The stone doors of the Dragon Temple closed completely, isolating the inside and outside into two different worlds.
The ceremony was over.
Having lost her value as a “key,” Moin was roughly pressed to her knees by two Imperial Guards, her cheeks pressed against the freezing, bone-chilling snow.
The Captain of the Guards glanced at her, his eyes looking as if he were staring at a pile of obstructive filth.
He did not want to leave any loose ends.
“The sorceress is of no more use. Execute her on the spot to eliminate any future trouble!”
A flash of ruthlessness crossed his eyes as he waved his hand to his left and right.
A knight stepped forward in response, raising a long blade high into the air.
The cold blade flashed with a chilling light under the pale sky, aimed at Moin’s slender and fragile neck, and swung down fiercely!
Just as the blade was about to touch her skin—
“Boom—!!!”
A world-shaking roar exploded without warning from within the closed stone doors of the Dragon Temple!
The sound was dull and violent, as if the entire snow-capped mountain was collapsing!
Following that was a roar of a beast that did not sound human, filled with an aura of tyranny!
The entire ground shook violently, the snow quivering. All the knights struggled to stay standing, looking toward the towering stone doors with suspicion and fear.
The executioner’s movements also stiffened, the blade stopping in mid-air.
Upon the high platform, Aella’s face turned pale in an instant, drained of all color.
Her hand, which was gripping the hilt of her sword, trembled violently from excessive force, her knuckles turning white.
She understood in an instant.
This was not an accident.
The script she feared most, the one she was most unwilling to believe, was playing out at this very moment!
The Captain of the Guards was infuriated by this sudden change. He cared more about the task at hand and roared at his dazed subordinates.
“Ignore what’s inside! Kill her first!”
The executioner snapped back to his senses, the murderous light in his eyes intensifying. He raised the long blade once more.
This time, he used ten-tenths of his strength, the muscles in his arms bulging, vowing to decapitate Moin with a single strike!
The blade carried the sound of breaking air as it fell again.
This time, nothing could stop it.
However, the moment the blade fell, the body that had been kneeling on the ground as if it were already dead moved.
Moin abruptly lifted her head!
Where was the emptiness in those silver eyes that were supposed to be lifeless?
In its place was a boiling flame, like scalding water, enough to incinerate everything!
After having her Dragon Heart pierced by Shen Luolin’s sword, Moin was not as heartbroken as she appeared.
The ultimate betrayal and the piercing pain had transformed into the purest fuel, reigniting the spark of her bloodline upon the ruins of the power within her body.
During these past few days, she had appeared to be a walking corpse, but in reality, she was using her towering hatred to frantically re-gather her dissipated strength.
She had been waiting, and what she was waiting for was today!
“Pshhh!!”
The sound of flesh being torn.
But it was not the sound of a blade hitting flesh.
The executioner, along with the other Imperial Guard who had been holding Moin down, both stiffened simultaneously.
They looked down at their chests in disbelief, where a burst of blood mist had erupted!
Life rapidly faded from their eyes.
Moin slowly, very slowly, stood up.
The heavy shackles engraved with runes upon her body made an unbearable “creak” sound. The runic light on the surface flickered wildly before shattering inch by inch!
Metal fragments flew in all directions.
A majestic power exploded outward with her as the center!
She ignored the terrified expressions on the faces of the surrounding knights and the weapons they instinctively raised.
In the next second, her figure turned into a silver afterimage. Anyone standing in her way was turned into a burst of blood mist!
Moin’s target was clear—the entrance to the Dragon Temple!
She wanted to go in!
She wanted to tear that high-and-mighty Emperor and that “Major” who had betrayed everything of hers into pieces together!
But just as she was about to rush to the stone doors, a more resolute white figure barred her path.
It was Aella!
“Stop!”
Aella did not draw her weapon. Instead, she spread her arms, using her own body to block Moin without flinching.
Her military order was to “guard the perimeter; no one is allowed within a hundred paces of the Dragon Temple.”
But now, she was the first to violate her own orders.
Moin’s momentum came to a sudden halt, the silver dragon flames churning around her nearly swallowing Aella.
