Eldest Princess Diana elegantly swirled her wine glass in the relatively quiet lounge area on the other side of the banquet hall.
Her gaze swept across the prominent pillar in the corner, a playful glint in her eyes.
She tilted her head and whispered to a serious-looking, richly dressed middle-aged noble beside her.
"Duke of Wales, it seems my 'brother-in-law’s' identity is more complicated than you thought."
"Your plan to disrupt Elvia's engagement will likely fall through."
This Duke of Wales was one of the important pillars of the Eldest Princess's faction.
He frowned at her words and said in a deep voice, "It is still too early for Your Highness to reach that conclusion."
Before he could finish his sentence, a young man in a refined formal suit, whose looks could be called handsome, immediately couldn't sit still.
"Father!"
"You promised! You said you would find a way to destroy Elvia's ridiculous engagement!"
"You know how I feel about her... I absolutely cannot accept her marrying that poor, obscure mage of unknown origin!"
This was the Duke of Wales's only son, Aaron Wales.
His obsession with Elvia was known to almost everyone in the noble circles of the Royal Capital, bordering on insanity.
He had publicly declared countless times that he only wanted to marry Elvia.
He had even rejected several well-matched marriage alliances for her sake.
The Duke of Wales glared displeasurably at his son and scolded him in a low voice.
"Calm down, Aaron! Look at yourself!"
"Besides, I will fulfill what I promised you."
"Behave yourself now!"
He turned back to Diana and analyzed, "Your Highness, I once had the honor of meeting several true Holy Saints."
"Without exception, their eyes were filled with fanatical zeal, and their every word and action brimmed with infinite piety toward the deity and a self-sacrificing paranoia."
"As for this Holy Saint..." He glanced at Lin Gui, who was sleeping soundly in the distance, his tone dripping with contempt.
"Languid, lazy, and reeking of a lowly adventurer—does he have even half the bearing of a Holy Saint?"
"In my view, at most, he's a rogue mage who accidentally awakened a bit of Light-element affinity."
"He's just hiding behind the title of Holy Saint as a cloak to intimidate others."
The more he spoke, the more certain he became of his judgment.
"If he isn't a Holy Saint recognized by the Holy Church, then a High Rank mage with no background is nothing before my Wales family."
The Eldest Princess shrugged indifferently.
She actually respected the capabilities of her seventh sister.
It was a pity Elvia was too slippery, always wavering in the factional struggles.
Sometimes she leaned toward Diana's side, and other times she made trades with the Third Prince's faction.
If Diana could take this opportunity to force Elvia to marry into the Wales family, it would undoubtedly bind this highly capable sister completely to her own chariot.
However, what they didn't know was that Lin Gui and Elvia had already completed the marriage registration process through the administrative agency in the commoner district yesterday.
This kind of marriage procedure for the lower classes would never even enter the sight of these top-tier nobles.
Consequently, everyone assumed that tonight's wedding banquet was just an engagement announcement ceremony, similar to the Third Prince's.
The Duke of Wales pondered for a moment, a cold light flashing in his eyes.
He whispered a few instructions to a trusted aide standing in the shadows behind him.
"Go and let in that 'Mad Dog' who also has delusional fantasies about the Seventh Princess."
"Remember to 'guide' him a bit; make him believe that the fellow on the stage is just a lucky, rootless wandering mage."
"Yes, Lord Duke."
Soon, a small commotion arose at the entrance of the banquet hall.
A tall young knight in shiny plate armor, his face flushed with anger, burst in aggressively under the guidance of a servant.
His name was Kyle Bryce, the second son of a viscount, with strength at the Mid-tier Transcendent rank.
"Look! It's the 'Mad Dog' of the Bryce family, Kyle!" a noble young lady covered her mouth with a handkerchief and whispered to her companion.
Her tone was full of schadenfreude.
"Exactly. His pursuit of Her Highness the Seventh Princess is famously fanatical."
"When he heard the news of the Princess getting married outside, he almost smashed the tavern to pieces."
"Tsk, tsk. A Mid-tier Transcendent knight against a Mid-tier High Rank mage..."
"How badly do you think that mage named Lin Gui will be taught a lesson later? Do you think he'll kneel and beg for mercy on the spot?"
These noble sons and daughters discussed the matter with great interest, looking forward to the upcoming performance of "The Knight Punishing His Love Rival."
This was much more interesting than boring social interaction.
Under the subtle guidance of the servant, Knight Kyle’s bloodshot eyes immediately locked onto Lin Gui, who was hiding in the shadow of the pillar.
Like an enraged bull, he strode over, his armor clanking with every step.
However, when he was still seven or eight paces away from Lin Gui, his footsteps seemed to be nailed to the floor, and he came to a sudden halt.
The anger faded from his face, replaced by an unbelievable sense of shock and fear.
He stared intently at the front of his neck, as if an invisible blade were hanging there.
Lin Gui, with his eyes closed, didn't even seem bothered to lift an eyelid as he coolly spat out three words.
"Three seconds. Scram."
His voice wasn't loud, yet it carried a cold, piercing force.
Knight Kyle shuddered and, without a word, turned and fled the banquet hall.
He didn't even bother to acknowledge the stunned looks from those around him.
No one noticed a fine, nearly invisible line of blood quietly appearing on the skin of his neck, from which a single bead of blood slowly seeped out.
This sudden and eerie scene plunged the banquet hall into deathly silence once again.
Lin Gui halfway opened one eye, glanced at the sight of Knight Kyle fleeing in disgrace, and cursed under his breath.
"Coward."
What he had done was very simple.
He had merely diverted a sliver of his focus to manipulate a small table knife used for cutting roasted meat from a nearby table.
He had perfectly covered it with his max-level Shroud of the Gloomy Night, concealing its form and presence.
Then, at the moment the knight rushed over, he had controlled the knife to precisely and quickly trace a circle on the skin of his neck.
It only broke the skin, not even counting as a light injury.
If a random small knife could easily slit the throat of a Transcendent knight, then commoner uprisings wouldn't be so easily and bloodily suppressed by the Holy Knight orders every time.
Commoner uprisings numbered in the hundreds of thousands, while the suppressing Holy Knight order only used one hundred Transcendents.
Before closing his eyes again, Lin Gui's gaze drifted seemingly randomly toward Eldest Princess Diana's direction, his eyes slightly cold.
"That guy who led that idiot in to look for trouble just now... he seems to be one of her people."
He made a mental note of it.
"Once I've squeezed the information about Roger out of her... I'll have to pay her family's treasury a 'visit.'"
Lin Gui didn't care why they were looking for trouble with him for no reason.
He only needed to keep it in mind and strike back ruthlessly, provided it didn't interfere with his letter delivery.
Since the other party was a noble, Lin Gui felt no psychological burden.
Rate on N.U.
