Read Novel Full Chapter 542: Into the Tournament
Chapter 542: Into the Tournament
“And so, Mistress finally managed to complete the ritual using the Time Book and travel to the past! Too bad the two of you were lost early back then; many things happened…” Malcolm said as he sat opposite Lily, Mona, Zoe, and Kuu at the VIP balcony.
"Oh..." Lily said. She really hated being here with Malcolm as his pervy eyes were giving her the creeps, but this guy knew many things as he stayed with her Mistress until the end. So she decided to humor him for now.
“How long did it take for Her Highness to initiate the time travel ceremony after I perished?” Mona asked seriously. She didn’t like Malcom a lot back then, but in general, she never felt that he was a bad guy.
“5 months back then, the supreme demons seemingly got some news of her plans, so they went all out trying to stop her, even sacrificing many of their agents in the process… “ he sighed as he stole a glimpse at Zoe. In his memories, she was way hotter when he met her in the other timeline. But thinking about it again, she was still young, and still needed to grow those watermelons of hers. “Thankfully, the demons were so cowardly that they didn’t appear by themselves, and Mistress managed to complete it!” he said.
“Can I ask a question…” someone suddenly said. It was Zoe who was about to go crazy.
“Sure….” Malcolm said with a smile; that would have looked stunning if he were not a 14-year-old brat.
“You keep saying that we were all that Empress’s disciples, and that she went back in time to change the grim fate of this world 1000 years ago… Considering the butterfly effect, most of us here shouldn’t even be born!” she said. She couldn’t just wrap her thoughts around this. A thousand years was a long time, and just one change like the date her parents met, if they ever did, was enough to change the composition of her DNA! Let alone the chance for her parents and her grandparents meeting and producing their exact offspring!”
“Oh, it is the master's power… She is the best! With the help of little Cassidie's Divine Summoner power, she made sure to take a soul strand of each of her disciples, including the ones who were dead… and using her power, she set a system to ensure we would be born and get our memories back when the time is right!” he said.
“Why go through the trouble… Were we really that amazing?” Zoe was still not convinced. If they were her family, she would understand that, but from what she heard from Mona, they were just the disciples she took late in life. It was as if she needed some talented people fast, as they were all around the same age, give or take 10 years.
“.... “ Lily nodded. She also had that question.
“I don’t know the specifics…” Malcolm scratched his head. “But according to my info, it is a part of her grand plan to save this world…. We are her chosen saviors! Maybe she was not sure she would be able to find people as good as us; we are, after all, the epic of bloodline evolution!” he said.
“.... “ Mona sighed. "What about Mistress..."
"No idea... the Oblivion lord only knows nothing, just that when it is time, she will appear!" he sighed.
"The oblivion lord?" Lily asked, as she squinted her eyes, many pieces of info falling into place.
“Ah... Yes!” he said. “Let me start from the beginning, while working in that assassin organization that you run… I am not holding a grudge anymore…” he said toward Lily, secretly licking his lips. This girl was still growing. In the future her breasts would not grow a lot, but her butt and her feet…. Oh, those feet were going to be something to die for. Now he should find a way to ask her to remove her veil… “Ehm… Back then, while doing a mission, I stumbled upon an incident involving his timeline-preserving unit, and almost died; one thing led to another, and I was recruited by them… Many things happened after that. Long story short, two weeks ago, after encountering some incident, I began having strange nightmares about my past fighting demons, and after asking my commander about it, she took me to that Lord who used his power to force me to remember the dream and tell him its details… When he did, I happened to remember everything!”
“I have never heard of an Oblivion lord...This guy shouldn’t have been in our timeline… And what with that timeline-preserving unit?” Mona asked.