Her eyes, reignited with flames, stared deathly at Aella, her killing intent boiling.
Although her enemies were the “Emperor” and the “Major,” she did not mind slaying this accomplice who had assisted the tyrant.
Aella did not dodge or hide, letting the searing air current blow her hair into a wild frenzy.
With one sentence, she froze all of Moin’s movements.
“Do you want him to die for nothing?!”
Moin’s body froze.
That killing intent capable of incinerating the world suffered a momentary stagnation.
Aella looked at her. On that face that was always frozen like ice, a smile suddenly broke out that looked more painful than crying.
She laughed out loud, but there was a sobbing tone in her laughter.
“I really am a joke… aren’t I?”
Seeing Aella’s broken state, Moin’s memories flashed back to that day when Aella had come to the Returning Snow Cabin to deliver supplies and had handed her a box of candied plums.
How high and mighty she had been then.
Her tone was so natural and proper. With just two simple sentences, she had made Moin feel so ashamed that she could only shrink behind her Master, trembling.
It would be a lie to say she wasn’t jealous.
Standing by her “Master’s” side, Aella was far more suitable than she was.
But now, she looked at Moin, and in her eyes was a complete, utter brokenness that Moin had never seen before.
“I thought I won. I thought as long as I loved him enough and was useful enough, he would see me…”
“That broken Wood Carving… the Wood Carving you gave him! He has been wearing it, keeping it pressed against his heart!!”
She screamed, her elegance and composure as an Imperial Princess vanishing at this moment.
“I draped the royal-bestowed Frost Wolf Cloak over him, smoothing every wrinkle on his collar. I thought I gave him the highest glory in the world… but what about him? What he keeps hidden against his heart is that worthless piece of wood of yours!!”
As intelligent as Aella was, how could she not have noticed the strangeness in Shen Luolin that night.
She had given everything of herself, only to receive his polite and distant refusal in return.
Shen Luolin thought he had hidden it well, but he didn’t realize that in the eyes of someone whose world revolved around him, someone who loved him most, his tenderness had long been full of holes.
Tears burst from Aella’s reddened eyes without warning, sliding down her pale cheeks only to be evaporated in an instant by the dragon flames surging around Moin.
Silent and breathless, it was as if this grand love of hers had never existed.
“He refused me not because he is some saint… it’s because from beginning to end, his heart was filled with you!”
“The day you escaped prison, it was he who secretly assisted you, helping you break through the encirclement!”
“Your father… he risked his life to persuade him to flee! He was the one who bore the infamy of killing a friend, enduring everyone’s cold glares in the knight order like a dog! All so he could survive in the quagmire of the Empire and find you!”
Aella reached out a trembling hand, pointing toward the stone doors of the Dragon Temple behind her, which were constantly vibrating and emitting roars.
Using all the strength in her body, she shouted her final plea.
It was both a plea to Moin and a tragic funeral for her own love, which had been a one-sided play from start to finish.
“I’ve been lying to myself… I thought he just didn’t understand love… I was wrong! He doesn’t misunderstand it, he just… doesn’t love me!”
“I lost, Moin… I lost utterly.”
“Now, that fool who did it for you… no, that fool who is hated by you, is inside assassinating my father for your freedom!”
“He’s going to die!!”
“Only you! Only the true power of the Dragonborn can help him!”
Under the pale sky where the wind and snow had ceased, Moin stood in place.
The murderous aura and dragon flames on her body did not dissipate; they briefly gathered together, forming a chaotic vortex around her.
She had just returned from hell, her heart filled only with the flames of revenge.
But every word from Aella stirred a towering wave in the sea of hatred she had just condensed, nearly overwhelming her sanity.
The Wood Carving… her father… for her…
The hatred was still burning, but a more intense pain began to spread frantically from the depths of her heart, which had been pierced by the sword.
Her silver eyes, reignited with flames, stared deathly at the Imperial Princess who had completely broken down and was sobbing in front of her, then turned toward the stone doors that separated life and death. For the first time, a expression more complex than hatred and indifference appeared on her face.
After a long time, a broken question squeezed out from between her parched lips:
“…Why… should I believe you?”