Chapter 1023: A Messy Situation
Rhode stepped out of the room and closed the door gently. He turned around and saw Lize’s worried expression.
“Mr. Rhode, how is Her Majesty Lilian?”
“Still the same. She locked herself up in the room, refusing to consume anything. Fortunately, she’s the Creator Dragon and can survive without food for a few days. Besides, Christie and Bell are accompanying her, so everything should be fine.” Rhode shrugged, before asking. “Has Lydia arrived?”
“Yes, Mr. Rhode. Big Sister and the rest are waiting for you.”
“Alright, I’ll head there now.”
After finding Sonia and Lilian, Rhode didn’t continue to stay in the Country of Light. Instead, he quickly brought them back to the Void Territory. However, it was apparent that Lilian had suffered a huge blow. Over the next few days, she refused to eat and silently curled herself up in the corner of the room. No one knew what was going through her head, but Rhode managed to figure out the entire story from Alice. It wasn’t because Lilian wasn’t in the mood to explain it. Instead, with a ‘BUG’ like Alice around, she could look into Lilian’s eyes and receive the answers. Rhode let out a helpless sigh after hearing the truth from Alice. Brats would always remain as brats, and not even Lilian was an exception. Of course, this was great to a certain degree. At least Rhode was able to find Lilian before she was taken away. If not, no one knew what would have happened to her if he arrived any later.
After bringing Lilian back to the Void Territory, Rhode immediately notified Lydia, which made her pause the thought of sending the Battle Angel Army into Casabianca directly. The current situation of the Dragon Soul Continent wasn’t as simple as everyone believed. A single mishap might turn into a huge problem…
Rhode entered the parlor and immediately met Lydia who put up a solemn look, unlike her calm, usual self. Well, she couldn’t be blamed. Even though Lilian was found, the two archangels were still nowhere to be seen. Lydia was worried about them because this had never happened before. Besides, the entire situation with the Country of Light just couldn’t be more strange.
Ever since Rhode brought Lilian back to the Void Territory, or perhaps after Lilian awakened her powers, the Country of Light was unsettled. It wasn’t due to those guys in the parliament, but instead, the problem lay in the Country of Light itself. Thereafter, the weather of the Country of Light suddenly became horrendous. Thunder roared in certain areas for days and earthquakes terrorized the people from time to time. Not only that, but hail storms also plagued the country, destroying the granaries. Some areas near the sea were either devastated by typhoons, snowstorms, or droughts. Who would have thought that seasides would be suffering from droughts? This was totally unscientific to a whole new level.
Meanwhile, the Munn Kingdom also had a hard time. Or perhaps, any region under the Light Dragon’s soul protection faced disasters. On the contrary, Rhode’s Void Territory was as peaceful as ever, without any issues. Although this was the fact, Rhode wasn’t happy at all. Because after the discussion with his younger sister, he discovered that the situation might be much more troublesome than it appeared.
Lydia forced a smile at Rhode and nodded as a greeting. She had met Lilian earlier and just as Rhode had predicted, Lilian didn’t respond to the outside world. No matter what Lydia spoke to her about, Lilian remained silent.
“Her Majesty Lilian is in a dangerous condition…” Lydia said, before letting out a sigh.
“You are already aware of the situation happening in the Light Mainland, right, Your Majesty Rhode?”
“Of course.”
Rhode nodded to her question. In fact, all this while, the number of refugees seeking shelter in the Void Territory had been increasing, with the majority being from the Munn Kingdom and a minority from the Country of Light, entering from the Highland City. Come to think of it, it seemed rather strange. There was no war, but people were fleeing…
“Her Majesty no longer wishes to protect the humans residing in the Light Mainland, I suppose.”
Lydia let out a worried sigh. Rhode understood her feelings. As an archangel, Lydia had the duty of protecting her people. But now, Lilian wasn’t willing to do it and this put Lydia in a tough spot. Rhode discussed this issue with his younger sister earlier and according to her, the relations.h.i.+p between the dragon soul protection and dragon soul heir was like a firewall and artificial intelligence. Once the ‘virus’ of Chaos was detected, the firewall would be automatically activated to exterminate the virus. But on the other hand, once the artificial intelligence determined that there was no threat or due to certain reasons, the program was changed and decided to give up its responsibilities, the firewall couldn’t be activated. And now, Lilian’s situation was like the artificial intelligence’s. She lost the will to protect the continent, which led to the automatic weakening of the Light Dragon’s soul protection, where it might even vanish completely. Now that this had happened, it was impossible for Lydia to not feel sad.
“The situation isn’t as simple as it seems, Your Royal Highness Lydia.”
Rhode said. Lydia lifted her head and looked at him curiously. Upon sensing her gaze, Rhode nodded and continued. “In fact, before this happened, I took a trip to the Deepest Labyrinth and defeated a Devil Monarch. Thereafter for the sake of safety, I made Celestina read its spirit memories… In the Devil Monarch’s memories, I found a clue that Chaos is about to attack us again.”
