“Everyone alright?”
When the three of them followed the sewer tunnel to the vicinity of the royal palace, they found Bei’er and the others, beaten and scattered.
Aside from Bei’er and Xiefei, nearly everyone else had lost the ability to fight.
Xi took out the River Islet she had prepared in advance, infused Stream Energy into it, and began treating the wounded on the scene.
Dongfang Jiang took the opportunity to discuss the situation inside the palace with Bei’er.
“Ambrose cut off every lighting circuit in the entire palace.”
Bei’er’s voice was low but still clear.
She had changed into a black combat outfit suited for quick movement, her silver hair catching a faint cold gleam in the darkness—like a narrow blade hidden in its sheath.
“Not just lighting. Water supply, ventilation arrays, alarm barriers—every facility that relies on basic energy has been shut down.”
“He’s not even leaving himself an escape route?”
Dongfang Jiang scratched his head and glanced toward Pandana, who was scouting the palace’s condition, and Xi, who was treating the palace guards.
“He doesn’t need one.”
Bei’er tilted her head.
Firelight from a distant, still-burning torch reflected in her pupils—no fear there, only a heavy vigilance.
“He’s turned the entire palace into his own barrier. The seven basic energies—Sky, Gale, Rainstorm, Blazing Sun, Thunderbolt, Drifting Cloud, and Thick Fog—all under his control. Anyone who uses those energies inside the palace will be sensed by him. At best, they’ll be suppressed. At worst, they’ll be turned into his puppets on the spot.”
“Including you?”
“Including me. The holder of the Gale Ring becomes the biggest burden here. The moment I release my energy, he intercepts it.”
“So you dragged us into this unlit corridor to avoid his detection network.”
It was Xiefei who spoke.
She stood two steps behind Bei’er, hands at her sides, but the two silver-white Magic Devices had their safety locks disengaged.
The faint blue glow flowing along their barrels was noticeably dimmer than usual—Rainstorm Energy under suppression, like the breathing of someone with a hand around their throat.
“Correct.”
Bei’er stopped, pushed open an unremarkable iron door ahead, and revealed a narrow spiral staircase descending below.
“Down here is the palace’s oldest drainage layer. Ambrose’s barrier doesn’t reach this far—this passage was built three hundred years before his barrier technique even existed.”
“So he doesn’t know about this route?”
“He knows.”
Bei’er’s voice carried a faint hollow echo.
“But he won’t station anyone here. Because it’s too narrow, too deep. Once the entrance is blocked, whoever comes in can never get out. He’d love for us to crawl in here.”
“Then why were you waiting for us here? If we hadn’t come, wouldn’t all of you have been finished?”
Pandana’s voice came from behind Dongfang Jiang, carrying a hint of doubt—but more trust than anything.
“Because we knew you’d come back. And we’re going to hit him where he’s most confident.”
Bei’er stopped at the bottom of the staircase, turned around, and looked directly at Dongfang Jiang.
“Ambrose sealed off all the basic energies, but he can’t seal off the three of you.”
Dongfang Jiang raised an eyebrow.
Pandana and Xi looked at him at the same time—three people moving in perfect sync in that moment.
The ring on his right ring finger flickered faintly.
Earth-brown, ink-green, translucent—three glows each flared and faded in the darkness.
“What you use isn’t basic energy.”
Bei’er’s voice wasn’t loud, but it carried a certainty like dust finally settling.
“Earth, Swamp, Desert, Stream, Glacier—they belong to the Gaia Ring. Textbook ‘minority’ energies. In Ambrose’s lockdown system, you three are the exception. The loophole. The variable he failed to account for.”
“So right now, we’re his biggest threat?”
Xi tightened her grip on the River Islet.
She didn’t look nervous—more like she was excited about writing a major headline.
“So the person he wants dead most right now has already shifted from His Majesty to you three.”
After saying this, Bei’er raised her hand and pointed toward a half-open stone door ahead.
“Xiefei’s scout just relayed intel. His Majesty is trapped in the Throne Hall. Ambrose is using the King’s body as a vessel, forcibly flooding it with the seven basic energies to create three King Puppets.”
Three.
“The sixteenth reign, the eighteenth reign, and…”
Xiefei’s voice cut in from the side.
She was looking down at a slip of paper just handed over by a scout, her golden pupils narrowing in the dim light.
“…and the legendary Young King—the only monarch in the Kingdom of Aiselin’s history to ascend the throne before age ten, ruling for just three months.”
“Three months?”
“Three months. He died in a court coup. Ambrose personally collected his body, and he was never publicly buried afterward.”
“So he turned every dead king into a puppet and kept them in the palace as weapons? Did he turn the throne into a coffin shop?”
Pandana’s voice carried an anger she couldn’t suppress.
“Worse than a coffin shop.”
Bei’er pushed open the stone door, and light from outside flooded in abruptly.
It was firelight from the Throne Hall’s side chamber—illumination Ambrose deliberately left burning, bait to lure prey into the hunting ground.
“He treats every dead king as a chess piece. In life, they served his purposes. In death, their bodies continue to serve him.”
At the far end of the side chamber, three tall ornately carved wooden doors stood in a row.
Three distinct energy signatures seeped through the gaps, oppressive and heavy.
“One each.”
Dongfang Jiang raised his right hand, and four Energy Swords condensed beside him in sequence.
Swamp, Glacier, Desert, Stream—four glows wove a brief radiance through the narrow chamber.
“Pandana, the left door. Xi, the right door. The middle one…”
He paused, his gaze landing on the door leaking a faint emerald light.
That Thick Fog Energy wasn’t violent, but it carried a pressure more sinister than Blazing Sun or Thunderbolt—as if something was calmly watching him from behind the door.
“Mine.”
The words barely left his mouth before the emerald light spilling from the middle door’s gap thickened twofold.
Then the door opened.
Countless fragments wrapped in dense fog energy burst outward in every direction.
Pandana immediately commanded the Swamp Moon, the Full Moon Mode shield forming alongside the water curtain Xi flipped up with the River Islet, blocking most of the debris.
Dongfang Jiang didn’t block.
He saw a figure in the fog.
It was far smaller than the other two puppets—shoulders a full circle narrower than a normal adult male, the hem of its robe even dragging on the floor.
The face was delicate, almost feminine.
If not for the dense dark-green runes covering the skin, he would have looked like nothing more than a boy of around fourteen.
The Young King.
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