“After regaining my memories, I confronted him about that... I could run away using the system's power after all, and to my surprise, he revealed everything!” Malcolm said, making Lily raise her pretty eyebrows. “Apparently he was a normal man until Mistress gave him a Spark 1000 years ago, and made him a Lord along with a few others… They are tasked to watch over the world from the outside, without being able to enter... Their mission is to move agents inside and take action in case of emergency! That timeline-preserving unit was something he created after discovering that someone other than Mistress also seemed to have Time traveled and had been trying to change things… His goal is to uncover their identity and stop them, as they might work for demons!”
“Oh… What are the other lords working for, Mistress… And what happened to the other lords from our timeline…. Do you have an idea?” Lily asked; she knew a few things about Victor and wanted to use that to confirm if Malcolm was really telling the truth.
“Yes! The other lords are the Fate lord and the Blood lord… I haven't met them yet though… The other lords have mostly been eliminated by the master, with three exceptions who were too troublesome to kill. First, the Void lord, locked in the sunken Empire’s deep ravine. The Fire Lord locked in the Fire temple…. And some newly emerging Death lord locked in the underground Maze of Mal!” Malcolm said.
“What about that troublesome Eternal lord?” Mona asked again. She remembered that guy from the other timeline. He couldn’t be killed…
“Dead… No idea how though… Look, I haven’t regained my memories for long, so I can’t tell you a lot… How about you?” he asked.
“I regained them thanks to my family cleansing….” Lily said, making Malcolm nod. The Von Krone should have that power. He turned to Mona.
“I got a nasty soul injury. When I recovered, I got them back!” Mona didn’t explain a lot. “Zoe and Kuu haven't awakened their memories yet… But I suspect that master might have left something for them in the Tower!”
“Yeah, not just for them…” Malcolm said. “But for…” he paused as he looked to the side, and the air shimmered; then a girl with black hair and some flashy strands, dressed in a traditional kimono, appeared, looking around nervously as if she had no idea why she was here.
“Ah… Hello…” she said, looking around the room. She recognised no one!
“SOLARA!” Malcolm gasped. “Come sit!” he quickly said as he flashed her a smile. Today was really his lucky day. Without the other guys, he seemed to be the only male disciple here!
“You are….” Solara von Astrom asked nervously. When she entered the gate, she was doing everything according to the family’s order, intending to use the Skeleon key to become a seeded player, but for some reason, another option revealed itself, and she couldn’t help but follow it to appear here!
“Call me Malcolm… We are similar to you… People from another timeline!” he said, hiding nothing.
“Eh…. What….”
“She didn’t get her memories back yet!” Lily interrupted. “Let’s…”
Before she could continue, the air shimmered again, and a blond girl in a simple floral dress appeared beside Solara.
“ANA!” Mona gasped as soon as she saw her, not expecting to see this one here.
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Anastasia frowned and looked toward the others, not knowing this one or how she knew her name.
“You saw a vision, then you followed your guts at the door, didn’t you?” Lily asked, figuring things out.
“....” Ana opened her eyes in shock as she nodded, then pointed around the room as if asking Who are you, people.
“It’s a long story….” Mona sighed. “Come sit… We have a long story to tell for the third time…”
***
“Sigh…. This place is really boring!” Lyra, sitting at the window ledge and looking at the Heavenly Sect’s disciples going about doing their daily tasks, said.
“You should be out there making friends instead of lamenting about pointless things!!” Meril, who sat with Macil at the desk behind, said as she leafed through some very old books.
“Like hell I want to involve myself with those idiots…” Lyra pouted. She was never good at making friends for some reason. Maybe it was her bossy character, but no one could tell.
“How about visiting Quras’s sister? What was her name… Milika… She should be feeling bored with her brother going to the tournament!” Meril asked, despite keeping quite most of the time, she was raised as a maid in the elven palace and could easily see things that others don't notice, like how Lyra seem interested in Quras.
“Nah… We don’t get along…” Lyra pouted. She really wanted to go to that tournament; sadly, in the preliminary rounds that were held in the sect, she was bet against that crazy girl Harper, and lost her chance! The girl fought dirty, using strange ‘Esper’ Powers to trip her. Sadly, because they didn’t have any dragons here, she couldn’t take advantage of her Dragon Knight class!
