At night, Viktor sat in his carriage, returning to his mansion in the royal capital. The mansion had been completely rebuilt.
The servants outside bowed in unison when they saw their master arrive, opening the carriage door for Viktor.
Stepping down from the carriage, Viktor had his hands in his pockets while Cocotte was gently levitated out of the carriage behind him by a white magical force. Even without the soft white cloud beneath her, she was sleeping as soundly as a log.
"Thank you for your hard work."
The white cloud from the sky floated down, circling around Cocotte several times. As the magic formation array in the air flickered slightly, Viktor used magic to place Cocotte on the cloud before saying softly:
"Take her back to the garden."
The cloud naturally dared not disobey Viktor's command. It swiftly carried Cocotte away toward the garden. In the blink of an eye, they had vanished from sight.
Looking in the direction where the cloud disappeared, Viktor couldn't help but reflect. This dungeon run had been very successful, thanks in no small part to Cocotte's help. As a fifth-tier mage, Cocotte's contribution was far greater than when she was fourth-tier. To make a comparison, it was as if the "dungeon" system had been upgraded.
Though the magic mirror deserved some credit for making the world more realistic. However, Cocotte's advancement to fifth-tier mage had not yet been reported to the Mage Council. After all, since returning from the Elven Forest, she had been busy with the tasks Viktor had entrusted to her. As a result, although Cocotte had become a fifth-tier mage, she hadn't learned a single fifth-tier spell yet.
Viktor gazed at the dark garden while searching through his memories. In the game, most of the practical fifth-tier spells could be learned from the magic library in Endymion. It seemed they would need to make another trip to Endymion when the opportunity arose.
Thinking of this, Viktor shook his head. He turned and entered the mansion, the quietness of the grand courtyard even making his footsteps lighter.
Walking into the mansion, he happened to see Lia standing at the entrance, as if she had just come downstairs. She stood with her arms crossed, looking at Viktor as she asked:
"You're back? Wasn't the assessment supposed to take a long time?"
Viktor nodded and replied calmly: "Yes, it hasn't ended yet."
The new students' practical assessment would last for three days. During these three days, the new students would remain in the mirror world. However, Viktor had returned early because he didn't need to watch over the students constantly.
Other professors and the dean would observe the students through the mirror at the academy. Even the Queen herself was staying at the academy, possibly because of Princess Aurelianne. But in any case, with the Queen at the academy, the students' safety was naturally not an issue. No place could be safer than around a royal family member.
This was also the longest new student assessment in the Royal Magic Academy's history. Of course, if any student chose to give up during the assessment, they would be safely released from that bright mirror.
Lia's eyes kept drifting to the side, her expression stiff, making her feel somewhat awkward. After all, since discovering Viktor had read her diary last time, she really didn't know how to face her brother anymore.
However, Viktor seemed completely unconcerned, as if it had never happened. He calmly walked past Lia, heading upstairs.
Lia opened her mouth, wanting to say something: "Gwen..." Is she alright? But in the end, she couldn't voice it out. Her voice was so soft that besides herself, even Viktor couldn't hear the question that was quieter than a mosquito's buzz.
She sighed, watching Viktor walk further away, her lips gently closing.
Viktor gently pushed open the wooden door to his study and began searching for books on the neat shelves. The battle's impact hadn't reached this place; every book remained perfectly intact on its shelf.
Viktor's fingertips lightly brushed over the book spines, finally stopping at an ancient, heavy tome. Under magical control, the book floated into Viktor's hands.
Opening the pages, he began to read. It was about myths of deities bestowing thoughts upon their followers in ancient times. Different deities granted different types of thoughts, and the intense emotions contained within gradually evolved into various faiths over time.
Years later, those with absolute faith were honored as divine messengers. They carried their faith to the extreme to win back their deities. They deeply believed this was the only way to show the deities that humans needed them.
After carefully reading through it, Viktor gently closed the book. There wasn't just one type of "Goddess's faithful," and naturally there wasn't just one deity. So there were many fanatic followers who worshipped different deities.
They had basically completely distorted the deities' original intentions, wrongly executing divine will based on their singular and stubborn interpretations. Yet in this book, their actions were even overly romanticized.
In the game's background setting, those religious fanatics devoted to different deities had only one common purpose: to find the Child of God. They believed the Child of God was a human perfectly united with the Goddess's power, the best candidate to recall the Goddess.
To the devout followers, the Child of God was the purest and most sacred representation of deity in the mortal world. Therefore, it wasn't hard to understand why that group of fanatics had targeted Gwen - they viewed her as the Child of God directly under the Goddess of Justice.
However, ironically, the future Gwen, after awakening to her ruthless justice form, showed no mercy to the Goddess's followers. After Emperor Aubrey died, many evil beings took advantage of that period to infiltrate. Those followers of the Goddess were also restless. As a result, countless of them were killed by Gwen in her execution of justice.
