This scene could only be described as a spectacle.
Under the low, gloomy sky, with turbulent waves surging across the sea, the handsome merfolk leader held the little princess in his arms while the dragons circled overhead, issuing warning roars. Groups of beastmen and ships from the human kingdom surrounded them, encircling the Princess in the very center.
Everyone had come for the little princess.
That was true of the ferocious fantasy races, and it was true of Song Shiyu, a top-tier player as well.
The surviving players: "...?"
Wait a second. Wasn't this supposed to be the dangerous and terrifying second phase of an infinite instance?!
For a moment, the players had no idea whether they were still in an infinite instance or had somehow wandered into a romantic battle royale.
Xiao Pang and Ke Qi, who had followed Song Shiyu here, were dumbfounded, while the players hiding nearby also stared wide-eyed at the scene.
［Yes, yes, YES! It's the romantic rivalry battle royale I love most! Fight, fight, fight!］
［I'll say it again: our Baby is the cutest heartthrob with a crowd of admirers! Taming bad dogs is as easy as breathing!］
［Not just bad dogs. The other NPCs want to keep Baby too… Who wouldn't want to take a beautiful little princess home?］
［Deng Deng wife, hehehe, my sweet and soft wife…］
Of course, human joys and sorrows were not shared by everyone, especially not between fantasy races and humans.
The most aggrieved person present was undoubtedly the captain of the royal guards of the Kingdom of Sturitt.
He looked at the knight who had transformed from the Princess's personal knight into the leader of the beastman race, then at the other nonhuman beings eyeing the Princess covetously.
He experienced the agony of being surrounded by danger from both sides, only to be betrayed from behind as well.
"Your Highness the Princess—!" He raised his sword and let out a heart-wrenching wail.
The moment the guard captain finished shouting, he did not even need any of the leaders to make a move. An annoyed merfolk had already sent a wave crashing toward the magical ship.
Yu Deng, however, was temporarily unaware of the captain's misery.
Surrounded by his three special quest targets, he felt the familiar headache coming on and had no idea whom he should look at.
Yu Deng's head throbbed faintly. He quietly said, "Why do all of you want to take me away…? But, but I can't clone myself. I can only go to one place."
The giant dragon immediately said, "Your Highness the Princess, please come back to my territory in the clouds. The continent of Eralzea is very dangerous right now, and the clouds are the safest place."
"As far as I know, the clouds are already at risk of falling." Song Shiyu glanced at the giant dragon and calmly stated, "The beastman territory borders the human kingdom, and the location of their royal court is even closer. If the Princess goes to the beastmen's territory, it will be more convenient than going elsewhere."
The giant dragon had disliked this knight for a long time. Upon hearing this, he immediately spat flames at him.
The merfolk leader merely watched coldly from the side. He tightened his hold on Yu Deng slightly and calmly refuted his two rivals.
"The little princess is safest in the ocean. The ocean will protect its most precious treasure, and so will I."
These men were seriously laying out their respective strengths and advantages, trying to coax the little princess into coming to their territory so they could protect him personally.
As for the little princess himself, who was being coaxed…
Yu Deng felt that every one of them had a point. Moreover, all three were looking at him with such earnest, pitiful expressions. They looked just like stray dogs afraid that their owner was going to abandon them.
The kind that would droop their ears and tails the moment he refused them.
The soft-hearted little princess was coaxed into a daze by the men competing for his affection. He simply could not bring himself to refuse any of them, yet he also had no idea whom to choose.
The atmosphere became extremely tense, practically on the verge of erupting into violence.
The eyes of all three leaders were cold with a pathological, obsessive intensity. It was only because the Princess was still present that they managed to maintain their fragile balance.
At some point, a fine drizzle began falling from the sky. The icy raindrops landed on Yu Deng's face, making him shiver.
Yu Deng looked up at his several quest targets and belatedly realized that his quest targets seemed to have been affected by the mutational force of the instance's second phase too…
Although they had not completely lost control like ordinary NPCs, their emotions were much more unstable than before. Their auras were dark and oppressive.
It was frightening.
Yu Deng pinched the hem of his dress, his soft voice blending into the sound of the rain.
"You… You mustn't fight, okay? I don't like bad-tempered doggies. You're making things very difficult for me."
The little princess's beautiful face was tense, his delicate brows slightly furrowed. His round eyes seemed to be filled with water, bright and glistening with genuine distress.
It was clearly an impudent way of addressing them, yet when spoken by the little princess, it sounded like the greatest honor imaginable.
