"I... I'm sorry, but could you please help me now?" Evangelyne asked in her heart.
She knew her apology was very pale, but time no longer allowed her to express her regret more vividly.
She hoped this divine could understand her.
"Hmph, who do you think I am? You think I'll forgive you with such a light apology?" The resentment in that voice still hadn't subsided.
Just when Evangelyne thought she was really going to die, that voice suddenly changed tone: "So, you'd better serve me well from now on, understand?"
"Eh?"
"Eh what eh? Stretch out your hand and call my divine name." That voice said impatiently, "My name is Qing, God of Nature and Life."
This divine dwelling in the staff passed down through generations of the elven royal family seemed to have quite high compatibility with the elven race.
Nature and life—the Elves positioned themselves as guardians of nature and life.
"Qing..."
"Divine name! Not my name!"
"Oh, oh, God of Nature and Life..." Evangelyne followed Qing's words and quietly recited Qing's divine name. Then she felt like her body was burning.
"Mm?"
A staff entirely emerald green broke through space and appeared before Evangelyne. She endured the pain and grasped the wooden staff, and the divine's voice became even clearer.
"Bear with it. The poison in your body is actually meant to prevent the elven emperors from using my authority without permission. It's just that because your bloodline isn't pure, this poison's effect is still acceptable." Compared to Flora, Qing, who had accompanied the elven race through countless years, knew much more.
For instance, the poison in Evangelyne's body wasn't the Council of Elders targeting her—every elven emperor had to be given this poison.
Only with the Council of Elders' permission could the elven emperor use Qing's power. If an elven emperor wanted to use the divine artifact's power without permission, the poison in their body would be triggered, making them wish they were dead and completely lose their ability to act.
But Evangelyne didn't know about this at all.
However, she didn't have spare energy to think about these things now. The most important thing currently was to eliminate the wolf pack around them.
With divine power, doing this was very easy.
Evangelyne just waved the staff once, and the wild beasts surrounding them immediately collapsed. A milky white airflow emerged from their bodies and gathered at Evangelyne's staff.
"This is the power of life." She quietly murmured to herself, then threw this mass of life essence toward the already stunned Xi Mengyao.
White essence flowed into her body, and Xi Mengyao discovered that her originally depleted body inexplicably began to recover. Her strength returned.
Slowly getting up from the ground, she felt her condition might be even better than usual.
"Qingyu... wait, what's wrong with you?!" Xi Mengyao was about to ask about Lin Qingyu's situation when she was horrified to see Evangelyne covering her chest and collapsing to the ground with a pale face.
Quickly stepping forward to hold Evangelyne, Xi Mengyao discovered that this Elven Empress's complexion was quite terrible, like a patient who could die at any moment.
"I'm fine. I just received punishment for using power that doesn't belong to me without authorization." Evangelyne coughed weakly a few times. "Help me up. We still need to keep moving forward."
"That won't be necessary, Your Majesty Evangelyne." Just as Evangelyne finished speaking, a mature female voice came from not far away.
Xi Mengyao turned to look and saw a black-haired mature woman dressed somewhat fashionably walking toward them with her arms crossed.
Reinforcements? Or enemy?
Xi Mengyao wasn't sure, but she knew she couldn't just hand Evangelyne over to this woman.
"Who are you?"
"I am Iyeft. Ah, perhaps you're more familiar with this face of mine." The mature woman rubbed her face a few times, revealing that famous face known in all worlds. "Recognize me now?"
"One of the Four Heavenly Kings of the demon race?!" Xi Mengyao's breathing almost stopped. Why, after just dealing with the wolf pack, did such a difficult opponent immediately pop up?
This kind of big boss-level character should be waiting at the end for heroes to challenge, right? What did it mean for her to appear in front of two small fries like them?
"Since you know who I am, hand the person over to me. I have no intention of harming you. I believe Your Majesty Evangelyne understands me."
"Mengyao, hand me over to her..." Evangelyne said to Xi Mengyao.
This wasn't because she wanted to sacrifice herself, but because she knew she currently had an alliance with the demon race. This Heavenly King was clearly sent by Leticia to pick her up.
But how would Xi Mengyao know these things? In her view, Evangelyne had just risked her life to protect her, so now she should protect Evangelyne too.
The demon race's reputation among humans was much worse than the Elves', and Xi Mengyao had heard that the demon race and Elves were enemies. If Evangelyne fell into demon hands, who knew what torture she might suffer.
