“Leah hasn’t come out yet.”
Winnidith noticed the blood threads above the guards’ heads were showing signs of snapping.
It was clear the ten-minute limit Olivier mentioned was almost up.
“Could it be she didn’t find the crown?”
Cold sweat gradually beaded on her forehead.
If Leah didn’t come out soon, even with Etheriel’s help, she couldn’t hold out for even a minute against over a hundred attackers!
Before reaching the Saint Realm, even a Ninth Tier powerhouse could be overwhelmed by sheer numbers!
Not to mention among these guards were five whose strength had already reached the Eighth Rank!
Fortunately, the worst-case scenario she imagined did not happen.
Just before those blood threads completely snapped, she finally saw Leah flying out, clutching a strange wooden box.
“I found it, let’s get out of here!”
Winnidith had been waiting for those very words!
With no time for further thought, Winnidith immediately had Etheriel cast earth magic to obscure their line of sight.
Seizing this chance, she and Leah swiftly retreated towards the palace exit.
The guards were already attempting to stand up intermittently.
Their hollow pupils stared at Winnidith, making her skin crawl like they were monsters from the abyss.
‘It’s over!’
Her ears caught the sound of snapping, and her heart instantly turned cold.
They were still fifty meters from the main gate, but two Eighth Rank Captains of the Guard stood in that fifty-meter stretch.
‘Do we try to break through?’
Winnidith didn’t slow down, rapidly constructing a Magic Formula in her mind, planning to catch these elves off guard before they fully recovered.
But she was shocked to find that the snapping blood threads didn’t dissipate.
Instead, they seemed to gain a will of their own, engaging in a desperate struggle with the spiritual power threads.
This could only buy a very, very short amount of time, but it was enough for Winnidith and Leah to escape.
At the very last moment before the blood threads vanished, they finally burst through the palace gates.
If they were facing normal enemies, this step would be no different from any before.
But they were facing a group of programmed puppets.
Once they left the royal palace, they would no longer be seen as enemies.
“Ten minutes and three seconds.
If you two had been one second later, I would have had to inform Lady Isabella to prepare your bodies.”
Having expended too much Mana, Olivier’s face looked somewhat pale.
She looked at the wooden box Leah held and asked curiously.
“Is your Elven King’s crown always this large?”
“There are some other things inside.”
Leah hugged the box tighter.
It was only then Winnidith noticed her voice was hoarse, as if she had just been crying.
But how was that possible?
Winnidith couldn’t figure out what could have happened in those short five minutes to make Leah cry.
She hadn’t even cried when Vilda ambushed her!
At that moment, Etheriel also rushed out of the palace.
He bore many new wounds, staining his white robe almost entirely red.
Winnidith checked him over and breathed a sigh of relief upon finding no irreversible damage to his organs.
As long as he could be healed, this mission was a resounding success.
“Let’s go back.”
“My, may I also accept Miss Winnidith’s invitation?”
Olivier smiled.
If not for her genuinely disordered aura, Winnidith would have suspected the paleness on her face was feigned.
But they truly owed their success in retrieving the crown to her stalling the Guard Army.
In this situation, Winnidith couldn’t very well refuse her.
Although her true motives were unknown, at least until they defeated Elaril, they were indispensable partners to each other.
As for after the victory… Winnidith shared Isabella’s sentiment: she was too dangerous.
***
In another new palace, Isabella had lost count of how many times she had looked up towards the royal palace.
The communicator had completely failed during Winnidith’s battle with the two Nine-Order Mages.
For Isabella, everything that happened afterward was a complete mystery, causing her immense anxiety, unaccustomed as she was to being out of the loop.
Even Aaron, who was keeping her company with a game of chess to pass the time, began advising her to relax and trust that Winnidith and the others would succeed.
But words alone were ultimately too weak.
It wasn’t until Winnidith’s figure appeared in her sight that she finally felt completely at ease.
