Chapter 97 A New Crisis

With a sharp splash, a basin of icy water cascaded over Richie from head to toe. Though midsummer heat gripped the air, the freezing shock still made him shudder violently.

"Well? How is the effect?"

Lina stood with her hands planted on her hips, dangling an empty wooden washbasin from one hand.

Richie gave no reply, instead sweeping his bare foot across the puddle on the floor; sure enough, he spotted faint slivers of ice floating in the water.

He glanced toward Miss Calli and Margaret, who stood quietly off to the side.

Calli maintained her aloof, frosty poise, completely unruffled, while Margaret discreetly raised a single slender finger and pointed toward Calli.

In the sweltering dog days of summer, only those two women could conjure ice from thin air. Richie quietly committed the grievance to memory; after all, he could settle this debt with interest between the sheets tonight.

With a sudden tremor of his frame, a surge of Aura erupted outward, blasting every droplet of clinging moisture off his flesh and dispersing it into a cloud of white mist.

"The potency is still lacking—it doesn't even match Formulation Five."

Richie shook his head as he spoke. Ever since the night he got thoroughly drunk and unexpectedly discovered that his Aura would circulate automatically in a state of inebriation, he had been obsessively studying the phenomenon.

He was not the only one investigating it; the entire roster of the former Squad 105 had joined in, yet not everyone was capable of crossing into that altered state. The three sisters, for instance, failed no matter how hard they tried.

Among the veterans of Squad 105, Lina and Dana possessed the highest raw cultivation, yet ironically they held zero advantage in this regard. Conversely, Nora and Randy managed to successfully slip into the state every single time.

Thus, everyone concluded that the phenomenon was directly tied to the strength of one's spiritual force.

Lina had breached her bottleneck the earliest, back when she had not yet cross-trained in the arts of a Recon Knight, and the same held true for Dana.

In contrast, those who originally possessed lesser prowess and broke through later reaped the unexpected harvest—especially Merlin, Calli, and Margaret, whose spiritual intensity ranked just below Randy, Nora, and Richie. As a result, those three could also occasionally enter that mystical state.

This filled Lina and Dana with relentless envy, making the two of them the most zealous participants in the research.

At the outset, they had all relied on sheer drunkenness to induce the condition.

However, that sweet spot of tipsy intoxication was notoriously difficult to control, particularly with Dana. Only now did Richie realize just how terrifying his master's liquor tolerance was; an entire bottle of hard whiskey merely left her mildly flushed. Rosa stood at the polar opposite—collapsing after a single cup, and turning into a dreadful drunk who screamed, wailed, and caused utter chaos.

In the end, Randy devised a superior alternative: using hallucinogens could produce an effect remarkably similar to inebriation.

Hallucinogens were vastly easier to regulate since they were administered via intravenous injection and acted directly upon the nervous system, unlike alcohol, which required the liver to metabolize ethanol through a sluggish, unpredictable metabolic process.

Over this recent stretch of time, they had tested more than a dozen hallucinogenic formulas, yet the perfect blend continued to elude them. While several exhibited pronounced efficacy, each carried severe side effects, proving either dangerously addictive or physically deleterious.

They were now conducting the second phase of trials, attempting to concoct an optimal compound through combinatorial blending that would reduce unwanted side effects to a bare minimum.

Naturally, Richie had been drafted as their prime guinea pig. Who else possessed a constitution that absorbed various medicinal agents at a hundred-percent efficiency? Even so, concoctions of this nature were nothing to tamper with recklessly, so they only dared test a single formula each day.

Taking his clothes down from the wall peg, Richie pulled them on. Today promised to be yet another tedious, grueling slog, and frankly, he had grown sick to death of such a routine.

"Annielia expects you over at her quarters at four o'clock this afternoon,"

Lina remarked from the side.

Richie started in surprise.

If this were an official military matter, it should not have been conveyed through Lina; after all, Princess Mithra had assigned Shemiel to his side specifically to serve as his royal liaison.

"Did she mention what it's about?"

Richie inquired.

"Who knows?"

Lina herself had little insight, yet her intuition warned her that there might be some classified, covert mission awaiting Richie's execution.

"Did Her Majesty mention anything else?"

Richie pressed, eager to glean some coherent clue.

Having weathered the recent storms of treacherous intrigue, he now harbored deep wariness toward everyone in the empire's upper echelons, terrified of blindly tumbling into their machinations; hence, he made a point of preparing thoroughly before committing to any action.

Lina pondered for a moment before offering, "She seemed to drop a vague hint, as if suggesting you ought to pay a visit to the Angel Corps."

The "Angel Corps" was the newly formed flying battle armor unit. Though unsure of Her Majesty's true motives, Richie nonetheless paid a visit to their grounds. After the conclusion of the Festival of Heaven, the Angel Corps had been split off and granted an exclusive, dedicated base. Just as when testing the "Dragon," the Parkington Holy Kingdom had cordoned off a vast expanse of open terrain for maximum secrecy; without specialized clearance passes, approaching the perimeter was impossible, and those permitted entry were scarce few.

Richie was among those exceedingly few.

The Angel Corps encampment lay beyond the city perimeter. From afar, two concentric rows of barbed-wire fences cordoned off the facility, stretching over a dozen feet high so that even elite knights could not hope to scale them. Between the two wire fences lay a patrolled perimeter roadway, punctuated every two or three hundred feet by watchtowers manned entirely by Recon Knights. The main gate was similarly reinforced with double-layered barriers made of ponderous iron portcullises.

Richie had to halt his vehicle a dozen feet before the entrance. As the first iron portcullis creaked open, he stepped through, and the heavy grating descended sluggishly behind him.

A squad of female knights immediately converged on him, one of them stepping right up to his chest.

Richie relaxed his posture and spread his arms, allowing the female knight to conduct a meticulous and thorough frisk across his body.

Deep down, Richie had always felt a twinge of annoyance at this routine. There was no way these women did not recognize him, yet every single time, they insisted on executing this rigorous formality.

By the same token, he was intimately familiar with these women; whether it was the Recon Knights perched on the watchtowers or the security detachment guarding the perimeter, every last member of the Angel Corps was female, and every single one had shared his bed.

Once his credentials had been inspected and his body searched in accordance with protocol, the forward portcullis rose. Richie gave the female knight who had searched him a firm, stinging swat across the rump, then boldly reached down to unclip her waist insignia badge. He made sure to memorize her service number, intending to thoroughly discipline the wench whenever an opportunity presented itself.

The grounds were vast beyond measure; walking from the outer gate to the central barracks took Richie a solid half-hour.

The entire proving ground had undergone severe leveling and clearance—not a single tree stood within sight, nor could a loose boulder be found. The only structures rising above the barren dirt were the distant barracks, the barbed-wire fences, and the solitary watchtowers. It was an environment monotonous to the absolute extreme.

Just as Richie could view the barracks, the personnel over there could spot his approach with equal clarity.

A cluster of female knights came jogging out from the barracks, led by the Omoer female knight who spoke fluent Monstokean.

The current Angel Corps was no longer confined to the initial cadre of thirty; their ranks had swelled beyond two hundred.

What compelled Richie to sigh inwardly was that even the weakest among these two hundred female knights possessed the prowess of a mid-tier Ace Knight—a stark testament to the formidable military reserves of the three great empires.

"I merely dropped by for a casual look. Go on and attend to your duties,"

Richie waved casually as he drew near.

His word was effectively a command; the female knights promptly complied and dispersed, though several remained trailing at his flank—all of whom belonged to the original thirty-member founding cohort of the Angel Corps.

