It was just noon, the first peak of the day's foot traffic at the central market. The indoor and outdoor passages were packed with people, the peddlers shouting loudly to sell their wares, the visitors chatting and laughing with each other. The voices of various emotions intertwined and blended together, pouring into Joya's mind, maintaining a strange harmony. But this voice was like a sharp knife piercing through the harmony, rushing into her ears.
Although the voice was somewhat tense and had a slightly hoarse, tearing quality, she recognized it as Marco's voice immediately.
Without hesitation, she immediately turned around and rushed towards that direction, the time was pressing, and her heart was taut like a tightened violin string, she didn't have time to consider anything else, nor did she think of seeking help from others. As she ran forward, she quickly scanned the crowd, and then saw the cobalt blue edge of the man's clothes near a pillar close to the central market exit.
Marco!
Joya dashed out towards the market exit, colliding with a middle-aged woman who was examining jewelry. She hurriedly apologized and continued rushing forward, but then another scream rang out from the crowd ahead of her. The people in front of her started to get agitated, and a few men were shouting urgently
"A person suddenly fainted here!"
"Be careful everyone, don't step on anyone!"
"Is there anyone who can go and call a doctor?"
Ahead, it seemed calm, but suddenly someone was vomiting garlic, and all the people around that person were quickly retreating, to give the patient enough space to breathe, and to avoid the vomit from getting on their own clothes. Although Joya was running forward with all her might, the retreating crowd directly pushed her to the wall, and she wanted to break through, but she found that people from other areas, out of curiosity, were also rushing to this place, and the sudden influx of people was like a wall of flesh, blocking her way, and she couldn't find any breach to break through.
In this tense moment where even a blink of the eye seems like a waste of time, such an unexpected event occurred, Joya was almost on the verge of collapse, she shouted aloud
Who let her pass, but found that the people at this time were more concerned with the person who had fainted on the ground, and no one cared about her.
The temperature rose sharply at noon. The indoor space was already stuffy, and after the influx of people, the air seemed insufficient to be shared. She felt increasingly difficult to breathe. She wiped the sweat on her forehead, then looked back at the wall, and after seeing the protrusions on the brick wall, she gritted her teeth, kicked off the high-platform shoes that impeded her movement, then jumped up on the spot, and hooked her right hand onto the protruding brick on the wall above her head.
For a long time, Joya has been carefully hiding her little hobby, except for the one time when Cesare saw her climbing on the rooftop, almost no one knows that at the dead of night, the daughter of the Deputy Secretary of the Vatican would change into a light men's attire and parkour at Palazzo Ornish.
On the one hand, it is because of the identity of her own world, the daughter of the vice-regent of the Vatican can understand astronomy, geography, music theory and philosophy, but she absolutely cannot have the survival skills of a common boy who steals chickens and dogs. On the other hand, she also does not want anyone to know about her hobbies, because apart from her own consciousness, this is the only thing in this world that still belongs to her.
But now the situation is urgent, and she can no longer afford to worry about these things.
She climbed and swung on the indoor walls of the crowded Florence Central Market, making her way across the throngs of people below. The people who had been gathered around an unconscious patient also noticed the slender, elegantly dressed, barefoot, golden-haired young woman on the wall above. "Who is that?"
"My goodness, what is she doing?"
"Look at that long dress, it's probably a young lady from a noble family, but I haven't seen her before."
Joya did not notice that everyone was staring at her. As she approached the entrance by leaping from the points that could support her within the building, she also saw the man who was carrying Marco break through the crowd at the entrance and rush out of the central market.
She clenched her teeth even tighter, then crouched on the beam, moving quickly forward with bare feet. When she reached the doorway, she jumped down without hesitation.
The people standing at the door saw her movements, hurriedly stepped back, and even a young girl fell over while retreating, but when she looked up, she found that Joya, who had jumped down from the crossbeam, did not directly fall into the crowd at the door. As she was falling, she grabbed the edge of the door with both hands, swinging back and forth in the air like a pendulum, and then jumped forward, rolling down the stairs outside the door twice before stabilizing her stance.
