The communication arrays were completely severed.
Tia stopped at the corner of the corridor. The etheric induction patterns in her left palm completed a full-spectrum scan within 0.3 seconds. Toward the main hall, all seventeen communication nodes had gone dark. It wasn't a gradual shutdown; they had been crushed all at once by a single shockwave.
Leon leaned against the wall behind her, Ice Spirit condensing and then shattering between his fingers. His right knee was still throbbing with pain, but he hadn't stopped moving.
“Something happened in the hall.”
By the time Tia finished her sentence, she was already running.
The remains of withered husks were scattered all over the sides of the corridor, with bark fragments and black sap covering the floor. Tia’s boots crunched over the debris, the sound of metal grinding against dry fiber creating a rapid series of clicks.
Leon followed close behind. Ice Spirit formed a thin ice shield in front of him, sweeping away the fragments of withered husks blocking their path.
The two of them dashed through three sections of the corridor and rounded the final corner.
At the end of the stairs leading to the main hall, Lilian was sitting on the steps of the throne.
She wasn't just sitting. She had collapsed there.
The Crown of Thorns had rolled three steps away; one of its spikes had been bent in the impact and was wedged into a crack in the marble. The scepter was gone. The hall was empty, save for the corpses of two werewolf guards slumped against the furthest supporting pillars, their chests no longer rising.
Lilian’s right hand rested on the edge of the steps. Two of her fingernails were broken, and blood seeped down the cracks in the marble, already beginning to congeal.
A section of her skirt on her left leg had been burned through. Beneath it was a dagger-shaped burn mark, the flesh curled back and the edges blackened.
Leon’s first reaction was to turn around.
“Give chase.”
He took a step deeper into the hall. Tia reached out and caught his forearm.
“Wait.”
Leon looked at her. Tia didn't look back; she knelt down in front of Lilian.
Lilian’s pupils were unfocused, staring at nothing. Her lips were trembling with a high-frequency, minute vibration, her teeth occasionally clicking together.
Tia had seen this state before.
It wasn't a physical wound. The mental structure itself had developed cracks. One more push, and the entire person would collapse like those withered husks.
“Leon, guard the entrance.”
Leon stopped. His right fist still gripped the Ice Spirit, the temperature in his palm having dropped to sub-zero. The tactical simulation in his mind was running: the window for pursuit narrowed by ten percent every ten seconds. But Tia’s judgment had never been wrong.
He retreated to the entrance of the hall. Ice Spirit spread from his palm, condensing into two translucent ice walls on either side of the doorframe. The creaking of withered husks approaching in the corridor outside was blocked by the ice walls.
Tia knelt before Lilian.
She didn't touch her.
“Lilian.”
Lilian’s lips moved, but no sound came out.
Tia called her name again.
“Lilian, tell me what happened.”
Lilian’s focus returned slightly. She tilted her head and saw Tia’s face. The Mithril-cast face reflected a faint luster in the dim hall.
Her throat hitched.
“Cecilia.”
When those syllables squeezed out of her throat, the root of her tongue was trembling.
“She brought someone.”
A pause. Her breathing quickened for three beats.
“Red robe. Old man. Couldn't see his face.”
She spoke with five or six seconds between each sentence.
“He just pointed a finger.”
Lilian raised her right hand, her finger gesturing in the air. A small, jagged piece of nail still hung from the break.
“The scepter... it stopped recognizing me.”
Her hand fell back onto the steps with a dull thud.
“The light was many times brighter than when I held it. The entire magic array was singing. Thorn reliefs grew out from the walls and bowed toward him.”
Tia’s perception circuits were running high-speed calculations in the background. The scepter was directly linked to the palace’s core magic array. The scepter changing hands meant control of the palace had been transferred. The reason for the communication array being cut had been found.
“Where did they go?”
Lilian pointed toward the depths of the hall.
“The inheritance chamber.”
Leon heard those words from the entrance. His hand pressed against the ice wall, and the temperature at his fingertips dropped another five degrees.
The deduction in his mind was completed in a fraction of a second.
A red-robed old man who could be recognized as the master of the Bloodline Aria. In the entire history of the Blood Race, there was only one person qualified to hold that scepter—the Vampire King who had “died in battle” three thousand years ago.
The inheritance chamber sealed the blood source essence of past kings. Three thousand years of the Blood Race’s accumulated power was all contained within that stone pillar.
If the old king opened the inheritance stone pillar and hollowed out what was inside—
“This isn't just about you anymore.”
Leon’s words carried from the entrance. They were short, cold, and devoid of comfort.
Lilian flinched. Her shoulder blades pulled inward, and she curled even tighter on the steps.
Tia didn't try to use logic.
She opened her left palm.
Embedded in the Mithril surface was a gold-green pattern. The curves were organic, following the soft, winding lines characteristic of plant vines. The pattern glowed with a faint luminescence in the dim light of the hall.
She turned her palm toward Lilian.
“Do you see this inscription?”
Lilian’s gaze fell on the gold-green pattern.
“The person who carved this inscription came from a race that has been completely erased from world history.”
Tia enunciated every word clearly.