"How is the training progressing?"

Richie asked as he strolled along.

The Omoer female knight answered, casting a suggestive sidelong glance down toward Richie's crotch. "Unless we employ specialized methods, relying solely on their own independent cultivation yields painfully sluggish gains."

Richie's interest was piqued; he could not tell whether her remark was a shameless flirtation or an objective assessment of fact. Nor was he certain whether Her Majesty had Lina pass along that message specifically to prod him into visiting here more frequently to "inspect" them. He certainly harbored immense appreciation for these exotic beauties, especially the women hailing from the Omoer Empire and the Rosotto Empire. They were uninhibited, tempestuous, and passionate—or, to phrase it more bluntly, utterly debauched in bed. By comparison, Monstokean women seemed somewhat reserved, while Parkington women carried an excess of haughty aristocratic pride.

Had circumstance permitted, he would have loved nothing more than to lounge here every day. Alas, his schedule was crammed with far too many pressing obligations.

Just as he was contemplating how, once General Haigert and the others departed for home, he might finally have the leisure to indulge in boundless pleasures here, a speck of dark shadow came streaking through the azure sky from the horizon.

In the blink of an eye, the dark silhouette bore down upon them.

"The new hang-glider has already been constructed?"

Following the conclusion of the Festival of Heaven, he had imparted his conceptual blueprints for the upgraded hang-glider to Princess Mithra.

Certain feats appeared simple in theory yet proved daunting in execution; the myriad airframe configurations demonstrated to him by the Crown of Wisdom alone demanded extensive prototyping and aerodynamic trials to validate their feasibility.

Fortunately, the Parkington Holy Kingdom possessed an inexhaustible wealth of master armor smiths; so long as one pointed them in the right direction, they could execute the intricate structural craftsmanship to perfection.

Even so, witnessing a functional prototype realized within such a tight timeframe left Richie genuinely astonished.

A roaring gust of displaced air swept over them as the glider skimmed low overhead, coasting for well over a hundred feet before making a smooth touchdown on the open field.

The glider was completely enclosed. Just as it neared the earth, an underbelly hatch popped open with a crisp click; the armored knight housed within swung her frame upright, her boots striking the dirt in a series of decelerating strides before coming to a steady halt.

Though she had not yet unlatched her helmet, Richie could tell without a doubt that she hailed from the original thirty pioneers.

What truly caught him off guard was the flight performance of this new glider model.

He knew the baseline capabilities of these female knights better than anyone.

A month ago, flying ten kilometers at an altitude of five hundred feet had been considered an outstanding achievement. Yet the flight he had just witnessed clearly exceeded an altitude of a thousand meters, and its velocity was vastly superior to the benchmarks of last month. "Have all of you tested it yet?"

Richie inquired of the female knights at his side. "I can fly circles around her, without question,"

The Omoer knight sneered with casual disdain; evidently, the pilot who had just touched down belonged to a rival empire.

While these women cooperated seamlessly when duties demanded, beneath the surface simmered fierce factional rivalries. Friction between countrywomen was mild, but competition between factions hailing from different empires grew razor-sharp.

Richie had always maintained a stance of tacit consent—even covert encouragement—toward this rivalry, for when it came to their passionate bedchamber tangles, that competitive zeal burned just as fiercely.

After idling around the Angel Corps grounds for the better part of the day, Richie finally took his leave as three o'clock approached, arriving back within the capital around a quarter to four.

Upon entering the imperial palace, Richie had expected to wait around for a while. That had always been the customary protocol in the past, yet to his surprise, the moment he arrived, the palace guards immediately summoned him inside.

The Parkington imperial palace was colossal, housing an unfathomable labyrinth of grandeur and chamber halls. He had visited several times, yet on each occasion, he was received in an entirely different hall. Each visit never failed to make him muse that the gulf separating royalty from commoners was truly vast.

An audience with the Empress naturally entailed strict court etiquette, yet Richie paid it little mind, offering only the baseline deference expected of his station.

He had adopted this irreverent posture from his mentor, Uncle, Master Espol, Madame Shar, and that venerable gathering of legendary Great Craftsmen. Figures who attained such a pinnacle no longer needed to cower before temporal political authority; their reverence was never offered to the temporal Parkington throne, but reserved solely for the divine legacy of the ancestral Holy Emperors.

Striding through the grand corridor, Richie let his gaze wander freely, finally grasping the true meaning of opulent majesty.

The floor beneath his boots was laid with polished gold-and-crimson marble, while the vaulted ceiling high above was assembled from panes of tinted golden glass, filtering the descending sunlight into a radiant wash of molten gold.

The interior decor was dominated by rich crimson tones, with heavy drapes of red velvet adorning the soaring walls and plush scarlet carpets blanketing the stone floor.

Within a hall of such staggering proportions stood only a solitary chair and an expansive desk positioned at the very center of the chamber.

The chair and desk were shaped like blossoming roses—an unconventional, somewhat eccentric design, yet extraordinarily elegant and aesthetic. What struck Richie most, however, was their sheer scale: the desk stretched four to five meters in length and two meters across, while the chair exceeded even the desk in length, resembling a luxurious daybed or sprawling divan that could readily double as a bed—indeed, far roomier than most ordinary beds.

Having been summoned straight in, Richie had assumed Her Majesty was eagerly awaiting him, only to find Annielia buried beneath a mountainous stack of official scrolls and dossiers. "Did Your Majesty summon me?"

Approaching the desk, Richie offered a slight, polite bow, well versed in basic imperial etiquette. "Lord Robert, my apologies. Please grant me a brief moment; I have several urgent dispatches that require my royal signature."

Annielia looked up from her desk and offered Richie a refined smile.

The title of Lord had been conferred upon Richie alongside his Master Craftsman credentials—a tradition dating back to the inception of the Magitech Armor Guild Council. While a democratic nation like the Monstoke Republic naturally refused to recognize hereditary aristocratic titles, the Parkington Holy Kingdom viewed them through an entirely different lens.

Richie paused some five or six feet before the desk. With his keen vision, he could easily have read every word inscribed on those sensitive state papers, yet to avoid suspicion, he tactfully averted his gaze toward the hall's decor.

Roughly a dozen minutes passed before the crisp rustle of parchment heralded the Empress setting aside her quill. A nearby lady-in-waiting gingerly collected the sealed folders and retreated from the grand hall with bowed head. "Lord Richie, I have summoned you here on account of a matter that is causing me immense distress."

Annielia lightly pressed a concealed trigger near the desk's edge. A square segment at the center of the tabletop promptly recessed, and a hidden compartment rose to the surface.

The ingenious mechanism was fascinating, yet Richie felt a sharp spike of vigilance in his gut. He had just been wondering why this imperial hall lacked the usual contingent of imperial guards flanking the Empress today.

Now he understood.

In that fleeting heartbeat, he felt as though the entire grand hall had suddenly awakened, teeming with hidden life.

Similar lethal mechanisms had to be riddled throughout every corner of this palace, and the sole master controlling these dormant engines of death was the delicate, seemingly frail Empress seated before him.

With a graceful flick of Her Majesty's jade-fair wrist, the documents resting on the desk lifted into the air and glided smoothly through the open space, coming to a gentle hover directly before Richie.

The telekinetic display was nothing short of breathtaking.

