Within the silent and fragrant room.
Laura had finished changing her clothes.
She looked at herself in the mirror in surprise and called out: “Is anybody here?”
No answer.
Just a moment ago, there were still a few maids standing not too far away, but at some point, they all disappeared without a trace.
Laura raised her voice and called out again: “Is anybody here?”
Still silent, no one answered her.
All of a sudden—–
Boom!!!
A thunderous explosion, followed by intense rumbling came from the other side of the palace.
A solemn, dignified voice resounded from the sky:
「 It has been found, the Apostle used a disguising technique on some of the most terrifying Abyssal monsters and tried to infiltrate them into our Calming Soul Country 」
「 All the evil creatures have been massacred! 」
「 Following the will of the four Deities, from this point onwards, Calming Soul Country will no longer accept outsiders! 」
Laura was shocked.
She hurriedly rushed towards the door.
Apparently sensing her approach, a fence made of runes manifested on the door.
The fence of runes quickly manifested and covered the entire room.
——-this place had turned into a prison cell!
Laura stopped.
She stood in front of the fence; a bit hesitant.
All of a sudden, another voice resounded from outside the palace.
——-Boss’ voice:
“Despicable Pillar Gods! This place is supposed to be under MY control, your appearance ruined everything!”
A female voice sighed, trying to persuade him: 「 Give it up Apostle. With me, the Water God, here today, your plan shall not succeed 」
“Die!” Boss roared in anger.
Blinding light peered in from the gaps of the window, illuminating this entire room.
Followed by the intense sound of explosions.
A battle had begun.
The sound of battle gradually moved upwards further and further away from the ground.
Apparently, both sides had chosen to fight away from this palace.
Laura was a bit surprised at first but quickly returned to normal after a bit of thought.
She returned to her chair and silently sat down, waiting for someone to call out to her.
…
At another location.
Where Gu Qing Shan and his group originally were.
The entire room was abruptly turned into rubble from a powerful, intense attack.
This was a skillfully executed attack that had gone through several compressions, not only did it greatly increase its strength, the power of the attack would also be contained within a certain area and caused no collateral damage.
Because of this, the entire room was thoroughly destroyed.
Several corpses laid sprawled all over the ground.
Gu Qing Shan, Ye Fei Li, Zhang Ying Hao, and Boss.
Their life signs had ceased, their bodies riddled with terrifying wounds.
The corpses silently laid there without a sound.
The vicinity of the room was obscured in darkness.
This seemed to be a spell or technique used to prevent probing from outside.
Without the Deities’ permission, no one was allowed to approach this place.
In the darkness, two figures appeared.
They carefully and meticulously checked the four corpses.
After a long while, one of the figures sighed:
「 Have you checked the Apostle’s corpse? 」
The other replied: 「 I have, he’s dead 」
「 I’ve also checked him, then he’s surely dead 」 the voice slowly revealed itself as a female while boasting: 「 The Apostle has lost all of his powers, so he naturally couldn’t handle the combined might of us four 」
The second voice from before asked: 「 Are you sure that little girl is the Bramble Bird Empress? 」
「 Positive. I specifically used my part of the war system to confirm it 」 the female voice replied.
The other voice replied: 「 Then it’s a good thing, the rest has been arranged, this matter will conclude here as we have decided 」
The female voice said with satisfaction: 「 Now that we caught the Bramble Bird Empress, we won’t need to worry about treasures anymore 」
The other voice said worriedly: 「 The Apostle had lost his power so it doesn’t matter if he’s dead. But that guy with the unknown identity, if the outside world discovered this matter, how do we deal with that? 」
The female voice replied: 「 Hmph, regardless of who’s behind him, the seal of Calming Soul Country was jointly created by the ancient Deities, no single Deity would be able to dispel it from the outside world on their own——- and no one here would be able to send any information outside! 」
「 And so…」
「 And so, he’s simply dead. No one will know about it, no one from outside will ever find out that we killed him within this place either 」
The other voice paused slightly, then affirmed in agreement: 「 Indeed, that person must surely be more or less related to the True Deities, if he was left alive and realized our identities, it would certainly not be a good thing 」
The female voice added: 「 And killing him allowed us to obtain the Bramble Bird Empress, this is an arrow that shot down two birds 」
The other voice slowly relaxed and said: 「 I need to take a look at the others——- they’ve gone quite far pretending to fight against the Apostle 」
The female voice questioned: 「 Wait a minute, regarding the king, did you resolve that yet? 」
The other voice coldly scoffed: 「 He prepared nothing but a single plan, I’ve already killed the one he had arranged 」
The female voice said with satisfaction: 「 That’s good, I will first put the corpses away, before keeping an eye on the Bramble Bird Empress, lest she escapes 」
「 Hm 」
The conversation was over.
A figure vanished from this ruin.
Leaving one figure behind.
With a wave of their hand, the corpses on the ground vanished without a trace.
The figure stood still for a while.
「 Hmph, a former Apostle, ending up like this, what a laughable and pitiable end 」
The figure said to herself as she went outside.
As soon as the figure left the darkness, her appearance was made clear.
