Volume 8, Chapter 57 – A Potential Powerful Enemy

Even Lucitine could sense the atmosphere emanating from Ruth and the Thirteen Attendants, seemingly directed at Fia. She took the recording crystal from Ruth’s hand, but wasn’t in a hurry to examine it. Instead, she waved her hand, signaling Ruth to step aside.

“Given to you by the survey team? Weren’t you all just participating in the reincarnation ceremony?”

“Yes. According to the survey team, it was found by an undead archmage who had entered the anthill searching for traces of Chaos.”

“Oh?”

Lucitine raised an eyebrow, her tone also rising. Since the magic crystals used to make recording crystals are only produced deep within the veins of lush forests, such magical items as recording crystals are quite rare in the Netherworld. Not only did one appear now in the sparsely populated underground anthill, but it was also found after recording certain scenes—quite suspicious.

Nevertheless, the content of recording crystals is almost impossible to falsify. Lucitine still followed Ruth’s instruction and infused it with magic power. First, a faint white screen appeared before everyone, then the hazy image gradually cleared, revealing a cramped room with a faint cyan chandelier on the ceiling. The moment this room appeared, Fia’s expression changed slightly.

This was the room where she had conferred with Milan.

Like missing a step while going down stairs, Fia’s heart lurched.

Not good.

But if it only recorded Milan and his group, without her image, over-explaining now would instead expose her. Fia suppressed her urge to disrupt the recording crystal and maintained an expressionless face.

The footage continued to advance.

Several figures appeared in the room emitting hazy white light—members of the Eye tribe. From the perspective of the footage, the recording crystal had been placed at the base of the wall, slowly moving horizontally. Soon, as it panned around, the lens captured the Eye led by Milan, kneeling on one knee. Milan, whose eyes were completely blue, raised his head and stared at an elf girl in a black dress.

Although there was no sound in the recording crystal, both Fia and the others present could see that the elf in the footage was Fia herself. She was saying something with her mouth, and Milan, kneeling before her, displayed different actions in response to her words. It was clear that Milan’s attitude was reverent, much like the undead towards Lucitine. At this moment, Fia was like a queen among Chaos.

The footage didn’t last long. With Fia’s departure, the numerous Eye rapidly dispersed, and the eerie green room returned to silence. The recording crystal ended there.

“Fia… what is the meaning of this…?”

Lucitine’s expression turned ugly. Her gaze fixed on Fia, her words seemed to weigh a thousand pounds, spoken with extreme difficulty.

“This is fabricated, right? How could you be with Chaos? They’re obeying your commands?”

No…

Although Fia very much wanted to answer “that’s not the case,” the reality was that the scene in the recording crystal hadn’t been falsified, and the timing was exactly when she had gone to see Milan this morning. Fia could see in it the beast Chaos with dark red patches that she had dragged into the operations room.

If Lucitine played the recording crystal back again, she would definitely notice those beast Chaos with dark red patches. Lying here would not only be meaningless, but would also push Lucitine further away.

Rеaⅾ oո ΚаtReαԁіոɡСаfе

Calm down, must calm down.

Forcing herself to temporarily stop thinking about who had exposed this scene, Fia considered various responses in the short time available.

However, Lucitine didn’t give Fia time to think. Fia’s silence was met with rising anger. Her gaze shifted from questioning to incomprehension, and then from incomprehension to loathing and disappointment. She stepped forward and forcefully thrust the recording crystal into Fia’s hands, with enough force to knock her over.

“Fia, I need you to explain yourself. Why are you with Chaos? They’re even obeying your commands?! What was your real purpose in coming here to help me?!”

“I can explain, but you need to calm down first.”

Fia said calmly. She knew Lucitine harbored an ingrained hatred for Chaos. The fact that she had only pushed her instead of drawing her sword immediately showed she was strenuously restraining her emotions.

“These Chaos are my followers. They are different from the Chaos beneath the abyss and completely obey my commands. Initially, I did come with the intention of helping you annihilate Chaos. But when I discovered that the two sides who should have been allies were fighting each other, and that you harbored an indiscriminate hatred for Chaos, I wanted to separate you and resolve this hatred.”

“So you brazenly became my strategist, but in reality, you were deceiving me, leading me step by step into your trap?!”

Lucitine’s voice grew increasingly sharp, to the point of making Fia feel pressured. Anyone else would have been intimidated by Lucitine’s queenly aura and backed away.

She’s already lost her reason. Fia’s heart sank. When she saw her own image appear in the scene, she had this premonition.

The sharpness and loathing in her pink eyes gradually turned to sadness. Lucitine’s breathing became heavy from the violent emotional fluctuations, her fists clenched until they turned pale. Her voice, as if squeezed through clenched teeth, was full of resentment. She stared fixedly at Fia, as if wanting to engrave Fia’s image onto her soul.

