Chen Xuan closed the shop door and followed Marlena onto the long street, through the gray city. Buildings crowded the sprawling city, but few people walked its streets. The occasional passerby looked terrified at the sight of Marlena's black mage's robe and lowered their head to give her a wide berth.
This clearly wasn't France.
"Where are we?" Chen Xuan asked.
"London," Marlena replied. "The entire leadership of the Witches' Assembly is looking for you. I never expected to find you here."
That's because you're a customer of the Ability Store. The other witches aren't.
The last time he'd come here, the East-West Allied Army had been launching its great counteroffensive. He'd crossed the English Channel aboard a flying ship to see the troops off. After only a few months away, witches could now walk freely through London?
Just how many years had passed here?
"Tell me what happened while I was away." Chen Xuan didn't worry that she would doubt his identity. Marlena had visibly aged, while he looked exactly as he had before. Time had left him untouched. That alone was enough to convince people he was extraordinary.
"Yes," Marlena said respectfully. "Thanks to you, we won."
A full thirty years had passed.
Fighting alongside the sect's Cultivators, the French army had eventually occupied the island of England and driven every Demon back into the sea. The British royal family had fallen, and the remnants of its army had fled into Ireland's ancient forests, losing all control over Britain.
The cost had been steep, but for the first time in history, the threat from across the channel had been wiped out.
Under the allied army's plan, the French army and the eastern sect would divide England between them and establish a foothold from which to watch the sea.