"I absolutely won't hand her over to you!" Xi Mengyao said loudly to Iyeft, suppressing her fear.
"Tch." The Heavenly King clicked her tongue somewhat helplessly. If Xue'er hadn't emphasized not to use force, she would have snatched the person away long ago. "I really have no malicious intent. Our Empress wants to meet Your Majesty Evangelyne."
"I understand now. This is all your demon race's doing, isn't it!" Xi Mengyao suddenly figured it out—why this Heavenly King was waiting here, why she said their Empress wanted to meet Evangelyne, why Songstress kept saying she wouldn't harm Evangelyne's life.
It was simple—this was all a demon race conspiracy. They somehow learned of Evangelyne's whereabouts, so they sent people to secretly scheme and plot, wanting to control this Empress.
Her being lured to that place must also be the demon race's doing. Didn't the demon race have that kind of memory-altering magic? She must have been caught at some unknown time.
"What? No..." Iyeft was about to explain when another commotion came from the other side.
The Guild Leader, covered in dust, led a group of people charging over aggressively. When the leading Guild Leader saw Iyeft standing there and Evangelyne and Xi Mengyao hugging each other on the ground, her brain couldn't quite process it.
This was the demon race's Heavenly King, right?
That seemed to be the Elven Empress?
"Um, could someone explain the current situation to me?" The girl with prophetic abilities couldn't understand the current situation this time either.
......
"Ugh, I think I have a stiff neck."
Early in the morning, under the cool breeze of the wilderness, Leticia opened her eyes, then felt her neck was super sore.
Supporting her neck with one hand, she stood up and stretched.
"You didn't sleep all night?" After stretching, she turned to ask Bai Ling.
The white-haired girl who had also stood up nodded, "Mm, but it's fine. Just one night without sleep—no big deal."
"I wasn't worried about you." Leticia snorted, "That girl is pretty well-behaved."
She was referring to Yi Yujun, who was sleeping soundly leaning against that large rock not far away. It was a miracle this girl could sleep.
Walking to Yi Yujun's side, Leticia reached out and poked the girl's face.
"Don't mess around. I haven't slept enough yet." The girl waved her hand randomly.
Really making herself at home.
"Get up, Miss Yi!" Leticia leaned close to Yi Yujun's ear and shouted loudly.
The sudden loud noise made Yi Yujun jump up from the ground. She looked confusedly at the sun in the sky, then at the two girls in front of her.
After a few seconds, her brain started working.
Ah, so she had fallen asleep.
"Aha ha ha..." She laughed awkwardly.
"Let's go. Time is urgent—we still need to find Little Yu." Leticia pushed Yi Yujun. "You lead the way."
"I don't know where they are either." Yi Yujun immediately indicated she was equally clueless. "But if Songstress is with them, then their safety shouldn't be a problem."
"Hearing such words from your mouth, how can they not sound believable?" Leticia chuckled. Coming from the mouth of the culprit, such words had too little credibility.
But Yi Yujun had her own arguments. She had captured Lin Qingyu to get Lin Qingyu to join them—she couldn't kill Lin Qingyu and have a dead person join, right?
"Our goal is to get that Half-Elf to join us, so we care a lot about her safety." Yi Yujun explained, "Actually, after hearing news that a Half-Elf had stolen a divine artifact and escaped from the elven race, we'd been looking for that Half-Elf."
"How did you know?"
"Probably because we have helpers in the elven race. I can't say for sure—the seniors haven't told me about these things. I only know that there are quite a few people in this world who agree with us." Yi Yujun frowned.
As she spoke, she glanced at Leticia, "You're also someone chosen by the divine. Would you like to..."
"Um, I'm with her. Aren't you afraid I'll pretend to agree and then act as a spy?" Leticia pointed at Bai Ling walking beside her and asked a very realistic question.
From Yi Yujun's perspective, she and this person named Bai were on the same side. Her trying to poach people in front of Bai Ling—forget about Bai Ling's feelings, if Leticia really agreed, would she really dare let Leticia join their Divine Throne?
Impossible, right?
"Of course I'm not afraid. Although I don't know the principle, everyone who joins us is sincere." Yi Yujun said proudly, "Everyone has noble aspirations. It's these that unite us firmly."
"You mean poisoning an innocent girl to gain our trust? Or attacking a defenseless girl?"