The pearl chain on her head had slipped down from the back of her head at some point, her golden hair was a bit disheveled, the delicate strands of hair at the temples were sticking to her sweaty temples, and her clothes were covered in dust. But she didn't seem to care about her disheveled appearance at all, she was still running barefoot in a certain direction before she had even regained her balance.
A group of stunned onlookers remained at the entrance of the Central Market.
After Joya successfully broke through the crowd in the central market, she just caught sight of the cobalt blue figure of the runner at the corner of the road ahead. She let out a breath and ran toward that direction with all her might.
Because she jumped down from the roof beams with bare feet, without the cushioning of shoes, her right ankle suffered some minor sprain when she landed, but at that moment there was no time to attend to the injury, and she did not care about such a minor injury. Compared to the sprained ankle, the scorching stone pavement baked by the noonday sun made her feel like she was dancing in a hot frying pan, and the heart that was suspended for Marco was even more repeatedly fried in this frying pan.
She followed the man into a dark alley, but by this time, due to climbing and running at full speed, her physical strength was at its limit, her speed gradually slowed down, and her vision also became increasingly blurred, while the other party did not show any signs of physical fatigue. Just when she was almost in despair, the man suddenly stopped in the deserted alley, and she also stepped on her own skirt and fell heavily to the stone pavement.
This fall nearly shattered her will on the ground.
She was panting heavily, and then saw a pair of muddy boots in front of her. She slowly raised her head and saw the young man in the blue clothes standing before her, looking down at her from above.
This alley is in the shadows, yet the field of vision is much clearer than in the sunlight, she sees the lower part of this young man's face is completely covered by a grayish-blue headscarf, but the pair of eyes above the headscarf are hidden among his disheveled black hair, somewhat obscured.
Marco was carried on his shoulder, having passed out during the heated chase just before.
"Do you know what will happen if you chase me down?" the man said, his voice hoarse and raspy, as if it had been brutally sawed by a dull blade.
Joya was breathing heavily, she could barely speak.
"In fact, you should be able to live well, your mistake is..." He squatted down, with one hand holding the Marco who was carried on his shoulder, and the other hand pulling off the headscarf that covered the lower half of his face, exposing the scarred face and nose bridge to the outside. Before Joya could react, he placed that hand on Joya's neck and finished the sentence, "You shouldn't have continued to provoke me."
She was grasped by the young man's hand on her neck, forcing her to look up, but as soon as she lifted her head, she saw his eyes were blood-red. He slowly opened his mouth, revealing two sharp fangs.
This...
This is...
A vague noun flashed through her mind, and then there was a blank.
She almost instinctively felt the danger, her scalp was about to explode, she opened her eyes wide, looking at the sharp fangs of this person getting closer and closer to her with horrified eyes. The closer to death, the more inexplicable courage it can give birth to, she didn't know where the strength came from, clenched her right hand into a fist, and struck the other party's face, but after she used all her strength for a full-force attack, the other party's neck didn't even tilt a bit, on the contrary, her knuckles and knuckles were as if they were ruthlessly smashed on hard granite, causing her to let out a muffled groan.
This is a monster, a monster that is fundamentally impossible for a human body to shake.
She was almost desperate, she knew that at this moment she could not call for help, because she knew that the people who came running would only end up with the same result as her, and could not help her, and even if she put in her full effort, she could not escape the grip of this monster.
As the monster drew closer to her, she suddenly felt the grip on her neck loosen.
She had some difficulty looking up, but saw a person completely covered in a black cloak standing behind the monster. That person extended an arm from the cloak, and a pale, slender hand emerged from the cuff of the white shirt, resting on the back of the monster's neck.
She saw in the monster's blood-red eyes a terror-filled gaze that mirrored her own from just moments before.
The man in black stood upright, his figure silhouetted against the faint light spilling from the alley across the street. He reached out and grasped the nape of the crouching creature before him, a scene that resembled the execution of a death god come from the depths of hell.
The monster opened its mouth, but before it could utter a single word, Joya saw the wrist, which could be considered beautiful, clamped on the back of its neck, slightly twisting to the left, and the monster's head was easily snapped off its neck with a slight "click" sound.
Like the dry branches dried under the scorching sun in autumn, the sound of them being crushed into two pieces under a person's shoes.
