Gardenia of Blooming Desire

Chapter 223: The Last Winter Feast V

Ramuja was sitting solemnly on the ground, he was waiting for his Milord to come back after the Winter Feast. He was in a sullen mood, 'Now that Milord had known everything, I guess I really have no way to lie to him.'

'Maybe he will recover his memory after the Winter Feast, he didn't faint when he saw me kissing Merry.'

'Everything is unsalvageable, huh?' Ramuja chuckled lightly, 'For once, I thought I could hide everything from Milord and let him live in a bubble. Because I don't want to lose him, I don't want to lose this illusion of happiness.'

"Ramuja, you are ridiculous. You wanted to lie to someone that you loved the most, and you wanted to lie about your adultery. Do you really have the guts to say that you love him now?" Ramuja said to himself.

'When I said it's okay for you to kill me, I really mean it, Milord. But when I think about it again, I guess it will hurt, a little, in my heart.'

There is no way for him to retain this false pretense, Merry and Charles would soon unveil everything anyway.

Ramuja looked around and saw there was no one to guard him in this underground jail. Maybe because today was Winter Feast, so Milord already dispatched many of his guards to patrol around Dionde City for the safety of the people.

Ramuja stared at the iron bar that 'jailed' him. It would be easy to destroy. In fact, even if it was steel instead of iron, Ramuja could still destroy it, it just took more time. But he didn't want to.

'Maybe I should just sleep and wait before my execution'

BAM! CRASH!

Ramuja was startled with the sound from above. Soon, the ground above him shook and then the entire underground jail shook slightly.

"What happened?!" Ramuja got up from his sitting position and listened carefully, after that, the ground above shook again, now with cries of women above. The underground jail shook for the third time with greater magnitude. At this point, the jail might collapse and kill him.

Ramuja was silent and looked around, 'I don't know what is happening above, but if I die buried here, wouldn't it be an honor? To die under Lantern Palace, where Milord was born and spent his life every day. At least I'm still here'

Just when he thought he wanted to sit down again, a man in black appeared outside of the iron bars, he said, "It's time to go."

"What"

Five more men in black appeared and then threw five smoke bombs towards his bar. The smoke bomb immediately triggered and released a smoke with a certain faint fragrance that Ramuja actually knew.

'This smell smoke bomb to put people in deep sleep?!'

Ramuja closed his nose and mouth immediately. He accidentally broke his chain, which surprised the men in black. Because according to their information, that was a steel chain that had been tampered greatly with the Golden Camellia standard for dangerous criminals! That was why they thought this was the best time to take their prince away.

Knowing that he couldn't stay here and might be killed by these mysterious men, he pulled all the chains in his hands and legs, "RARGH!"

Ramuja broke off all the chains and then gripped the iron bars. He bent the bars with his hand and then got out of the jail. The men were so awed that it took them a few seconds to react, "Catch him! Don't let him see the palace!"

Ramuja dashed forward to leave six men in blacks that chased him. But they seemed to be a trained assassin, they could appear in front of him to block him, "Out of the way!" Ramuja dashed and elbowed the man until he could hear his bone crack.

Everyone was too scared and awed at the same time with their Prince Rama, because they didn't know that Prince Rama who had been a slave for his whole life, actually had this kind of monstrous strength.

Some of them tried to put sleeping darts on him, but Ramuja brushed it off as if it was nothing. He finally came up to the surface and saw something unspeakable.

"What in the world" Ramuja saw many servants and maids running away from soldiers that wore the Royal Camellia armors. They were fighting against the grand duchy's guards that were unable to defend against those extremely skilled soldiers.

The women were running away, trying to hide somewhere as some of them were already slaughtered. Ramuja noticed few of the young maids from the village that had just started working here died with their blood flowing on the ground.

"What" Ramuja then saw a soldier that targeted an older woman that tried to hide under a bush, he noticed the woman and immediately moved, "Anne!"

Ramuja kicked the soldier on the back and he died instantly after his back broke in half. Ramuja saw Anne, the head maid who was trembling, "What happened?!"

"CCrown Prince, CCrown Prince Charles is slaughtering Dionde City! Run away! Milord will not want you to be dead!"

"Where is Milord?!"

"I don't know! He is in the party right now!" Anne was trembling, the fear in her eyes was true as she saw many of the guards and young maids die in front of her eyes.

"Run away to the hill behind Lantern Palace, take anyone you know!" Ramuja said. He propped Anne and pushed her.

"What about you?!" Anne tried to resist, no matter what, Milord was in love with this man. She didn't want to see his Milord die brokenhearted.

"I will hold them off, run!" Ramuja said. A soldier saw them and dashed with his sword. Ramuja used the dead soldier's sword and slashed that soldier's throat.

"I SAID RUN!"

Anne trembled in fear, she pulled a few more maids and led some of them to leave the palace. Ramuja's sharp eyes observed around, and then realized that there were only grand duchy's guards that still fought with the soldiers.

Corpses of many innocents died in horrible manner and it shocked him, 'Milord!'

Ramuja wanted to run towards the gate and find his master, but he soon realized that the situation was far worse than he imagined. There were too many soldiers that fought against Legendary Soldiers of Thana. Turned out, Lady Merse dispatched some of them to defend Lantern Palace. They were able to hold on, but Charles' soldiers were too many that they were unable to hold them all.

