Volume 3: The Land of Mist Chapter 14 Blood Bath and Medium
The door was opened, and a cold atmosphere filled the entire conference room.
"Liliana", who was being escorted at the back of the team, watched the farce that was about to unfold with cold eyes.
The captain of the Thorn Black Guard saw the situation outside the door and reached for the sword at his waist without saying a word. Although his movements were extremely agile, the movements of those outside the door were even faster. A pale yellow ball of light quickly sank into his body, and in an instant, he fell straight down as if all his strength had been drained away.
According to regulations, non-palace guards are not allowed to wear enchanted armor inside the Rose Palace. The captain of the guard was only wearing a simple ceremonial armor, so he was knocked down by the opponent's [Paralysis] at the first sight.
After the captain of the guard fell, the battle mages who had previously defected from the Mage Hall and the remaining high-ranking members of the Gifted Sect filed in and "controlled" the entire conference room.
The courtiers sitting beside the long table didn't have time to make any move, but Vincent at the end of the table, who had anticipated this, suddenly grasped a pale blue staff, stood up and assumed a fighting stance.
Upon seeing this, the Minister of Spies and the Minister of Finance stood up with a stupid expression of "You really didn't guess it was me, did you?". While explaining how they had secretly sent these combat forces in through the secret passage of the Rose Palace, they slowly walked to the side of the uninvited guests outside the door.
They had no idea that all the secret passages in the entire Thorn City had already been controlled by the Holy Temple of Punishment, and the secret passage they were using was specially reserved for them by the Holy Temple of Punishment.
After explaining the "flawless" plan, the two of them began to hypocritically talk about the standard rhetoric of "If you turn against your enemies and surrender with courtesy, you will still keep your title" to persuade them to surrender.
Vincent ignored the two men's nonsense and looked at the remaining four courtiers of the Imperial Council around him and said:
"So? Which side are you going to stand on?"
Vincent had known about the two courtiers' betrayal long ago through the ghost William had arranged. One of the main reasons why he had not taken the initiative was that he hoped to use this opportunity to confirm the loyalty of the other people in the Royal Council to him.
His words instantly calmed the conference room.
In this tense atmosphere, except for the captain of the guard who had been knocked down earlier, everyone else quickly made their own choices. The chief of the Mage Hall and the Minister of Grain Industry, who were promoted by Vincent, stood up and walked behind him without saying a word. The chief steward hesitated for a while and finally chose to walk to the opposite side, while the Minister of Justice sat at the conference table to show his neutral attitude.
The previous process is completed. The next step should be to use Liliana as the final bargaining chip to force the opponent to surrender...
William, who was controlling Liliana's mirror image, thought.
"Master Vincent, we respect your noble character. But even for your daughter, please think carefully about what choice you want to make."
really……
The spy minister said this sincerely, and then he clapped his hands, and "Liliana", who had been hidden at the back, was pushed to the front through the crowd.
The nervous and flustered expression on Vincent's face lasted only a short moment - after he saw the iron plate with the horn emblem hanging around "Liliana's" neck, his face immediately returned to calm.
Of course, there was a strange sense of awkwardness beneath the calm... and William could understand this awkwardness very well.
The one who brought Liliana Jingying forward was Vincent's former adjutant Laiton. He looked at his former superior and said with a complicated expression:
"Master Vincent, please don't do anything that you will regret."
Vincent shook his head when he heard this, still holding the magic medium tightly in his hand.
Seeing that the other party still did not give up resistance, Lai Dun pointed his spell medium at the back of Liliana's head, and a deep and dark lightning flashed.
That was the [Void Thunderstorm] that had been chanted and was ready to go.
Feeling the slight numbness caused by the lightning flashing behind his head, William controlled the illusion of Liliana and raised his head.
The ghost that he had summoned earlier - the hideous skeleton holding an invisible sickle was now floating behind Vincent. Its body was hidden and it was scanning everyone in the room with its cold eyes, counting the souls it was going to take next.
This top-level legendary summoned creature, combined with Vincent who had been promoted to the legendary realm, was enough to clear out the mob involved in the coup in the entire conference room in just a few minutes.
The battle is about to break out, and the time to take any action is now, but Yuejing still hasn't made any move. Am I being too cautious?
William thought, feeling the tense atmosphere around him.
If he hadn't been worried that the Void Kings he had angered earlier would take this opportunity to retaliate, he would not have planned to participate in this farce. With the strength of these coup plotters, Vincent and the Death Ghost could handle this matter without any risk, and he didn't need to worry about anything.
