred Noldor, and half of them had to be assigned to control the tower of the House of Nobles. There were no more people to take care of the other city gates, so he simply destroyed the capstan and sealed the gates directly.
After destroying the other gates, the Noldor Guard controlled the main city gate, which meant they controlled the entire Sarleon.
However, Leon controlled Sarleon City at this time not to block people from outside, but to block people who wanted to leave Sarleon City - or at least to delay their departure.
There are many nobles living in Sarleon, and every family has servants or guards.
At the same time, there is a base of the Lion Knights in the Fierce Lion City, and there should be a small number of Lion Knights left behind; there are also some of the king's personal guards in the palace.
But these people don’t know what happened in the House of Nobles yet, and have not reacted yet.
Therefore, Li Ang wanted to prevent them from reacting at all, and not even think about releasing the news in a short period of time.
Soon after, one after another, the Noldor Rangers received Leon's orders and rode quickly to various places to spread the message.
This way, the task for the guards controlling the main city gate was clear - they would not allow humans to leave Sarleon, and only allowed the Noldor to leave the city.
After arranging all this, Leon led a small team of people into the tower of the Noble Court.
By this time, the king had been in the tower for some time.
However, no sound was heard from the tower, and an eerie silence was maintained. Perhaps it was because the top of the tower was too high, and if one did not stand at the window and shout, the sound would hardly be heard down.
Leon patrolled each floor with a sword in hand, and issued a house arrest order to all the maids he met, forcing them not to leave the tower.
I patrolled all the way to the top floor and heard the voices of several core figures - this was expected , after all, the incident happened on the top floor.
However, when Leon arrived at the top floor of the Noble Court, the scene there was somewhat beyond his expectations...
The door to the top floor was not closed, and four people were inside. As expected, Ulrich had a problem - he fell to the ground with a dinner knife stuck in his stomach and a sword on his neck.
But the problem is that the person who pointed the sword at Ulrich's neck was not Anna, but Inna...
Ors pointed the sword at Anna with an angry face, looking as if he wanted to attack, but he was hesitant - his son Inna stood in front of Anna and held the king hostage.
Princess Anna leaned against the wall, her face full of panic, looking like a pitiful and weak woman...
However, Inna, who was pointing his sword at Ulrich's neck, kept shaking his hands.
Moreover, Inna looked even sadder than the king, and even looked like he was seeking death.
"...Father, I must protect Anna! I must protect her..."
As soon as Leon reached the door, he heard Inna talking to Ors.
Is this silly boy planning to sacrifice himself for love?
"Inna! She is a heretic! She is a heretic prophet! Don't you want to live?"
Ors said angrily.
"I can no longer live... I have already taken action against His Majesty..."
Inna spoke in a choked voice, but stopped halfway through - because at this time Leon came in.
Leon could generally understand why Inna did this. After all, Anna was pregnant with his child, and Inna had never seen the true appearance of the Three Prophets - Anna still maintained the appearance of a princess, a weak and helpless noble woman.
"She did it! Inna, don't do anything stupid... Lord Leon can help you, you can't become a regicide!"
Seeing Leon come in, Ors seemed to see hope and tried to persuade him again.
But when Inna saw Li Ang coming in, he seemed to have made up his mind: "Master Li Ang, I have been waiting for you..."
However, without waiting for Leon to reply, or for anyone else to react, he stabbed the sword into Ulrich's neck!
Blood gushed out from the aorta and spilled all over the ground.
Ulrich was killed!
Killed by Inna?!
Li Ang was stunned. He had just entered the room and had not done anything yet, and it was too late for him to do anything.
"No! What did you do! Inna..."
Ors shouted in despair.
"Master Li Ang...you saw it all...I plead guilty!"
Inna did not respond to his father, but dropped his sword, knelt in front of Leon with his hands spread out: "Catch me."
Leon sighed and glanced at Ulrich lying on the ground. The king's neck was still bleeding and his eyes were still open.
But strangely, there was neither anger nor panic, nor any pain in the king's eyes.
Only sadness.
A sadness that reveals despair.
Don’t you feel the pain after being stabbed by a sword?
"…I don't know what I saw…I just know that I have to catch you first, right, Mrs. Anna?"
Leon did not respond to Inna, but walked towards Anna with sword in hand, but he walked very carefully - he knew how powerful this prophet was: "Catch her!"
Several Noldor Rangers quickly stepped forward and surrounded Anna.
"Lord Leon! I am the one who killed the king!"
Inna yelled and tried to grab the sword on the ground, seemingly trying to stop Leon, but was kicked over by his father Ors and fell to the ground.
"She is the one who killed the king! Don't be stupid, son!"
Ors yelled.
But Inna turned a deaf ear to him. He crawled in front of Anna and stood in front of Leon: "Lord Leon, I did everything..."
Li Ang smiled bitterly and shook his head: "Inna, I don't care who did it..."