“No wonder everything has gone smoothly since meeting you. It was all a conspiracy. I trusted you so much, didn’t hesitate to declare in front of all the undead that I was enamored with you, and this is what I get in return…”

The pain in her heart made Lucitine’s breathing even more rapid. Something like tears welled up in her eyes. The entire beach was so quiet that only Lucitine’s rapid breathing could be heard. Finally, the will of the Queen of Death gradually returned to her. She covered her heart with her right hand, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes as if resigned.

“I see… Then it all makes sense. Why the Chaos nest, undiscovered for tens of thousands of years, was found by me within days. Why so many Chaos surrounded me and the Thirteen Attendants but repeatedly didn’t kill us. It was all a plan you devised to highlight your bravery and win my favor… Truly perfect. You almost succeeded.”

“I never thought about winning your favor. I just thought this would be good for both sides.”

“Don’t make excuses!”

Lucitine’s voice was almost a roar. Tears streamed down her cheeks one by one, her voice revealing deep incomprehension and confusion.

“I’ve already seen you commanding these Chaos! What more do you want to explain?! These Chaos have fought us for tens of thousands of years. How can you just dismiss that?! Fia, I told you I would not stand with anyone who meddles with Chaos. Even you, even you!! I will not take a single step back! Leave the kingdom of the dead. Leave my side. You are not welcome here. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

“Hey, even Chaos have their good and bad. If they can help, why not accept them? What’s the point of this infighting?”

Rеаԁ oո KаtRеαdinɡСafе

Lucitine’s hysteria was already written on her face. Fia frowned and wanted to step forward, but Ruth blocked her path before Lucitine. Their past friendship kept Ruth from casting a hateful gaze at Fia. She looked away and said in a low voice.

“Mother has spoken. Leave, Fia. I don’t want us to come to blows.”

“Lucitine.”

In response to Fia’s earnest emphasis, Lucitine just closed her tear-filled eyes. With a determination as if severing her connection to Fia, she resolutely turned away, threw Fia’s cloak back at her, and draped the Queen of Death’s black veil over her own shoulders, as if it were a barrier separating herself from Fia.

“Just one more step, and even if you wanted to find the remnant soul for your friend who became Chaos, I wouldn’t refuse. But you committed the most shameless betrayal. Ten thousand years of accumulated hatred won’t dissipate because of your words. Our relationship ends here. From now on, I am Venex, the Queen of Death. You go back to your Silvar and continue being the elf princess. As for what I owe you, I will find a way to repay it, so I’m not in your debt. Please leave.”

As Lucitine’s words fell, two of the Thirteen Attendants stepped forward and stood on either side of Fia, their posture suggesting that if Fia didn’t comply, the two maids would take action to escort her out.

“Lady Fia, please leave.”

Tch.

These two maids were certainly no match for her, but using force here would only make her look more ridiculous.

Rather than explaining while Lucitine was still angry, it was better to go back and figure out who had recorded this footage, then try to contact Lucitine again later—if contact failed, it didn’t matter. In reality, her dependence on Lucitine wasn’t as high as she had imagined. The reason she wanted Lucitine to join was simply to reduce casualties among the warriors of the World Tree Continent.

Logically, that was true, yet Fia’s heart felt like something was missing—an unpleasant feeling.

Without another word, Fia took one last look at the kingdom of the dead, now devoid of auroras, and activated her teleportation magic, leaving this world.

◇

Fia didn’t return to Blossom. Instead, she went directly to the Hall of Reverent Light beneath the Land of Eternal Night.

As usual, in the square with its huge sculpture, two Eye members with blue occupying three-quarters of their eyes were awaiting Fia. She commanded expressionlessly.

“Notify Milan to come see me.”

“Yes.”

It wasn’t long before Fia saw Milan hurrying over. Fia didn’t choose to go to a quiet place; the Eye had extrasensory communication abilities, sharing the same thoughts. Speaking in the square was no different from speaking in a private space.

“I’ll be direct. Look at this.”

Fia infused the recording crystal Lucitine had thrust into her with magic power. The scene of her conversation with Milan and his group appeared.

Rеad οո КаtReαⅾіոɡСafе

“Who recorded this? Do you have any leads?”

Sensing the suppressed displeasure in Fia’s voice, Milan, kneeling on one knee before her, became flustered.

“Th… this wasn’t recorded by you, Father God? We have no memory of such a miraculous tool.”

“It didn’t come from me. Because of this footage, all our efforts up to now have been wasted. The Queen of Death saw it and now knows our relationship. There’s no need to continue the plan. Have all the Chaos in the second Nursery retreat and destroy the passages leading to the outside. Also, I need to know who recorded this.”

