Gathering and Badges (Thanks to Chu Qian Yiding for the God-Tier Verification)
As soon as he finished speaking, Lu Yuan didn't delay any longer. He turned around, pushed open the wooden door of the secret room on the second floor, and led Blanca, Harvey, Leon, and Karin down the wooden stairs to the front hall of the Winston Fur Trading Company.
Lin En, who had been waiting in the lobby on the first floor, heard footsteps and immediately hurried over to greet them.
Before leaving, Lu Yuan reached into his robes and pulled out the secret letter he had previously taken from the Third Order Heretic leader at the Second Waterworks. He handed it to Lin En and said, "..."
"Lin En, take this secret letter first. Also, immediately use the Communication Stone to contact the high-ranking Night Watcher left behind at the Night's Watch and inform them that we are leading men to the Sterling Earl's Mansion and the adjacent Herb Repository to apprehend someone. Tell them to send verified personnel to cordon off the area once the operation takes place. If anything happens inside, make sure to contain the Contamination within the area."
Lin En accepted the sealed letter with both hands, nodded solemnly, but hesitated for a moment before asking with some concern:
"Understood! But Advisor Lu Yuan, there are still several City Hall officials and the Earl's Mansion's Private Soldiers blocking the entrance to the Earl 'Earl's Mansion. What if they use their noble immunity to block us from entering?"
Blanca, standing beside Lu Yuan, glanced at him coldly and said in a clear and firm tone:
"Just keep walking forward. Once we get to the door, let's see who dares to stop us."
Lu Yuan reached out and patted Lin En on the shoulder, casually adding:
"It's okay, just listen to her."
After saying this, Lu Yuan sighed inwardly with a sense of helplessness. Blanca was still as aloof as ever when facing strangers.
Lin En turned to look at Blanca's petite figure, racking his brains for a moment, but couldn't quite place who this girl was.
However, it's quite normal that he didn't recognize him, even though he was also from the Northern Territory Knight Academy.
However, he hadn't been to the Knight Academy's main campus for a long time and had no idea what the new students were like. Blanca had just entered as a freshman this year, so it was perfectly normal that they hadn't met before. But now that Lu Yuan had spoken, he obediently nodded.
The group pushed open the back door of the trading company and went out, boarding a special steam carriage that had been prepared in advance at the alley entrance. Accompanied by the deep Gears, the carriage sped straight towards the Earl's Mansion on the west side of the inner city.
No one spoke in the carriage the entire way. After a long silence, the carriage entered the wide main road of the inner city, and the Gas Lamps on both sides of the street began to light up one by one.
Snowflakes twirled and drifted slowly down to the ground in the night sky. Under the warm, dim light of lamps, the fluttering snowflakes appeared serene and beautiful.
However, the unique tranquility of this winter night clashed sharply with the strange atmosphere of the city under Watch City and simmering undercurrents.
About fifteen minutes later, the steam carriage slowly came to a stop on the outskirts of the western block. At this moment, the advance team, together with the City Guards and Night Watcher who had been mobilized, sealed off all the major and minor intersections of the outer block and placed rows of heavy iron barricades at the street entrances to strictly prohibit any unauthorized personnel from walking or passing through.
The group stepped out of the carriage and looked up at the end of the long street, where a huge and imposing European-style castle- Earl's Mansion came into view.
Above the towering, heavy gray-black granite exterior walls stand rows of staggered, steeply pointed Gothic buildings, stone Clock Towers and corner towers that pierce the night sky, stone gables carved with intricate thorns and vines and family crests, stone gargoyles with menacing claws protruding from the eaves, and long, narrow, deep, stained-glass windows with colored lead frames. Under the cover of snow and night, they exude the weight and grandeur of a hereditary the Earl that has held sway for centuries.
Right behind and adjacent to the Earl's Mansion's castle complex is a vast gray stone Herb Repository, resembling a large workshop, with the two buildings separated only by a towering inner courtyard stone wall.
At this moment, the commander of the Earl's Mansion's guards had led dozens of armored and armed Private Soldiers to guard the intersection in front of the mansion, confronting the Night Watcher and advance teams who were blocking the outer perimeter.
At the very front of those Private Soldiers stood several City Hall officials dressed in respectable woolen robes, spouting nonsense in their direction. They were especially loud in their rebukes when they saw Lin En leading Lu Yuan and his group through the barricades.
The City Hall official with the mustache at the head of the group, his face stern, pointed at Lin En and the others and shouted:
"Captain Lin En! What exactly are you trying to do by having your Knight Academy Vanguard Team surround Sterling The Earl's mansion? I'm warning you one more time: this is the private territory of the hereditary the Earl of Watch City, protected by the imperial nobility's immunity! Without the written orders of the City Hall Council and the Earl himself, anyone who dares to trespass even a single step is committing treason!"
The Earl's Mansion's guard captain, his hand on the longsword at his waist, stepped forward to block the Private Soldiers, and, using the momentum of dozens of crossbows behind him, shouted in support:
"My the Earl is unwell tonight and has retired for the night. Anyone who dares to break into the Earl's Mansion in the dead of night, don't blame our weapons for being indiscriminate!"
A biting wind swept through the street, whipping snowflakes against the barbed wire. Blanca watched the arrogant scene of officials and Private Soldiers working together in perfect harmony. Her delicate brows furrowed slightly, a cold glint flashing in her icy blue eyes. She cursed inwardly, "These City Hall people really deserve to die. Have officials under the empire become this corrupt?"
She had no intention of wasting her breath on these rotten people, and didn't even stop to say hello.
She simply continued walking forward against the wind and snow, raising her slender right hand to take out a pure silver family crest engraved with a winter ice peak and a dragon emblem from inside the collar of her coat, and silently displayed it in front of her.
The dim yellow light from the Gas Lamp fell on the emblem, reflecting the ancient ice dragon and sword and shield patterns coiled on it. In this harsh land of the Northern Territory, from the provincial governor and hereditary nobles to the ordinary clerks of the City Hall, there was no one who did not recognize the emblem of the Solheim Family's direct line.
The moment the head official of the City Hall standing at the front saw the silver badge, his arrogant expression froze. He was stunned for a moment, then subconsciously squinted and took half a step forward, using the lamplight in the wind and snow to examine the badge closely.