Chapter 636: I Was So Foolish, Truly
Chapter 636: I Was So Foolish, Truly
"Aren't you going for treatment?"
Feng Ye turned around and glanced at the stunned Bambietta, asking, "Do you intend to remain in this state and continue receiving my gifts?"
Feng Ye's words snapped Bambietta out of her daze. She glanced at him and quickly steeled herself before turning and rushing back to her room.
The pain racking her body was momentarily forgotten as a single thought occupied her mind—what just happened?!
That overwhelming hand, even from her position behind Feng Ye, made her feel as if the sky was collapsing. It was like a single drop of water facing the vast ocean, an overwhelming sense of insignificance. She couldn't gauge Feng Ye's true power, nor could she fathom her own weakness.
A Sternritter...
Could they possess such strength? Bambietta's previous assumptions were now riddled with doubt. At this moment, she even felt that the Sternritter, the elite of the Wandenreich, might not possess such terrifying power!
Perhaps only the Schutzstaffel, the pinnacle of the Sternritter, or the leader of the Sternritter, Jugram Haschwalth, could possess such formidable might.
And yet, Feng Ye, who had not received Yhwach's blessing, already held such power!
Even more...
A terrifying thought entered her mind—was Feng Ye truly a Quincy born in the Wandenreich? This thought filled her with dread, and she found herself reluctant to dwell on it further.
Back in her room, her injuries quickly healed. The shoulder that Feng Ye had severed regrew swiftly, along with her entire arm.
"..."
Bambietta slowly caressed her regenerated arm, her gaze lowered as she stared at the ground in front of her, lost in thought.
In the following days, she continued to dine in the side hall on the first floor as usual.
For some reason, even though she knew that her attempt to send a message to the Sternritter through Giselle had been exposed, and that it might provoke Feng Ye to subject her to further cruel torture, she didn't feel much fear. Nor did she have any thoughts of evading him.
Just like the previous time when she had tried to attack and kill Feng Ye in the night and was subsequently punished, she felt that she deserved to be punished for her actions.
Although the thought of Feng Ye's torture made her tremble...
For some unknown reason, she didn't want to escape.
However...
In these three days, the more painful and cruel torture she had expected did not come. Instead, the days passed peacefully.
Even when she occasionally encountered Feng Ye, he would merely glance at her indifferently before continuing to sip his tea and read his book, as if he had lost interest in tormenting her.
Had she been forgiven? Or had Feng Ye lost interest in her?
Bambietta's heart was filled with inexplicable turmoil. On one hand, she felt grateful that Feng Ye hadn't taken his cruelty further. On the other hand, she felt a slight fear that he hadn't tortured her. It sounded contradictory, but these two conflicting emotions raged within her.
It was like a little yellow man and a little black man wrestling with each other, and as time went on, their fight grew more and more intense, leaving her increasingly anxious.
Meanwhile, in Silbern.
Bambietta's disappearance had shaken her family, but Giselle's disappearance for three consecutive days had attracted the attention of none other than the Sternritter themselves!
After all, Giselle was one of the Sternritter's Fraccion, second only in rank to the Sternritter themselves. If she were to receive Yhwach's blessing, she would become a Sternritter as well.
The disappearance of such a powerful Quincy would not go unnoticed, like a drop of water falling into the vast ocean, leaving no trace.
At the edge of Silbern.
A man wearing the insignia of the Sternritter stood atop the highest point of the city walls, gazing toward the north of the Wandenreich. "First, the young mistress of the Basterbine family goes missing, and now my Fraccion as well? It seems the Wandenreich has some troublesome rats."
Giselle was one of his Fraccion, and he was a Sternritter—Cang Du, the "I" of the Sternritter, with the ability to manipulate steel!
After three days of Giselle's disappearance, the news had finally reached him.
"Lord Cang Du, should we... report this to Lord Haschwalth?" a knight behind Cang Du asked cautiously.
Cang Du glanced at him and replied indifferently, "Do you want me to be ridiculed by the others?"
While the disappearance of a regular Quincy might not be a big deal, the loss of a Fraccion was a different matter. Each Sternritter had only two to three Fraccion serving under them, and these Fraccion were not only important subordinates but also a reflection of their status.
The disappearance of a Fraccion was a blow to their master's reputation. If he were to report this to Jugram and request his assistance, along with a few other Sternritter, to investigate Giselle's disappearance, his reputation would be in tatters.