Richie gasped inwardly in silent awe; a direct descendant of the Holy Emperor truly lived up to the reputation of being the world's paramount Psion. This maneuver was far more than an ornate parlor trick—if she could float thick documents to his chest with such effortless grace, she could just as easily drive a razor-sharp dagger through his ribs, or aim dozens of concealed muskets at his heart in the span of a breath.

Nor did he believe Annielia's deadly repertoire was limited to merely a couple of tricks; the reason the Holy Emperor's bloodline commanded universal veneration throughout the continent was never based solely on the hollow prestige of their ancestor's name.

Over the past millennium, countless assassins had attempted to extinguish the Holy Emperor's royal line, yet not a single one had ever succeeded; many of those would-be killers had fallen directly by the hands of the Holy Emperor's descendants themselves.

Catching the hovering materials, Richie examined them closely.

They were photographs—enlarged several hundredfold.

Regrettably, the imagery was terribly blurred and indistinct. Judging by the vague silhouette, the subject appeared to be a model of Magitech Armor, and a light-chassis build at that. "Has Poronov produced another new design?"

Richie asked. Across the Norman Alliance, only the grotesque creations of that unhinged Divine Craftsman could instill such deep dread among the high command of the Dante Alliance. "We learned as early as five years ago that he had begun drafting a novel armor design—one forged without regard for labor or cost."

Annielia removed her gold-rimmed spectacles and pinched the bridge of her nose, the fatigue etched across her regal countenance unmistakable. "Worst of all, this armor is tailored exclusively for the Iron-Blood Corps."

The instant he heard the name of the Iron-Blood Corps, every ounce of Richie's casual nonchalance vanished.

The Iron-Blood Corps was synonymous with suicidal Aura. The mere recollection of those ghastly, phantom-like monsters moving with blinding speed sent a chill crawling up his spine.

Now he finally understood why the Empress had summoned him with such frantic urgency.

"Since High Command was aware of this development five years ago, the intelligence directorates of the allied nations must have taken countermeasures, haven't they?"

Richie tossed the blurry photographs back onto the desk; as intel, they held negligible reference value.

"We certainly exhausted every avenue, but we never found a viable breach. The Norman Alliance's security apparatus has enforced an airtight information blackout."

Annielia truly felt at her wit's end; this looming catastrophe had robbed her of restful sleep for nights on end. "The crux of the crisis is that we remain utterly blind to the tactical performance of this armor. The moment it deploys en masse onto the frontline, our alliance may well face complete annihilation."

Richie could readily grasp the gravity of her words; his own "Wisdom King" operated on the exact same strategic principle.

During the Festival of Heaven, the reason the Wisdom King had swept through all opposition was due in equal measure to its astonishing specifications and the total ignorance of his adversaries regarding its capabilities.

Had his opponents possessed prior knowledge of the Wisdom King's operational envelope, they might not have forged an immediate countermeasure, but they could at least have parried its initial onslaught and dragged him into an exhausting battle of attrition. "Your Majesty summoned me here because you already have a plan in motion, correct? What do you require of me?"

Richie was not driven by blind heroism; rather, after serving in the military for so long, enduring the brutal trenches, clawing his way out of mounds of rotting corpses, and surviving both the capitulation of Monstoke and two frantic flights with his family, he understood all too well that when the nest is shattered, no egg remains unbroken.

Annielia hesitated. This dilemma had tormented her thoughts for days. Though she had steeled her resolve prior to this audience, the words still hitched in her throat when the moment came to voice them. "It seems the mission designated for me carries lethal peril."

Richie saw straight through the Empress's hesitance and apprehension to the deadly truth buried beneath. "Indeed. To date, we have sacrificed over a dozen of our finest espionage operatives, yet the only harvest to show for their lives are those scraps on the table. The Norman Alliance is not entirely devoid of seams; slipping close to those suits is within the realm of possibility, but capturing photographic documentation of their internal workings is an impossible task. Thus, we devised an alternative approach..."

Richie had already connected the dots. "You intend to insert an expert intimately versed in Magitech Armor directly under the enemy's nose to evaluate the suit's performance parameters on site?"

"Precisely. The operational danger of this assignment is extraordinary,"

Annielia made no attempt to sugarcoat the reality.

Richie's mind raced at furious speed.

The lethality of the operation required no elaboration; should his cover be blown, he would find himself trapped deep behind enemy lines, surrounded on all sides with zero hope of fighting his way out.

Yet when evaluated objectively, no one was better suited for this mission than him. While many scholars understood Magitech Armor intimately, virtually all of them were frail Psions; the only exceptions to that rule were himself and Randy.

Furthermore, clandestine reconnaissance was his personal forte. Though he could only be classified as half a Recon Knight, when it came to razor-sharp sight and keen hearing, even master Recon Knights fell short of his sensory acuity. He could easily maintain visual and auditory observation well beyond the detection radius of enemy sentries. "When do you require my departure? Will there be an asset to receive and support me on the other side?"

Richie did not even weigh whether he could decline the assignment. For Her Majesty to personally summon him here meant the decision had already been carved in stone. Nor did he intend to haggle over bounties and compensation; if he never returned, whether slain or captured, any imperial promises would be rendered moot. Conversely, if he succeeded and returned alive, the Alliance would never dare be stingy with their rewards. "Starting today, you will not return to your garrison. You have exactly one week to familiarize yourself with the comprehensive operation. Above all else, you must acquire functional fluency in the Varedin language—at minimum, you must be able to comprehend their general speech..."

"Hold on, hold on, wait!"

Richie waved his hands in frantic protest. Forced to study academic texts, he would rather charge straight into gunfire: "That is completely beyond me!"

"You will master it. From the dawn of your awakening until this day, everything you have achieved proves that you harbor boundless potential. All you currently lack is sufficient pressure and an exceptional instructor."

Empress Annielia smiled faintly. Her expression was radiant with aristocratic grace, yet it sent a cold shiver down Richie's spine; he had seen that exact smile before on his master Miss Dana, on Lina, and on Trisli. Every time any of those women smiled like that, a grueling torment inevitably followed.

As she spoke, the Empress rose gracefully from her divan, her demeanor abruptly turning solemn and regal. Raising her right arm with deliberate slowness, she extended a slender forefinger and pressed it lightly against Richie's forehead.

Richie could easily have dodged the touch, yet he stood stock-still, sensing no malice or lethal intent behind Her Majesty's motion.

In an instant, the world seemed to spin violently around him, followed by a torrent of foreign information flooding directly into his mind. The sensation was uncannily similar to when he had donned the Crown of Wisdom.

There was no need to guess; this was undoubtedly an innate spiritual miracle inherited by the founding Holy Emperor from the Crown of Wisdom itself—the Saint Emperor's Blessing deeply imprinted into the Holy Emperor's Bloodline and passed down unbroken across a millennium.

What now surged into his consciousness was an exhaustive repository of the Varedin tongue.

Back during his academy days, Richie had taken classes in Varedin, though his academic performance had been abysmal. He had barely scraped a passing grade, and after the passage of so many years, he had long since returned every syllable to his foreign-language tutor.

Yet the alien impressions invading his brain rapidly patched up the frayed, forgotten fragments of his Varedin fundamentals, methodically piling intricate new layers of grammar, phonetics, and vocabulary upon that foundation.

An indeterminate span of time drifted past before Empress Annielia slowly withdrew her hand, the exhaustion stamped upon her pale visage visibly deepened. "I have done everything within my power; the rest depends entirely upon your own diligence. One week is ample time for you to consolidate these linguistic impressions. By then, engaging in routine conversation should pose no hurdle. And during this week, our liaison assets across the Norman Alliance will finalize their preparations."

