Chapter 56 An Arrow, A Dagger.
The initial sudden shock of the impact wore off and Anicia as well as Earlene jolted from the realization that the carriage had probably run over somebody as their eyes widened.
Then they heard the voice of the girl who collapsed on the ground groaning in pain just a few meters away. It seemed like the girl was kicked harshly by the horses and got knocked off a few meters away from the carriage.
"Oh no! Let's go see and help!" Anicia urged as without waiting for Ethan she stood up and moved to get off the carriage.
"Today is the worst day ever!" Earlene blurted in frustration as she opened the carriage's door and followed behind Anicia.
Ethan furrowed his brows in contemplation feeling as if the situation was a bit strange as he too followed Anicia to get off the carriage not having any choice but to do so.
While the women and her two daughters whom Ethan had freed were confused and so simply stayed put inside the carriage.
More crowd had gathered in a very short amount of time seeing the disturbance and the increasing murmurs of concern as well as cries of alarm.
Ethan, Earlene, and Anicia promptly got off the carriage in front of the crowd observing from both sides of the street.
Firstly after getting off the carriage, Ethan's gaze quickly went through his surroundings to assess the situation. His three bodyguards were closely guarding the carriage and Albert was just beside him as he too got off his horse.
Pedestrians were wearing the typical, complimentary summer clothing which was rather loose, to accommodate the heat of summer. While some wore high-quality attire, some were in decent cheap clothing but that was nothing surprising as all sorts of people went to entertain themselves in that specific area of the city.
But something seemed very odd to Ethan as he observed his surroundings, he couldn't quite put his fingers on it but he felt as if something there was out of place and did not belong there.
Ethan's perception was indeed great, he had the natural ability to identify and recognize patterns that came from playing top-level chess on Earth. And so it irked him when he subconsciously spotted something that broke the pattern.
The street wasn't that dark due to torches, candles, and lamps inside-out every building in the vicinity on the roadside. Therefore, he could clearly observe everything in his proximity.
He also saw that the many pedestrians on the roadside were glancing at the girl jaw-dropped with pity, sympathy, and shock as they covered their mouths in horror. While some momentarily glimpsed at Ethan and others before moving their gaze back to the seemingly dwindling condition of the girl.
Anicia's eyes widened as she saw the brown-haired, cute-looking little girl lying on the ground in a pool of her blood groaning profusely in pain, practically begging to be saved as the color from her face gradually started fading.
Without thinking, Anicia chose to do whatever was possible in her power to save the girl's life while she was still alive.
Anicia quickly started striding toward the girl in a hurry preparing to conduct the Ritual of Vitality giving once again as only one thought dominated her mind and that was the hope that she wasn't too late.
As Ethan saw Anicia sprinting up to the girl, he suddenly felt a slight irritation of some sort as his scalp tingled. Feeling uneasy, he followed his instincts and looked around once again.
Suddenly as if he had noticed something, Ethan's eyes shone with a glittering glare of realization as he moved his head rapidly looking around all over the place into the distance—left and right up and down.
In the distance on top of a building from its rooftop and amidst darkness—Ethan noticed a mild shining reflection of light in the shape of a small star.
His pupils abruptly dilated as his mind went into a state as if time had slowed down for him, in a mere fraction of a second, he communicated with Afriel inside the Temple, "Afriel… NOW!"
At the same time, his hand moved to his waist where a small dagger that was given to him by Albaer was hung on a waist strap.
Albert was the only one who had noticed Ethan's odd behavior, feeling concerned he asked, "What is the ma-"
However, before he could complete the sentence, a resounding sound of 'swoosh' followed by 'shiing' rang as an arrow suddenly shot out of the distance from the rooftop of a building while cutting air and flying rapidly, straight at Ethan.
Ethan knew that he was on the target of an arrow but without giving two shits about it, he looked at the 'injured' girl lying on the floor.
With abrupt, fluid, and fast movement, he unsheathed and threw the dagger with all the strength he could muster, guided by his pure instincts. At the same time, he shouted, "WATCH OUT!"
The dagger flew straight at the collapsed 'injured' girl on the ground on one side while on the other hand, the arrow approached Ethan like a bullet.
The thing that no one knew was that Ethan had used his newly found, but weak power of Frost on the dagger adding extra penetrating force behind it.
From Ethan noticing something shining in the distance, an arrow suddenly shooting out with a resounding noise and destructive force, to Ethan throwing the dagger—only mere seconds had passed.
It was so instantaneous that even someone like Albert did not have enough time to stop the arrow that was going to hit Ethan in just a second or two.
As the arrow got nearer and nearer to Ethan, the dagger he had thrown passed by Anicia who had no idea what was happening as she was only focused on saving the 'poor' girl in front of her.
On the contrary, Anicia only served as a curtain to hide the deadly dagger coming from behind her, perfectly camouflaging it.
Without any warning—the dagger flew from behind her passing by and embedded itself deep into the 'injured' little girl's chest as her endless groaning finally stopped with the splash of blood splattering all over the place.