After all, everyone wanted to be the little princess's one and only dog.
The giant dragon Oriel immediately stopped breathing fire. His dragon tail swayed as he pretended to be a very obedient giant puppy.
"Okay. I won't talk to them anymore. Little princess, don't be unhappy."
The other two also silently stopped and looked at Yu Deng, doing their best to convey that they were not bad dogs.
Only then did Yu Deng feel a little more satisfied. The faint ache in his head finally disappeared.
"That's more like it."
The NPCs did not find anything particularly strange about the little princess lecturing them or the leaders' reactions.
The players hiding in the distance, however, were once again completely dumbfounded.
—Holy crap, is the Princess actually training dogs?!
These were boss-level NPCs, weren't they?
And they were actually this obedient?!
At that moment, the already turbulent sea was struck by even stronger winds and waves, sending everyone on the surface staggering into the water.
Of course, the seawater gently flowed around Yu Deng, leaving him perfectly dry.
In just a dozen seconds, seawater began spreading toward the land. All kinds of enormous, grotesque sea creatures leaped from the waves. Sharks and whales alike were filled with rows of sharp teeth, their fins hard and razor-sharp, biting through several ships.
The various NPCs in the second phase had all become even more dangerous.
The giant dragon took the opportunity to pick Yu Deng up in his mouth and use magic to place him on his back.
But just as Yu Deng grabbed the dragon's horn, the knight snatched him away with a downward strike of his sword.
The evil dragon and the knight erupted into battle in an instant. They exchanged blows rapidly within seconds, while spells flew chaotically through the air.
"?!"
Yu Deng turned around at the dazzling flashes of light and was just about to scold them when the two had already stopped as though nothing had happened.
"Your Highness the Princess, I apologize. I have failed in my duty." Song Shiyu apologized first. "I was occupied with various quests these past few days and only became the beastman leader yesterday, after which I was finally able to find you."
"Quests?"
"Yes." Song Shiyu spoke with a hint of implication. "They were quests that I had no choice but to complete. They delayed me from coming to pick you up, and I apologize."
Mm, so his knight had been violently clearing his quests as quickly as possible?
Yu Deng thought to himself.
No wonder he had often heard faint detection sounds these past few days, announcing intense energy fluctuations. It seemed Song Shiyu was also responsible.
"Oh… It's okay." Yu Deng thought for a moment. "Then did you discover any important information among the beastmen?"
Song Shiyu looked every bit like a fiercely loyal knight.
"I did, to some extent. I will tell you everything I learned."
"Okay. Oh, right, do you know what's happening to King Charles right now?" Yu Deng remembered the merfolk's warning and asked his knight.
Song Shiyu's expression became somewhat complicated.
"He's doing quite well. He's still alive, but his situation is rather special."
Yu Deng: "...?"
Why did that description sound so strange?
Nearby, the merfolk endured it for a while before finally losing patience and manipulating the water to separate the little princess from that annoying knight.
Yu Deng staggered as he stood atop the rising current, looking at his quest targets while struggling with an impossible choice.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he happened to spot the captain of the royal guards.
Suddenly, inspiration struck.
"I've decided. I-I'm not going anywhere."
The little princess raised his head proudly.
"I'm going back to the Kingdom of Sturitt!"
The guard captain was overjoyed.
"!"
Thank goodness!
The other leaders were deeply disappointed.
The giant dragon gazed at Yu Deng's face and asked in a muffled voice, "Why? Does the little princess not want to see me anymore?"
"No. It's just because I'm the princess of Sturitt, so of course I have to go back." Yu Deng came up with this brilliant way of keeping everyone happy, a little proudly curling up the corners of his lips. "But you can all come back with me. Then you won't have to fight anymore."
That… actually didn't sound like a bad idea.
At the very least, they could continue following the little princess.
The several leaders eagerly followed behind the Princess, clearly intending to return with him.
The royal guard captain's smile froze.
He looked at the ferocious nonhumans following behind the Princess and was silent for a long moment before speaking with difficulty.
"Your Highness the Princess, this seems somewhat inappropriate."
Yu Deng looked confused.
"What's inappropriate about it? I know all of them, and they're very gentle."
Gentle…?
Was the Princess referring to the giant dragon who could incinerate a castle or palace with a single breath of fire?
Or the merfolk who could raise the sea and flood Sturitt?
Or the beastman leader whose depths were unknown but who was equally impossible to provoke?
The corners of the guard captain's mouth twitched.
