Brando looked at Xide, and Xide looked at Brando.
Their gazes met in the air as they stared each other down.
After several seconds, disbelief still covered Brando's face. He turned to look at the longsword buried deep in his shoulder and asked Xide, "You... you want to kill me?!"
"If I truly wanted to kill you, this sword would have pierced your head, not your shoulder." Xide's face was cold. "But this is your final warning. I told you before that if you disobeyed orders and tried to catch up, you could not blame me for being merciless. This is the price you should pay."
"But I've already found evidence proving my innocence!" Brando clutched the wound on his shoulder, his expression twisted with either fury or pain.
"You said I'm a spy, right? But do you know my true identity? You can investigate it. As long as you find out who I really am, you'll understand that I would never be a spy, because..." Brando shouted excitedly, blood continuously seeping between his fingers and staining the right side of his clothes red.
The next moment, Xide cut him off.
"Enough!" Xide said coldly. "I don't know what your true identity is, and there's no time to investigate it now. Even if I did investigate, the results could be forged and would mean nothing. So whether you have evidence or not is completely unimportant. What matters is that you have aroused my vigilance, so you must stay here. You must! If you try to catch up again, believe me, the price you pay will be far greater than this time."
"You!" Brando trembled all over with anger, yet he had no strength to argue back. More blood gushed from the wound in his right shoulder.
Watching this, Richard looked