Her Majesty concluded her instructions.

Only then did a glaring anomaly occur to Richie. "Why Varedin?"

He truly could not fathom the rationale; the Iron-Blood Corps was the trump card of the Franca Empire, possessing no apparent connection to Varedin. "The Franca high command deployed an Iron-Blood Corps unit directly into the Varedin capital of Casmolina. According to our intelligence channels, Varedin had recently shown inclinations of defecting from the Norman Alliance; stationing the Iron-Blood Corps there serves as an overt, heavy-handed deterrent."

The Empress explained: "The Varedin people harbor nothing but bitter resentment toward this Iron-Blood detachment, while the Iron-Blood Corps remains exceedingly suspicious and guarded against the Varedin populace."

Richie nodded slowly as the geopolitical picture snapped into focus.

Yet another concern instantly surfaced in his mind. "Have our intelligence operatives already attempted to exploit this fracture?"

He needed every detail crystallized; after all, his own life was on the line, and any operational blunder would spell his doom. "No. As I just noted, the Iron-Blood Corps is paranoid to the extreme regarding the locals. Even our deepest sleeper agents embedded within Varedin have been unable to penetrate their perimeter."

The Empress appeared caught between regret and relief, uncertain whether this tactical reality boded well or ill.

Abruptly, she turned and clapped her delicate palms twice.

The lateral side door of the grand hall slid silently open, and a female knight stepped into the chamber. She was clad in a sleek purple uniform, her head concealed within a tight-fitting purple cowl that revealed nothing save a pair of piercing, sharp eyes.

Behind her shoulders billowed a rich purple cape, its fabric seemingly embroidered with an intricate heraldic crest, though the fine details were difficult to discern in the dim lighting.

Capes carried rigid status distinctions: the cloaks worn by Glorious Knights were strictly monochrome and devoid of insignia, whereas only Heavenly-stage Knights earned the royal privilege of embroidering their personal heraldry upon their mantles.

With a single glance, Richie felt a prickling ache in his eyes; this woman seemed to radiate invisible, needle-sharp barbs of spiritual force from every pore of her frame. "This is the instructor I have arranged for you."

Empress Annielia gestured toward the hooded female knight, then reached out to lightly pat the newcomer's shoulder. "Loralis, I entrust him into your hands. You have merely one week—instruct him well."

Richie rubbed his stinging eyes. Although the Empress had warned him she would apply pressure and he had anticipated a formidable mentor, he had never imagined his tutor would be a genuine Heavenly-stage Knight.

What made him even more uncomfortable was that this Heavenly knight exerted a heavy aura of spiritual suppression against him from the very instant she walked in. Even though she dialed her mental pressure down to the absolute bare minimum, having his senses constricted like this was thoroughly unpleasant.

He could not fathom where her hostility stemmed from. Did she share some prior acquaintance with Arno? Or did his prestigious title of Master Magitech Armor Craftsman rub her the wrong way? Richie racked his brains, unable to recall a single instance where he might have crossed this woman.

Stepping out of the grand imperial hall, Richie caught the faint sound of a soft chuckle by his ear—a laugh dripping with intoxicating coquetry, yet laced with a chilling undercurrent of venom.

A sizable crowd lingered outside the palace gates, mostly nobles and dignitaries awaiting an imperial audience, alongside their attendant entourages. Richie's current personal aide—the mischievous Shemiel, who had shadowed him like an inseparable specter over recent weeks—was likewise waiting outside. The moment she spotted Richie emerge, the girl trotted over eagerly.

To Richie's utter astonishment, the girl did not address him first; instead, she turned toward the purple-clad knight beside him and chirped affectionately, "Mom!" "Good girl." The female knight stroked her daughter's cheek with an affectionate smirk, then turned her gaze upon Richie, speaking in a languid, velvety voice: "My little girl has been spoiled rotten by me since childhood, growing up wild and untamed. She has certainly imposed upon your tender care these past weeks, and she has told me quite an earful about your escapades together."

As her voice trailed off, another ripple of sultry laughter spilled from her lips—a voice so bewitching it could steal a man's very soul.

Yet Richie felt as if he had been plunged headlong into a subterranean ice vault. He clearly detected the simmering fury radiating beneath her polished facade; every polite syllable she uttered was dripping with lethal sarcasm.

When it came to Shemiel, he had never once held back. He had always treated the girl as a personal plaything gifted to him by the Princess, free to claim and ravish whenever lust struck—and he had indulged that whim without restraint.

Never in his wildest dreams had he anticipated that he would fall directly into the clutches of the girl's own mother so soon.

If he were ever blessed with a daughter of his own, he would surely treasure her like a jewel; discovering that his precious girl had been used as a wanton plaything by some scoundrel would have driven him into a murderous rage. "Oh, never mind, I won't frighten you further."

The female knight's demeanor shifted abruptly into icy detachment. "I would hardly dare transgress Her Majesty's decree."

Richie did not believe a single syllable of her reassurances, growing twice as guarded instead.

He had experienced Shemiel's eccentric, treacherous cunning firsthand; the only reason he had commanded such dazzling prominence during the Festival of Heaven was largely due to that wicked imp's schemes.

Like mother, like daughter—the woman who birthed Shemiel could not possibly be a gentle saint.

Among the satellite cities orbiting the City of Heaven, the most elegant and deeply attuned to nature was Fairy City, blanketed everywhere in verdant, lush flora.

The courtyard of every residence resembled a miniature private garden. Alongside the manicured roadside trees lining the walkways ran continuous landscaped beds, brimming with dense shrubs and resilient, vibrant blossoms.

The Varedin Empire lay in the south, characterized by a sweltering, rain-swept climate where wild vegetation thrived even within metropolitan centers. In this aspect, Fairy City bore striking environmental resemblance to the Varedin capital of Casmolina.

Hence, it had been chosen as their provisional training ground.

A solitary phantom flickered and darted across the city, appearing now within private garden terraces, dissolving next into the flowerbeds of public plazas, vanishing across tiled rooftops, and weaving through streams of carriage traffic.

While Fairy City was by no means congested, neither was it deserted; though the shadow flickered through bustling commercial avenues, not a single civilian caught wind of its passage.

That elusive phantom, of course, was Richie.

At this moment, he lay crouched within a roadside flowerbed.

Casting a lightning-fast sweep across his surroundings, Richie sprang forward in a blurred dash. The Magitech Armor encasing his frame had initially blended seamlessly into the surrounding garden shrubbery; the moment he burst forth, its outer plating shifted instantaneously to mottled hues of ash-gray and chalk-white. Moving with blinding speed, he slipped behind a broad tree trunk within the span of a breath, melting once more into the bark and foliage.

Like a soundless wraith or a living patch of twilight, he glided swiftly across the urban grid.

He was navigating according to the instructions of a tactical map. The final objective marked on the parchment was a sequestered manor house concealed deep within a grove of trees—an estate resembling an ancient castle, draped inside and out with climbing ivy and encircled by towering, ancient oaks.

Richie circled the compound several times. He had already scouted out over a dozen overt and concealed sentry posts; beyond that, he uncovered countless tripwires and acoustic alarm devices concealed within the lawn, thickets, and leafy canopies.

Just as he prepared to execute a silent infiltration, the metallic band clasped around his wrist suddenly vibrated with violent intensity, and a blurred silhouette materialized abruptly behind his back. "You have failed once more."

The apparition lashed out with a casual wave of her arm.

