“Your Majesty Rhode.”
After the meeting ended, Lydia walked up to Rhode and gave him a dubious look.
“Regarding that matter…”
“Don’t ask me. I don’t know what’s going through Lilian’s head either.”
Facing Lydia’s question, Rhode spread his arms apart and looked at her helplessly. As a matter of fact, even Rhode was bewildered, not to mention Lydia. He didn’t know what Lilian comprehended during her ritual with the Light Goddess. All in all, after the ‘excursion’ ended and the group returned to Grandia, Lilian called Lydia over and granted her dominion over the entire Country of Light in front of everyone. Meanwhile, Lilian took a back seat and stopped involving herself with the crucial affairs. This sudden change in her gave Lydia a huge fright. Not only that, but Rhode was also stunned. He wondered what was wrong with Lilian. Moreover, he realized that Lilian had also changed a lot. If she was a muddlehead in the past, now she seemed enlightened after speaking to the Light Goddess. This comforted Rhode to a certain degree.
After all, Lilian had powers; it was just that she was overly cautious and often made others worry about her. Rhode initially thought that Lilian would be motivated and strongly determined to succeed after the ritual. But in the end, she actually called quits?! Could be it that she was traumatized by the Light Goddess saying she wasn’t fit to be the Light Dragon, which was why she abandoned herself to despair? But judging from her ‘extremely positive’ attitude, it didn’t seem to have anything to do with abandoning herself at all.
But it actually wasn’t that right to say that she called quits. Because Rhode spoke to Lilian afterward and found out that she didn’t abandon her duties completely. Instead, she only gave up her authority to ‘rule the Country of Light’ and chose to follow Rhode as a sidekick. According to her, she wanted to be like Christie and Lesa, helping Rhode resist the attack of Chaos.
It wasn’t that bad to learn from Christie. But from Lesa… She could forget about it.
To put it politely, Lilian was like a goddess-like being who hid behind the scenes in animated films, where unless her world was in a life or death situation, she wouldn’t show up to guide the brave to victory. But why did it not sound too right putting it this way?
No matter what, Lydia had replaced Lilian in becoming the ruler of the Country of Light in this inexplicable situation. Even though Lydia rejected instinctively, Lilian opposed with an unprecedented forcefulness. As a result, the archangel could only obey Lilian’s order. Judging from a certain angle, Lydia was also caught in a complicated mood. She always hoped that Lilian could get rid of the shackles that were tying her down and be brave enough to make her own decisions. And now, Lilian had done it. But as for the decision itself… It was rather intriguing.
“Frankly, I can’t figure out what Her Majesty Lilian is thinking…”
Lydia held her forehead and revealed an anxious and exhausted expression. She couldn’t be blamed. By becoming the true ruler of the Country of Light, not only did she need to watch over her personal fief, but she also needed to be responsible for the entire Country of Light. The Country of Light suffered gravely after experiencing the war between the Country of Darkness and Void Territory. People were exhausted and tormented by constant warfare and deaths, so they only hoped to lead ordinary and peaceful lives and couldn’t care less about who was becoming the new ruler. Even if a demon were to take over the position, as long as the demon didn’t stir any trouble, the people would probably still serve with all their hearts.
Under such circumstances, there actually weren’t many challenges for Lydia to take over the Country of Light. Although some people expressed their displeasure, Lydia was an outstanding and powerful ruler, after all. As a matter of fact, while she ruled the Munn Kingdom, she had an easy time wiping out the Reformist Party twice. But… As her workload increased, she also started having some complaints. Even though she was a smart ruler, it had nothing to do with doing her best and dying her last. Well, she was a hedonist, after all.
But unfortunately, the situation was so crisis-ridden that even Lydia didn’t dare to sit back and watch the show as leisurely as she did before. She handled everything herself and that was what made her somewhat frustrated. She was also thankful that Sonia was there to help organize the affairs at hand when Lydia took over the Country of Light. Otherwise, the early stages would have been a huge mess.
No matter what, Lydia had no choice now.
“In this case, it seems like I can only brace myself for it. I hope this matter comes to an end soon…”
Lydia was also aware that Rhode most likely couldn’t offer any help, and that left her somewhat helpless. In all honesty, Lydia wasn’t interested in this role in the slightest. If not, she would have manipulated Lilian as a puppet that this strength of hers, sent out troops to demolish the Light Parliament, and dominate the entire Country of Light. But now, Lilian pushed all the power and responsibility to Lydia and happily went to the back to be a puppet herself.
