"By my estimate, those two Divine Court Awakened Ones who infiltrated under the identities of senior Imperial officers—in other words, the Imperial spies—should have already been driven out," Bai Xiaowen said.
"That's for sure. Each Imperial spy had a Leader Tier general leading dozens of Elite Tier cavalrymen and several hundred ordinary soldiers, with mages and priests skilled in control skills accompanying them..."
Li Shuyi spoke rapidly. "Even I would have a hard time getting away. I'd have to use a Return Scroll."
With the Invincible Slash Awakening Skill, Li Shuyi's escape abilities were absolutely top-notch. Yet even she had no confidence in escaping such an encirclement.
As for the Divine Court Awakened Ones, Bai Xiaowen had never expected to kill them outright. There was a very high chance they carried Return Scrolls. At most, he could force them to get lost.
To Bai Xiaowen, forcing them to leave and killing them had the same effect. But the effort required and the possible price were worlds apart.
Perhaps someone might ask, Were all the generals under Nicholas cowards? Why didn't they dare volunteer to take on the search missions?
The reason was simple.
That military conference had been a trap aimed at the spies from the very beginning. After learning the spies' identities—thanks to Cecilia's covert identification—the other senior Imperial officers attending the conference had all received Nicholas's secret order not to volunteer for combat. The goal was to lure the two spies into taking the bait.
As for why they didn't simply expose the spies after learning their identities, but instead spent so much effort staging this trap—the reason lay in the strategic deception Bai Xiaowen had mentioned: using the two spies to spread the intelligence the Empire wanted to convey.
If the two spies had been exposed immediately