Richie felt a crushing impact slam against his spine, followed immediately by an agonizing surge of high-voltage current ripping through his nerves; with a strangled cry of agony, he crashed face-first onto the turf.

Lying on the ground in violent spasms, he inwardly cursed this hypocritical, vicious woman. She had claimed she dared not violate Her Majesty's decree, yet her strikes showed zero mercy—she was thoroughly venomous! "Get up! You have merely one week. Every scrap of technique you master during these seven days may well mean the difference between life and death."

Loralis chided icily. Though her disciplinary blows were unsparing, she calibrated her force with consummate precision, ensuring Richie suffered excruciating torment without sustaining any lingering physical trauma.

True to her own words, this week was far too critical; she would never dare sabotage the broader strategic picture merely to vent personal spite on Richie. "You committed six tactical blunders just now. First, your hesitation lasted far too long. Second, you should never have circled the perimeter twice... Your movements were excessively broad and your pace too rushed. Phantom Concealment is not an art that prizes pure velocity; it possesses its own intrinsic cadence... The sole commendable point was that you concealed your breathing reasonably well..."

Taking advantage of the window while Richie remained paralyzed and numb from the shock, the woman methodically dissected his tactical errors. As an instructor, she was exceptionally rigorous and conscientious—vastly superior to Dana.

Richie listened with undivided focus, not daring to let a single syllable slip past him.

He was well aware that opportunities like this were vanishingly rare.

Within the Parkington Holy Kingdom, aside from the direct line of the Holy Emperor, the most exalted status belonged to the scions of the Four Guardians. These Four Guardians were not merely the four mightiest champions of the Holy Emperor's era; they represented four primordial martial legacies.

Thunder Emperor Kelsen, foremost of the Four Guardians, was revered as the progenitor of Assault Knights; the second, Dragon King Baza, stood as the pioneer of Heavy Defenders; the third, War King Hardman, had been an all-around colossus adept in both offense and defense as well as grand strategy, establishing the martial framework inherited by the majority of modern knights; while the final guardian, the Shadow King, was the revered forefather of all Recon Knights.

The clandestine techniques Loralis imparted were the refined, battle-tested quintessence accumulated over a millennium. Had it not been for the supreme stakes of this upcoming operation, he would never have possessed the qualifications to even glimpse such secret lore. "Stop lounging on the dirt like a dying dog! You still have mountains of technique to master!"

The woman drove a pointed toe into Richie's flank. The kick was deceptively miraculous; Richie felt an intense wave of soreness ripple through his frame, instantly purging the lingering numbness induced by the electrical discharge.

As he scrambled to his feet, he saw a contingent of figures emerge from the manor house, every single operative brandishing a flexible whip whose braided tip crackled with blue arcs of electricity.

It was that exact foul implement that had just humiliated him so thoroughly.

Without waiting for the woman's command, Richie already knew what was required. He shot forward like an arrow, his armor plates morphing in mid-leap.

When he had been prone on the grass, the upper half of his armor had matched the dark olive of the shrubs, while the underbelly mirrored the vibrant green of the lawn; the instant he vaulted into the air, the hue snapped into mottled gray.

This time, he did not forget the rhythmic cadence the woman had impressed upon him. Phantom Concealment was a highly specialized movement discipline; because it necessitated synchronization with the armor's chromatic camouflage transitions, one could not always sprint at reckless velocity.

The moment he moved, the operatives wielding shock whips converged in a tight dragnet, initiating a lethal game of tactical hide-and-seek.

"I wonder how many minutes he can hold out this time?"

Shemiel's voice suddenly drifted out from beside her mother's flank.

Fortunately, Richie did not witness this exchange, or he would have been mortified beyond measure—for Shemiel's silent concealment technique was leagues more refined than his own.

"Perhaps seven or eight minutes. The true question is how much he can absorb in the span of seven days,"

The woman sighed faintly.

"If you ask me, he'd be better off dead,"

Shemiel muttered, her delicate face flushed with lingering petulance.

"Judging by your tone, he truly tormented you terribly. Is making love with him genuinely that agonizing?..."

The mother spoke with little maternal decorum.

Yet Shemiel paid the impropriety no mind; tilting her head in contemplation for a long moment, she finally gave an honest nod: "It's genuinely agonizing... but intensely exhilarating, too."

"In that case, I shall play with him myself tonight,"

Loralis chuckled softly. "How about I drain him bone-dry on your behalf?"

"Splendid! Do it, Mother!"

Shemiel clapped her hands in delight, seemingly unconcerned whether her own father might suffer a fit of jealousy. For descendants of the Four Guardians, however, such practical detachment was entirely commonplace. They wed solely to perpetuate the bloodline and ensure the noble pedigree endured; genuine romantic affection rarely entered into the equation between husband and wife.

Shemiel's father was no different from the aristocratic suitors currently buzzing around her, occupying a negligible standing within the household hierarchy. After a brief pause, noticing that her mother did not appear to be jesting, Shemiel began to hesitate. If her mother shared Richie's bed, wouldn't that suddenly demote her own standing by an entire generation? "Perhaps... it would be more satisfying if I exacted my vengeance with my own hands,"

She mumbled timidly. Seeing right through her daughter's unease, the woman let out a melancholy sigh: "Do you truly imagine I relish the thought of bedding a boy young enough to be my own son?"

"Is this Annielia's command?"

Shemiel understood all too well what lay behind her mother's bitter resignation.

"There was no choice; this was also the decree of the clan elders."

Hearing her mother's confirmation, Shemiel gritted her teeth, her small fists clenching until her knuckles popped.

In the eyes of outsiders, the scions of the Four Guardians basked in boundless glory; only they themselves knew that true supremacy belonged solely to the direct patriarchal line. Thus, Princess Mithra could bestow her upon a foreigner as a casual gift, while Empress Annielia could command her mother to bed a youth the same age as her own daughter against her will. "Is the clan also attempting to curry favor with that brute?"

Shemiel tried her best to banish those humiliating thoughts from her mind. Loralis offered no reply, her brows knitted in somber reflection.

Although she was a direct scion of the Shadow King, she possessed limited knowledge regarding the deepest arcana of her ancient lineage. Within the Parkington Holy Kingdom, this was standard convention; paramount clan secrets were reserved strictly for the reigning patriarch.

Nevertheless, she naturally possessed insights hidden from ordinary folk—such as the knowledge that their house maintained ties with the imperial family far closer than the other three guardian houses combined. The first Shadow King had served as the founding Holy Emperor's personal shadow bodyguard.

The decision decreed by the clan elders on this occasion was undoubtedly forged to serve the imperial throne's interests, rather than any high-minded nonsense regarding the security of the Alliance.

She simply could not fathom what monumental cause demanded such an immense sacrifice from their house.

While Loralis was lost in brooding contemplation, Richie was frantically grappling with the relentless pursuit, his mind wholly consumed with evading those crackling whips of lightning. Catching a single lash from those energized cords was sheer torture, inflicting excruciating pain accompanied by full-body paralysis.

In the past, his greatest specialty had been brutal close-quarters infighting; when piloting the "Wisdom King," his unstoppable, headlong charge proved nearly impossible to halt. Yet now, he had run squarely into his natural counter.

To close the distance, he first had to breach the interlocking web of shock whips; taking even a single graze resulted in instantaneous muscle seizure, leaving him vulnerable to being lashed by a dozen subsequent cords. His trademark steamrolling charges and rapid-fire infighting combos feared nothing more than mid-motion disruption, and the electric whip formation before him was engineered specifically to exploit that vulnerability.

