Adrian slowly stood up.
His massive body straightened, almost reaching the dome.
He lowered his head, looking at the ant-like humans beneath his feet, and raised his scepter with a hint of madness.
At the top of the scepter, a mass of black flesh balls suddenly appeared, writhing violently.
Countless black tentacles surged out from within, raining down upon the crowd!
“Scatter!” Mephia shouted.
Everyone scattered to dodge, but the tentacles were too fast.
A witch failed to evade and was pierced through the chest by a tentacle.
She screamed and fell to the ground.
Another commander was caught by the ankle, dragged into the darkness, and never came out.
Celeste swung her wand, silver-white light cutting through several tentacles, but more swarmed in.
Mephia stood in front of her, swinging her longsword, severing one tentacle after another.
But the tentacles seemed endless.
“This won’t work!”
Magic Mirror roared, her magic power surging.
A transparent barrier rose in front of the group, temporarily blocking the tentacles’ assault.
“We can’t win! Retreat!”
Duke Verne was covered in blood, gritting his teeth.
“Retreat? Where?! We barely made it here!”
“If we don’t retreat, we die!”
Magic Mirror yelled.
“Fall back first! We’ll plan later!”
Just as their words faded, Adrian raised his scepter again.
The black flesh ball at the top burst with even more blinding black light, instantly swallowing the entire hall.
Everyone’s vision went black.
They could see nothing.
“Celeste!”
Mephia’s voice came from the darkness.
“I’m here!”
Celeste’s voice replied.
Mephia rushed toward the sound but slammed into an invisible wall.
“Damn it!”
She swung her sword at the wall, but the blade couldn’t penetrate.
Soon, a piercing scream echoed from the darkness.
It was Duke Verne!
“Your Grace!”
Celeste cried out.
She poured magic power into her wand, and silver-white light exploded, temporarily dispelling some of the darkness.
The next second, she saw it.
Duke Verne lay in a pool of blood, his chest pierced by a tentacle.
“Run… quickly…”
With those final words, he slowly closed his eyes.
Celeste instinctively clutched her wand, wanting to charge forward, but Mephia grabbed her wrist and shook her head.
“Damn it…”
She cursed under her breath and followed Mephia as they rushed toward the hall’s entrance.
The others, whose vision had briefly returned, quickly followed behind them.
Adrian’s darkness did not stop them.
Soon, only the bodies and that pair of blood-red eyes remained in the hall.
He was silent, then looked up at the ceiling of the hall.
The moment she escaped the palace, Celeste looked back.
That towering edifice still stood in the daylight, but above it, a thick black mist was slowly spreading.
The rebel army commanders who had not entered the palace arrived with their soldiers, only to see a group of people covered in blood and battered.
Duke Verne was dead.
Of the witches and commanders who had followed them into the palace, less than half had survived.
“Quick! Save them!”
The commander’s shout echoed through the night, but everyone knew that the greater disaster had only just begun.
The nightmare of the Imperial Capital descended that night.
Adrian floated above the palace, raising his scepter.
The black flesh ball at the top writhed violently, and countless tiny black particles surged out, spreading through the city like a plague.
When the particles landed on a person, they burrowed into the skin, seeped into the bloodstream, and began to take root.
The first to react was a ten-year-old boy.
He knelt on the street, twisting in pain, feeling something writhing inside him.
He opened his mouth to scream, but a black tentacle emerged from his throat.
When his parents rushed over, they saw a body already twisted into a monster.
In the Imperial Capital, most of the ordinary people without magic power were gradually corrupted by this black mist, one by one turning into monsters.
Their bodies contorted and mutated, losing all human consciousness, leaving only a mad instinct for destruction.
They attacked every living thing, and the infection spread like a plague.
Those who fared slightly better were the ones with magic power.
Even though they were also eroded by the black mist, they retained their human form for a short time.
Their magic power could suppress the mist, but it was only a matter of time before they too became monsters.
This was the method Adrian had ordered others to research to annihilate humanity.
As time passed, the infectivity of the black mist would wipe out every human in the world.
The only one unaffected was Mephia.
She seemed to be of the same kind as the black mist.
No matter how much mist fell on her, she felt nothing.
As for Magic Mirror and the others, since they were all Gold Rank experts, they also had almost no symptoms so far.
Now, they gathered in the rebel army’s tent to discuss their last resort.
A middle-aged commander with a stubbly beard, sunken eyes, and bloodshot veins spoke in a hoarse voice: “The scepter—the one in Adrian’s hand—it’s a relic left by the Deity. That’s what turned him into this!”