But William always felt that something was wrong.
To cause trouble to me, I need a Moon Realm monster of at least the level of a Demon General. If a powerful being like a Demon General wants to enter the world, it either needs to be summoned through a large-scale ceremony or must pass through the Moon Realm rift. But the only Moon Realm rift exposed at the moment is the Serpent's Trace in Black Light City, and my real body is guarding nearby, so it is impossible for them to pass through.
Is there something I have missed?
"If you want to fight, don't do it here. After all, no matter who wins in the end, no one wants to have a broken Rose Palace as their own palace, right?"
Vincent suddenly spoke up.
Lai Dun frowned. He didn't expect that the killer weapon he had prepared earlier would have no effect on him at all.
So he whispered a reminder:
"What about your daughter? Don't think I won't do it."
As he spoke, the lightning on the magic medium in his hand became darker and deeper.
William winked at Vincent, reminding him that now was a great opportunity to show his firm stance and win the hearts of the people.
Vincent immediately understood, and he said with a serious expression:
"I will not hand this city over to Moon Realm lackeys like you just for the sake of my daughter."
William wanted to cover his face after hearing this.
This guy is really not suitable for acting.
Laiton, who was holding William from behind, also took a deep breath. It seemed that even he felt that Vincent's reaction was too inappropriate.
Forget it, I won’t play house with you anymore, let’s just finish things here quickly.
William thought, feeling a little embarrassed.
Without sending a signal to Vincent and the others, William, who was currently near the Serpent's Trace, released the [Space Blockade] using the response terminal as a medium - he intended to block the retreat route for these people first.
But this technique fell into silence like a drop in the ocean.
Didn't the casting succeed?
William, who was far away in the Serpent's Trace, glanced at the spell medium in his hand.
But I clearly felt my magic power being consumed before.
At this moment in the conference room, Vincent waved the magic medium in his hand, and a flash of lightning was outlined along the trajectory he drew.
He planned to open a temporary portal to fight in the open.
But the electric light of this temporary portal was like a short-circuited fluorescent lamp. It flickered a few times and then fell silent.
Vincent also had a puzzled expression on his face.
Thunder is a crack in space. Among all the attributes of magic, only the most active and violent lightning magic can create a temporary crack in the space that carries all things in the world.
But at this moment, the surrounding space fell into a state of "hysteresis", and even the most active lightning magic could not affect it in the slightest.
Several magic casters present who had practiced lightning spells began to sense that something was wrong.
At this time, William noticed that the slogans shouted by the parade outside the Rose Palace had changed.
"King Jesse! King Jesse! King Jesse!"
Hearing the whistling shouts outside, it was as if a flash of lightning passed through William's mind, making him secretly cry out inwardly, "Oh no!"
It was not until this time that he finally figured out what the other party was planning to do.
"Valk, what a good trick..."
William gritted his teeth.
Before coming to the meeting room, Jesse Walder, the useless puppet, suddenly got scared. He said with sweat on his face that he didn't want to be in the same room with Vincent, the "usurper". He then ordered the rest of the people to let the other party be executed first, while he wanted to learn from Vincent and take the initiative to win the hearts of the people.
So he took a few guards to the gate of the Rose Palace, intending to command the relief team to distribute food.
The relief team and guards that were originally used to appease and intimidate the parade on April Fool's Day were controlled by the restorationists this morning - William and Vincent knew about this, but in order not to alert the enemy, they just let them do it. After the showdown, the situation in the palace can be controlled in a few minutes, and it won't be too late to return to distribute food by then. By the way, we can also take this opportunity to clean up a group of grassroots backbones of the restorationists.
As for the puppet duke, he was just a waste, with nothing to his name except his bloodline. He was neither a Moonland believer nor a magic chanter, so his presence or absence in the coup had no significant impact on the situation. In fact, if he was here, it would be a troublesome matter if he was accidentally killed by an unknown AOE. William had originally planned to let Vincent publicly try him.
But William overlooked a very important issue, an issue that non-indigenous people can easily overlook.
Although William himself scoffed at the theory of bloodline, the symbolic meaning of bloodline in this world can be used to meet the corresponding conditions and complete the "ritual".
"Let's do it."
After realizing that the problem was serious, William immediately controlled Liliana's mirror image and said.
"What did you say?"