“How about you seeking out Lara and the others then? I heard they have become pretty popular!”
“Nah, I am not going to babysit children…”
“You are only two years older than them, you know!”
“I meant with martial arts… They are spending their time at that Martial hall, learning the basics… I am not going through that shit again!” Lyra complained. She was not going to spend her days pointlessly practicing a horse stand or swinging a sword; she was meant to ride dragons, damn it!
“Then you should have gone with Mother to visit her old friends!” Meril said. Rosette has been busy lately. And damn, she was really popular back in the day; the number of people she befriended was in the thousands, and that was way before Online Social Networks became a thing…
“Like hell I would go… All of those old women would say the same thing… What a pretty girl… When is she getting married… Did you get her a boyfriend yet?... How about you let her try to steal Prince Caspian’s heart….” she said, mimicking some random snobbish woman’s accent. “As if every girl needs some stinky man!” she spat angrily, punching the wall.
“...” Hearing her, Meril blushed a bit as she stole a glance at Macil, who was lost in some ancient book. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to be paying Lyra any attention. They have been getting along lately… She could also tell that he might have been developing some thoughts about her, but he still had that last barrier called RACE to cross. Her mother advised her to put on an elf ears costume and try to seduce him, but she was a bit hesitant.
“What have you guys been doing anyway?” noticing Meril’s gaze, Lyra quickly flipped into the offensive and asked, changing the awkward subject.
“They have had those old books in the sect’s library since forever. Apparently they are written in ancient Elven and were found in some ruins. Mistress Serina thought young master Macil might know a thing or two!”
“And?” Lyra was curious.
“This is definitely Old Elven,” Macil, as if on cue, began to speak as soon as Lyra looked at him. “ But not the one I know, but I suspect they come from the same root… Look at the word ‘Kastai’ here; this one also exists in my world’s own old elven as ‘ Kastoi’, meaning Blood, so the world here, Kastai Avt, should mean blood elves, which makes the book title, ‘THE WINTERS OF THE BLOOD ELVES’.... It can also mean ‘THE SLEEPLESS NIGHTS OF THE BLOOD ELVES’… I am not sure about that word… It can also mean Chronicles, but that would make the article indefinite, so it wouldn’t work… ”
“Oh…I should leave you two to figure that out…” Lyra, losing interest almost immediately, said as she turned to leave. She hated both History and Linguistics, so she was not prepared to listen to anything related to those subjects and could only walk out and sigh as she looked at the serious sect atmosphere outside.
She was really getting bored, only if…
She paused; from the side, she noticed two women dressed as servants making their way up the mountain. They didn’t seem conspicuous at all among many people, but the way they moved while dragging that big cart behind them seemed very sus to her demon-hunting-trained eyes.
Those two definitely had a problem, and they didn’t want others to see what was on that cart!
With nothing better to do, Lyra decided to stick her nose where it did not belong!
***
“Young master… You really should take some rest!” Ruby said nervously as she followed behind, climbing the endless stairs. At first, she thought Victor’s soul situation was getting better, but for some reason his soul wounds were not healing as fast as they hoped. She was not an expert in this, but she could tell that something was very wrong!
Anyway, they had to stop three times on the road for Victor to ‘relax’ inside his cauldron and for her to use her Eldritch healing powers. That’s why they were late.
“First of all, call me Your Highness while I am in this disguise!” he said, pointing out that he was now in his Vic Volt disguise. “Secondly, I am fine; this event is something I can’t miss, and after meeting Lily here, I should be able to transfer back some of the excess energy my soul fragments in her possession, “ he added with a sigh. He was well aware of his situation. It was shitty. He really overstretched his soul by dividing it one more time. “ As for what will happen in the tournament, think of it as a quick scam that should end quickly…. Also, I need to murder some guy and dig out his contestants to show the world who is the boss… Nothing to worry about…” he sighed as they made their way up the mountain.