“Then what do we do now? If we don’t get rid of this black mist, we’ll turn into those monsters too!” A younger commander lifted his head, his face full of despair.
Someone let out a cold laugh.
“Get rid of the black mist? Don’t joke. Adrian is Saint Rank. You’ve all been through the battle before. We have no chance at all!”
“So because we have no chance, we just give up?”
A young woman abruptly stood up, her eyes red but her lower lip bitten firmly to hold back tears.
“I didn’t say that. I just think we can’t solve the black mist by dealing with Adrian!”
As the argument escalated, a low female voice rang out.
“Enough!”
Everyone turned at once.
Magic Mirror slowly rose from her seat, expressionless.
“The black mist spreads and erodes very quickly. Even for us, we’ll turn into those monsters in seven days. The entire Imperial Capital will fall within three days.”
“In that time, we simply cannot develop a way to stop the mist’s erosion. So our only option is to deal with Adrian.”
The middle-aged commander jumped to his feet, disbelief on his face.
“Deal with him? Lady Magic Mirror, are you joking?”
Magic Mirror glanced at him.
“This is no joke. Adrian only reached Saint Rank because he came into contact with a Deity. And… Her Majesty the Empress is not without that possibility.”
Celeste’s eyelashes fluttered.
She was taken aback.
“Me?”
Her voice was soft, tinged with confusion.
Magic Mirror nodded.
A low murmur spread through the tent.
Magic Mirror raised her hand to silence them.
“As everyone knows, the First Witch entered a temple, unexpectedly met a Deity, and was granted the Empress’s Scepter, gaining the powers of a witch.”
As she spoke, Magic Mirror looked at Celeste, her eyes showing not only concern but also approval.
“Her Majesty the Empress has been acknowledged by the Empress’s Scepter, so it is very likely that if she enters the temple again, she will receive the Deity’s favor and truly step into Saint Rank.”
In her view, the consciousness of the Empress’s Scepter likely represented the will of that elusive Deity.
Since Her Majesty was acknowledged by the scepter, she would naturally be acknowledged by the Deity as well.
Only between Deities was there a possibility of a contest.
The tent fell silent again.
But soon, that silence was broken.
The young woman lifted her head, her eyes sparkling with hope.
“That’s right! The Empress’s Scepter came down from a Deity. If Her Majesty has been acknowledged by it, she might really be able to reach Saint Rank!”
“This method is good. There’s still hope.”
But Magic Mirror’s face showed no relief.
She looked at those people, a complex expression in her eyes.
“However… the location of the temple has long been lost. And even if we knew it, the round trip would probably take a lot of time…”
The hope in the tent dimmed by more than half.
The young woman’s lips trembled.
“You… you… if it’s not possible, then why are you—”
“I know where the temple is.”
Before the woman could finish, Celeste replied calmly.
The tent was small, and her voice reached every ear clearly.
Magic Mirror’s pupils contracted sharply, and she said with barely concealed shock, “What?!”
“I know the location of the temple. It’s very far away. Even if I go at full speed, it will take about five days for the round trip. That doesn’t include the time I might spend inside the temple.”
Celeste said these words flatly, as if she had known the temple’s location for a long time.
Magic Mirror stepped forward in shock.
“How… how do you know where the temple is…”
Celeste looked at her, and Magic Mirror quickly covered her mouth, realizing she had spoken out of turn.
Regardless of how Celeste knew the temple’s location, or even whether it was true or false, it was her secret—the Empress’s secret.
A mere Witch Councilor had no right to know.
“Then the problem now is time. If we don’t interfere with Adrian, the Imperial Capital will be destroyed in three days, so…”
“I’ll interfere with him.”
At that moment, Mephia stepped forward.
Everyone looked at her, their gazes mostly lingering on her wings.
“The black mist around him is the thickest. If you approach recklessly, it will accelerate your mutation. But I’m different. That mist has no effect on me.”
As she spoke, the remnant wing on her back quivered slightly.
“What about us? Are we just going to stand by and watch?”
Beside her, Parker frowned impatiently.
He still didn’t know that his own Count’s daughter was the Empress of the Witch Council, Celeste.
So he thought that the young lady would turn into a monster just like the commoners of the Imperial Capital once infected by the black mist.
The urgent matter was to stop the spread of the mist.
Lady Tia hadn’t followed the rebel army to the Imperial Capital; she was in a camp outside the city.
They had to deal with Adrian before the mist reached the camp.
Right now, time was life.