"…Very well. I understand."
Thank you.
For one brief moment, he genuinely wanted to resign.
...
Regardless of how much the guard captain was falling apart, the little princess eventually brought those several ferocious fantasy-race leaders along with him on the journey back to Sturitt.
One noteworthy detail was that after the merfolk leader Ulysses decided to travel to land, his fish tail transformed into a pair of powerful legs, while his clothing became a blue robe.
It was Yu Deng's first time seeing the merfolk's legs, and he could not help looking at them a few extra times.
He nearly made Ulysses the target of a coordinated attack from the other two.
The other players in the instance also secretly followed behind the royal procession.
Even though they did not know that the little princess was a player too, that did not stop them from wanting to cling to a powerful ally.
Come on, a Princess capable of taming fantasy-race leaders was obviously an extremely powerful core character in the storyline!
The carriage moved quickly, yet surprisingly smoothly.
Yu Deng sat inside the carriage, his gaze falling upon the road ahead.
The scenery along the way was completely different from what he had seen during his city tour a few days ago.
The clean streets had become chaotic, with overturned houses everywhere.
As time passed, the ordinary NPCs on the road seemed to lose more and more of their sanity. Controlled by their dark emotions, they argued and fought with one another, picked up weapons, and attacked their neighbors.
Yu Deng watched these out-of-control NPCs and felt that their condition was somewhat different from what he had seen during the first phase.
These people had become… more accustomed to it.
It was as though this dark and twisted appearance was perfectly natural, as though people had always been ugly monsters deep down.
Yu Deng stared at the scene in a daze.
Which was the real one?
The beautiful, harmonious world, or the dark and ugly one?
If this mutational force were allowed to continue existing, would this instance eventually become…
A living hell?
Yu Deng was somewhat afraid to imagine what would happen next. He still tried using the scepter to dispel the suffering of these people, but the effect was minimal. Before long, these NPCs would fall back into chaos.
It seemed that if he wanted to break the current situation and resolve the crisis facing the continent of Eralzea, simply treating them like this would not be enough. He had to find that legendary Dreamheart.
...
On the way back, several leaders of the fantasy races escorted them. Although they encountered a few monsters that had lost control, they were all dealt with without incident, and Yu Deng's return to the human kingdom went relatively smoothly.
The one who came to welcome Yu Deng was Queen Audrey of Sturitt. The queen did not seem to have lost control, but when she first saw the enormous group of non-humans behind the little princess, she almost failed to maintain her composure.
She exchanged a glance with the captain of the royal guards, who was drenched in cold sweat, and did her best to maintain the dignity befitting a queen.
"Welcome to Sturitt, Your Excellencies. However, I would like to know the purpose of your visit to Sturitt."
"Oh, this has nothing to do with the others. I only want to follow the Princess," the dragon leader emphasized. "The little princess invited me here."
The merfolk leader also said, "Yes, I followed the little princess here."
Queen Audrey: "..."
She looked at the innocent-looking little princess and silently sighed inwardly.
"Then, welcome, Your Excellencies. The current situation is chaotic, so I hope that Your Excellencies can temporarily set aside your differences and coexist peacefully with us."
The fantasy races neither agreed nor disagreed. For the sake of the little princess, they simply said nothing.
Yu Deng had no intention of exchanging pleasantries with his quest targets at all. It was only after the queen had finished going through the usual social formalities that Yu Deng realized something seemed wrong.
He quietly asked the queen, "Where's the king?"
At a time like this, shouldn't King Charles have come out to meet them? After all, the people who had accompanied him were all leaders of different fantasy races.
The queen's expression changed slightly, and she lowered her voice as well.
"His Majesty has disappeared."
Huh? Disappeared??
Song Shiyu frowned. "I remember that the king had been unconscious these past few days."
"Oh, yes, that's right. But he woke up three hours ago, and then we lost track of him," the queen said.
Three hours ago… That was when the instance entered its second phase?
Yu Deng pursed his lips. He felt that the old king must be hiding some important clues.
After entertaining the non-humans, the queen looked at Yu Deng with an expression of hesitation, her eyes filled with sadness and uncertainty.
Yu Deng tilted his head and took the initiative to ask, "Is something wrong?"
"Good child, could you… go take a look at your sisters?" The queen looked at Yu Deng, then at the non-humans. "Fuli and Funa are not doing very well. However, these distinguished guests may need to stay out of sight for a little while. They're afraid of strangers."
