Free Web NovelThe Elven Royal Court. Blue sky, white clouds, green forests.
After a brief disturbance, everything here had returned to calm, as if the earlier scene of an army pressing in and dark clouds crushing the city had only been an illusion. But if one looked closely, it wasn’t hard to notice elves darting and chasing among the forest branches, as well as various marine monsters fleeing and struggling as they were hunted down.
At this moment, even though the great enemy had retreated and a hundred thousand monsters were either dead or scattered in flight, the Elven Queen showed not the slightest hint of relaxation.
After the assessment ran into problems, Kui had immediately sent word that something had gone wrong at the altar.
‘All nine elves participating in the selection were wiped out?’
What went wrong? Not a single elf managed to answer all three questions posed by the afterimages to their satisfaction?
The Elven Queen couldn’t help but sigh. Based on her own experience from when she had participated in the assessment in the past, there was an eighty or ninety percent chance that one of the last three elves had said something she shouldn’t have.
But it didn’t matter anymore. Being able to reach the final step meant they had at least answered two questions correctly. Whether they answered the last one or not was irrelevant.
After all, back then she herself had answered all three questions wrong, and hadn’t she still become the Elven Queen anyway?
Power had always been able to outweigh everything else.
Sigh. If only that rebellious daughter of hers had been willing to listen back then, not run away from home, and obediently stay in the Elven Royal Court to inherit the throne—why would she need to spend so much effort worrying about all this now?
With that thought, the Elven Queen began drafting a message to send to the chief examiner, Kui. The general meaning was:
‘Since things have already come to this, end the assessment for now, and have the three elves who persisted to the end prepare for the martial combat.’
After sending the message, the Elven Queen suddenly coughed heavily a few times, quickly raising a hand to cover her mouth.
A moment later, she wiped the bloodstains from her palm and continued working at her desk.
Knock knock knock!
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in.” The Elven Queen looked up toward the doorway.
Sul stood there, wearing specially made elven soft armor. She looked like she had just returned from the Elven Forest.
“Reporting to Your Majesty, the marine monsters left behind in the forest have all been dealt with... however, the Shaman said she ran into an old friend, so she might not be back tonight.”
......
Mirror Lake, outer perimeter.
Kui looked at the message delivered from the Elven Queen by green leaves. After thinking for a moment, she couldn’t be bothered to polish it and simply relayed the Queen’s original words directly to the elves.
“Her Majesty means that the three elves who held on until the end of this assessment may enter the next stage, the martial combat.”
Hearing this, Aislin cautiously asked, “Then... are we allowed to leave now?”
Kui narrowed her eyes slightly, scrutinizing the princess before her, and said after a moment of silence, “Yes.”
“Then... we’ll take our leave first. Sister Kui!”
After leaving Mirror Lake, Vieya looked at Aislin, whose expression had seemed a little off ever since they left the altar, and couldn’t help teasing her curiously.
“Aislin-sis, don’t tell me you got possessed by those old elf ghosts in the altar? It feels like you’ve been acting weird ever since you came out.”
“A-haha... how could that be.”
Aislin panicked for a split second before immediately steadying herself. She lowered her voice and said, “Actually, during the assessment, I spoke out of turn and contradicted the senior elves’ words, so the other two elves were dragged out because of me.”
“So they got dragged out because of you?” Vieya exaggeratedly exclaimed.
“Ugh, you could say that. I offended an elven senior. Our ideas didn’t match, and we started arguing... sigh, maybe tonight I should buy some fruit and go apologize to them?” Aislin looked both awkward and uneasy.
“I’ve got a few crates of fruit in my place. No idea which idiot delivered them to the wrong spot and had them intercepted by my maid. Why don’t you just take those from my room and give them away later?”
“...Those were from me.” ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm
“?”
After that, they walked in silence the rest of the way.
It wasn’t until they parted at the fork in the road that Vieya stopped for a long while, activated invisibility, and stood in the darkness, staring at Aislin’s retreating figure.