“Wood Elf. You’ve never heard those words. Neither has Headmaster Margaret. Nor Leon. The ancestor Leila lived for four thousand years and traveled the entire continent, yet she never saw those words in any literature, ruins, or oral legends. For reasons unknown, Bell knows.”
Lilian’s lips stopped trembling. It wasn't because she had calmed down, but because her brain was allocating resources to process what Tia was saying.
Tia pulled her hand back.
“The things falling from the sky right now—those are their remains.”
A heavy silence settled over the hall. Even the low-frequency hum of Leon maintaining the ice walls became distinct.
Lilian’s body began to shake. The tremors were even more violent than before, traveling from her shoulders to her arms to her fingertips. She lowered her head, staring at her broken nails and the charred dagger-shaped scar on her thigh.
A voice squeezed out of her throat. It was so small that Tia had to crank her perception sensitivity to the maximum to capture it fully.
“I am nothing.”
Lilian’s voice was raspy.
“She was right. The throne was given to me by others. The scepter was borrowed. Even my courage was forced out of me.”
Tia remained silent for two seconds.
“So was Bell’s.”
Lilian looked up.
Tia’s voice was flat. No fluctuation, no deliberate passion. She was simply stating facts.
“His knowledge was brought from another world. His plans relied on the pawns of others. When he stood before the ancestors, his ribs were broken.”
She paused for half a beat.
“But he stood.”
Tia straightened up and walked three steps away. The Crown of Thorns was wedged in the gap of the marble steps, one spike caught in the crack. She bent down and picked up the crown. Her Mithril fingertips wiped away the dust and a small fragment of withered husk from the surface.
She placed the crown on the steps in front of Lilian.
“Bell doesn't need you to be a hero. He needs you to be the Queen.”
She took a step back.
“A Queen isn't born. She is forged by standing up.”
Dense impacts came from outside Leon’s ice walls. The withered husks were slamming against the door. He maintained the ice wall with one hand and glanced back at Lilian.
“The scepter recognizing its old master doesn't mean it has rejected you.”
His phrasing was blunt, without any extra embellishment.
“It simply performed a power comparison between two holders. What you need to do now isn't to take back the scepter. It’s to let the entire Blood Race see that even without the scepter, no one dares to approach the position where you stand.”
The hall fell silent.
There was only the muffled thudding of the withered husks hitting the ice walls and the sound of Lilian’s own breathing.
Her fingers clawed at the steps for a long time. New droplets of blood seeped from the breaks, flowing into the grain of the marble.
Then her hand moved.
She picked up the Crown of Thorns.
One spike on the crown had been bent in the impact. She used her thumb to pry the spike back. Her movements were slow and very forceful. The base of the spike was embedded in the metal groove of the band, its angle off by nearly thirty degrees. As her thumb pressed down, the skin was punctured. Blood flowed down the edges of the crown, drawing a thin dark red line across the metal surface.
The spike was straightened.
She placed the crown on her head.
It was a bit crooked, tilted to the right.
She didn't adjust it.
Her hands pressed against the steps. Her knees bent. When her thigh muscles strained, the scorched skin rubbed against the fabric of her skirt, making a faint sizzling sound.
She stood up.
Leon turned his head back, a fresh layer of frost adding to the hand maintaining the ice wall. He didn't offer praise. He simply made a mental note—this woman’s resilience was two levels higher than his estimate.
The three of them moved out: Leon in the lead, Tia on the flank, and Lilian in the center.
The air in the underground passage grew more stagnant the deeper they went. The sweet, metallic stench of rotting plants filled the corridor. The guards along the way were all dead on the floor, their armor burned through by corrosive fluids and their bodies dehydrated into shriveled husks. The lighting crystals on the walls had been corroded to a dull yellow, with several having gone out completely.
Leon led the way. Ice Spirit extended into a blade from his fist, shattering the remains of withered husks blocking the passage. Every strike was extremely efficient, the blade only cutting through the core parts without any wasted movement. The pain in his right knee persisted, but he adjusted his weight distribution, transferring most of the load to his left leg.
Tia’s perception network was fully open. Every etheric induction pattern was running at full capacity, converting all mana fluctuations within a three-hundred-meter radius into data streams for her processing core.
In the direction of the chamber: three life signatures.
The first had a large amount of plant-attribute energy mixed into its mana circuits. The fluctuation frequency was unstable, showing clear characteristics of external integration. Cecilia. The host of the World Tree Heart.
The second had an extremely high concentration of blood source mana. It was so high that Tia’s induction patterns generated an overload warning the moment they captured the signal. That concentration didn't belong to any ancestor. The red-robed old man.
The third—
Tia’s pace faltered for a beat.
Aftershocks of the Desolate Realm were seeping out from the cracks of the chamber’s stone doors. The stone bricks in the last five meters of the corridor were already beginning to weather. The patterns on the brick surfaces were aging rapidly; moss grew in the gaps and then withered, cycling three or four times.
“There are three people in the chamber,” Tia reported to Lilian in a low voice.
“Cecilia, the red-robed old man, and Leila.”
Lilian didn't stop, but the rhythm of her breathing changed.