Water God!
It was her!
For some reason, she suddenly stopped and stood still for a bit.
She then shook her head, perhaps finding her actions a bit ridiculous, and left.
Everything returned to silence.
Not too long later, a voice sounded.
“Gongzi, you are…?”
This was Shannu’s doubtful voice.
Gu Qing Shan’s voice replied:
“This is called a human pillar, haven’t you seen it before?”
“But, why do you have to stay like this?”
“Laura’s umbrella is only so big; we need to stack on top of one another in order to allow her to stand on top and cover the rest of us”
Laura suddenly chimed in: “Gu Qing Shan, that’s incorrect, my [Shelter of Infinite Worlds] doesn’t require you to be directly below, as long as you’re in contact with the umbrella, you’d receive the effect”
“Huh? Why didn’t you tell me about that sooner?”
“I just thought this was some sort of special formation you came up with, who knew you’d go so far just to hide?”
Right away, Laura suddenly appeared in the air.
She lightly landed on the ground.
The scene in the air went clearly on display.
Ye Fei Li was standing at the bottom, Zhang Ying Hao was standing on his shoulders, Boss was standing on Zhang Ying Hao’s shoulders, and Gu Qing Shan was standing on Boss’ shoulders.
Originally, Laura was standing on Gu Qing Shan’s shoulders as well.
——-and Laura had her umbrella opened, using [Shelter of Infinite Worlds] to make sure that they weren’t discovered.
Even before Laura had fully awakened [Shelter of Infinite Worlds], she managed to completely avoid Triste’s pursuit thanks to it.
In their history, one Bramble Bird king had even managed to use this ability to enter the infinite abyss of broken worlds without dying, and even left with the ancient armor of the Old Gods.
Which was why this ability was perfect in order to fool their enemies.
Laura stood on the ground and opened her umbrella again.
She vanished completely, no one was able to sense her.
“Come, touch the umbrella, this way you won’t be discovered.
Her voice emerged from the void of space.
Everyone reached their hands out towards the empty space.
And vanished one by one.
Boss’ voice seemed triumphant: “This is much more convenient. If I knew about this earlier, I wouldn’t have agreed on that human pillar thing”
Ye Fei Li also commented: “Right? You’re all so heavy, I had to stay at the very bottom”
“You’re already complaining about how heavy we are? I spent 70% of my strength just to make those disguised corpses” Zhang Ying Hao said in irritation.
Ye Fei Li explained: “It’s not that, I was afraid that we would be too tall to leave”
Shannu’s voice sounded to stop their complaints: “Gongzi, didn’t you want me to wait there? Why did you summon me back?”
“Because it’s no longer necessary, I already have a pretty good idea of what they wanted to tell you” Gu Qing Shan replied.
“But if I return like this, they’ll discover that Laura has vanished very soon”
“Hm, you’re right, let’s move right away!”
“Where?”
“I have a map here. It should be fine…”
Their voices slowly moved further as they left the ruined structure.
All of a sudden.
An angry voice resounded across the entire palace.
「 Immediately seal off this place, no one is allowed to leave or enter! 」
Water God.
She had issued another order.
At this point, Gu Qing Shan’s group had already gone through several secret passages, passed several hidden mechanisms, and were walking along another secret path below the palace.
Gu Qing Shan was holding a piece of paper in his hand, following the crude instructions on it, and walked in front of everyone.
Shannu was at the back.
“Gu Qing Shan, aren’t you afraid that the content on the paper would be false?” Laura asked.
Gu Qing Shan replied: “If they wanted to kill us, what they did just now was more than enough. This paper would be nothing but excessive, so we’ll check out the situation on it first before making any follow-up decisions”
Boss raised his hand: “I need to say something first, if a battle occurs, I won’t be able to help”
Zhang Ying Hao also said: “Me too, I’ve already exhausted 70% of my power, I can only snipe or ambush them a bit now”
Ye Fei Li hesitantly: “I—-I’ll do my best, but the people here are too strong, I’m no match for any of them”
Gu Qing Shan looked through them, then at Laura.
Laura consoled him: “Gu Qing Shan, relax. Although I can’t fight either, I know how to hide myself. I won’t be like those guys who only drag you down”
Gu Qing Shan said without changing his expression: “I don’t feel consoled at all”
They arrived at the exit of the secret path.
A dead body was there.
When they came forward to check, they found that it was the maid from before.
The maid who offered snacks to Gu Qing Shan.
She was already dead.
From the looks of it, she originally intended to receive everyone here.
Gu Qing Shan sighed in dejection.
The voice that conversed with Water God said that they had already dealt with the king’s arrangements, which was most likely referring to her.
Everyone also stayed silent.
“What do we do now?” Boss asked.
Gu Qing Shan replied: “We shouldn’t stay here for long, Fei Li”
“Hm”
Ye Fei Li walked up and checked the body.
“She hasn’t died for very long. Her soul is still here”
Ye Fei Li muttered.
He drew the Forgetting River Soul Flaying Hook, lightly touched the body, and abruptly pulled back.
A transparent female figure was brought out of the body.
It was the woman’s soul.