Whoosh!
As his words landed, Cang Du's figure flickered, and he leaped off the city wall, disappearing quickly into the plains outside Silver Cross City with his swift Flying Feather Step.
"Yes, sir."
The Knight Captain below replied, bowing his head.
Giselle's disappearance had incensed Cang Du, and now a Sternritter was personally taking action. No matter what kind of trouble there was, it would surely be uprooted.
By the time Cang Du returned after dealing with the issue, he would report to his superiors. While this might not brush the incident under the rug, it would at least salvage some of the Sternritter's reputation.
...
Northern Wandenreich.
Inside the mansion.
Bambietta sat alone in a spacious recreation room on the third floor, dazed and lost in thought.
It had been three days since Giselle was killed by Feng Ye, and up until now, he hadn't done anything to her—could it be that severing her left arm was the full extent of her punishment?
Compared to what she had experienced these past few days, this certainly didn't feel like much of a punishment, and she didn't believe it would end at that. As a result, the lack of further incidents only served to make her more anxious.
Moreover...
The one thing that truly unsettled her was that, the day before, when she had encountered Feng Ye, she couldn't help but ask him a question.
She had asked if he was truly a fallen Quincy born within the Wandenreich, and Feng Ye's answer was a firm denial.
He indeed came from outside the Wandenreich!
This piece of news struck Bambietta like a thunderbolt, leaving her stunned and frozen. By the time she regained her senses and wanted to ask more, Feng Ye had already vanished.
The fact that Feng Ye came from outside the Wandenreich implied that the secrets of the Wandenreich might have already been leaked to the outside world. While she didn't know much about the outside, her knowledge of history made her aware of the existence of the Schutzstaffel beyond the Wandenreich's borders!
Perhaps...
At this very moment, the Schutzstaffel was plotting an attack on the Wandenreich. If the Wandenreich remained oblivious and was caught off guard, they might repeat the mistakes of a millennium ago and be defeated by the Soul Reapers once more, leading to their potential annihilation!
This train of thought filled Bambietta with turmoil, but far from being able to convey this information, she found herself unable even to send word of her own presence in the mansion to the outside world.
Just as Bambietta leaned against the wall, her head hanging in a daze by the wall...
BOOM!!!
A thunderous explosion suddenly rocked the mansion, causing her to bump her head against the wall in surprise.
The deafening blast snapped Bambietta out of her trance, and after a moment of paralysis, she jumped to her feet and rushed to the window.
There, she saw a section of the wall outside the mansion had caved in, reducing a courtyard spanning hundreds of meters to rubble.
Standing before the destroyed landscape was a young man clad in a long coat, adorned with a Sternritter badge and bearing a distinct scar on his left lip.
Bambietta's pupils contracted as she instantly recognized the man's identity.
"A Sternritter..."
There weren't many Sternritters within the Wandenreich, and each one held a high status, so she knew every one of them, including the one before her—Cang Du, the "I" of the Sternritter, master of steel manipulation!
A brief jolt of surprise shot through Bambietta, followed by the realization that Cang Du's appearance wasn't entirely unexpected. After all, a Knight Captain had died here just a few days prior!
The death of a Knight Captain would undoubtedly attract the attention of a Sternritter!
Bambietta clenched her fists and muttered to herself, "This is something even an idiot would've foreseen, yet I only thought of it now... What's wrong with me..."
As she finished speaking, she let out a breath.
The arrival of a Sternritter meant that there might be a turning point in the situation.
But...
In the next moment...
She saw Feng Ye appear in the ruined courtyard, gazing at Cang Du from a distance. He raised his hand toward Cang Du, and in an instant, his large hand spanned the hundreds of meters between them, pinching Cang Du between two fingers and reducing him to powder with a crushing grip!
The moment Cang Du laid eyes on Feng Ye, his expression changed, and he opened his mouth in horror. Before he could utter a sound, he was obliterated, as insignificant as an ant being squashed.
A Sternritter had been killed just like that!
BAM!
Bambietta stumbled backward and fell to the ground, her face ashen.
Her mind was filled with images of Feng Ye crushing Giselle and Cang Du with his hands, and the sheer power of those scenes left her unable to think, her mind going blank.
It took nearly half a minute for her to recover from the suffocating pressure, and she began to breathe heavily, her chest heaving and her forehead beaded with sweat.
"Heh... hehe..."
"I... I was so foolish..."
(End of Chapter)
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