“Well…”

Milan’s thoughts were full of hesitation. Fia could sense his helplessness. All Chaos in the Eye tribe had thought connections. If there were a nonconformist, all Eyes would sense it, so there could be no traitors.

Fia rephrased her question.

“Do you have any suspects? The dark red spotted Chaos in the footage indicate the recording time was in the morning. Which Eyes were at this vantage point then?”

Milan pondered for a moment, then said hesitantly.

“There’s no one in memory who fits the criteria. Father God, when we are before you, we all kneel. How could we move slowly like in the footage? If I had to name something that could meet the conditions, it would only be the nutrients stuck to the walls of the operations room. They can move freely.”

As he spoke, Milan pointed to a street in the distance. There, ordinary Chaos flowed in the gutters. These Chaos were regarded as nourishment by the Eye tribe, to be drawn upon when their own Chaos was insufficient.

“Tch.”

Instantly, Fia had a clue.

Chaos were everywhere when interacting with the Eye tribe, leading her to negligently guarding against them. Recalling those dark red beast Chaos produced from the second Nursery but manipulated by an unknown existence, the sequence of events should be that the ordinary Chaos in the operations room were manipulated by that unknown existence, recording her communication with Milan.

But there were two problems with this.

Fia shared her speculation with Milan, and at the same time, handed an empty recording crystal to Milan, asking him to try using it. The result confirmed Fia’s guess: due to the corrosive nature of Chaos, the moment the recording crystal reached Milan’s hand, it was corroded by the Chaos composing his body and became useless. This meant the other party hadn’t placed the recording crystal into the Chaos, let the Chaos record the footage, and then retrieved it.

At the same time, Milan answered very confidently.

“Absolutely impossible. Nutrients lose control beyond a certain distance. There was no one else in the operations room at that time. The underground space is a considerable distance from what you call the anthill. After you left, we sent a massive amount of Eyes into the anthill to search and found no traces of rebels capable of controlling dark red nutrients.”

“But only Chaos could have recorded these images. You also said those dark red Chaos must be manipulated by rebels from beneath the abyss—”

Rеаԁ oո KatRеaⅾіոɡCаfе

Wait.

Fia recalled another incident.

In the past, when she helped Nola kill the Mist Demon eroded by Chaos, the Chaos clinging to the Mist Demon had condensed into a snake and stared at her. At that time, she had a very clear feeling of being observed by someone through that snake. Then recalling when the Second Abyss collapsed, the Chaos about to surge out sensed her watching them and chose to hide beneath the clouds, cautiously observing her. Perhaps from very early on, this thing secretly manipulating Chaos had its eye on her, constantly trying to do things against her.

Moreover, its ability to manipulate Chaos might be stronger than Milan’s, to the point where it could use Chaos—or maybe specific Chaos—as eyes. And if it used a recording crystal to record what its eyes saw, then there would be no need to send a recording crystal directly into the operations room. It would be like using a camera to film the content on a surveillance screen. The camera was the recording crystal, and the eyes used for monitoring were the Chaos.

Of course, this was just speculation. After all, if it could spy on the outside world through Chaos, then everything she had done at Milan’s place would already be known to it. That would be too over-the-top. Nevertheless, this possibility couldn’t be ruled out. For now, it was best to assume the one manipulating the dark red Chaos and the one using the recording crystal were the same person. From now on, whenever Chaos appeared, she needed to be vigilant. Who knew if someone was watching?

But what kind of person, for what purpose, would trip her up at a time like this? If their target was her or Lucitine, manipulating Chaos to attack directly would be much simpler. Going to such lengths to break their relationship made it impossible to fathom their intentions.

Fia’s memory held no one matching this description.

Unable to figure it out, Fia lowered her hand from her chin and let out a long breath.

“This time, the enemy’s ability was too unique. I can’t blame you. But from now on, don’t let ordinary Chaos appear where I am, to prevent the same thing from happening again. As for how to deal with the undead going forward, we’ll decide based on their actions. Don’t act rashly.”

“Yes!”

Although she was disheartened by the plan’s collapse, what’s done is done and couldn’t be reversed. For now, she had to keep her eyes on the bigger picture and not let what happened affect her emotions.

Fia’s tone softened.

“How is the new home in the Second Abyss?”

“It’s going more smoothly than expected. At most ten days, and we can use it as a base.”

“That’s good. Remember to have everyone in the second Nursery area completely withdraw. From now on, focus on the abyss side. It’s time to build the road down. I’ll come every evening. If anything happens, tell me then.”

“Yes.”

Well then, time to go back and sort out her thoughts first.

Sighing deeply, feeling exceptionally exhausted, Fia activated her teleportation magic once more and returned to the Twilight Palace.