Uncle had previously cautioned him in his letters that the savage infighting doctrine of the "Wisdom King" was by no means invincible; he had simply never anticipated that an effective countermeasure would emerge so swiftly. This revelation also illuminated why the Alliance high command had grown so frantic upon learning that the enemy had re-equipped the Iron-Blood Corps with a new armor model, sparing no expense to unravel its specifications.

With Richie's signature infighting completely neutralized, his only viable recourse lay within the secret arts of the Shadow King.

Secret arts passed down across a thousand years truly possessed profound martial heritage.

Though classified as a movement art, "Phantom Concealment" was, much like the "Vajra" discipline, an integrated tactical suite.

It drew inspiration from the natural behaviors of six creatures, titled respectively: "Serpent Slither," "Feline Roll," "Rat Scurry," "Ape Climb," "Sparrowhawk into the Woods," and "Butterfly Dancing Among Blossoms."

The technique he had grasped best thus far was the "Serpent Slither." This maneuver bore resemblance to his Rubbing Step; both relied on parallel drive from the soles, maintaining light tread, minute physical displacement, and an unvarying, smooth velocity.

However, while the Rubbing Step was tailored primarily for the battlefield to preserve agility under the crushing weight of heavy armor, the "Serpent Slither" was engineered entirely for stealth and sensory evasion.

The most arduous to master were the "Feline Roll" and the "Rat Scurry." Each possessed its corresponding internal discipline; the former rendered the body astonishingly buoyant—Loralis claimed that at its supreme pinnacle, one could become light as a falling feather—while the genius of the latter lay in lightning-fast directional shifts.

The "Ape Climb" was a full-body coordination technique. When monkeys traversed treetops, they utilized not only both feet, but also both hands and their tail, relying on undulating torso shifts to maintain equilibrium.

"Sparrowhawk into the Woods" and "Butterfly Dancing Among Blossoms" served as auxiliary maneuvers. The sparrowhawk could dart through dense foliage without fear of clipping a single branch—a feat demanding extraordinary reaction speed and motor coordination. Conversely, while butterflies flew sluggishly, their flitting motions were exceptionally erratic; upon sighting a predator, the fragile insect would dart deep into floral clusters to bewilder and elude pursuit.

All these disciplines served a singular objective: complete self-concealment.

At the outset, Richie had not held these arts in high esteem, believing that hiding oneself in nature was merely the passive survival mechanism of prey fleeing predators—a defeatist, reactive philosophy.

Yet at this very moment, enveloped by countless flashing whips of crackling electricity, an epiphany struck him: when encircled by overwhelming foes, none escaped with greater ease than the lineage of the Shadow King.

The logic was elementary: the paramount art of the Shadow King lay in deceiving the enemy's vision and confounding their senses.

Under heavy siege, ordinary knights were forced to hack a bloody path through the encirclement to break free. The Shadow King's scions, by contrast, could simply dissolve into the background and slip away unnoticed.

The more numerous the enemy and the more chaotic the melee, the more advantageous the battlefield became for the Shadow King's descendants.

Regrettably, what he had grasped thus far was merely the superficial crust.

He had once heard Uncle mention that the highest arcana of the Shadow King family allowed an adept to vanish into thin air without relying on environmental camouflage, materializing directly behind an adversary before they could even react.

According to Uncle, there was more than one such supreme technique; Uncle himself had once witnessed a member of the Shadow King clan dissolve into a plume of mist during combat, only to step out from another puff of smoke paces away—a display resembling sorcery rather than martial combat.

"You must engrave one thing in your mind: your cover identity is that of a young scion from the Duchy of Berolencia—a legitimate heir holding succession rights within a distinguished noble house. Within the Norman Alliance, though the Duchy of Berolencia is small in territory, its pedigree is ancient and proud; hence, Berolencians look down their noses at others, and many do not even deign to speak Francan. This was the only viable cover we could devise for your persona, given your wretched foreign language skills. Therefore, you had best behave with haughty arrogance..."

Loralis spoke deliberately and slowly, for she was conversing entirely in the Varedin tongue.

This served as both linguistic drill and a means to deepen Richie's grasp of the operational mission.

"Wasn't... it said... that I... wouldn't need... to show my face?"

Richie's Varedin was horribly clumsy, forcing each word out one agonizing syllable at a time.

"Every military operation is vulnerable to unforeseen anomalies,"

Loralis warned: "I offer you a piece of advice: you had best prepare your own contingencies and draft secondary fallback plans—plans that you reveal to no living soul."

"Fearing... spies?"

Richie stumbled over the syntax, yet he grasped the woman's implication with absolute clarity.

During his time mingling with Malone and his clique, he had heard Malone recount countless harrowing tales regarding the intelligence underworld. The realm of espionage was labyrinthine to the extreme—crammed with double agents, traitors, and deep sleepers, many working simultaneously for competing masters; it was a murky quagmire steeped in betrayal and suspicion.

"We shall do everything possible to ensure your safety. The local assets receiving you on the other side will not know your true identity, nor will they even realize you are the actual commander of this operation; we shall establish a decoy commander to draw all hostile attention..."

Loralis began outlining the concrete operational details.

Without warning, she shifted from her kneeling posture into a deep, grinding squat, driving Richie's engorged length even deeper into her tight, yielding depths.

Indeed, at this very moment, she and Richie were entwined upon a bed, actively partaking in the carnal congress of man and woman.

In bed, she naturally discarded her concealing cowl. She appeared around twenty-seven or twenty-eight years of age, though her true years undoubtedly surpassed that impression. An oval face, a sharp, delicate chin, and brows as faint and ethereal as spring mist lent her stunning beauty a deeply intoxicating allure; Shemiel's features were an undeniable mirror of her mother's.

During daylight hours, her speech had been sharp and ruthless, yet in bed, her demeanor transformed completely. Her rhythm was languid and deliberate, her rounded hips rolling up and down in measured cadence; with every upward glide, she drew his massive manhood out until only the crown remained embraced, before sinking down with a heavy, deliberate grind against his pelvis. Her slender hands ceaselessly kneaded Richie's taut testicles with tender, rolling strokes.

Free of abrasive friction, the sensations were supremely pleasurable—a sublime comfort Richie had previously experienced only in the embrace of Nora.

He found himself increasingly suspecting whether higher cultivation in a female knight inherently translated to superior sexual mastery.

Simultaneously, a stream of extraordinarily concentrated Aura was coursing through his internal channels.

This, in truth, was the woman's genuine purpose in bedding him.

As this dense, refined Aura circulated through his meridians, his "Vajra" discipline—which had stalled completely upon reaching the third tier—began surging forward at a breathtaking pace.

The Aura of a Heavenly-stage Knight was far more than merely concentrated; Richie could clearly perceive that within her energy resided an ethereal, transcendent essence.

After an indeterminate span of time, Richie felt his muscles begin to ache; the stage of "Body Refinement" had commenced once more.

At first, the pain was relatively mild, but it rapidly intensified into a sensation akin to flesh being torn inch by agonizing inch. Within mere moments, his entire body was crisscrossed with bulging, pulsing veins, and his skin flushed a deep, feverish crimson.

Witnessing this transformation, Loralis halted her swaying hips; anchoring herself in a full seat, she wedged the broad glans of Richie's shaft firmly against her cervix, while her hands blurred into a rapid flurry of slaps across his torso and limbs.

The protruding veins grew increasingly pronounced, several corded vessels taking on a deep purple hue that mapped out an eerie, intricate array across his flesh.