Yu Deng thought for a few seconds before nodding.
"Sure."
He turned around and reminded his quest targets not to follow him too closely for the time being, then went with the queen to that small tower.
The moment Yu Deng approached the tower, his sisters' golden hair wrapped around him, and he was whisked up to the window as if he were riding an elevator.
"?!"
Yu Deng climbed through the window in confusion. The golden-haired ghost faces and out-of-control emotions from last time were nowhere to be seen. However, this was the first time Yu Deng had gotten a clear look at his two sisters.
Their facial features were as beautiful as the queen's, but their lower bodies were almost embedded into the floor of the tower. One had a texture resembling scales, while the other had transformed into something resembling a serpent's body.
Yu Deng stared blankly at them. He had never expected that his sisters, at least in name, would look like this.
Their long hair was waving about, but their actual bodies seemed to be unconscious, pain etched across their brows.
After recovering from his shock, Yu Deng carefully took out his scepter and whispered, "I hope the pain will go away. I hope Sister Fuli and Sister Funa will wake up."
Under the scepter's healing power, the two mutated princesses slowly awakened.
Yu Deng felt a little upset.
"What… what happened?"
"Ah, we're sick… This is… the king's… treatment." Funa spoke with great difficulty, her words broken and halting. "If we don't continue… we'll eventually… die."
What did that mean?
So, the way these two sisters looked now was caused by that old king?
And what did their condition and the old king's actions have to do with the mutations occurring across this continent?
Yu Deng felt dizzy. He struggled to sort everything out in his head.
Fuli lowered her head and used her golden hair to stroke Yu Deng's head. Her words were somewhat jumbled.
"Don't be afraid, little brother… We won't… hurt you… He's a bad person."
"I understand."
Yu Deng nodded seriously.
He turned his head and inadvertently noticed a figure wearing a crown appearing at the edge of his vision.
It seemed to be the old king.
Several guards followed behind him, their movements stiff and mechanical. King Charles' body seemed to have grown larger, and he also looked much older. His ordinary-looking face was covered in wrinkles, while his eyes were gloomy and cold. There was almost no trace of human reason or emotion left in them.
Yu Deng was puzzled.
What was the old king doing here?
Wait, wasn't the old king supposed to have disappeared?
Could it be that the old king in the second phase had become a randomly spawning boss?
Yu Deng's head felt even more dizzy.
The approaching old king seemed to notice Yu Deng's gaze. He suddenly raised his head and looked toward the window at the top of the tower.
His eyes were almost completely devoid of white, the sockets filled with pitch-black darkness. It was extremely creepy.
[Host, hide.]System 01 warned him.
Yu Deng was startled by the old king. His reaction speed suddenly went through the roof, and before the old king could look directly at him, he immediately crouched down and covered his head as System 01 instructed, secretly observing through a crack in the stone wall.
The old king stared for several seconds before looking away again. He then wandered along the same route he had taken earlier.
He didn't seem to have seen him.
Could it be that he couldn't detect someone unless he actually saw them…?
The old king in the second phase seemed to be a little lacking in intelligence.
The two sisters' golden hair began trembling violently despite there being no wind.
"Little brother, help… us… We can't see…" Fuli pushed a pile of stones over with her golden hair, struggling to make her request understood.
Yu Deng took a few seconds to react before finally understanding what the two sisters meant.
They wanted to attack the old king.
[Ding. Player Yu Deng has triggered a Scene Quest: Fuli and Funa's Fury.]
Oh, good. He had triggered a quest.
Did that mean he was supposed to… do something bad?
Yu Deng blinked and nervously picked up a stone.
He sneakily hid behind the stone tower wall, peeking out with one eye as he secretly aimed at the old king below.
If these two sisters hadn't lied, and the information he had received was correct, then this old king really was a bad person, right?
Thinking this, Yu Deng raised his hand and threw the stone.
After throwing it, Yu Deng immediately crouched back down.
Bang!
Yu Deng heard a crisp sound, and his eyelashes trembled in fright.
The old king, who had been hit, angrily turned around, but he didn't see anything. He glared around for a moment, yet instead of searching, he simply turned around and continued walking.
Yu Deng clung to the windowsill and cautiously poked his head out for a few seconds. Then, with a whoosh, he threw another stone and skillfully crouched down to hide himself.
Yu Deng was nervous and anxious, but he didn't feel particularly guilty.
After all… if he was punishing a bad guy, then it didn't really count as doing something bad, right?
He wasn't a bad person, okay?