Lai Dun, who was standing behind Jingying, thought that the young lady in front of him was talking to him, and wondered why she suddenly didn't want to live anymore.
But before Lai Dun could open his mouth to persuade the young lady to calm down, he felt a familiar cold breath crawling up his back, making his scalp tighten.
A sharp feeling that made Laiton's hair stand on end pressed against his neck. Before he could react, he heard a "puff" sound, followed by a "rustling" sound of liquid splashing - he felt like he was floating.
In the entire conference room, only a very few people saw what had just happened.
A huge, pale ghost appeared behind Laiton, and then it raised its hand slightly, and Laiton's head flew up lightly, and a soul was dragged out from the broken neck and stuffed into the cloak. Then the ghost disappeared instantly, as if it had never existed.
Because this incident happened so suddenly, everyone in the conference room was stunned for a moment. It was not until the blood spurted from Laiton's neck and splashed onto people's bodies, and until a second person's head flew into the air again, that people remembered to scream.
William, who was controlling Liliana's mirror image, calmly took out the key from the waist of the decapitated corpse of Laiton and unlocked his shackles amid the screams and blood rain all around him. He could use magic to destroy the shackles, but his response terminal had limited durability. He would have to use this mirror image of Liliana with 80% of its panel to deal with a demon general under someone unknown, so he decided to save money now.
Maybe it was because Liliana, with her calm face and blood all over her body, gave people too much oppression; or maybe it was because most people were on guard against the ghost who might show up at any time. In short, when William controlled the mirror image and walked to the door of the meeting room, he was not blocked at all.
Finally, he turned around and looked at Vincent and said:
"I have some urgent matters to attend to outside, so I'll leave this place to you."
Looking at Lord William Kane, who looked like his daughter and was covered in blood, Vincent nodded with a strange expression.
…………
The beings that are recorded in this world and can be called gods can be roughly divided into four categories.
First, there is the existence of "Ma" in the realm of light. This god only exists in the teachings of the Takma sect. "Ma" is more like a philosophical concept about "supreme and perfect" than a god. The Takma sect believes that all the practice in the world is to get closer to her.
Then there are the gods in the myths of various tribes in ancient times, such as the god king Oka and the god of death Vera of the ancient Black Water Kingdom. Their former power can be reproduced through witchcraft ceremonies, but except for the authority or the sworn one who becomes the carrier of their power, no one has ever truly felt their existence - unless you admit that the authority or the sworn one is the god itself.
Next are the seven or eight great holy spirits. In essence, the holy spirit is a collection of all the ancient mythological gods. Before the Holy Spirit Church fell into what it became later, they collected almost all the myths and legends on the continent and classified, analyzed, and studied them. In the end, they came to the conclusion that all the primitive myths in the world have the same prototypes, and the local myths and stories of each place are just the silhouettes of those prototypes, and then some stories that happened in the ancient tribes themselves are added, which become the complicated myths and legends of various places.
The last one is the Void King. As for their nature, the worldly academic community has not yet come up with any authoritative theory, but what is certain is that their power comes from the reflection of worldly emotions, and they have deep malice towards the world. And they are the only gods with personalities that can communicate with mortals.
But of the above four gods, William had no idea whether "Ma" proposed by the Takma Cult existed. William had dealt with the remaining three, and he could confidently say that as "gods", none of them was omniscient and omnipotent.
It can even be said that the greater the power, the greater the limitations.
Especially for the Moon Realm gods who have the strongest presence.
Generally speaking, they are unable to gain real-time insight into what is happening in the world, and if they want to obtain intelligence they must do so through a medium, such as their own believers, statues, or things related to their own field, or traces they have left behind.
Similar to the situation before William was injured by Camilla, the other party had no way of accurately locating his position in the world.
Similarly, if they want to influence the world, they also need to go through a medium, and the strength of the medium directly determines the strength of the power they project.
William had been on guard against any other agents in Thorn City that could pose a threat to him, but he overlooked one point.
The concept of medium is very... subtle, although generally speaking, medium should be a concrete thing in people's cognition - such as a scar, a statue, or simply a lunar rift.
But sometimes, media can actually be an abstract thing.
For example, a custom or a story.
A custom and story that has been popular all over the continent and passed down for thousands of years. After so many years of inheritance and solidification, it is enough to serve as a medium for the existence of the demon general level to be projected into the world.
For example, the story of a dirty beggar wearing a paper crown and a fool king wearing a king's crown swapping identities.