“Leila’s mana output is soaring. The Desolate Realm has already been deployed.”
Muffled impacts came from behind the door. The low-frequency resonance of metal colliding with an extremely hard substance vibrated through the stone doors, echoing in the corridor.
Lilian stopped in front of the stone doors of the inheritance chamber.
She pressed her right hand against the door. The stone was cold. On it were the remnants of the three soundproofing arrays Valentine had carved before leaving—all of them had shattered into powder, embedded in the grain of the wood.
The sounds from behind the door poured in clearly: the wet surge of air characteristic of blood magic erupting, the dry friction of the Desolate Realm grinding down matter, and the occasional sharp scream of spatial folds being forcibly torn open.
Lilian’s fingers moved away from the door.
She didn't push it open.
She turned around to face Tia and Leon.
“I am not a qualified Queen.”
She spoke. Her voice was still trembling, but every syllable was firm, without any slurring.
“I am a coward. When I abandoned Tia and ran away back then, I didn't look back. I relied on Leila’s support to sit on the throne. Even the scepter was borrowed.”
She paused for a beat.
“Cecilia was right. I am nothing.”
Tia didn't respond. Leon didn't respond. The only sound in the corridor was the faint dripping of black sap from the withered husk remains onto the floor tiles.
The corner of Lilian’s mouth twitched upward. It wasn't much, just a very slight curve. It wasn't self-mockery. It was a kind of relaxation that only occurred after exposing all self-negation on the table and the facial muscles shedding a certain weight.
“But the Blood Race needs a Queen.”
She raised her hand and touched the crooked Crown of Thorns on her head. Her fingertip brushed the spike she had just straightened, its tip still stained with her own blood.
“Even if she’s a clown. As long as she stands on the throne and doesn’t fall, the people below have something to look toward.”
Leon’s Ice Spirit flickered on his fist. He glanced down at his hand and shook off the excess frost.
It wasn't because he was moved.
It was because he could hear it—this wasn't a desperate person making a final struggle. This was someone who had completely accepted all their flaws and still chose to stand where they were supposed to stand.
That kind of thing couldn't be taught.
He had seen too many people born into high positions. In the Wolfgang family’s banquet hall, every chair was occupied by a “born noble.” But Leon had never seen that kind of curve on any of them.
Lilian turned around.
Her palm pressed against the stone door.
She pushed.
The stone door slid inward. The metallic stench of the wind and the gray aura of desolation from the chamber poured out at once, striking her face. Her skirt billowed and then fell. The blood on the Crown of Thorns turned dark in the gray light.
Her voice wasn't loud. It pierced through the roar of the blood magic collisions within the chamber, through the dry rasping of the Desolate Realm crushing matter, and through the sharp screams of tearing spatial folds.
“I am here.”
Deep within the chamber, Valentine’s Desolate Realm was expanding outward with her at the center. Gray folds ground across the floor, and the walls on either side of the inheritance stone pillar were weathering at an accelerated rate.
The red-robed old man stood directly in front of the stone pillar. His withered right hand was pressed against the surface of the pillar. Dark red light surged from within the pillar, pouring into his arm through his fingers and climbing up along his veins.
His left hand held the Bloodline Aria. The base of the scepter rested on the floor, the red light from the rose patterns illuminating half the chamber.
Cecilia stood three steps behind the old man. Every time her carotid artery pulsed, the green spots of light beneath her skin brightened. The stone bricks within a two-meter radius of her feet had all turned a withered yellow, their surfaces covered in cracks.
Valentine stood between the old man and the stone pillar.
No, that wasn't right.
She wasn't blocking the middle.
She was being pushed away.
The gray folds of the Desolate Realm stopped three meters in front of the old man. They didn't dissipate; they were being suppressed at that position by a more ancient power. The edges of the folds were shaking violently, being repelled half an inch for every inch they pushed forward.
Valentine’s silver wig had completely fallen off, revealing the ear-length short black hair beneath. Sweat ran down her hairline, dripping onto her collarbone.
The moment Lilian stepped into the chamber, everyone’s gaze turned toward her at once.
Cecilia tilted her head.
She saw the crooked Crown of Thorns on Lilian’s head. The crown was stained with blood. The face beneath it was deathly pale, with a burn on her thigh and two broken fingernails.
The corner of Cecilia’s mouth curved up.
The red-robed old man’s hand did not move from the stone pillar. On the half of his jaw visible beneath the hood, the burn scars flickered in and out of the red light.
He didn't even turn his head.
Lilian’s gaze moved past Cecilia, past the arched back of the red-robed old man, and fell on Valentine.
Valentine turned her face to the side.
Her short black hair was plastered to her temples. In her red pupils, the gray light of the Desolate Realm and the dark red flow of the inheritance stone pillar were intertwined.
She looked at Lilian.
Lilian looked at her.
For the first time in three thousand years, she saw the true appearance of “Leila.”
Valentine’s lips moved, but no sound came out.
But Lilian read the shape of the words.
Two words.
“Run. Now.”
Lilian didn't leave.
She took a step forward. The spike on the Crown of Thorns that she had straightened cast a small, crooked shadow in the red light of the inheritance stone pillar.
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