Volume 10 Chapter 540: Fall of the Ice t.i.tan and Escape From Other World City Gusta
At the largest plains in the south of the Octavia Empire, the central region of Victor Prairie, Other World City of Gusta, in a chilly cathedral underneath. Bella and Knight King Liath found the trapped Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley here and the previous pope and the traitor, Ice Sorceress Isla.
The Ice Sorceress Isla, who betrayed the Snow Dragon Queen, was originally one of Eli Sh.e.l.ley’s most important subordinates and belonged to the extremist pro-war faction and always advocated for the invasion of this Other World dimension. Among the Six Pillar Demon Dragons, the Snow Dragon Queen was the moderate one, so the two had always been at odds, which led to this final betrayal.
In the crusade of the Radiant Church more than thirty years ago, Isla betrayed the Snow Dragon Queen at the last moment, joining forces with the Radiant Church’s traitors in a secret plot against their two respective supreme leaders. Unfortunately, the Ice Throne did not recognize it as its usurper. For the past thirty years, she had been trying to find a way to break the Ice Throne’s protective barrier. Without the approval of the Ice Throne, she would not be fully able to take over everything that belonged to Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley.
Bella stood behind Ice Sorceress Isla and listened as this sorceress muttered to herself. Bella was not interested in her betrayal, but the news that both the female pope and the Snow Dragon Queen were fine caught her interest. The two beauties on the Ice Throne were fine. Only their souls were sealed in a different location, and their bodies were now temporarily in a soulless state.
“Liath, please watch over the two of them. I’ll look for their souls and save them.”
“Bella, one of them is a demon and the other is a demonic dragon. They are the nemesis of us knights. You’re making things hard for me with this request.”
“Are you just going to watch as they’re kept here by that strange sorceress and not do anything about it then, Liath? That wouldn’t fit with the knight’s code either!”
After Ice Sorceress Isla left, Bella and Knight King Liath decided to split up, with Liath staying here to watch over the pope and the queen’s bodies while Bella retrieved their sealed souls.
After deciding on their plan of action, Knight King Liath was a bit confused. Even though the pope had demon blood in her, she was still wearing the clothes of the pope, which at least justified things for her. But things were different for the Snow Dragon Queen. She was a demonic dragon; Liath had killed many demonic dragons when she was still called the Knight King.
Right now, Liath’s duty had turned into that of a protector, and the change came so fast that she found it a little hard to get used to. Fortunately, Bella’s timely persuasion was able to untie the knot in Liath’s heart. On the other hand, Bella followed Ice Sorceress Isla, who had gone to her resting place.
This special room located deep in the cold cathedral was the central area where Isla controlled the entire Gusta City. As long as she had control of this place, she had control over the Snow Wolf packs and Polar Ice Bears on the outer region, as well as the aurora borealis in the sky. The Yeti race was not within its realm of control. The one they wors.h.i.+pped was Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley. The strongest combat units that Isla had direct control of were those Frost Cyclops in the cathedral.
Other than the crystal that controlled everything, there was also a strange-looking magical contact crystal in the room. Bella thought it was strange because the symbol on the crystal was that of the Radiant Church. Only the highest-ranking members were qualified to use the Radiant Church’s magical contact crystal, which she could have seized from the previous pope and placed here as a trophy.
However, Bella could see that the magical contact crystal was lit when she came in here. The person on the other end of the conversation with Ice Sorceress Isla was wearing a hood that was just long enough to cover their face, so Bella couldn’t see who they were. However, Bella had come a little late. They had already been talking for a while before Bella came.
“Lord Sorceress, can you use that guy to exterminate those knight squads?”
“You humans really are troublesome. Awakening that experimental Ice t.i.tan is too risky. Don’t they only have a Dragon Knight General in that squad? What are you afraid of? I’ll take care of it myself!”
“Lord Sorceress. According to our latest information, Dragon Knight General is not their strongest force. They have many existences whose strengths couldn’t be identified at the moment.”
It took some persuading before Ice Sorceress Isla agreed to awaken the Ice t.i.tan sealed at the back of the cathedral with reluctance to have it deal with the knight squad stirring up the mess outside. The Ice t.i.tan, whose battle power was considered to be on the same level as the Six Pillar Demon Dragons, was believed to be the pinnacle of artificial Demonic Beings.
Under special circ.u.mstances, the power of the Ice t.i.tan could suppress the Six Pillar Demon Dragons. For example, when awoken in this snowy place, the ice attributes of the Ice t.i.tan would allow it to surpa.s.s the Six Pillar Demon Dragons. Unfortunately, the Ice t.i.tan in Isla’s hands was not the complete version but merely an experimental sample.
The hooded-person only had the confirmation of existences almost at the level of Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley and Thunder Dragon Queen Geleman, so Ice Sorceress Isla decided to use the Ice t.i.tan in the fight. As for where the Radiant Church received this information, Bella could not figure it out at the moment.