Had Richie been capable of seeing this pattern right now, he would have recognized that it mirrored the circulatory pathways of the Vajra discipline with terrifying precision.

Loralis struck faster and faster, beads of glistening perspiration beading along her fair brow.

Cultivating the Vajra discipline had always exacted immense physical toll, let alone when she was not cultivating for herself, but actively forcing open the full-body meridian conduits of another. After half an hour of continuous exertion, even with her exalted Heavenly-stage stamina, she felt her energy beginning to flag. Abruptly, a faint gust of wind swept through the locked chamber, and a cloaked silhouette, bundled from head to foot in heavy fabric, materialized soundlessly behind Loralis.

A hand encased in a thick, padded gauntlet pressed firmly against her bare spine.

Loralis, who had been on the verge of exhaustion, suddenly surged as if injected with a potent stimulant, the speed of her striking palms doubling in an instant.

An unbelievable spectacle unfolded: Richie's physique began to swell like an inflated balloon. His facial features puffed out into bloated roundness, his fingers grew thick and stubby like clustered carrots, and most dramatically of all, his torso ballooned outward like a mass of yeasted dough rising out of control.

Loralis cried out in sharp distress, for Richie's lower length was still buried deep inside her, and that virile pillar had similarly expanded within her tender core.

Fortunately, the cloaked figure reacted with lightning reflexes, using her other hand to press firmly upon the pressure points at Loralis's lumbar waist and the curves of her hips.

Although Loralis still felt agonizing stretching below, she no longer felt as though her passage was being torn asunder. That excruciating sensation had only ever been rivaled by the agony of giving birth to Shemiel.

Meanwhile, Richie understood with utter clarity that he was navigating the most perilous threshold of his life.

He was currently teetering upon the final barrier of the Body Refinement stage; once he crossed this threshold, his Aura would be capable of permeating every single cell of his physical anatomy. This bore zero resemblance to merely coating the surface of one's flesh with Aura; the former was akin to smelting molten copper and tin together to forge an unyielding bronze alloy, whereas the latter was merely dusting soft tin with copper powder—inherently malleable and fragile at its core.

Second by agonizing second ticked past. Sweat gathered anew upon Loralis's brow—not from dwindling stamina this time, but from the searing, stretched ache radiating between her thighs.

Just as she felt she could endure the strain no longer, Richie's bloated physique began to slowly deflate.

Richie's skin had always been remarkably fair, but now it possessed an otherworldly, translucent luster, resembling polished jade honed to flawless perfection. His musculature was never overly bulky, bearing little resemblance to a brutish knight and more akin to a graceful dancer; now, his muscles condensed even further, lending him a delicate, almost frail appearance.

Someone had once noted that true essence lies within condensation.

At this moment, Richie felt as though he had been distilled to pure marrow; in truth, his entire physical frame had contracted by a visible margin.

In the wake of the searing pain came a maddening itch—crawling from the bone marrow to the skin, then burrowing from the skin back into his vital organs, as if millions of voracious ants were marching through his entrails. Every muscle across Richie's frame trembled violently; had he not bitten down with supreme will, he would have erupted into hysterical laughter. At that precise juncture, Loralis drew a deep breath, and began to truly move her body. A tsunami of intense pleasure crashed against Richie's consciousness, sending waves of dizzying vertigo through his skull. For ecstasy to shatter straight through the protective numbness of Body Refinement, its sheer magnitude was unimaginable. In a single instant, Richie felt as though his flesh no longer belonged to him—Loralis held absolute dominion over his senses. Such transcendent carnal mastery was something he had previously tasted only with Nora. The overwhelming bliss drove an instinctual urge to shoot his seed in swift release, yet to his horror, he found himself utterly unable to erupt.

Richie shuddered violently as he realized that even the climactic release of his orgasm had been ruthlessly locked down by this woman; pleasure was being piled upon pleasure like stacked layers of kindling.

He had always delighted in tormenting women with this exact technique; never had he imagined that the wheel of fortune would spin so swiftly, turning the tables so that a woman now subjected him to the same torment.

It was like a colossal reservoir filling to the brim before the sluice gates were suddenly blasted open; an instant eruption of held pleasure would be cataclysmically intense, yet devastatingly damaging to the physical vessel.

Yet the most terrifying aspect of this art was that once a body grew accustomed to such mind-shattering stimulation, ordinary intimacy would feel utterly bland. That was precisely why the women he bedded grew increasingly wanton, ultimately reduced to helpless slaves beneath his hips.

Richie relished dominating others, but he harbored an absolute loathing for being dominated.

What stoked his terror even higher was that the pleasure continued to mount toward the heavens, yet Loralis showed zero intention of releasing her grip.

Playing with fire like this could literally claim a life; he had indulged in it once before, fortunately with Lina as the partner. When her climax was finally unleashed, Lina's heartbeat had ceased entirely for five or six terrifying seconds—an ordeal that had scared him half to death.

Just as sheer panic threatened to overwhelm him, he saw Loralis rise from his lap, his turgid length slipping free from her drenched channel. "You can't do this to me!"

Richie screamed inwardly in frantic despair. Did this twisted sadist get off on watching a man erupt like an untamed fountain? Never in his life had he been toyed with like this.

Right at that desperate heartbeat, the mysterious cloaked figure standing behind Loralis suddenly climbed onto the bed and lowered her hips over his throbbing spear.

Richie felt his heated shaft sink into another warm, velvet sanctuary.

Bedding a woman muffled from head to toe in thick fabric without even a glimpse of her face was ordinarily a deeply frustrating affair; under normal circumstances, he would have lost all erotic interest entirely. Yet at this moment, he cared about nothing—he needed release, an absolute, unbridled purge of pent-up fire. This woman was noticeably far less seasoned than Loralis, and Richie sensed that his moment of retribution had arrived. Channeling every ounce of willpower to regain command of his anatomy, he succeeded. Seizing the exact split-second when the mysterious woman bottomed out against his pelvis, he snapped his hips upward with ferocious force, instantly activating the spiraling drill-thrust at the crown of his shaft. The tender, virgin cervix was blasted wide open in an instant, his engorged length ramming straight into the innermost sanctum of her womb. That unexpected, brutal impact proved far more than the mysterious woman could withstand, and the tightly locked floodgates of Richie's climax were blasted open in that same blinding flash.

Both bodies locked rigid in simultaneous shock. Richie let out a guttural, primal roar, while the cloaked woman gasped a muffled whimper—though with her mouth clearly gagged by cloth, the sound emerged as an indistinct, strangled moan.

Volleys of scalding seed erupted outward in violent surges; never in his life had Richie experienced an orgasm of such devastating ecstasy. Even after his reserves were completely spent, his member continued to throb and twitch uncontrollably within her depths.

The mysterious woman suffered an even more catastrophic fate; while Richie had at least braced himself for the release, she had been rammed straight onto the absolute pinnacle of sensory overload, instantly swallowed whole by a tidal wave of shattering ecstasy.

Her limp frame slowly collapsed backward.

Loralis hurriedly caught the falling cloaked figure in her arms, completely unprepared for such an explosive outcome. At that exact moment, the tightly shut chamber door was flung open, and seven or eight female attendants rushed inside. Richie slumped back, utterly spent. In the wake of that total catharsis, he felt completely hollowed out; the maddening itch had subsided, replaced by a deep, bone-weary ache—an excruciating, marrow-deep fatigue that tested human endurance.

