Chapter 210

“Muqing, do you know where Ye Zheng went?”

The instant she spotted Bai Muqing, Shu Wan shoved aside the knights guarding her and anxiously seized one of Bai Muqing’s hands.

Bai Muqing stiffly patted her shoulder and reassured her, “She’s inside, but she won’t be in any danger.”

They were currently stationed beneath the palace’s outer walls. The surrounding monsters had already been cleared away. The emperor had assembled every knight and guard he could mobilize and was preparing to launch a counteroffensive into the palace. Only by locating and destroying the core could the Aberrant Realm shrouding the palace be dispelled.

At the same time, powerful ability users kept streaming into the palace through the city gates from outside, answering the emperor’s summons.

Bai Muqing wasn’t worried about this Aberrant Realm. Even if it was S-rank, it still wouldn’t pose much of a problem against the resources the imperial family could bring to bear.

With a single glance, she spotted many well-known ability users, including the nobles who had just fled. Among them were quite a few high-ranking ability users. However, they had almost no experience dealing with Aberrant Realms.

They were obviously dissatisfied with their earlier humiliating performance. Now that they were out of danger and a large force had gathered, their courage and confidence had returned. They trailed behind the knights, rubbing their hands together eagerly, determined to wipe out those skeletal frames.

Bai Muqing awkwardly reassured Shu Wan for a few more moments, then lifted her foot and stepped away from this safe zone.

When Ye Zheng had confronted Sykes in the banquet hall, Bai Muqing had wanted to stay and help. However, Ye Zheng had secretly given her a look, so Bai Muqing had first escorted everyone to safety and cleared out the monsters along the castle’s main path.

As she moved farther away, Bai Muqing could no longer sense what was happening inside the banquet hall. Seeing that Ye Zheng still hadn’t come out, her worry wasn’t any less than Shu Wan’s.

Because she knew that the enemy Ye Zheng was facing wasn’t the monsters of the Aberrant Realm, but Sykes, the one known as the strongest in the empire.

“Hey, wait! Muqing, where are you going?”

Bai Mulin, who was organizing the knight squadron, turned his head and immediately saw his sister Bai Muqing walking alone, silently heading inward, away from the crowd.

His sister was very strong, but her habit of always acting alone gave their family constant headaches. Their team was about to set out soon, it would be safest for everyone to move together.

“Muqing! Wait for me, ugh!”

Just as Bai Mulin was about to chase after her, one of his team members suddenly grabbed him in urgency and pulled his attention toward another direction.

Bai Muqing, who had been walking forward, also came to an abrupt stop. After a brief pause, she slowly turned around to face the direction of the city gates.

Her cold brows drew down even further, as though weighed by heavy frost and snow.

Beneath the towering and imposing city walls, two oak doors and two iron gates opened one after another. A tall man clad in armor crossed the drawbridge over the moat and stepped without fear into the imperial palace shrouded by the Aberrant Realm.

The people near the city gates instinctively moved aside, forming a path. The man walked through the crowd with calm composure.

“Mulin.”

He cast a glance at the red-robed knight not far away, then turned his head. “Muqing.”

“You both look full of spirit. As expected of my children.”

The man laughed loudly and freely. The people around him immediately followed with flattering laughter.

Bai Muqing listened to the bold laughter from afar, yet her mood didn’t lift in the slightest.

Her father, Bai Yi, had actually come as well.

In addition to holding the title of Duke, the Bai family had inherited honorary titles such as “Grand Marshal” and “General” across generations. They also possessed the largest territories outside those belonging to the imperial family and the church. All of this glory had been earned five hundred years ago by their ancestors through their outstanding contributions in the battle against the Demonic dragon.

This glory had protected the Bai family for generations, and their descendants hadn’t failed their ancestors. Her father, Bai Yi, possessed dual S-rank abilities. Before Sykes was born, he had been the undisputed strongest ability user in the empire.

Bai Yi turned to converse with the people around him. Bai Muqing silently turned away, intending to leave.

“Muqing, where are you going?”

•

“Muqing?”

°

“You little brat… don’t act like you didn’t hear me. Even from eight hundred meters outside the palace, your 【Divine Domain】 can still see me.”

Only then did Bai Muqing stop. She turned back, her expression somewhat sullen, and “looked” at Bai Yi in the distance. “I’m going to find my friend.”

“That child, Ye Zheng? She doesn’t need you worrying about her.”

Hearing her father’s reassurance, Bai Muqing’s expression darkened even more. He had only just arrived, yet he already knew about Ye Zheng’s situation.

Bai Muqing was just about to speak again when Bai Yi pointed toward Bai Mulin’s team and said, “If you want to go in, follow your brother’s team. I need to find His Majesty first. You two, be careful.”

At that, Bai Muqing let out a quiet sigh of relief. She knew her father usually seemed easygoing, but once he decided to firmly stop her, it’d be extremely hard for her to push back.

Bai Muqing pressed her lips together and walked sullenly toward Bai Mulin’s team. At worst, she would just have to bring her brother and the others along, which would only slow her down a little.

But at that moment, a sudden, piercing scream froze everyone in place.

“Look over there!”

Bai Mulin followed the direction his teammate was pointing, and he instantly froze, his eyes widening in shock. Many of the people present looked even more horrified than he did.