Bella was looking for the souls of the two beauties, and it was right there in the Ice t.i.tan. Ice Sorceress Isla had sealed the souls of both the Snow Dragon Queen and the female pope in the Ice t.i.tan’s heart, planning to use their souls as an energy supply for the Ice t.i.tan.
This was similar to the artificial Lava Demon G.o.d that Bella encountered before, so she wondered if both of them learned it from the same place. The Ice t.i.tan’s body was ma.s.sive, much bigger than that of the Lava Demon G.o.d. Bella could only see two huge arms on the ground. The rest of the Ice t.i.tan’s size was buried underground with only two fists sticking aboveground.
Ice Sorceress Isla found a summoning formation on the ground and summoned out the heart of the Ice t.i.tan. The gigantic heart, made out of ice, didn’t look much different in structure than a human heart. Through the transparent walls of the ice heart, Bella could see two blurred figures inside. From the slender silhouettes, Bella could tell that the outlines belonged to girls. These should be the souls of the imprisoned female pope and Snow Dragon Queen.
Isla had preserved them. Based on their initial agreement, the traitors of the Radiant Church asked her to completely erase the soul of the previous Radiant Pope, but since she wanted to collect these precious experiment materials, she did not do as the Radiant Church said and instead sealed up the previous-generation female pope.
Isla did not notice that it had been trailed here. It opened the Ice t.i.tan’s heart, seemingly wanting to check on the conditions of the two souls inside. Bella thought that two humanoid souls would be seen after it was opened, but unexpectedly, that was not what she saw. She only saw two bottles with seals stuck onto them. The silhouettes she saw through those icy walls earlier were just reflections of their souls.
“My Queen, I’ve come to see you. It’s been thirty years. You…You are!”
“Have a nice trip, Your Excellency Sorceress.”
Bella caught the right opportunity to launch an attack when n.o.body was around. Before, it was inconvenient for her to display the power of a Demon G.o.d in front of Knight King Liath. Now that she wasn’t here, she could transform out the Demon G.o.d’s Claws and grabbed Isla’s shoulders in an instant.
In a moment of inattentiveness, Isla was kicked directly into the heart of the Ice t.i.tan. Bella took the opportunity to grab the sealed bottles after kicking Isla into Ice t.i.tan’s heart.
Ice t.i.tan’s heart got stained by quite a lot of blood. It seemed to be able to sense the blood as the Ice t.i.tan’s heart began awakening. Bella had just s.n.a.t.c.hed away the two bottles when the Ice t.i.tan’s heart swallowed Ice Sorceress Isla alive. Isla did not even manage to scream before she was absorbed by the heart of the Ice t.i.tan.
The ground showed signs of vibration. After absorbing the Ice Sorceress, signs of life seemed to appear from the Ice t.i.tan. Bella did not just turn around and leave. Instead, she threw a bottle of diluted Tears of the G.o.ddess at the t.i.tan’s heart, and the Ice t.i.tan, which was originally about to go on a rampage, instantly quieted down again.
The G.o.ddess’ tears were a deadly poison to artificial Demonic Beings. This time, Bella had poured it right into the heart, which increased the damage several times. But Bella did not care what happened after that. She got what she wanted, and the Ice t.i.tan won’t be resurrected anytime soon.
After taking out Isla with that sneak attack, Bella went back to the command area and smashed the control crystal directly. After the crystal’s control was broken, the Snow Wolves and Polar Ice Bears blocking the way outside regained consciousness and quickly scattered, making way for the knights.
The knight squad on standby outside chose to remain on standby, awaiting further orders from Bella.
“What’s up, Bella. You succeeded?”
“Yeah. Liath, quickly go outside and inform Olya and the girls to meet up with us in the city. I’ll take over your job here.”
Knight King Liath, who had been waiting by the Ice Throne for a while finally, saw the returning Bella. She gave her a simple briefing. There was now chaos in Gusta City. After losing control of both Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley and Ice Sorceress Isla, the Yeti and the Frost Cyclops in the city were left with no leader, so the chaos ensued.
After Liath left, Bella carefully went to the Ice Throne and destroyed the barrier around the Ice Throne with a light scratch. Bella did not release the souls imprisoned inside the sealed bottles directly. Just as her hand touched Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley’s body, the queen’s clothes broke due to being frozen for such a long time. With just a light touch, she inadvertently broke the clothes of the two girls.
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t expect this to happen. Don’t worry, though. I’ll take responsibility.”
The souls of the female pope and the Snow Dragon Queen in the bottles had already been woken up. They were both looking anxiously at Bella. The bottles were transparent to a certain degree, so they could see clearly how Bella was fiddling with their bodies outside.
It didn’t feel good watching someone else playing with your body in an out-of-body experience. But they couldn’t do anything about it. If Bella didn’t open the bottles, then they could not stop her even if she wanted to destroy their bodies right in front of them.
When the secret team sent by the Radiant Church arrived at Victor Prairie, a few days had already gone by. At that time, the super blizzard was no longer blowing through Victor Prairie, and the Other World City of Guta had also disappeared mysteriously. Losing the support of the controlling force, the city was teleported back to its own world after the energy was exhausted.
