My Lord, May Your Line Flourish for Ten Thousand Generations!

"Cough, cough... It was all that damned Yeher's fault! And Garratt, that bastard who took advantage of the chaos! Didn't he suddenly disappear? Why didn't he just die out there?!"

It seemed the disease had entered its acute outbreak phase. After just one night, Mairo's condition had worsened considerably.

The green line had spread from her elbow to her right shoulder. Her once radiant, exquisitely beautiful golden fish tail had also lost its luster, and weakness seeped from within her body to without.

Then she was struck by a sudden, powerful bolt of lightning, scattering her divine radiance and leaving her looking particularly helpless.

Mairo knew better than anyone that she was in no condition to fight, especially not against that infamous human Grand Duke whose hands were stained with the blood of several fourth-rank beings.

Yet whether she fought or not was no longer up to her.

"Your turn, Elf Ball—capture!"

An inexplicable shout suddenly rang out by her ear. Just as the Mother of Water was about to move, she inexplicably fell into a brief daze.

Duang!

A flash of golden light streaked before her eyes, followed by a series of buzzing sounds inside her skull.

The lock-shaped treasure, the Prison Lock of Oath, had slammed into her smooth forehead, knocking Mairo's head backward. If they had not been underwater, she would nearly have fallen flat on her backside. Yet...

Nothing else happened!

"Huh? Wasn't that how the Prison Lock was supposed to work? Sorry, this thing didn't come with instructions. Let's try another position and do it again."

Mairo reached up to rub her completely uninjured forehead. That attack had failed to break through her defenses.

However, while the killing power of this "hidden weapon" was limited, its humiliation factor was truly immense. Coupled with Evan's subsequent