Some soldiers attacked Ramuja again, which killed all of them easily. He saw the soldiers start breaking through the main palace, 'Milord's office!'

Ramuja stopped for a moment, he was conflicted whether he should go to see his master or protect his office. Because there were so many documents inside his office, and Charles' men probably aimed those documents.

Ramuja gritted his teeth, 'Irion will protect him, I will protect Milord's palace first!'

Ramuja dashed to the main palace and slashed every soldier on the corridor. When he arrived in front of the Grand Duke office, the soldiers were ready to destroy the door and the painting of Milord and his family in front of the door was already torn.

Ramuja's aura condensed, his hand trembled in anger, "I WILL KILL YOU ALL!"

Ramuja roared as he readied his stance, he jumped and swept his sword, two soldiers immediately lost their heads. The soldiers were surprised with the sudden appearance of the man that they had been searching for a while, since their order was to destroy all Grand Duke's documents and kill this slave called Ramuja.

They charged with their swords, Ramuja deflected most of the attacks, it was one versus ten. Ramuja used his right hand to attack with his sword and his left arm to punch or crush his enemies.

But he was alone and he felt that the soldiers kept increasing in number. He was also wounded in some parts of his body.

'Will I die like this? Will I die after I failed to protect only a room behind me?'

Ramuja gritted his teeth, he tightened his grip on his sword.

'No! I will not die in vain! I will protect this palace! This is also Milord's life!'

'MILORD! I WILL PROTECT YOU! I WILL PROTECT EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU!'

"RAAAAAAAAARGH!" Ramuja's aura became increasingly frightening, he felt that his sense had become a lot sharper as he swiftly evaded any attacks directed at him.

The scream of the soldiers was filling the corridor as Ramuja crushed their heads with his bare hand. He crushed their heads through their helmet, as if crumpling a paper.

The soldiers got scared because it seemed that one touch from Ramuja could kill them instantly. Ramuja let go of his sword and fought these soldiers with bare hands. He deflected the sword with his hand and the soldiers would lose balance immediately.

The soldiers soon realized that they were facing a monster. If Crown Prince Charles was a monster because of his extraordinary swordsmanship and intelligence. The slave in front of them was a monster because of his raw strength.

"Sir, should we help his highness?" one of the men in black asked his leader. The leader was staring at his prince from afar, and shook his head.

"If we are near Prince Rama right now, he is going to treat us as an enemy, you will die in his hand."

"HHow could Prince Rama suddenly become like this"

The leader observed Prince Rama and said, "He has been blessed by our god. He is truly our destined prince, a pure hearted man with desire to protect"

'But who is the one he is protecting? Is it a woman? Or is it really the Lord of this palace? Why would he protect someone who enslaved him?!'

The soldiers scattered as they tried to run away from Ramuja, "RUN! HE IS NOT A HUMAN!"

The commander said. He had just arrived with a reinforcement to destroy the main palace, but when he saw his soldiers die with their body mangled without a shape anymore, his face went pale.

Some of the soldier corpses were mangled beyond identification, their heads were crushed like a crumpled paper, their backs were broken in half, some of the soldier's bodies were thrown on the wall and their bodies were crushed.

In the corridor, a bear like man, with his chocolate skin that seemed to emitted a dark, menacing aura walked on the corridor. In his bloody hands, he dragged a headless corpse as he banged the corpse to the wall and destroyed that corpse in pieces. The soldiers started running away from Ramuja, including the commander who ran away.

"I WILL NOT FORGIVE!"

Ramuja jumped and blocked the way for the commander, he punched the commander's heart and his heart became hollow instantly.

The soldiers finally couldn't suppress their fear and they fell to the ground in fear. Ramuja kicked and stepped on them one by one until there was nothing on the corridor, only Ramuja and countless horrible corpses.

Ramuja's eyes had been hazy the whole time. His eyes seemed to only focus at Milord's office door. He pushed the door and the door broke instantly, he said in gentle tone, "Milord, are you here?"

No answer. There was no one inside the office, as expected. Ramuja smiled. He seemed to have returned back to normal, "I'm glad you didn't see me like this, I don't want to scare you and make you cry."

Ramuja closed his eyes and he fainted.

The men in black caught their prince. They checked his condition and found that Prince Rama had just fainted because of exhaustion. They nodded to each other with tacit agreement and disappeared with Prince Rama.

***

Irion passed through many corpses inside the Lantern Palace. The sight made him sick, but he had to find Ramuja. He already checked the underground jail and saw the iron bar had been bent.

He checked the corpses and didn't find him at all. He went inside the main palace and saw the corridor with tons of horrible mangled corpses.

"Urk!" Irion couldn't hold his vomit and he puked. The sight was too terrible even for someone like him, "Who did this unspeakable horror?!"

He steeled his guts and checked the corpses to see whether there was a corpse with Ramuja's last apparel at least, but he didn't find it, they were all the soldiers' corpses.

He noticed that Milord's office was open. But when he entered, there was no one. But the office was intact, left untouched. Only bloody footprints that had walked inside. He followed the footprints and saw a silver glinted at the end of it.

He took the silver and inspected it, 'MMilord's personal silver pin?!'