703: This Was Transia's Answer to the Black Calamity

Potana had thought long and hard about the fall of Blackflame Pass. She had more than one plan, but as it turned out, whenever you flaunted your plans to the world and bragged about how smoothly everything was going, the world would grab you by the throat, slap you twice, and remind you that it had plans of its own for fate.

First, Lord Heather had unsealed the power of the Lord of Darkness, neutralizing the gnoll plague and single-handedly stopping the gnolls from overrunning and occupying the entire position.

Faced with an ancient evil god in the midst of revival, even the hardheaded Rending Claw Clan couldn't charge in and launch a satisfying god-slaying campaign.

Grand Warlord Hugheson's elite forces could only retreat.

The gnolls thought they could do nothing but watch the cowardly defenders of Blackflame Pass abandon their leader and retreat, leaving the reviving evil god as a problem for the gnolls who would surely find a way to cross the pass.

But as it turned out, once trouble appeared, it never stopped at just one painful blow.

The gnolls had not yet completely withdrawn from their positions at Blackflame Pass when the Astral Realm rift, triggered by the Transians and centered on the border fortress of Courage, suddenly opened.

Even before the immense psychic energy slammed into the boundary of the material world, Potana sensed something was wrong. As a psychic master, she knew all too well what that much psychic energy could do. She immediately ordered a retreat at top speed.

In the chaos, she couldn't find the adopted son in whom she had placed such high hopes. She could only take her luxurious war chariot and make a temporary retreat. But the Astral rift arrived far sooner than she had imagined.

The ambitious gnoll