When the Saintess Arrives, No King Exist

Chapter 1165 - 1098: Storming the Gladiator Prison

The chains rattled, making a crisp, clanging noise, and the rising sun gilded them in a half-golden hue.Entering this prison for gladiators, the first sight was of the gray and black walls sprawling out to the sides of the view.

A dozen towers stood on the perimeter walls, constantly monitored by seven or eight low-level vampire soldiers with longbows.

Vampires cannot practice breathing techniques, but even low-level vampires can obtain remarkable strength by drinking human or magical creature blood.

Under their watch were over a thousand gladiators.

There were many kinds of gladiators; despite being slaves, clearly some slaves were more so than others.

Some were private gladiators of noble vampires and essentially celebrity gladiators, treated even better than ordinary vampires.

As for the imprisoned gladiators, they were usually criminals such as bandits, robbers, deserters, and punished artisans.

If noble vampires' gladiators were the protagonists, they were merely expendables and side characters.

Danio and Sux walked through this prison, followed by a dozen soldiers pretending to wear shackles.

They followed step by step, occasionally lifting their heads, each step causing a clattering sound.

Sux had already attempted to raid the prison, and the preliminary preparations had been done long ago.

The scale was much smaller than Danio planned, though.

Thanks to Sux's groundwork, Danio could act now.

They reached the edge of a corridor; Sux stopped, looking at the warden's office getting closer.

"Are you sure you want to do this? There's no turning back once we go further."

Danio turned his head, looking at the colossal arena in the distance and the numbed enslaved gladiators inside the walls.

Numbness, anger, helplessness, despair... Danio was all too familiar with these looks; he was like this ten years ago, too.

Danio suddenly understood why the military chaplains always said the unfree will always be our allies.

Because they were once unfree, and the unfree will become them.

"Let's move on," Danio said calmly, "I've never feared fighting an Imperial Knight."

The group took the most arduous fifty paces, stopping before the warden's office building; this was the final step.

"Are you a biped?" The vampire guard at the door saw Sux coming and looked pained yet helpless. "At this hour, what gladiators are you delivering? Even seeing the warden won't help. Not allowed!"

Clang—

Removing the shackles, Danio gripped his waist-high military knife with his right hand.

The vampire guard immediately sensed something was wrong and opened his mouth to shout.

However, Danio stomped the ground, raising a cloud of dust, performing the Holy Alliance Army's common extraordinary combat technique—Rush.

In one bound, across three meters, he leaped high and appeared before the vampire guard like lightning.

A golden gleam flashed past the knife's tip, piercing the vampire's mouth like a golden thread.

"By the Eternal Lord above!" Another guard quickly extended his right hand, conjuring a blood mist in his palm immediately.

Sux roared, drawing a blood contract gun from his lower back, firing it at the guard's head.

Half of the guard's skull instantly exploded, and Sux also fell to the ground exhausted.

As the other guard fell, Danio leaped off the knife-topped corpse.

The blade danced, and the two jailers trying to close the door retreated, clutching their throats.

The rest of the Holy Alliance soldiers also charged in, causing a barrage of bullets and the glint of blades in an instant.

Many guards had already been redeployed to suppress the gladiators and rebels in the streets, making the warden's office weakly defended.

The morning sun rose, nearing the end of the shift, so the jailers and guards were the most relaxed.

Many had drunk and were drunkenly unaware of what hit them before being cut down.

Amid flitting wood chips, Danio sprinted up the stairs rapidly.

Taking hostages was something he did back when the Rapids City uprising first began.

At that time, he was just a lackey, but now he's the protagonist.

He always understood the most crucial principle in taking the warden hostage is—speed!

"Who?"

"Are the gladiators rioting?"

"Warden..."

Grabbing the banister and leaping, Danio wasn't even at the second floor when he tossed a time bomb and a Holy Water Grenade.

He grabbed the vase rack, swinging his body aside, and kicked down a guard.