In the distance, the grand, sprawling castle was collapsing like a chain of fragile wooden dominoes, falling one after another. Billowing clouds of dust swallowed the dark red sunset. Deafening, earth-rattling booms exploded in everyone’s ears. Some people were so startled they dropped straight to the ground, only then realizing that even the earth beneath them was trembling.

“Stay away from the walls!”

Someone shouted a warning out of concern, but this well-meant reminder only made the chaos worse. The crowd, which had just barely regained a bit of order, fell into panic again and scattered in all directions.

They tried to pull away from the walls and rush toward the open spaces deeper inside the palace. However, when the dust hanging in the air thinned slightly, they saw the enormous black behemoth standing in the distance and froze where they stood.

“It’s the Demonic dragon!”

“The world-destroying Demonic dragon has appeared!”

An elderly count shouted in a trembling voice, completely crushing the final shred of hope for the overwhelming majority of people.

Was the prophecy of the world’s destruction about to come true today? But this was the Upper District! The safest place in the entire empire!

The moment the “Demonic dragon” appeared, even the royal knights who’d been struggling to maintain order grew flustered, shouting “Impossible!” as they clutched their heads.

The crowd plunged into chaos like headless flies, frantically searching for any way to survive. Some people collapsed where they stood, crying and screaming uncontrollably. Others desperately struck at the Aberrant Realm’s barrier. A clergyman loudly recited Divine Revelation amid the turmoil, only to be knocked to the ground by someone fleeing in panic. Moments later, his white robe was trampled over with countless footprints.

Just as order was on the verge of completely breaking down, a wall of flames taller than a person suddenly rose up and encircled the crowd. The raging fire forced everyone back, stopping anyone from taking another step outward.

“All of you, stay quiet inside!”

“The palace walls aren’t going to fall. This is the safest place there is. Until His Majesty gives the order, no one is allowed to act rashly!”

Bai Yi’s roar rang out. As the highest-ranking and most powerful person present, his domineering command finally forced the crowd into a reluctant calm, and they obediently began to retreat.

Amid the withdrawing crowd, one figure stood completely still, unmoving against the current.

The blazing wall of flames lit up half of Bai Muqing’s face.

“That area needs support. Father, let me go out.”

“I’ve already sent someone to request His Majesty’s permission. I’ll be leading a strike team shortly.”

“I’m not a duke, and I’m not a general. I don’t need His Majesty’s approval, just let me go, Father.”

“Bai Muqing! Do you think this is still some child’s game in the Royal Knight Order? Don’t be willful at a time like this!”

Hearing the disappointment in her father’s harsh rebuke, Bai Muqing turned her head away completely. Facing the towering, blazing wall of fire, beads of sweat gathered at the tip of her nose, leaving her looking slightly disheveled. Yet her usually pale and bloodless face appeared strikingly vivid in this moment.

This was her father’s ability, suppressing the thousands present. Before such overwhelming and tyrannical flames, the fire-type ability users she’d faced in competitions seemed no different from children playing with cheap magic tricks.

But she wasn’t a child playing at magic.

Behind her, her brother Bai Mulin’s voice carried a note of pleading. “Just listen to Father this time. That thing outside… it’s not something we can handle.”

“I want to go out, not because I’m being willful.”

°

“But because I’m strong.”

Before her cold words had even fully faded, the people standing near the wall of flames suddenly found it nearly impossible to breathe. It felt as though all the air had been sucked away in an instant. The suffocating pressure left them unable to even cry out.

After they finally managed to draw breath again, a strange chill crept over them. When they turned their heads, the once insurmountable, towering wall of flames had completely vanished, leaving behind only a wide circle of scorched black marks etched into the ground.

In the heavy silence, Bai Muqing stepped across the charred earth and walked outward without once looking back.

“Bai Muqing, stop right there!”

A ferocious surge of flames shot instantly toward the young woman’s back. That unstoppable force was abruptly cut off when a massive tree crashed down across its path.

“Muqing, I’ll go with you.”

Bai Muqing turned her head slightly and paused.

Shu Wan stepped forward with a faint smile. The two knights behind her exchanged a brief glance, but didn’t say anything, simply following right after her.

Some members of the Ye family within the crowd recognized that familiar figure. Although they had fallen into hardship because of Ye Fanjing and Ye Zheng, they still “kindly” stepped out at this moment. “Madam Shu, even if Her Holiness the Papess’s whereabouts are unknown and whether she’s alive or dead is uncertain, you can’t act so impulsively and rush off to your death!”

“If something unfortunate really happens to Her Holiness, you can still—”

The man stepped forward and kept fanning the flames with a few more lines. Midway through, he suddenly let out a sharp scream, as if something had tripped him.

He crashed to the ground and was dragged forward at an unbelievable speed, until he was hauled right up to Shu Wan’s feet.

However, Shu Wan didn’t spare the man lying on the ground even a single glance. She looked toward Bai Muqing, her gentle voice carrying a faint trace of pleading.

“Muqing, take me with you. I won’t cause any trouble.”

“I’m not weak either.”

Bai Muqing stood not far away, turned half her face toward her, and gave a slight nod. Shu Wan clutched her chest with a smile and quickly hurried over to her side.