"The ideal is noble, but we can't sacrifice our own people." Yi Yujun argued, "This was the plan with the least losses. Besides, I only have so few resources to use. You don't expect me to charge that manor, do you? I'm not stupid."
Yi Yujun's argument was quite convincing. Even Leticia didn't know how to refute it.
They weren't on the same side—they indeed didn't need to care about their feelings.
The only thing that could poke at their conscience was making Xi Mengyao poisoned.
"Actually, I originally planned to have Songstress invite me over to detoxify that girl, but then you directly found the elven race, making my plan fall through."
Yi Yujun's plan was actually quite thorough. At that time, Songstress was still deeply trusted by Bai Ling, and Bai Ling probably wouldn't suspect someone she called over.
Then Yi Yujun could stay in the manor under the pretext of treating Xi Mengyao's illness. As long as she could get close to Lin Qingyu, Yi Yujun would have much more room to operate.
As a result, she hadn't expected Bai Ling to be so well-connected, directly calling over the real deal, causing Yi Yujun's plan to fail.
"Why would Songstress join you? Isn't she a retired hero?" Bai Ling interjected.
She had been thinking about why Songstress would join this organization after retirement. Was it because the Hero Association did something wrong?
Or did she have some new ideas?
"Her? She just wants to continue singing." Yi Yujun indicated that Songstress's wish was quite simple. "She likes singing, likes singing those battle songs, but after retirement she couldn't go to the battlefield anymore."
"It just so happened that I discovered she had the ability to be recognized by the divine, so I had her join us. Although there's usually nothing for her to do, at least she has something to look forward to."
"According to what you're saying, you're still good people?" Leticia raised an eyebrow. "Speaking of which, I remember there's an old man called Old Eagle in Central City who also has some connection to the divine. What's your relationship with him?"
"That guy? We have no relationship with him. He only thinks about profiting for himself. Even if he joined us, he'd be useless and would just get us into trouble." Yi Yujun said. Besides, the divine in Old Eagle's artifact had quite a bad temper.
So they had no relationship. But thinking about it, that was normal. With that old man's personality, he would never submit to others.
He was already a big shot himself—having him join other organizations as a subordinate seemed impossible no matter how you thought about it.
Just as Leticia was thinking, Bai Ling poked her with her hand.
"What? Looking for a beating?" Leticia reflexively retorted.
"No, look ahead." Bai Ling pointed forward, squinting.
There were two small black dots in the distant wilderness. Leticia couldn't see clearly.
So she cast a vision enhancement spell on herself and looked that way again. This time, she could see clearly.
"Is that Xi Mengyao? And the one she's holding is Lin Qingyu?" Leticia's eyes widened.
Yes, it was Evangelyne, no mistake. That girl being held in Xi Mengyao's arms with her eyes closed was indeed Evangelyne.
"Wait, Miss Bai, think back to what Lin Qingyu looks like." Why was Lin Qingyu in their memories the same as Evangelyne's appearance?
Bai Ling pressed her forehead, showing a confused expression. It seemed she had also discovered something was wrong.
The Lin Qingyu in their memories seemed to have always looked like she did now, but they could guarantee that Lin Qingyu definitely didn't look like this a day ago.
"That's Evangelyne, right?" Bai Ling glanced at Leticia. "You knew all along?"
She probably understood what Leticia meant earlier by "heaven's secrets cannot be revealed." Evangelyne, the Elven Empress, indeed had a rather sensitive identity.
"I guessed." Leticia shrugged. "I only confirmed completely when I had a heart-to-heart talk with her later."
"Is now really the time to discuss such things?" The carefree attitude of these two made Yi Yujun somewhat dumbfounded. "That Half-Elf clearly doesn't look well."
Shouldn't they rush over to save her?
"No rush. Since she's entered our field of vision, nothing will go wrong... Oh my god, why are there Sand Sea Worms in this godforsaken place?!" Leticia had just waved her hand nonchalantly when she saw the ground beneath those two girls beginning to collapse.
A sand-colored giant worm opened its mouth full of sharp teeth, waiting for its desired prey to fall into its mouth.
"Miss Bai!" Leticia immediately drew her magic sword and began casting spells, while also shouting to Bai Ling.
Bai Ling had already transformed into a streak of light and rushed out.
Xi Mengyao, who suddenly lost her footing, hadn't had time to figure out what was happening when a blazing spear carrying dazzling radiance passed by her side, pointing straight at her feet.
------!!!
