Elden: Ring of Calamity

Chapter 546 Lies
Time goes back to a moment ago.

Yuno stared at the complex and obscure rune circuits beneath his feet. The first blood from Steinbeck and Marion surged into the unsealing array, like molten iron melting ice that had been deposited for thousands of years. The entire ley line roared like an angry dragon awakening.

The sealing array forged by Hethenes with supreme divine power rapidly dissolved, and the runic torrent that burst forth flowed along the circuit, like thousands of molten gold blood threads, surging wildly into his body, destroying the old, fragile structure of his flesh, meridians, and bones, and giving birth to a brand new divine body.
This process was incredibly painful, but the pleasure emanating from the depths of the soul was even more intense, as if the whole person was riding the wind and soaring into an unprecedented void, where one could shatter the earth with a single step and pluck stars with a single hand!
Is this what it feels like to have power?

Yuno couldn't help but burst into tears, and even wanted to run around shouting. He knew that this was only less than one-tenth of the accumulation of the furnace's ley lines, and that even after scheming for twenty years, he was only worthy of taking a share of the pie in the game between the kings and the gods—but that was enough!
In recent years, in addition to steadily advancing his plans, he has been paying close attention to the evolution of the world situation, including the treacherous factional struggles in the capital city of Rodel, as well as the earth-shattering war of the Shattered Star in the Eastern Continent.

Therefore, he knew better than anyone that there were plenty of fools like Segnis, Milea, and Osarion in the world whose strength couldn't contain their ambitions. Mortals like them, who had neither demigod blood nor ancestral blessings, had no chance of coveting godhood in the golden age of the three great dynasties. They could only wait for a chaotic era that was hard to come by, so they had a chance to fish in troubled waters.

Frankly speaking, the world is not chaotic enough yet. It is only because the Dragon King behind him, who is rising like a new star, is too powerful that it has attracted the attention of those unspeakable beings, like a butterfly flapping its wings, and caused unexpected turmoil at an impossible time.

And that was his chance.

His idea was simple: the bigger your appetite, the stronger you are. The runes flowing in this ley line are the ones that Hethenes snatched from the jaws of the Supreme Will. The Dragon King, the Giant King, and the Queen of Death haven't even touched them yet. You want to take the whole pot? How dare you?
Therefore, the best outcome is to take one's share and then slip away. As for the possible pursuit by the three dynasties, let them chase after us.

For those kings and gods they cannot defeat, the throne and the divine position are both their power and their shackles. Luciasanx could not possibly abandon Charlegios to hunt down such a small fry. With such a vast border and a path to godhood as a foundation, he could simply run beyond the Sea of ​​Fog. Where could he not go?
Even if these big shots fight to the death in the center of the stage in the future, and their arrogance is as great as that of the Queen of Death back then, they will still end up in a panicked and defeated end. As long as they live long enough, it is hard to say who will win and who will lose.

As Yuno sensed that his absorption of runes was slowing down, he realized that his body was nearing saturation. The excess runes were then injected into the teleportation array beneath his feet according to the established technique, and the spatial fluctuations around him became increasingly apparent.

He turned to face Lucia and Katpela not far away, placed his hand on his chest, bowed deeply, and said, "Your Majesty, I thank you for protecting me. This is not a mockery, but a heartfelt greeting from a mediocre mortal, a piece of fish to be slaughtered, to you non-human beings who hold the knife and chopping board."

As soon as he finished speaking, his body transformed into a beam of light and vanished instantly in the center of the magic array.

With the divine power that shares the same origin as the Jedi Seal, and the massive accumulation of ley line runes at any cost, this teleportation will undoubtedly allow him to easily escape from the North and stay away from the volcano that is about to erupt completely.

“Hey,” the Queen nudged Lucia’s shoulder with her elbow, “he said you’re not human.”

“I wasn’t originally,” Lucia retorted, while carefully sensing the state of the unsealing array.

Just as Yuno said, after he teleported away, the magic circle continued to operate automatically, and the earth vein runes were being pumped in continuously, condensing into crystals that were similar to life amber, which fell into the core of the altar with a tinkling sound. Judging from the amount of runes stored, any one of them was more than the life amber he used to awaken his primordial magic back then.