“Young master… I mean, Your Highness, at least take note of the words you are saying!” Ruby sighed just as they reached the top.
“I am… Now get into character!” he said. “The people from the player council will try to make trouble, and might even try to stop us from entering… But that is against the rules, so we have to….” he paused just as his feet touched the clearing in front of the gate.
The entire place smelled of rotten flesh, and the floor was dyed red with some sticky substance…
“Blood….” Ruby said, twitching her nose as she looked around. “81 people died here… Very brutally, their souls are shredded! “ She could tell, thanks to her powers, as she could feel the remnant of 81 lingering souls slowly dissipating.
“Are we in the wrong place?” Victor asked as he looked around, keeping with the act.
“I am the one who should be asking that, you… Your highness!” Ruby said as she bit her lip.
“It should be the right place!” Victor said as he looked around. Although he had never been here in his past life, he did see the reports, so this should be the right place. Slowly, he activated all his senses while looking around, wary of any ambushes. “Why are they not celebrating this emperor’s arrival?” he asked.
No one answered…
There was no one here besides him and Ruby. The strange thing was that there was no evidence of any battle or body parts. Just a thin coat of blood and bodily fluids that covered everything.
He turned to the gate as he quickly connected with his soul partition on Lily's side inside…. There was nothing wrong there; they were just waiting for the tournament to start in 15 minutes! Waiting along with that bastard Malcolm who was sitting right in front of her, talking about old things…. HOW DARE THAT PIECE OF SHIT HIT ON HIS GIRL! SHE WAS HIS GIRL! NO ONE ELSE WAS….
“Young master… I mean, Your Highness… Breathe deeply!” Ruby alerted him as he began to grind his teeth. Quickly using her power to heal a part of his soul that began to tear apart!
“Right… Right…” he took a deep breath. “We need to be careful…” he said as he called himself down. Deciding to focus on the matter at hand first.
“Should we enter?” she asked worriedly.
“Yeah…” he said as he finally noticed the ones sitting beside Lily. So it was that guy… “Let’s go…” he said as he walked toward the gate with the nervous Ruby. “Take this, choose to be a key player, and always keep the mask I gave you on!” he said, giving her a skeleton. “Understood?”
“Yes… Should I go in first?” she nodded as she adjusted the strange wooden fox mask on her face. This thing seemed very ancient and full of a strange stale aura, but it apparently blocked others’ appraisal!
“No need, just follow right behind me!” he said, stepping right in.
WELCOME TO THE IMPERIAL TOURNAMENT
[CONDITIONAL VIRTUAL EVENT DUNGEON]
WILL INITIATE EVENT IN 13 HOURS 51 MINUTES 25 SECONDS
CREATING, ERROR…
NAME: QUEEVAL ARDANTLINK
AGE: 9999
ID MISMATCH WITH FINGERPRINT
Victor was pushed backward as soon as he tried to enter.
“Young.. Your highness?” Ruby asked worriedly.
“Don’t worry… Just confirmed a few things!” he said. Queeval was the name connected to his disguised Player ID, the one he got when he inspected the threads connecting Area to some other people… Now he was suspecting that this individual might be Lily’s master. Sadly, the latter couldn’t confirm it as she didn’t know; now he could!
Although that name was removed from the world’s data, it was still present here at this dungeon, which meant that Queeval is either really the aforementioned Spirit empress or some very high official under her!
Sadly, there seems to be some soul fingerprint, so his infiltration failed!
He quickly changed his ID and name.
NAME: VIC VOLT
AGE: 183
KEY: SKELETON KEY #5219
PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR ENTRANCE PASS TYPE:
KEY PLAYER NORMAL PLAYER SPECTATOR
He quickly chose the first option, and a moment later, the world around him shifted to appear in a great hall.