Prophecy

A fist collided with a cheek with the dull thud of bone striking flesh, and a spray of blood burst outward. Ekzykes used his dragon-transformed arm to seize Samuel by the collar, his eyes seeming ready to spit fire. "I'll ask you one more time. Name, position, and who's the mastermind behind you!"

After his divine power had been suppressed by the dragon-breath seal, Samuel's build had already returned to the range of an ordinary man. And hidden beneath that eerie, terrifying hood was not some vicious, fiendish face, but rather the handsome, weathered features of a middle-aged man.

But right now, he was like a soulless puppet. No matter how Ekzykes tortured and interrogated him, he only swayed along with the force of the blows. Not only did he say nothing, even his gaze was as dim as a stagnant pool, with not the slightest ripple of emotion to be seen in it.

Just now, Elder Atok, who had finished healing his injuries, had brought the latest casualty report. Of the thirty Wyvern Warriors accompanying them, three were dead and two were gravely wounded, while among the five hundred Storm Knights, thirty-seven were dead and twenty were gravely wounded. And so, at this very moment, every one of the five leaders of the delegation in the central command tent, Lucia included, wanted to grind Samuel's bones to dust and scatter his ashes.

"Stop for now, Ekzykes." Just as Ekzykes was about to get heavy-handed, Lucia's calm voice came from behind him.

"Yes." At that, he stepped aside and watched his young lord slowly pace up before that damned Godskin Noble, silently meeting his gaze.

After a long while, Samuel, who had been playing dead all this time, finally could not help shifting his shoulders. For some reason, the look in those ice-blue eyes across from him always made him feel deeply uncomfortable, as if all his weaknesses and flaws had nowhere to hide and were entirely exposed to the other party's gaze.

That strange feeling had not come from nowhere. Thinking back on everything that had just happened, he racked his brains and still could not understand how this kid had brought him down.

"A Godskin Noble, is it..." Just as Samuel was about to lose patience and roar, Lucia suddenly turned away, pacing as he murmured in thought.

All at once, his footsteps halted. He looked back and sneered. "Everyone in the world thought that Her Majesty died in her struggle with Queen Marika. I never imagined she had actually dragged out her feeble existence all the way to this age—what, did she think that by killing me, an ancient-dragon demigod, and provoking a conflict between Sky City and Leyndell, she would have a chance to crawl out of the gutter and restore her dynasty?"

The moment these words were spoken, the other four people in the tent all shot to their feet in shock. The originally unruffled expression on Samuel's face was instantly replaced by unconcealable astonishment, which then turned into deep fear and dread. His lips moved, as if he wanted to question something.

Just then, an abrupt change occurred. A vast will descended upon him without warning, forcing him to clamp his eyes and mouth shut as tightly as iron barrels!

In the next second, Samuel's eyelids slowly opened, but those pale-gray eyes were now blooming with a gloam-purple radiance like a starry night!

"Heh..." A soft, amused chuckle came from his mouth. Strangely, that voice was nothing like the deep, arrogant tone he had used when breaking into the camp. Instead, it was drifting and alluring, filled with an enchanting quality that stirred the imagination.

"I never imagined there would still be someone in this age who remembered me," "Samuel" said leisurely. "Then, as a remnant of the last age who barely survived, and as one fortunate enough to be kept in mind by a newly born demigod, shouldn't I thank you properly—Lucia-Sancus?"

At this moment, Lucia himself, the instigator of this whole unexpected turn, was completely dumbfounded where he stood. He had originally only wanted to put on a look of total confidence and bluff this Godskin Noble, hoping to trick out however many lines he could. But what the hell was this in-person possession and divine descent happening right in front of him?

That Gloam-Eyed Queen who had wielded "Destined Death," commanded countless Godskin Apostles in hunting down innumerable gods, and gone head-to-head with Eternal Queen Marika—she really was fucking alive!

"Protect His Highness!" Ekzykes was the first to react. With a loud shout, his bursting figure turned into an afterimage and swept between Lucia and the possessed Samuel.

Guerel and the two elders also acted almost at the same time, each drawing their weapons and surrounding Lucia to protect him. Although they knew very little about the Gloam-Eyed Queen, that did not prevent them from realizing just how dangerous the current situation was!

Less than ten paces away, the being who had created tremendous panic the moment she descended merely watched everything before her in silence. Amid that silence, even the air in the tent seemed to congeal, the atmosphere like a zither string stretched to its absolute limit, waiting only for the instant it snapped to unleash a storm of slaughter.

Just as the situation between the two sides had become drawn to its breaking point, a faint, lingering sigh suddenly came from "Samuel's" mouth.

"To meet you for the first time under circumstances like this... how ironic, and how dull." She looked at Lucia behind the human wall, the corner of her mouth curving into the faintest bitter smile, while an obscure and unfathomable emotion lay hidden in those gloam-colored eyes.

"I don't understand what you mean," Lucia said after a slight hesitation. "Wasn't this situation caused by you sending someone to assassinate me?"

At this moment, having recovered from his brief panic, he still harbored the intent to probe. No matter how the other party answered, he would have a chance to infer whether this assassination had been planned by the Gloam-Eyed Queen herself, as well as her objective, her current condition, and so on...

However, the queen did not answer.

She merely sighed again, looked at Lucia with a serious expression, and said, "Young dragon, if you have the ability, then try to survive in these chaotic times."

At this point, "Samuel's" body, which had been controlled by the dragon-breath seal, suddenly ignited with roaring black flame. Together with the enchanted chains binding him, it turned into collapsing ash. Before it completely fell apart, the queen's final words drifted down as well—

"As long as you survive, anything is possible..."

After a long time, as she looked at the pile of charred ash on the ground, Guerel's puzzled voice broke the silence. "What exactly was she talking about?"

Not only the four people in this tent; perhaps the vast majority of people in this age would be unable to understand the true meaning of the Gloam-Eyed Queen's final words. Chaotic times? That was practically a joke. The present Golden Age was clearly the most flourishing period of civilization in a thousand years, all right?

If one did not consider those savage lands that had yet to be brought within the Golden Dynasty's rule, the power structure jointly formed by Leyndell, Caria, and Sky City had truly achieved smooth governance, harmonious people, and the revival of all neglected undertakings, allowing more than eighty percent of the population of The Lands Between to live prosperous and affluent lives.

How had such a situation inexplicably become, in the other party's mouth, chaotic times where tomorrow was uncertain and one had to struggle desperately just to survive?

But Lucia knew.

He knew that the so-called golden age would vanish in the blink of an eye, as brief as a mortal's lifespan. From the beginning of that Shattering War that swept across the continent to the whole of The Lands Between becoming a purgatory overrun by living corpses, it would be no more than a snap of the fingers. He knew even more that every demigod high above would be swallowed and obliterated by that calamity, and that nearly all who survived would become monsters neither human nor ghost.

"Survive, huh..." he sighed silently in his heart. What a difficult challenge.

At the same time, a faint, formless energy escaped from the pile of charred ash, and under circumstances where no one noticed, quietly sank into Lucia's chest.