When landing, he quickly rolled, avoiding successive slashes, and then violently yanked the carpet.

As the vase rack toppled, the carpet lost a support and immediately slipped.

The seven guards advancing in formation two-three-four fell like dominoes on the spot, but they still dutifully shot crossbow arrows at Danio.

Through the mist of arrows, with hurried steps, Danio had already stepped onto the stairs leading to the third floor,

yet a shadow blocked the glimmering sunlight coming through the gray glass.

That was a warden so robust that he looked more like an ogre rather than a vampire.

He had a large belly, with cheeks drooping, blocking a wide staircase entrance that could accommodate two people.

Holding an all-iron Wolf Fang Club with one hand, he grinned menacingly at the oncoming "little guy."

This man was known to both guards and wardens, a gladiator with thirty-two consecutive victories in the arena, Death David.

He was the warden's bodyguard, the safest link within the building.

"Bang!"

A black bloody hole appeared on Death David's forehead, the smile on his face forever frozen.

With a stiff smile, Death David rolled down like a boulder in a tunnel, knocking over all the guards pursuing Danio.

Meanwhile, finally, two blood arrows shot through, one pierced his shoulder, another his thigh.

Danio seemed unfazed, relentlessly rushing up to the third floor.

Pushing away the fallen Death David, the other wardens still wanted to chase, but from behind, lead bullets whistled through the holy water mist.

"Oh damn it!"

Rushing to the third floor, at the end of the horizontal corridor was a wooden door.

Danio kicked open the wooden door, immediately sensing airflow to his side, and dodged quickly.

A vase shattered on the floor, and looking up, a bloated vampire appeared before him.

Sweating profusely, his right hand targeted the advancing Danio, blood mist gathering and dispersing in his palm.

Until the blade pressed against the warden's heart, did he resignedly disperse the blood mist.

"Do you know what to do?"

"I know."

Soon, the warden was taken hostage by Danio and ordered the entire gladiator prison to gather all the gladiators in the prison square.

Meanwhile, the warden also shouted to the entire prison to surrender.

The vampire longbowmen entrenched in the arrow tower neither surrendered nor shot at them.

On the contrary, they acted indifferent, doing nothing.

At this moment, if they were to suppress, leading to the warden's death, his family would certainly seek revenge.

But if they surrendered now, they would definitely be retaliated against by the gladiators.

Doing nothing was the best option.

Bandaged, Danio stepped onto the warden's speech platform, wasting no words, he directly spoke.

"According to what I know, the governor was killed by a spy hidden among the gladiators, with a blood contract gun. The governor's clan will surely want you buried with him."

"I am from the Holy Alliance, just like you. Whether from the rebel army or the clan coalition, with the governor's death, we foreigners will surely be suspected."

"Today, our breakthrough in the gladiator prison gives you a chance."

As Danio spoke, the weapon locker door behind him slowly lifted with the chain's pull.

"Staying here means death, fighting back also means death, both lead to death, so why not fight for freedom? Why not taste freedom before death?"

Standing in front of the open armory, Danio personally selected a spear, holding it in his hand.

"The dock has been burned; only the governor's private port has ships and docks that allow escape from here."

"Now, choose your most handy weapon!

You were once forced to slaughter each other. Now, I give you the chance to stand together, to kill your real enemy—your master!"

The large iron doors slowly rose, and Danio was the first to step out.

The entire gladiator formation became restless.

These extraordinarily fierce and muscular gladiators, though secondary, were battle-hardened competent soldiers.

Becoming gladiators was never their intention; it was not their intention.

In less than half a minute, the first gladiator walked out and into the armory.

He selected the weapon he used most in the arena, a battle ax and a round shield.

After him, one by one, the gladiators picked up weapons, donned helmets, followed behind Danio, and stormed out of the prison.

Though few in number, they seemed like a torrent, quietly heading towards the governor's private port in the morning sunlight.