The mysterious woman was bundled onto a stretcher and carried out of the room, her hips propped up with padded cushions as she lay prone. Outside waited an enclosed carriage; once the stretcher was secured within the cabin, the attendant women all withdrew. The carriage rattled into motion. Once they had cleared the gates of Swan City, the mysterious woman lying upon the stretcher finally began shedding the heavy cloak.

Beside her in the carriage cabin sat only Mithra; the Princess reached out to assist her.

"This foul contraption is terribly heavy; midsummer heat is baking, and I was nearly roasted alive inside it,"

Annielia grumbled. At this moment, she bore not the slightest resemblance to an exalted, supreme Empress, nor even to a mature matriarch; rather, she looked remarkably like a young girl who, after an illicit night of wild revelry, was sneaking back into her bedchamber at the break of dawn.

"Don't wriggle about! Mind that you don't let anything spill out,"

Mithra cautioned, her expression soured with blatant displeasure. No daughter could possibly look upon her own mother bedding a man—let alone preparing to bear that man's seed—with anything resembling joy. Tossing the heavy cloak aside, Mithra hoisted Annielia's skirts, lifting her mother's fair legs high into the air until her knees were pinned against her chest.

"There is no need for such fuss,"

Annielia remarked sheepishly. "Nothing could possibly spill out; he discharged it directly into my womb."

"He breached your cervix? With such ferocity?"

Mithra asked, her eyes wide with shock.

"Would you like to test it yourself?"

Annielia countered with a wicked arch of her brow, her tone laced with unmistakable menace.

Mithra dared not jest any further; banter of this nature had a terrifying habit of becoming royal reality.

Though Annielia had dismissed the necessity, Mithra nevertheless secured her mother's thighs in the elevated posture, then began gently massaging the Empress's lower abdomen with delicate, circular strokes.

The more potent a bloodline, the more difficult conception became; consequently, both the Parkington royal house and the clans of the Four Guardians possessed specialized secret disciplines designed to maximize the chances of impregnation.

"Was there truly any need for this?"

Mithra asked, a tinge of bitterness coloring her voice. Her mother's conduct struck her as utterly bizarre: "Did you seek to elevate your martial cultivation, or did you desire to fly through the heavens?"

Those were the prime motivations driving most female knights into Richie's bed, yet for the sovereign rulers of Parkington, both desires were thoroughly superfluous.

After a brief hesitation, Annielia decided the time had come to reveal certain truths to her daughter.

The ancient prophecy concerning the Divine Blood had originally been slated for disclosure only after Mithra ascended the imperial throne, yet royal protocol was not without room for pragmatic adaptation.

Beckoning her daughter closer, Annielia reached out and lightly tapped her slender forefinger against Mithra's brow.

A multitude of classified arcana preserved across a thousand years of Parkington imperial rule flooded into Mithra's consciousness in a blinding flash.

"B-but... he hasn't even undergone full... awakening,"

Mithra stammered, at a loss for words. The current Richie had not even attained the rank of Honorary Knight, standing an unfathomable distance away from the ultimate realm; she simply could not see why such drastic measures were required right now.

Yet upon second thought, a glimmer of comprehension dawned in her gaze.

As the heir apparent to the imperial throne, she was intimately acquainted with the existential plight confronting the Parkington royal dynasty. The Holy Emperor's Bloodline was growing increasingly diluted with each passing generation, and the mystical gifts handed down across a millennium were steadily slipping away. The prophecy of Divine Blood was indeed their final lifeline.

"This mission is fraught with lethal peril, yet it is an endeavor we cannot afford to evade; otherwise, our strategic standing will become catastrophic. All I could do was augment his physical prowess while ensuring he never falls alive into the hands of the Norman Alliance—hence, I employed certain extraordinary methods."

Annielia gently stroked her flat belly, her countenance radiating an unearthly serenity. Yet the atmosphere within the carriage was anything but serene, chilled instead by an ominous undercurrent. "You bound him with the Heart-Linking Curse?"

Mithra's face drained of color in sheer dread. The Heart-Linking Curse was an exclusive secret art of the Parkington imperial bloodline, engineered solely to command absolute dominion over another's life and death. Once the curse was triggered, the marked victim would perish instantly, even if separated by ten thousand leagues.

Casting such a terrifying art naturally demanded a grievous toll.

Once activated, while the victim was doomed to instant death, the caster would forfeit half their own life force in the backlash. If left dormant, as the years drifted past, the Heart-Linking Curse would subtly erode the caster's psyche: initially fostering warmth toward the cursed subject, which would gradually warp into obsessive, unbreakable infatuation.

Annielia stared fixedly at her daughter, waiting patiently until the princess recovered from her profound shock before speaking softly: "Now you understand why I have revealed so much to you today, don't you? Regardless of whether the Heart-Linking Curse is ever triggered, I am no longer fit to occupy the imperial throne. Starting from this day forth, I shall gradually transfer the reins of sovereign authority into your hands."

"We are in the midst of total war; high command cannot endure a transition of supreme power,"

Mithra protested hastily. It was not that she lacked ambition for the imperial crown, but having such a crushing mantle thrust upon her shoulders so abruptly left her reeling.

"Rest easy, it will not occur overnight. If I am forced to activate the Heart-Linking Curse, my current physical constitution can sustain me for at least five or six years—by which time this war should be nearing its final curtain. If the curse remains dormant, the psychic backlash will require three to four years to manifest, deepening only by slow degrees; before I lose all faculties of self-control, seven or eight years will have elapsed."

Annielia offered a wistful, wry smile—a smile laden with helplessness, yet beneath that resignation lingered a faint sliver of liberation. Mithra opened her mouth to offer comforting words, yet found her throat locked; her mind was in utter turmoil, and the hands massaging her mother's body grew erratic as well. "Where on earth are your hands wandering?"

Annielia scolded, flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and indignation. Mithra started in shock, realizing to her horror that her right hand had unconsciously drifted between her mother's thighs; crimson heat rushed to her cheeks in an instant.

Yet another chilling realization struck her thoughts.

"If... if the prophecy of Divine Blood proves true, the child born of this union will be terrifyingly formidable..."

Mithra stammered with profound hesitation; having already tasted the intoxicating nectar of royal power, she doubted whether she would possess the fortitude to relinquish the imperial scepter when the time came.

Yet refusing to yield would be unthinkable; the Holy Emperor's bloodline was fading into mediocrity, and once reduced to common stock, the Parkington imperial house would lose its very raison d'être.

As Mithra floundered in inner turmoil, she suddenly felt her mother's hand deliver a firm squeeze to her own buttocks.

"What cause is there for such anxiety?"

Annielia murmured placidly: "If that boy returns in glorious triumph, you shall find an opportunity to conceive a child with him as well. If he does not return, and I give birth to a daughter, you can simply abdicate the throne to her once she comes of age... And if it is a boy..." Annielia's hand drifted slowly around to the front, her fingers lightly caressing the sensitive cleft between her daughter's thighs.

Mithra understood the unspoken implication; all color drained from her face, turning deathly pale before flushing scarlet with horror. "He would be my own half-brother!"

She gritted her teeth, her voice trembling with frantic outrage. "Never forget: first and foremost, you are a direct scion of the Holy Emperor; secondly, you are the future Empress of Parkington; and only lastly are you a woman. As a woman, there may be many things you find impossible to accept; yet as a direct descendant of the Holy Emperor, preserving the sacred bloodline must stand above all else."

Annielia sighed, her voice heavy with solemnity and inescapable despair.