“How is Her Majesty Lilian?”
“She’s fine.”
Recalling Lilian’s recent behavior, Rhode forced a helpless smile. During this time, Lillian began to learn how to fight with Christie and the others. Rhode had to admit that Lilian was indeed talented on the battlefield. Even though he didn’t know how she would perform in real battles, according to Canary and Marybelle who trained them, Lilian’s abilities in battle were improving steadily. At the very least, she wouldn’t accidentally be bitten by Chaos again like in the past.
“I see… No matter what, Her Majesty Lilian has finally found her direction. I should congratulate her.”
Although Lydia’s expression didn’t seem anywhere like she was “congratulating” Lillian at all, it didn’t stop the archangel from helplessly uttering those routine words as if reading a line. But Rhode didn’t see anything wrong with her reaction. As a matter of fact, Lydia indeed had the rights to grumble.
Chaos’s attacks were starting to become more frequent.
At first, they only attacked sporadically, but as time went on, more and more Chaos creatures crossed the blurred and distorted borders of Order and entered the Dragon Soul Continent. Although Rhode had dispatched 30,000 of his elite players to blockade most of the area, Chaos’s attacks still weren’t restrained entirely. Numbers were their best weapon. Even after the people destroyed as many Chaos creatures as they could, there were still countless more lining up as reinforcements. And since there was no such thing as death for them, it was hard for the concept of ‘collapse’ to show up amongst Chaos. The people could either wipe them all out or be all wiped out by them, which was the difficult situation that they were facing right now.
And what gave Rhode a headache was that even though so many days had passed, the Book of Elements was still nowhere to be found.
Without the Book of Elements, it would be impossible to awaken the last three holy sword spirits. And there would be no way to create something strong enough to protect the borders of the Dragon Soul Continent. The only thing they could do was to engage in attrition and a to-and-fro tussle. After all, there was only a limited number of people in the Dragon Soul Continent, especially those who were strong enough to take on Chaos.
If Rhode were able to manifest everyone from his guild in the game, he could still withstand Chaos’s attack. Unfortunately, even with his power, he could only manifest 30,000 players at the very most. Of course, he could also ask his younger sister for assistance in manifesting more projected players.
However, that wouldn’t work because when transmigrating the Dragon Soul Continent to the solar system, one of them had to possess enough power of the Void Dragon to open the plane channel. If both Rhode and his young sister expended their powers now, they wouldn’t be able to open the plane channel, not to mention transmigrating the entire Dragon Soul Continent over to the solar system.
But… If this continued, it was only a matter of time before the defensive lines were withdrawn.
“We did the calculations. If we can’t find other ways to resist Chaos, I’m afraid in half a month’s time, we will need to evacuate the first line of defense.”
Upon hearing Marlene’s report, Rhode puckered his brows. It seemed like the biggest problem now was finding the Book of Elements.
“No one found the Book of Elements yet?”
Due to the urgency of the matter, Rhode didn’t choose to keep it a secret. So even Lydia knew that he was looking for an artifact called the Book of Elements, which was an important part of their resistance against Chaos. But this time, Rhode’s luck was really terrible. Although he asked the Queen Elf and Nell for updates several times, neither sides seemed to have much of a clue. But despite that, it wasn’t entirely unproductive. When the Queen Elf questioned some of the elven patriarchs about the Book of Elements, she received news that several of the elven patriarchs who were born at the end of the Creation War and survived to the present day had indeed seen the Book of Elements. However, the Book of Elements seemed to have been taken away by other elves thereafter.
When Rhode heard this news, he was naturally overjoyed. He even took Angelina on a trip to the Dark Region himself, and after using all sorts of incomparable violence, he finally managed to pry some information out of the mouths of some dark elves from ancient families. Their ancestors had indeed seen the Book of Elements, but it seemed like it had been taken away before their ancestors left the surface…
Well, the only definitive conclusion Rhode reached was that the Book of Elements had indeed been taken by a group of elves. But unfortunately, this group of elves were neither the elves living on the main plane nor the dark elves hiding underground because of the Creation War. In that case, could the alchemical elves be the culprits?
“Sir Rhode, Sir Rhode! I found my ancestors’ records about the Book of Elements!”
