In the rear courtyard of the royal palace, a huge crowd of Black Armored Guards had sealed off the area, packed so tightly that people were nearly shoulder to shoulder.
Layer upon layer of translucent barriers covered the outside. They looked like enormous inverted bowls, but were actually spherical, with half aboveground and half underground to prevent enemies from escaping by burrowing.
If the City Guards—the Silver Armored Guards—were the elite among the Elf soldiers, then the Black Armored Guards were the elite among the elite. They guarded the royal palace and protected the center of the Elves' authority.
At least twenty thousand Black Armored Guards had surrounded the area inside the barrier, completely encircling the Kingdom's Assembly Hall.
Outside the barrier, Su Xiao stood on the steps behind the palace hall. Not far away stood the Elf King and the five Royal Family members.
From here, the situation inside the barrier was clearly visible. Before long, Father and Fairy Ji's group would likely fight their way out of the kingdom's assembly hall and rush into the mist-shrouded rear courtyard.
Apart from the twenty thousand Black Armored soldiers inside the barrier, another ten thousand Black Armored Guards and nearly seventy thousand City Guards stood ready outside. This was merely a precaution. If anything went wrong inside, the barrier would open an entrance and let the soldiers charge in.
Inside the kingdom's assembly hall, a huge crowd of Black Armored Guards had surrounded Father and the others. Father's expression remained calm—or rather, even if he were about to die the next second, he would never show fear. Would someone who dared to covet the power of an Ancient God fear death?
Fairy Ji, Nether Wolf, and Iron Mountain were nowhere near as calm as Father. Their expressions were ugly, and Fairy