Miss Wang Weina, even your cousin won't do!

Deeppool lowered his head, his face full of sorrow. When he saw Reed and Wayne talking intimately, he realized that Reed was probably not kidnapped and restricted from leaving, as Leader Celt had said, but had stayed here voluntarily.

That means his chances of completing this mission are extremely slim.

To think that you could take her away by force is wishful thinking. Don't let Reed's gentle nature fool you; if it really came down to a fight, no one in the entire Deeppool, except for her sister Celt, could truly suppress her.

Therefore, the man in black robes could only lower his head and plead.

Anyway, if he leaves the mansion alone, he'll most likely be caught and killed by that horrible old witch, Felin, and her familiar. Staying here is also a death sentence. He might as well die, so what's the point of saving face if he's already dead? Completing the mission is the most important thing.

But to everyone's surprise, Wei Cao nodded, helped the man in black up, and agreed:

"I'll go with you."

My brother told me to wait for him at home, but this unfamiliar count's mansion is not Reed's home.

Her home is in Dublin, the largest mobile city in the North, the former site of the Northern Royal Palace, and now the place where the Deeppool's influence has penetrated the deepest.

She will stop her sister at all costs and do everything in her power to persuade Wayne to avert the impending war for the Victorian throne, in her own way!

Then, she would wait for Wayne's return in the royal palace in Dublin, in the home where they had grown up. She would wait for Wayne to tell her that "more interesting fairy tale."

"Let's go, Deep Pool."

"I am," Wei Cao said firmly, stepping out the door.

.............

Victoria, in the North, on the southern slopes of the Forgotten Mountains.

Mostima wiped the crimson blood from the corner of his mouth. The blood had a nauseating, metallic taste, mixed with the saltiness of sweat.

She was exhausted and in poor condition. The drawbacks of her long-term reliance on the Lock of Time had finally surfaced; her stamina, reaction time, and battlefield control were far below the level of a competent commander. Under her command, the few musketeers could essentially only operate in two modes of combat:

The first option is a volley; the second option is to dodge quickly.

Mostima wanted to command other tactics, such as crossfire and covering fire, but she was powerless to do so. She wished she could stop time so she could devise the next tactical approach in her mind before launching another attack, but unfortunately, the Lock of Time was not with her.

The musketeers were already being suppressed by the demons shrouded in the black "kingdom" before them. Their armor was beginning to show damage and contamination of varying sizes. If the situation did not improve, it would not be long before their armor was breached. And the Sarkaz, whose mortal bodies were far less robust than the Sarkaz, would be fatally exposed on the front lines of the battle against the demons.

Even if Mostima loses all his cavalry and his own life, he may not be able to stop the demon's advance. In fact, their corpses will become nourishment for the demon, helping him grow until he completely controls the forest and finally launches a counterattack on the "Forgotten Ones" outpost at the top of the mountain, destroying the first line of defense of human civilization.

The northern border of Victoria will become a paradise for demons, and hundreds of thousands of lives will be torn apart and devoured by the kingdom.

Mostima would not allow this to happen. At this moment, national boundaries would be cast aside in the face of absolute threat; they had to be here, helping humanity, not any particular nation, to eradicate this threat!

"Guards, dodge—volley fire!"

The revolver spewed out dazzling flames, and another patch of infected, living trees was blasted flat by the bullets. But even so, the demon in the center of the firepower only suffered a slight fading of the black mist on its body, and was otherwise completely unharmed.

This humanoid demon is very clever. He uses the entire infected forest as a shield. As long as the forest is not completely leveled, the musketeers cannot directly harm his true form.

Mostima gritted his teeth in anger, clenched his fists, but then helplessly let go.

She had no choice. Even for a force as powerful as the Revolver Cavalry, it was impossible to defend against the demons' attacks while simultaneously diverting their energy to clear the forest.

Is this the end? Is this all she can do, just endure this and wait for death?

Isn't there any Originium Arts that can kill an entire forest?

Just as she was feeling a wave of weakness, suddenly, the restless, vibrant forest fell silent. The next second, the tree branches began to turn yellow, and the leaves began to fall with a rustling sound.

Mostima was astonished to discover that they were dying.

"Reinforcements have arrived?"

He turned his head, and his eyes met Wayne's.

"Mostima...."

Wayne pursed his lips and gave an apologetic smile:

"Sorry, I'm late!"

Seeing that familiar smile, Mostima's heart seemed to skip a beat for half a second, and the immense pressure on her shoulders seemed to instantly ease, replaced by a deep sense of security. She closed her eyes, forcing back tears of relief, and managed a bittersweet but contented smile:

"No, you've come at just the right time."