Unsure if it was a coincidence or not, along with a cheerful voice, Lapis appeared before Rhode. And when he heard Lapis’s remarks, his face lit up as though there were a whole new hope.
“Really, Lapis?”
“That’s right, Sir Rhode. According to my ancestors’ records, our Behermes Family has indeed seen the Book of Elements!”
“Where is it?!”
“It…”
Facing Rhode’s question, Lapis stared blankly, before revealing an odd expression and answering with some hesitation.
“… Is missing…”
“…”
According to Lapis, she did look into the ancestors’ records for the Book of Elements. And what thrilled Rhode was that at that time, the Behermes entertained the idea of taking away the Book of Elements. After all, the alchemical elves evolved through modifying themselves, so the power of the Book of Elements was naturally critical to them. But it was just a pity that… When they were about to snatch the Book of Elements, they found that it had already been taken away by other elves.
That other group of elves sure are annoying.
Upon hearing Lapis’s report, Rhode was so angry that he swore to find those elves and beat them to death. Fortunately, Lapis’s findings weren’t exactly all for nothing. According to her, after realizing that the Book of Elements went missing, the Behermians put a lot of effort into reclaiming it, unlike the moon elves and dark elves, sending out men to search for it immediately. After all, the Book of Elements had a considerable impact on their plans as a whole, so they were naturally unwilling to let it fall into the hands of outsiders. In the end, the Behermians caught up with the group of elves, and both sides got into a brutal fight. But the Behermians weren’t a race that excelled at fighting, after all. After they were defeated, they could only stand by and watch as the winners held the Book of Elements in hand, open a portal, and leave this world…
Left this world…
In Rhode’s opinion, this was one and only, most valuable piece of information from the Behermians about the Book of Elements. Since they failed, it meant that the Book of Elements wasn’t destroyed, but had literally ‘left this world’. Even though the Behermians were weak in combat, in terms of magical technology, they were somewhat talented. Because they simply looked at the group of elves and knew that they had left this world. So then, where exactly was the Book of Elements brought to?
There were just so many branches of elves in the Dragon Soul Continent. Moon elves on the surface, dark elves in the underground, and Behermians who were nearly extinct.
As for the other elf races other than them, could they be…
At this thought, Rhode’s eyes glinted all of a sudden.
If it were as he thought, the true meaning of that sentence recorded by the Behermes ancestors could then be determined.
In other words…
At this thought, Rhode twitched his brows and asked.
“Lapis, are you sure that’s what the record says?”
“Yes, Sir Rhode.”
Upon hearing his question, Lapis nodded with might.
“That is indeed what was recorded. After the group of elves defeated our Behermes ancestors, they opened the portal and left the world with the Book of Elements.”
“… Got it.”
Rhode nodded in response, stood up, and walked out of the study. This sudden series of action puzzled Lapis. But she quickly stacked up her documents and followed him out of the study curiously.
Rhode wasn’t heading to somewhere faraway. On the contrary, he strolled around Grandia’s palace and spotted his target shortly after.
Agatha stood respectfully in the corridor right before him. Even though the current situation was becoming hectic, this ocean elf’s expression was still as expressionless as ever. She stood there quietly, doing her chores as though she were a maid. At a glance, one could see several tentacles writhing out of her lower body, rolling up the mop and rag to wipe the corridor carefully. Rhode had to admit that she was really dutiful as an ocean elf, but he felt a little complicated. He always had a feeling that if he asked her the questions he had in mind, he would very likely make a fool out of himself. But now, considering the future of the Dragon Soul Continent and his entire plan, he felt like this little bit of humiliation wasn’t a big deal. He coughed awkwardly at the thought of it. And upon hearing his voice, Agatha turned around and gazed at him curiously, while stopping what she was doing respectfully.
“Master, how can I help you?”
“I have something to ask, Agatha. I hope you can give me a clear-cut answer.”
“Okay, no problem, Master.”
Even though Rhode’s voice sounded stern, the ocean elf simply nodded in response without changing her expression. Upon witnessing her expression, Rhode took in a deep breath, stared at her, and asked.
“Do you know where the Book of Elements is right now?”
After hearing his question, Agatha was taken aback. She nodded instantly.
“Of course, Master. As a matter of fact, the Book of Elements is in the water elemental plane right now.”
At that very moment, Rhode felt like he was undoubtedly a fool.