Though now, they still lurked in the darkness.
Viktor put down the book and narrowed his eyes, looking out the window. A full moon hung high in the sky, with what seemed to be a strange black evil qi on its pristine white surface. That black streak slipped to the far side of the moon, vanishing without a trace.
Under the moonlight in the darkness, Vega's form blocked the bright moonlight, its shadow faintly visible on the ground. It was flying around at this time, the sound of its wing beats echoing in the night wind.
After a while, the crow seemed tired and quietly landed on a tree branch.
"Damn Viktor, what kind of contractor makes their deity spy on others!?"
Though Vega complained angrily, it still arrived at its destination. Standing on the branch, it stared straight at the Delin mansion.
The huge mansion was very quiet, with barely any lights lit. Under the bright moonlight, it looked particularly lonely.
Then, Vega's single eye turned brilliantly blue. Through Vega's gaze, it saw countless black stripes, like writhing lines, slowly crawling towards the depths of the Delin mansion.
How strange. Vega had never seen any deity with followers like this. Only those stubborn, arbitrary goddesses would have such blindly devoted fanatics.
Vega withdrew its sharp gaze, using its beak to preen its jet-black wings, trying its best to act like an ordinary crow.
At this time, a servant walked out carrying a lamp. She stood at the mansion's entrance looking around, even raising her head to scan the high tree canopy. Because it was too dark, she only noticed a crow standing on the branch, not realizing this crow had only one eye.
After the servant's gaze moved away and she went back into the mansion, Vega finally flapped its wings and flew towards Gwen's bedroom window.
Gwen's bedroom wasn't unfamiliar to it. Vega passed through the window, approaching the bed.
It saw that silver-white resilient knight now lying unconscious on the bed, eyes tightly closed. Though there seemed to be no discomfort on her body, she still couldn't wake up, as if trapped in endless slumber.
Looking at the unconscious Gwen, Vega thought somewhat playfully: Why not have Viktor come kiss her? Maybe she'd wake up then? Don't romance novels often have this kind of whimsical plot?
But Vega knew in its heart that such an absurd method definitely wouldn't work.
It stood in place as a mysterious black formation gradually constructed itself beneath its feet. The chaotic tentacles only writhed for a moment before gradually settling down.
Black light gradually enveloped Gwen's body, giving off a mysterious yet evil feeling.
Vega looked at Gwen, clicking its tongue: "Don't know why Viktor pays special attention to you specifically."
"Tch, I'll do this for his sake then."
It shook its body, and a jet-black feather gently fell beside Gwen's bed. Searᴄh the NovelZone.fun website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.
Then, Vega transformed into what looked like a puddle of black water, sliding down along the windowsill until the entire crow's body disappeared.
The black feather remained by Gwen's pillow, moving with her steady breathing. Under the moonlight, the black feather flickered with a slight glow, like a gemstone shining with mysterious radiance.
Vega was flapping its wings in the sky, about to fly towards the Kravina mansion. But suddenly, it blinked, feeling something was wrong. Then its body did a flip in the air, flying in a completely different direction from its original course.
In the woods near the royal capital, a white figure was continuously hunting various monsters. Blood flowed on the grass, gradually converging into a small stream that reflected the crimson moonlight.
Monster corpses with exposed white bones were piled into a small mountain, standing silently under the moonlight.
Sapphirose held a sharp blade as she slit a monster's throat, then threw it onto the corpse pile. She leaned against the pile of corpses, roughly eating her spoils of war while stuffing various materials that had dropped from the monsters' bodies into her pouch.
As Sapphirose swallowed a piece of monster flesh, her entire body's hair suddenly stood on end as she sensed danger rapidly approaching.
Her eyes flashed coldly as she stared intently ahead.
Whoosh—!
An arrow gleaming like ice crystal suddenly shot towards Sapphirose, sparkling brilliantly under the moonlight.
Sapphirose instinctively dodged this fierce attack.
She looked back to see an elderly white-haired man with a face full of wrinkles. His face bore the resilience of age, with some deep scars still visible.
He was mounted on horseback, accompanied by a group of strong mages carrying various implements.
All these people wore white cloaks bearing the same insignia, appearing like the only snow on this grassland, particularly eye-catching.
"Tch, I thought it was some monster, but turns out it's just a person," the old man said as he recognized Sapphirose, slowly withdrawing the ice bow and arrow he had manifested.
He turned his piercing gaze to the man beside him and asked: "Levi, what do you think?"
The man beside him rode his horse up next to the elder and pulled down his hood. His golden hair appeared particularly dazzling under the moonlight, and a blue light like rippling water flashed in the depths of his eyes:
"There's something off about her."
"Let's capture her alive first."
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