Rhode’s expression became stern as he spoke. In fact, it was truly a challenge to a.n.a.lyze a devil’s memories because devils wouldn’t categorize their memories like humans. If the memories were compared to a library, what Celestina did was no less than placing the irregular books one by one into their rightful positions on the shelves. Rhode couldn’t help but admire the fact that she actually accomplished it. But it was a pity that the results he got from Grazite’s memories were less admirable. After hearing the results from Celestina, he discovered that Grazite headed to the Deepest Labyrinth in order to completely open the channel connecting to the abyss. As for the reason, Rhode was caught between tears and laughter. After the Void Dragon had awakened and the five dragon soul protections merged once again, it led to Chaos having a much harder time infiltrating the main plane of existence from the ‘outside’. Therefore, Chaos chose to come into the main plane of existence through the abyss instead. As the number one hired thugs of Chaos, devils were chosen to take the lead and bear the brunt.
Rhode let out a bitter laugh when he heard about this for the first time. The fact that Siena and the rest said about the five dragon soul protections merging and whatnot eventually came true.. But this wasn’t the most troublesome part. What gave Rhode the biggest headache was that Grazite’s ‘channel’ wasn’t the ‘main target’ for Chaos. The reason why Grazite had chosen to open a channel in the Deepest Labyrinth was because it was purely a ‘backup exit’. And their true goal was the Country of Light! In addition to the information Alice got from Lilian, there was only one answer…
“I think the parliament is possibly planning to open the Chaos Gate in Casabianca.”
“Chaos Gate?!”
Lydia sulked.
The so-called ‘Chaos Gate’ was in fact the channel Grazite tried to open in the Deepest Labyrinth. It could tear the channel connected to the abyss in the main plane of existence. But the Chaos Gate was incredibly difficult to open, much harder than the h.e.l.l’s Gate. Although abyss and h.e.l.l were miles underground, Order had different reactions to both. To the demons, they could simply make their wors.h.i.+pers go through the blasphemy ceremony, so they could open the channel and come to the main plane of existence for a stroll. Even though h.e.l.l was known for its evil, it was ultimately under Order and wouldn’t be restrained. But Chaos was different. The devils would easily be confused by the existence of Order if they tried to open the channel to the main plane of existence. Just as mentioned earlier, the virus trying to enter from the back door would be ground into powder and deleted completely by the firewall, unless the virus found an ancient, large-scale teleportation ritual and modified it like Grazite, or perhaps found a relatively weaker region under the dragon soul protection.
A region with relatively weaker dragon soul protection… Yes, everyone knew where that was.
After hearing from Alice and learning everything that happened to Lilian and Sonia, Rhode believed that the parliament had come up with a way to imprison Lilian’s dragon soul power. After all, it was pointless to kill Lilian because she was simply a vessel for the dragon soul power. If they were to kill Lilian, the dragon soul power would go on and search for another vessel. And now, the parliament apparently had no time to waste searching for the next dragon soul heir on the streets, so they might as well imprison the dragon soul power. Besides, Lilian’s dragon soul power had been sealed up by them for a long time. This went to show that the parliament still had some tricks up their sleeves.
“If it is truly the Chaos Gate, the situation will be much more hectic.”
Lydia knitted her brows tightly after hearing Rhode’s explanations. Of course, she knew what the Chaos Gate was and now, the dragon soul protection over the Light Mainland was slowly dissipating. To the devils and Chaos, the resistance against a Chaos Gate on the surface wasn’t as powerful as before. What made matters worse was…
“We can’t attack them yet. At least for now.”
Rhode sighed. After rescuing Lilian, he thought of leading his men and slaughtering their way into Casabianca. It was just ma.s.sacring everyone in the city and Rhode was confident that his men were capable of that. But Gillian stopped him from doing so. According to her, the Light Dragon’s soul protection was like a piece of ice that was melting and breaking apart. If Rhode were to launch an attack on the city now, he would worsen the conditions of Order like crus.h.i.+ng the entire layer of ice. When that happened, the Light Dragon’s soul protection would be entirely done for. Chaos would invade without the need of the Chaos Gate. War would shatter Order, which was why Chaos often tried to start wars on the continent.
According to Gillian, the most important thing to do now was to restore the Light Dragon’s soul protection like fis.h.i.+ng in the ice lake during winter. The fish could only be hooked through drilled holes on the layer of ice. During summer, when the ice had melted into water, there would be no need to drill holes anymore. But the biggest problem now was…
“Her Majesty Lilian seems to have taken a really huge blow…”
Lydia shook her head. In fact, Rhode agreed with her. Lilian disliked those people to begin with, and now that she was faced with… even if he and Lydia had a bombastic talk with her, it would most likely not work. But Rhode still had some other ways to deal with her.
“I’ll resolve the issue with Her Majesty Lilian. But before that, I need to do something.”
“What is it?” Lydia asked curiously.