“Senia… is your First Queen’s personality really that malicious?”
Lian shielded Senia behind her and stepped forward to face the walking corpse.
“Ah…!” Senia clearly hadn’t recovered from the shock. Only when Lian called her name did she snap out of it, shaking her head repeatedly. “No! I don’t remember the details, but the trial illusion created by the Ancestor Lord could never have such an evil aura…!”
“Yeah, I think so too.” Lian nodded. “Everything you saw before, the things I experienced—they really happened. If that was my trial, then this scene has nothing to do with it at all.”
“Brother… brother… I really hurt… it hurts so much… Why didn’t you save me? I loved you so much… trusted you so much…”
“You’re not her. Don’t speak in her voice anymore.”
Lian extended her hand, and a dazzling light coalesced in her palm. It was a sword of gold and red. She lightly swung it down… the pure crimson flame attached to it completely devoured the hollow humanoid shape.
“Lian, wasn’t your magic power sealed?”
Senia watched in amazement as the surging flames swept away the surrounding water and the blood mist over the lake. The fire pushed back the bloody water, creating a safe zone for them in the middle of the pool.
“I noticed it earlier. In the illusion, I don’t seem to have that thing on my arm.”
Lian rolled up her sleeve for Senia to see. There, on her healthy-toned forearm with its defined muscles, was indeed no annoying armband locking her magic power.
“So here, I can use my power without restraint.”
“That sword… is it the Holy Sword of Blazing Flames?”
Even surrounded by raging flames, Senia felt no burning heat. Even when she reached her hand into the fire, her skin wasn’t scorched.
“Yeah. In this illusion, I can even manifest its true form… See.”
With that, Lian swung a casual diagonal slash toward the stirring shadow in the blood pool ahead.
Boom!
The burst of light and flame was like the sun… a huge wave of fire pushed forward along the slash trajectory, cutting through the water and mist layer by layer.
“This…”
Stunned by the stroke that split the tide, the Elven Queen widened her eyes. She had never imagined that a person could generate such power and destruction just by wielding a weapon.
“It can purge all impurities and curses. But the curse eroded by this barrier seems quite stubborn and powerful… It almost reminds me of that bastard Linggong.”
Lian frowned as she watched the pool and blood mist surge again, then swung the holy sword once more.
…
…
“…What’s going on here?”
This was the dark underground space of the Giant Tree Nelf. In the room far ahead, filled with magic stone screens, Yan Wei Fu was waiting.
“Are you asking me, Lord Jiuye Yue?”
The fairy woman standing before him, dressed as a maid, was surrounded by several tree roots extending from the ground… and some sort of crimson, liquid substance flowed within them.
An ordinary person might think it was blood, but Yan Wei Fu knew its true nature.
It was magic power compressed and refined to its extreme—hundreds or thousands of magic stones had to be fully smelted to obtain a tiny bottle.
This liquid was the foundation of her survival… Only this liquid could repair the damage caused by the rejection between soul and body.
The vast reserves of magic stones stored throughout the giant tree’s underground warehouse were all stockpiled to produce this liquid.
“There’s only you here… so of course I’m asking you!”
There was a hint of anger in the maid’s voice—Jiuyeyue Yiruilian. Yan Wei Fu knew she was growing anxious because of unexpected variables in her plan.
“Didn’t Crescent Moon seal that hero’s magic power? Where did she get this power to resist my curse…!”
Surrounded by the roots, she couldn’t move her body—only her head. She stared fixedly at the red magic crystal screen in front of her, where the hero turned young girl was showing off her skills.
“I don’t know the exact reason either. Perhaps, as she said, in the illusion, her magic power isn’t limited like in reality?”
“But this entire illusion was corroded by my curse… It should be completely under my control! And she even said that the little girl of the royal family told her those things eighteen years ago…? That’s impossible! If Yixisi could do that, she wouldn’t have died… and wouldn’t have become that stupid tree, just to look a little taller at something she could never obtain!”
Yan Wei Fu remained silent in the face of her hysterics. He knew that the Yixisi she spoke of was the First Queen of the Sea of Trees… but he didn’t know the full extent of the grudge between them.
“And those two people’s wills aren’t being broken like I imagined… Could Yixisi’s residual soul be protecting them? A residual soul of hers, under that level of curse, can still stay sane and not fall into madness? And the obsession she left in the heart of that royal girl—can it be resolved so easily?”
Jiuye Yue kept muttering… She had never expected things to slip out of her control to this extent.
“Forgive my impertinence… but will the curse be removed by them at this rate?”
Yan Wei Fu suddenly asked.
“…No. This curse was taught to me by the Necro Lord back then. Its purpose is to completely corrupt that barrier. As long as the trial imposed on those who enter the barrier continues, no matter how hard she tries, she cannot fully remove it.”
“But the trials of those two seem to have already ended…”
“That’s why I drove the curse to trap them there. But looking at the current situation, relying on the curse to eliminate them is no longer realistic.”
Jiuye Yue glared hatefully at the illusion displayed on the crystal screen. In the bloody world of the illusion, that hero was constantly destroying the curse entities surging toward her.
No matter what images emerged from the blood pool, she just swung her sword, unleashing crimson fire to burn them all to ashes. Her magic power and mental strength seemed inexhaustible—no matter how much she consumed, they never hit bottom.
“…This can’t be. No matter how strong her spirit or firm her will, it will eventually be ground to nothing. If I keep her trapped there… that incompetent child Iruna… and her daughter Nai Fei Tali were like that.”
Recalling her past “success,” a confident smile finally appeared on Jiuye Yue’s face.
“Right… and that pair of pitiful sisters, and that ridiculous knight. Maybe even that little girl praised by the world as the new hero? Breaking their wills might be easier than breaking these two.”
She seemed quite enjoying herself.
Jiuye Yue turned her gaze to other crystal screens… where other illusions were playing out. Watching her deeply intoxicated expression, Yan Wei Fu felt a chill run down his spine.