"We've finally found you, Your Highness Wayne!"

“No,” Wayne shook his head, leading Ernest, who was activating the Originium Arts “Saltification,” forward and standing beside Mostima, solemnly replying, “I have finally found you, my Miss Mostima.”

Chapter Ninety-Five: Collapse Fear - Sent to Another Dimension

Victoria, in the North, on the southern slopes of the Forgotten Mountains.

The trees are withering, the earth's nutrients are being drained, and Ernest's Originium Arts coverage has reached an astonishing kilometer scale thanks to the amplification of mudstone.

Even revitalized trees are still trees, ultimately inseparable from the nourishment of the soil. Rather, it's more accurate to say that, due to their acquisition of consciousness through corruption, they require even more nutrients than ordinary trees to sustain their activity. And at this moment, a deadly poison has already flowed into the arteries—the roots—of this enormous body called the forest.

Trees possess remarkable resilience; even lightning, storms, and torrential rain cannot destroy them. They stubbornly survive. The demon, using the forest as a barrier to protect itself, was undoubtedly clever, but he overlooked the fact that the stronger the external form of life, the more fragile its inner self. Even a warrior strong enough to lift a cauldron cannot withstand a cup of poison. When the land rapidly becomes saline, the trees that continue to greedily absorb nutrients from it are like longevity deities mistaking poison for sugar; they will soon lose their vitality.

Trees began to shed their leaves with a rustling sound, and branches began to fall to the ground with a soft rustling. The cycle of life and death, which should have unfolded throughout the four seasons, was played out before Mostima's eyes in just a few minutes.

The trees died. The demon, standing at a distance, was powerless to do anything about it. Its magic could infect the earth, but it wasn't a sieve to extract the salt from the bodies of non-halophytic plants. It could only futilely try to infect a patch, let it die, infect another patch, let it die again, until there was no more forest nearby to use as a shield.

The seemingly impenetrable demonic shield that had plagued Mostima and the cavalry for so long, and even nearly... no, had driven them to the brink of despair, was destroyed within minutes of Wayne's appearance, in a way that she found incredibly "scientific."

Mostima felt a pang of helplessness and bitterness. With this kind of power, Prince Wayne, do you really need us to save you?

She turned her head to look at Wayne, who was standing beside her but was vaguely in the center of the crowd, and couldn't help but think.

Beneath that dashing exterior, is he truly the fragile young man who needs protection, as she once wished?

But Wayne couldn't possibly know the growing calm and complex emotions in Mostima's heart after her initial joy faded. He didn't have time to reminisce or talk about love with Mostima anytime soon.

On the way, he happened to encounter Ernest and Winster, who were locked in a standoff. Wayne originally believed that the more people who knew about the demon, the stronger the demon would become, and did not want to involve these two. However, for some reason, the two were so tense that they looked like they were about to fight, forcing Wayne to step in and stop them, bringing them along as well.

While their combat strength has increased, the enemy's strength has also increased accordingly. Although Ernest's Originium Arts unexpectedly targeted the demons, this doesn't mean Wayne can wage a protracted war against them. In combating the demons, a swift, decisive, and powerful strike is necessary!

Unlike Mostima's optimism, Wayne was serious. Having experienced the Lost Dust Walk event, he knew very well that they had only broken through the troublesome black shield protecting the inner guards. Next came the first phase, the second phase, and a berserk state.

Furthermore, the Emperor's Blade that Wayne knew was merely an incomplete form from the "human era," its power limited to less than half due to its reluctance to roam freely within Victoria's territory. But the Emperor's Blade before him—the Demon—was an ultimate, enhanced version that had abandoned all constraints and ceased to be human.

He wasn't sure if it would actually result in a phase of invincibility, a second phase of berserk mode, and a third phase of transformation with a massive area-of-effect attack. In short, they absolutely couldn't let the fight drag on too long!

"Steam armored squads, first, second, and third, advance!"

Before Wayne could give the order, Ernest pressed his advantage. He had dealt with demons before and knew that the longer the battle dragged on, the more disadvantageous it would be for his side. Therefore, taking advantage of the demon's shield weakening, he immediately issued the attack order.

The steam knight, shrouded in armor, spewed out a long trail of white steam from behind him, and with a single step, he propelled himself toward the demon's location.

Although we don't know exactly what this strange thing is, as long as it has a physical form, it doesn't pose a threat to a unit like the Steam Armored Knights, which specializes in annihilating humanoid creatures!

At least that's what they think.