Halfway down the path, Aislin suddenly had a whim and turned around, wanting to look at the slime one more time—only to find that the slime had already vanished without a trace. She could only leave dejectedly.
“Master? Do you think there’s something wrong with this friend of yours?” Isabelle asked, puzzled.
Vieya shook her head. “One of my abilities lets me capture and observe other people’s souls. And just now, I saw poor Aislin-sis carrying a soul fluctuation that doesn’t belong to her.”
“That wasn’t the case before we went to the altar. Putting two and two together, I suspect she got entangled with a dead elven female ghost. And the question I deliberately asked just now—Aislin-sis’s reaction matched what I expected... so there’s an eighty or ninety percent chance it’s one of the past Elven Queen afterimages from the altar clinging to her.”
Isabelle suddenly understood. “Then, Master, you’re planning to—”
“I’m not planning to do anything.”
Vieya put her hands on her hips and snorted lightly. “Her reaction clearly shows she knows there’s a female ghost possessing her, but she doesn’t want to tell me. If she doesn’t want to talk, then forget it. Anyway, that elven ghost wouldn’t dare harm her under so many elves’ watchful eyes, and the Elven Queen is watching too.”
“I’m in a really bad mood right now. That good girlfriend of yours is getting ready to bear my wrath tonight.”
Isabelle: ...
What should she do—she suddenly felt like her master was acting a bit unhinged.
But the elven recuperation house seemed to have herbs for clearing heat and calming the mind. Maybe tomorrow she could go ask that green-haired elf for some and brew tea for her master... Isabelle thought.
Back in the room, Vieya first used “I won a war today, so I’m very tired” as an excuse to refuse her daughter’s invitation for a bath.
Then she used “A seven-year-old’s body is still developing, and if you stay up late you won’t grow taller” as a threat, stuffing her daughter into bed and making her sleep early.
And Jasmine, who had just had a heart-to-heart talk with her mother yesterday and been thoroughly coaxed and confused by her, was very cooperative tonight. She happily slipped into bed, listened to her mom, and obediently went to sleep.
‘OK, daughter’s asleep.’
Vieya quietly closed the bedroom door, called Isabelle—who was on standby twenty-four hours a day—and found a basement with excellent soundproofing to slip into.
After confirming everything was in order, Vieya took out the painting scroll and spread it open in midair.
The ink-wash scenery inside the scroll instantly expanded into the air, filling the entire basement. Fortunately, she had set up a barrier formation in advance, otherwise the disturbance here would definitely have leaked out.
The next second.
Zhuyou fell out of the scroll with a thud, crashing onto the floor. Her eyes were filled ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) with terror as she scrambled on hands and knees into a corner, trembling violently.
With her back pressed against the icy wall, Zhuyou instantly realized she had been thrown into a dungeon and was about to face interrogation.
But before she could react any further, four black-and-white chains extended out from the scroll, shackling her limbs and fixing her firmly in midair, like a crab.
“Y-you... what are you going to do to me?”
Zhuyou’s fear deepened. Her eyes quivered as she hurriedly looked toward Isabelle and pleaded in a low, submissive voice,
“Good sister, I was wrong, I wronged you... please let me go. I really know I was wrong!”
Smack!
Vieya picked up a firewood branch. Ignoring Zhuyou’s pitiful pleas, she lashed it down hard on her, saying coldly,
“You don’t know you were wrong. You know you’re about to die.”
Smack!
Another strike. The searing pain made Zhuyou clench her teeth, trembling with rage.
Holding the branch, Vieya asked flatly,
“Tell me, how did you suppress the authority on her body? Were there any other accomplices? And that mysterious person hiding in the dark—how much do you know about them?”
“Do you have any other backers? Do you have hidden agents in human cities?”
The barrage of questions left Zhuyou dizzy, but she was stubborn to the bone. She begged when it came to begging, but she wouldn’t spit out a single extra word.
Vieya’s patience was completely exhausted. She tossed the branch onto the ground and ordered Isabelle, freёweɓnovel.com
“Go. Strip her clothes off for me!”