Bella’s knight squad, which had been within their view just moments ago, suddenly disappeared as if they had evaporated into thin air. Bella’s knight squad did not disappear, they just entered another round of disguise. After occupying the Ice Temple, Bella and the girls did not find any treasure. After saving the trapped female mercenaries, they borrowed the armor of the mercenaries and pretended to be one of them.
Due to being frozen for such a long time, the female mercenaries who were trapped here for decades still had their ages fixed in the moment when they were sealed. Considering that they might cause unnecessary panic if they stayed in the northern empire, they took the letter of introduction written by Bella under her advice and went south to the central Manasvir Empire instead. That place was now secretly under Bella’s control, so Bella could deal with their ident.i.ty problem.
The goals of mercenaries were not as great as a knight’s. It wouldn’t be strange for mercenaries to ride the special war horses of knights in the north, either. Bella and the girls carried a large number of materials collected from the Snow Wolves and Polar Ice Bears, pretending that they were a group of mercenaries out hunting, heading into the next city.
After the blizzard subsided in Victor Prairie, the weather in the entire northern region was still winter, but the intense blizzards were gone. The sun appeared in the sky for the first time in a long time. Under the psychological effect of the view, Bella also stopped feeling cold.
Previously, the entire northern empire had been suffering from a super blizzard, largely because of Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley. She had no malicious intentions, but due to the lack of guardians around the Ice Throne, she released a large amount of ice energy that indirectly led to the tragedy of the super blizzard in the north.
Bella and their group first came to the first city in the north, a warhorse trading city called Ombia. This place was famous for its horse trade as there was good traffic in the place. Bella and the girls finally got rid of their terrible camping experience and eating dry rations, finally finding temporary accommodation in the inns.
Ombia was a smaller to medium-sized city, so the conditions of the inns here were simple. They didn’t have the super luxurious ones, only cheap inns that you could book a room for a dozen copper coins a night. Bella selected a relatively inconspicuous little inn at the center of this small city as their temporary accommodation. After paying a fee of ten gold coins to rent the entire inn, the owner of the inn happily handed over the keys to Bella.
With this much money, they could even open up a new inn in the town. Bella did not choose a big city because she was worried about being recognized. Many beauties in their knight squad would easily be recognizable in a big city, which would also cause a lot of unnecessary trouble for them.
There was a very important reason for this. Their situation had temporarily changed. After rescuing the previous-generation pope, Bella did not go straight to the Radiant Church’s headquarters, the Holy City of Sylvia. All the signs pointed to the fact that the previous generation pope had been betrayed for the current pope to ascend. The Radiant Church could only maintain a wait-and-see att.i.tude at the moment, then consider what to do next after they were done scouting the situation.
This small inn was completely booked by Bella and would receive no other customers. The inn’s original waiters and staff had also been dismissed. Bella’s requirement for a stronghold was to have complete control of it. She won’t allow any outsiders a chance to even peek at her harem of girls. This situation was not new in Ombia. Many high-ranking mercenary groups basically liked to book whole inns like this.
As for the matter of the room allocations, Bella had some evil ideas. Her Little Sister Lisha, girlfriend Kriss, Demon G.o.d Angel, and Evil G.o.d Mia would stay with Bella. Snow Dragon Queen Eli Sh.e.l.ley and the previous generation pope, which they rescued last night, were also arranged to rest in one room. Bella still had yet to release their souls. For security reasons, Bella also had Knight King Liath and Dragon Knight General Olya share the room with the pope and Eli Sh.e.l.ley. Right now, the strongest pure human girls by Bella’s side were these two.
The dragon beauties like Lolita shared the same room. Besides Lolita and the two other lolis that Bella had not completely “eaten,” the rest of the dragon beauties basically shared special intimate relations with Bella. However, the objects of Bella’s “crime” were not them this time. The rest of the beautiful knights were also arranged to a room by Bella.
Since there were human beauties around, Bella would prioritize them, not because of any discriminatory reasons, but because they had the lowest stamina among the races and were easily bullied limp, allowing her a quick and easy feeling of domination. The beauties of the other races all had better stamina than humans, so the domination effect did not show itself as quickly.
“Bella, did you arrange these rooms on purpose?”
“Big Sister Ingrid, I haven’t even said anything and your mind has already wandered off. So, let’s start from you tonight!”
In the face of Bella’s dominance, the other beautiful knights had no way of resisting. They originally hoped that Bella would control herself a little with Dragon Knight General Olya around, but even Olya herself was about to “fall.” Not being able to count on her, they could only hope that Bella was gentle on them tonight and did not humiliate them as much.
After Bella a.s.signed the rooms, she was ready to lock the doors of the inn. The security in Ombia was not very good. Since there were too many mercenaries here, all sorts of people could be found. An inn filled with beautiful girls was easy to attract unwanted attention. So, to avoid that, it was best to be a little cautious. However, someone came to knock on the door just as Bella was about to lock them.