At the same moment the steam-armored troops launched their charge, seemingly realizing that their attempt to rebuild the forest shield was futile, the Emperor's Blade—the Demon—shrouded in black mist let out a dizzying, ear-piercing roar. The vast amount of black mist that had been clinging to the trees and the earth began to gather towards the area centered on him.

The land shrouded in black smoke began to detach from the Forgotten Mountains themselves, and the speed of the advancing steam-armored knights, which was originally as fast as lightning, suddenly slowed down.

No, it wasn't that they slowed down. The steam-armored knights were still accelerating, and more and more scalding steam was billowing out behind them, but their speed was decreasing rather than increasing. What was being slowed down wasn't them, but "that space." The land shrouded in the black mist had been given a speed limit, and anyone within it, whether friend or foe, could not exceed that limit.

Just like using Tianhe-2 to download resources from Baidu Cloud, no matter how fast your computing speed is, without a membership, you'll only get 100KB/s.

Wayne's expression turned serious.

He knew how this ability manifested in the game—operators' attack speed would be significantly reduced. Now it seemed that on the real Terra, it wasn't just attack speed that was reduced; movement speed was also restricted. It's just that the Ark operators in the game didn't move at all, which prevented this characteristic from being fully utilized.

But what Wayne was worried about wasn't this threshold; he was worried about something else.

—The steam-armored knight has fallen into a sluggish state, a condition that only occurs when trapped in a realm. Does this mean that the demonic realm has already begun?

If that's really the case, then we're in big trouble. What's truly terrifying about the Kingdom isn't just its restrictions, but another ability.

When combined with a kingdom, the demon can unleash a terrifying spell—Collapse Fear—which forcibly knocks down all opponents within the kingdom, commonly known as an unconditional instant kill!

In the game, it can force the invincible, health-locking 42-year-old sister to retreat from the battlefield. But what about in reality?

Will you easily crush the enemy's heart? Or will you instantly pulverize all the enemies within your kingdom?

If only it were really that simple. Wayne had a very bad feeling. The spell "Collapse Fear" might have a much more complex effect on Terra than just "killing".

"Winster".

Wayne's tone was somewhat hurried; now was no time to hold back information concerning life and death. He briefly explained his speculations about demons and kingdoms to the old man with the unicorn, then asked the astonished Winster:

"Do you have a way to lead the soldiers out of that black fog?"

Winster silently shielded Wayne behind him, as if only in this way could he give himself a sense of security that "Wayne is under his protection." He looked at the steam-armored soldiers gritting their teeth and struggling forward in the black mist; unlike Wayne, he could see more.

The black mist is eroding the surface of the steam armor, trying to break through the automatic defense spells set up on the surface, infect the flesh and blood within, and enslave them into flesh and blood puppets like the trees they were just now.

The situation had become extremely urgent. However, he had to admit:

“Your Highness, this demon mainly operates in the Ursus region, and I know nothing about it. But if, if what you said is true... I'm sorry, I can't help it.”

If Wayne's intelligence is accurate, then defeating this demon requires a large amount of heavy long-range firepower. By covering the area with legion-level firepower, the threshold of the realm can be ignored, and the demon and the realm can be blown to smithereens.

But at this moment, they have no heavy long-range firepower, and even the powerful Originium Mage is only Ernest. Whether it is the Steam Armor Knights or the Unicorn Squad, they are specialized units for close combat and mid-range demolition, and are weak in long-range combat capabilities.

Completely restrained!

Winster was now somewhat in agreement with Ernest's opinion from not long ago: wouldn't it be better to keep it a secret and wait until Her Majesty Vina's legion arrived before launching the attack?

But time would not give him a chance to reflect. Under Ernest's gloomy face, the emperor's blade—the demon—raised its right hand.

The unadorned, thick gray leather gloves were the first sight the demon's true form, hidden beneath the thick fog, was seen by the charging steam-armored knight.

However, the next second, in the center of the palm, an energy ball with a pitch-black center and a scarlet outer edge began to condense, and the surrounding space emitted energy like lightning, which began to gather towards the center of the energy ball.

"Hiss—whoosh!"

A chilling, heavy breathing echoed in everyone's ears, and without warning, the demon clenched its right hand into a fist.

This was the last moment of reality witnessed by the three squads of steam-armored knights.

This was also the last time Wayne and the others saw the three squads of steam-armored knights.

The next second, the black mist they were standing in twisted and trembled for a moment, and the soldiers in it suddenly disappeared from everyone's sight.

This is the real-world fear of collapse, the meaning of forced withdrawal.

Cut through reality, create a "territory", fold space, set a threshold, and finally, cast a spell to send the enemy directly to another dimension.

Chapter 96 Wayne's Originium Arts: Destiny (Part 1)