"Hehehe...get out of the way, Inna..."
Princess Anna suddenly laughed and shook her head, which was exactly the same as Leon's action: "In fact, Lord Leon is the real murderer of the king... right, Lord Ors?"
Ors's face turned livid, but he said nothing. No one knew what he was thinking.
Inna looked back blankly, and then there seemed to be some kind of joy in his eyes: "Yes, he is..."
Only then did Li Ang understand that this was Anna's plan?
She knew that she had almost no way to explain Philina's death. No matter how much Ulrich loved her, he could not ignore the scene he saw with his own eyes, and at least he would doubt it.
Even if Ulrich didn't care about his sister Philina and was determined to overturn Anna's case, he must first put Anna in jail for investigation and trial, and only a "neutral" minister could be in charge of the interrogation - such as Leon who happened to see this.
In other words, Anna actually had no way of escaping, and if she wanted to survive, she could only hold the king hostage.
But if she held Ulrich hostage, it would be impossible to achieve her goal...
So, Anna changed her mind - she killed Ulrich and used the more serious incident of regicide to shift everyone's attention from the murder of the princess to the murder of the king...
Then, frame the blame on Leon... or any noble who enters the tower first.
In this way, no matter what Li Ang said, no one would believe him.
If no one enters the tower, or the frame-up fails, then Inna will be charged with regicide, because he wants to protect Anna and his children...
Anna is pregnant with the king's heir. As long as she doesn't reveal her heresy, no one will want to kill her at this time... On the contrary, many people will rush to protect her!
Li Ang gave Anna a thumbs up and praised her sincerely, "It's a good idea, but... I'm the only one left in this noble house!"
"Really? Hahaha..."
Anna burst into laughter, then she pulled off the belt around her waist and stood up straight: "This dress is really uncomfortable to wear... Lord Leon! Come and fight me!"
She was inviting a fight.
She finally stopped pretending and faced Leon like a warrior.
Li Ang took a step back and used a strange sword move. He held the long sword at an angle, and then used a head-wrapping and body-entangling move like using a broadsword - he still remembered how he dealt with the three prophets before, and it would only work if he used moves they had never seen before.
Anna certainly didn't seem to have seen this strange move of using a long sword as a broadsword, and this was not a sword technique from the continent of Pendor at all...
Moreover, she didn't have anything in her hands that could be used to block, and her flesh and blood armor was not on her body.
But she seemed to have no intention of dodging or blocking, and instead directly pulled the belt in her hand towards Leon.
Li Ang didn't dare to take on the power of the Three Prophets head-on. Even though she was holding only a belt, Li Ang didn't dare to take it and had to step back to dodge.
But at this moment, Leon heard a buzzing sound behind him.
“Buzz…”
This is the sound of a sword breaking through the air!
"bite!"
Li Ang now has very good hearing. His face changed drastically as he turned around. The sword passed over his head and he used the same knife technique to protect his head, just barely blocking the sword coming from behind.
The sharp Griffin Sword cut off the backstab blade, but the flying blade still cut Leon's face - this sword was aimed at the neck!
That's Inna.
"My Lord, be careful!"
It was only at this moment that the Noldor Rangers' warnings were heard. Two Noldor Rangers rushed forward and pinned Inna, who was holding the broken sword, to the ground.
At this time, Ors finally stopped hesitating. He rushed towards Anna and attacked her extremely fiercely, and it seemed that he was determined to kill Anna.
This prevented Anna from attacking Le Ang when he turned around to block.
The Nodo also rushed forward, but Anna was leaning against the wall. In such a narrow space, not too many people could take action, so Ors was almost fighting Anna one-on-one.
But surprisingly, Ors defeated Anna easily!
Just an Owl Knight was able to defeat this "prophetess" and stab her in the shoulder.
"snort……"
Anna suddenly laughed strangely, and then she did something incomprehensible again - she actually jumped off the building!
Just as she was gradually retreating to the window, she jumped out of the window of the high tower like Philina!
"No... Anna... no..."
Innar cried bitterly and tried to rush to the window, but he was held by two Noldor rangers and knelt on the ground, unable to move.
"...Go and tie her up! Even if she's a corpse, you have to tie her up!"
Leon frowned and gave the order, then looked at Inna: "You don't have to become a kingslayer, Inna. Before you took action, His Majesty the King had already been killed by Anna, I can see that..."
“Anna…”
The window was the only thing Inna could see. He kept muttering to himself and it seemed that he couldn't hear anything.
"That woman is not Anna!"
Li Ang simply pointed at the window and yelled.
Inna stared at Li Ang blankly and stopped struggling.
"She is definitely not Anna... I can't defeat the prophetess with my skills..."
Ors also frowned and said, he looked at the tip of his sword and handed it to Inna: "I stabbed her, but she didn't bleed, Inna, you should know what this means..."