The indescribable terrifying wail made Xi Mengyao couldn't help but frown. She wanted to look down to see what happened, but found herself supported by a cloud, completely unable to see the scene below.
What was happening?
Before Xi Mengyao could react, Bai Ling appeared in front of her, snatched Evangelyne away with one hand and slung her over her shoulder, then grabbed Xi Mengyao with her free hand.
With a whoosh, the scenery before Xi Mengyao's eyes changed rapidly. In almost the blink of an eye, Xi Mengyao found herself in a different place.
Appearing before her were the familiar Miss Su and another unfamiliar pretty girl, while the person holding her was Miss Bai.
Now she was completely safe.
Xi Mengyao didn't know why seeing Miss Bai made her feel this way, but Bai Ling being here gave her an infinite sense of security.
"Little Yu, she..." Xi Mengyao was about to explain the situation when Leticia had already stepped forward to Evangelyne's side.
"Energy exhaustion, plus toxin outbreak in her body. The situation is a bit dangerous." Leticia just took one look and roughly understood Evangelyne's current condition.
This girl couldn't be said to be in good health—she could be said to be in critical condition.
On the other side, Xi Mengyao intermittently told Bai Ling about their experiences.
When Bai Ling heard that the demon race's Heavenly King had appeared here, she subtly glanced at Leticia.
The Heavenly King appearing here couldn't be a coincidence no matter how you thought about it. Combined with what Xi Mengyao had just said, Bai Ling felt this was most likely Leticia's self-directed performance.
"Why are you looking at me?" Leticia felt Bai Ling's gaze and glared back rudely. "I need to take her back to the Demon Realm. It's hard to cure her on the human side."
This reason was half true, half false. The true part was that the human side indeed couldn't cure Evangelyne. The false part was that the Demon Realm couldn't cure her either.
However, Evangelyne's current condition only looked scary—her life could still be saved.
"Really?"
"Are you suspecting I'm lying to you?"
"Mm." Bai Ling nodded. "Little Xi said she saw Iyeft."
Ah, this...
"Then how did they escape?" Leticia was a bit confused. Could it be that Iyeft deliberately let them go?
The order she had given was to find Evangelyne and take her away. Iyeft, that fool, wouldn't ignore her orders, would she?
Of course Bai Ling knew the answer to this question, but before she could explain, another girl appeared here.
"Iyeft was blocked by Miss Xia and her people. Aina separated from us and then disappeared—probably got lost again." Xue'er walked to Leticia's side, frowning slightly. "Your clothes are a bit dirty."
"After staying in this kind of place for a day, how could the clothes possibly be clean?" Leticia felt Xue'er's focus was problematic. "But being blocked by Guild Leader? She's definitely slacking off!"
Iyeft was the leader of the Four Heavenly Kings. How could she be held up by Guild Leader, an A-level hero, with her people?
"So you had this all planned?" Bai Ling stared at Leticia. She needed this girl to admit it personally.
Thinking carefully, that teleportation magic circle seemed to be low-level. Leticia, the world's strongest magician, could definitely have destroyed it before it activated.
But she didn't do that. Instead, she brought Bai Ling along and was teleported here together.
If it weren't for Guild Leader having prophetic abilities and accurately predicting the teleportation landing points, Leticia would probably have made a killing this time.
The demon race's Heavenly King had arrived here last night—their speed was impressive. If they didn't know the exact location, Bai Ling felt they might as well go buy lottery tickets.
It couldn't be that they just randomly picked a direction to search, right?
"So what if I did?" Leticia mustered her courage, put her hands on her hips, and responded to Bai Ling. "If I asked you directly to give her to me, you wouldn't agree. I had to find a way to snatch her over."
"Then last night..."
"To stall you and buy time for Iyeft and the others, understand?" Leticia hummed. "Now it's back to how it was at the beginning. I want to take her away. Just say whether you agree or not."
"Eh? Is Miss Su from the demon race..." Xi Mengyao felt a bit dizzy. Was that demon race Heavenly King Miss Su's person?
"You're lying again." After saying this, Bai Ling looked away. "Give me a reason."
"She has a grudge against the elven race. If I let her go back, she can throw the elven race into chaos." Leticia pursed her lips in displeasure. She had thought she could make Bai Ling angry, but all she got was that light comment about lying.
Too annoying.
"If the elven race becomes chaotic, you humans can benefit too. And you can't keep her here forever. If the elven race gets desperate and puts her sister on the throne, she'll be useless, won't she?"