“Wendy, are you hurt?”
“I’m fine, just used up a bit too much Mana.
It’s Etheriel who got quite injured covering our escape; he needs treatment.”
Aidan, who had been waiting nearby, immediately pulled Etheriel into another room for treatment upon hearing this, leaving the space to these young ladies of significant status.
“Heh, Lady Isabella and Miss Winnidith are truly close as sisters, not even noticing us standing here.”
“It’s quite heartbreaking, don’t you think, Lady Leah?”
Leah remained silent, her eyes vacant, lost in thought.
“Leah?”
Seeing her like this, Isabella worried she might be affected by the Sacred Tree’s spiritual power and called out to her cautiously.
The call pulled Leah from her memories.
She looked at them blankly, suddenly remembering the current situation, and forced a smile.
“I’m fine. I’ve brought the crown out.”
Leah carefully placed the wooden box on the ground.
After retrieving the crown from it, she found herself at a loss.
“But how do we make it work? Do we just… put it on our heads?”
Leah had meant it as a joke to lighten the awkward atmosphere she’d caused.
She didn’t expect Isabella to actually nod.
“If the crown truly holds the information we need, and your father told you nothing about it, then its method of use must be very simple.”
Isabella looked at the crown in Leah’s hand.
At least from its appearance, she couldn’t see anything special about this crown crafted from gold.
“Just try putting it on. If that doesn’t work, we’ll try other methods.”
“Oh.”
Leah tried placing the crown on her head.
Whether the crown had self-adjusting properties or someone had preset the size, Leah found it fit perfectly around her head.
But she didn’t feel anything…
“Ah!!!”
Leah suddenly screamed, startling everyone.
They thought some danger was hidden within the crown and prepared to forcibly remove it from her head.
“N-no! Wait, it’s okay… I… I just saw the memories of the previous Elven Kings, that’s all. I… I can handle it.”
In just a few seconds, fine sweat covered Leah’s face.
Countless memories pierced her mind like needles.
She saw a golden figure leading their people to independence in despair.
She saw countless elves joyfully building a city.
She saw the coronation of the first Elven King.
She saw the Chief Elder of the Council of Elders with smooth black hair, just like Vilda’s.
This was everything the first Elven King experienced just after the War of Divine Fire.
Gritting her teeth, Leah continued to watch.
All four races had faced an extinction crisis during that great war.
The strongest, humanity, was even split into four.
The entire continent needed time to lick its wounds.
For two hundred and thirty-seven years after the War of Divine Fire, the gods fell silent, and no wars ignited across the continent.
All nations focused on reproduction and development—except for the elves.
The first Elven King discovered his people’s birth rate was declining year after year, even lower than during the worst years of the War of Divine Fire.
This was clearly abnormal.
So, he entrusted all governmental affairs to his twin siblings and spent five years traveling incognito through every village in the Natural Forest.
He ultimately discovered a truth that chilled him to the bone.
All elven emotions were being absorbed by something!
Returning to the City of Emerald Shadows, he intended to report this anomaly to Chief Elder Ashlin, only to be horrified to find the residents within the city were even more severely affected.
Five years ago, when he left, he could still see their bright smiles on the streets and hear their cheerful laughter.
As he walked by, they would smile and wave.
Five years later, returning to his city, he found it had become a city of the dead.
The residents walked the streets numbly, selected daily necessities numbly, communicated with those around them numbly.
Even the occasional smiles were stiff and forced.
His spirit shattered in that moment.
He suddenly realized the elven crisis had not vanished.
It had always been here.
Right here!
Receiving the elves’ worship for two hundred and thirty-seven years in the guise of a god!
He charged towards the Holy Ground, raising the sword at his waist without fear of death, and struck at the god who had created him.
“Goddess of Beauty and Emotion, I hereby question you!!!”
His eyes burned with rage, each word a roar from the depths of his chest.
“Why do you harm my people?!”