Completely different from the bustling City of Emerald Shadows outside, the Holy Ground was as quiet as if it were in another world.
Elaril, who had been one step behind, was not furious.
She simply let all the guards do as they pleased, then stopped caring about the outcome of that battlefield.
In the breeze filled with the scent of flowers, she clasped her hands in front of her abdomen, playing the pretense of a vassal and priestess just as she had every day for the past hundred years.
‘Is it a little dirty?’
She looked at the mud on her skirt, bent down, and carefully wiped it clean with her hands.
As a vassal, she had to greet the royal family members in the most perfect manner.
Behind her, the Sacred Tree, growing more vigorous by the day, gently swayed its dense branches, as if also welcoming its “child.”
Tap, tap…
Three figures stepped into this elven Holy Ground.
Just then, Elaril had also finished arranging her clothes, and with a smile, she showed a gentle and kind expression to the one in the middle.
“We meet again, Princess.”
After speaking, without waiting for Leah to respond, she smiled unchangedly.
“Do you underestimate me a little? To think you’d try to deal with me using such crude tricks?”
Arns, who had been hiding his figure, suddenly smelled a hint of death.
He quickly stopped, forcefully wedged his shield into the ground, and using it as a fulcrum, he exerted his arms and leaped back to Winnidith’s side.
The moment his body was airborne, three-meter-wide magma erupted from underground, grazing past the tip of Arns’s nose.
Upon landing, Arns’s heart was still pounding from that narrow escape.
His Royal Knight shield, capable of withstanding a single Ninth Tier magic, was engulfed by the magma in an instant, and after only a few seconds, it melted into a pool of molten iron blending into the scorching magma.
‘Magic? This power is at least Ninth Tier magic, but how did she use it? The incantation? The mana fluctuations?’
‘Or is it just a trap magic? But due to the special nature of high-tier magic, trap magic is at most only Sixth Tier. How can it have such power?’
“This is a trap magic. By itself, it’s only a Sixth Tier magic. But an Archmage can control the concentration of surrounding magic, and by preparing a large amount of mana in advance, it can explode with power far exceeding its original level.”
Alvain answered her question.
After saying this, he gave Winnidith a meaningful look.
“In theory, Divine Power could do something similar.”
‘Actually, it shouldn’t be possible.’
Winnidith complained in her heart, but there was no need to say these words out loud.
“Father!”
The moment Leah saw Alvain, her eyes turned red.
She wanted to draw Anaris’s saber, but her willpower made her press it back.
Alvain, noticing this detail, nodded slightly in his heart.
He already knew what they were going to do next.
“Please rest assured, Princess. As the King’s Twin, the missing half of his soul, I cannot harm the King.”
Elaril broke into this reunion of father and daughter, and her smile at this moment only made Leah feel nauseous.
“Before you say these things, you might as well explain what those vines on Father are about.”
“That is Mother’s embrace, and also the King’s shackles. As the strongest Archdemon, the King’s power is unrivaled in the world. Without Mother’s help, I alone cannot restrain the King.”
Elaril confessed.
“You hypocrite… Where is Vilda? Where is she?”
Leah scanned around, didn’t see Vilda’s figure, and her heart sank halfway.
‘Did Elaril unseal it early? No, Father is still here, so the seal is still there. Maybe Vilda is hiding somewhere ready to ambush.’
Compared to Vilda having disappeared, Leah inwardly hoped she was looking for a chance to ambush her.
But the next moment, Elaril mercilessly shattered her hopes.
“Vilda has already returned to Mother’s embrace before you, and has become a part of Mother.”
!!!
Elaril’s words made Leah look at the Sacred Tree in horror.
Sure enough, when her eyes swept over a wooden burl on the trunk of the Sacred Tree, her suddenly racing heart told her that it was her best friend.
“You devil! You actually sacrificed your own daughter!!!”
Leah’s eyes were about to burst into flames, but Elaril replied unconcernedly.
“As Mother’s children, returning to her body is our innate instinct. Vilda simply realized her value first. It’s just a pity…”
Elaril suddenly looked at Leah with pity.
“That child, until the last moment she lost consciousness, was still waiting for her best friend to come and fulfill her promise.”
“She said you promised her you would be together forever.”
Leah’s heart was pierced painfully by these words.
‘How dare she! How dare she say such a thing!’
Leah wished she could draw her sword and cut down this hateful woman right now.
But before she could actually move, Winnidith grabbed her wrist and splashed a water ball on her face to forcibly cool her down.
“Calm down, Leah! She’s deliberately saying this to provoke you. If you lose your temper now, all our efforts will be wasted!”
Winnidith desperately pulled Leah, afraid that one impulse would ruin their well-laid plan.
And perhaps the memories in the Elven Crown had really matured Leah a lot; even though her eyes still held rage when she looked at Elaril, the muscles in her body actually relaxed.
Seeing that her provocation had no effect, Elaril finally turned her attention to Winnidith.
Then, she bowed solemnly.
This action startled Winnidith, who thought she was preparing some magic, and nervously stacked three or four defensive magics around herself.
But after detecting no movement, she realized it was just a very ordinary bow.
“Failing to eliminate you at the city gates was my mistake, Miss Winnidith.”
After bowing, Elaril said seriously.
“Mother once told me that in this world, aside from the other three gods, only you posed a threat, so She instructed me from the very beginning to kill you.”
Winnidith’s face showed embarrassment after hearing this.
‘What did I do to offend these Evil Gods? As fellow transmigrators, couldn’t we just sit down, drink tea, eat baozi, and chat? Why always killing and fighting, so violent.’
“Unfortunately, this mission failed because of my arrogance.”
The first time Elaril saw Winnidith, she was only a 5th-tier Mage, with nothing special except for her relatively good talent.
With just a simple probe, she could scare her out of her wits.
From any angle, this was a human weaker than weak.
She couldn’t imagine how she could threaten Mother.
Therefore, to avoid attracting Alvain’s attention, she did not immediately carry out Mother’s order, but planned to wait until after the seal was broken for Mother to kill her with her own hands.
As a result, she was away for only half a day when she received news of Winnidith’s Fountain of Memory.
She didn’t know what was inside the Fountain of Memory, but Mother’s increasingly frequent urgings made her realize the seriousness.
So, taking advantage of the gap when Alvain was calming the restless Sacred Tree, she used the secret art of Alandin Kingdom to seize control of almost all high-end combat power in the City of Emerald Shadows, and led five Ninth Tier experts to besiege Alvain, who had just had his life force drained by the Sacred Tree.
Even so, she eventually had to use Deliya as a hostage to make Alvain lose his will.
Although Leah escaped, Elaril did not believe that an injured Leah could escape from three Ninth Tier experts.
However, what she saw was Luonan severely wounded, and she learned the full story from Feiniyasi’s mouth.
Not only had Winnidith become a 7th-tier Magic User, she had also gained control of Etheriel.
And this time, it was all because of a mistake she had made earlier.
“And this time, I won’t make a mistake.”
Without any warning, countless thorns extended toward them.
“Miss, be careful!”
Arns thrust his sword into the ground, channeling Douqi to activate the power of light hidden within the blade.
“Land of No Dust!”