However, at this moment, the densely packed ley lines had already covered the altar, which was ten meters in diameter, and there was a tendency for them to pile up wildly upwards. The profound foundation upon which the Giant Dynasty had relied for its two thousand years of existence was now revealed in an incredibly simple way, displaying its terror.

At this rate, all the ley line runes will be extracted to the altar in half a day at most. The Jedi Seal, deprived of its energy supply, will also automatically disappear after the remaining runes are exhausted. At that time, he can restore contact with the outside world through the Memory Battlefield, mobilize a large army to attack from the north and south, and break through the Giant King's Court in one fell swoop.

After inspecting the unsealing array, Lucia also took the opportunity to examine the teleportation array base left by Yuno. Presumably, fearing that Yuno would pursue him, Yuno had deliberately left several extremely fragile one-time circuits in the rune array. When the vast runic energy drove the array to send Yuno away, the base below was also burned, eliminating any possibility of being pursued.

“Indeed cautious enough—” The Queen stroked her smooth chin and clicked her tongue in admiration. “It will probably take you a lot of effort to kill him in the future.” Lucia half-squatted on the ground, his fingertips tracing the master-level rune circuits, but the image of the fiery figure that had suddenly attacked them half a day ago flashed through his mind.

He pondered for a moment and said, “It doesn’t matter. Our purpose in coming here was not to kill him. In this game in the North, he is ultimately an insignificant little character. It is precisely because Yuno saw through this that he dared to propose cooperation with us. He is very smart, especially compared to those schemers who have similar ambitions to him. He is much smarter.”

“Heh,” the Queen naturally understood his meaning, shook her head and chuckled, “That’s right, such a smart person naturally knows when to put himself in which position. As long as he doesn’t get in the way, it’s fine to kill him later.”

“More important than that is our agreement.” Lucia grabbed a handful of leyline crystals, crushed them in his palm, and tossed them back to the ground like dust. He stood up, turned around, and said with a clear gaze, “You said you would tell me everything you know without reservation.”

"Did I say that?" The Queen walked forward with her hands behind her back, hopping like a little girl playing hopscotch. Seeing Lucia's face darken, she quickly changed her tune, "Oh, right, right, I do think I did say that. Let me think... You promised me that you would help me no matter what I do this time, right?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, my plan is to use these runes to heal my old injuries, then force myself to surpass Marika's level, and while she and Rdagan are fighting amongst themselves, I'll launch a full-scale attack on Rodel, wipe out the Golden Nobles, and restore the borderlands to my reign of terror, hahaha."

Lucia remained expressionless.

"Hey, why are you being so serious?"

Amidst her rambling, the Queen had already leaped forward several steps. One toe hovered in the air, her lotus foot twirling lightly as she turned to look at the young Dragon King, her smile radiant. "I remember before we left the village," she said, "Grandma held our hands and went on and on about the traditions of the shamans—"

"The closer it is to parting, the happier you should smile. This will dispel all misfortune and leave the best fate for the people you care about. It's like sweeping away the dust and burying a warm seed in the soil. No matter how far apart you are, you can always see that blooming flower when you look back."

"Back then, she was smarter than me. Her smile was like a ray of sunshine, much prettier than those idols and portraits now. But I wouldn't listen to advice and cried for ages like an idiot. Now I realize that I've been inferior to her since then, no wonder I've lost so badly in this life."

"What are you doing!" Lucia's expression changed abruptly, and he reached out to grab Carter's hand in a mixture of shock and anger.

hum-

Like raindrops falling into a lake, creating ripples, time and space stretched almost infinitely within an extremely limited scale. Although the two were only a hair's breadth apart, they were rapidly pulled apart by the retreat of time and space!
"It reminds me of the sword you stabbed me with in Galid," the Queen said, watching the figure struggling violently but being dragged away by the laws of spacetime. A smile played on her lips as she said, "It's good that your Void Wings are progressing slowly, and you haven't grasped the power of spacetime as quickly as I said. At times like this, being a little slow is fine."

"But you must always remember another thing I said, young dragon: you must live. As long as you live, anything is possible."

She turned her back, staring at the two ley lines at her feet that had been almost completely exhausted in an instant in order to block Lucia. With lightning speed, she wiped the corner of her eye, pursed her lips, and said, "Anyway, I've remembered this. This time, I will never cry again, no matter what."

(End of this chapter)