Rin and the Black Princess stood before the huge crystal stone she had mentioned earlier. Rin watched as Her Highness's slender, delicate fingers tapped the crystal surface, and a spatial gate, rippling like water, was immediately activated and unfolded.
"Didn't you say earlier that this gate was on a timer?"
"Eh? You actually believed that! Where would there be such an intelligent, automatic spatial gate? The so-called timer naturally refers to the time it takes for my abilities to recover so I can open the gate."
"Then the escape route you pointed out to me earlier..."
"Deserters who abandon their master deserve to die."
"..."
Why does it feel like I've boarded a pirate ship? Princess Altrouge, you truly live up to the name Black Princess; beneath that snowy-white little belly of yours, you are filled with nothing but black-hearted schemes!
The fully-grown, mature Black Princess, standing over 170cm tall, lowered her head to caress Rin's face. With a peerlessly beautiful face, she looked seriously at Rin and said, "Rin, you now know all my life-or-death secrets. I will absolutely not let you leave easily. From now on, stay by my side and become my retainer, my guard, my family."
Rin looked at this Black Princess with a complex expression. Honestly, the strength of Altrouge's faction could almost be called the number one military group in the Nasuverse, with a total of four Ancestors of the Dead Apostles, including herself! Furthermore, they were all powerhouses at the pinnacle among the Ancestors. Coupled with the Dead Apostle royal guard hidden somewhere, even the Church and the Mages Association would not dare to easily provoke them.
"I have things I must do; I cannot stay by your side." Rin seriously and calmly declined the Black Princess's invitation.
Unexpectedly, Altrouge did not get angry but smiled in response, "It's about your affairs in the human world, right? That's fine. I will give you 500 years. After 500 years, you will return to my side. By then, you will understand how insignificant a human life is in the face of the endless time of a Dead Apostle."
Damn, this fake woman is generous; she just tosses out 500 years like it's nothing!
Subsequently, Rin and Altrouge walked into the "gate" together. In a trance, or perhaps just in the blink of an eye, when Rin opened her eyes again, she found that she had left the common area. The current environment also seemed to be a forest, but it didn't seem quite the same as the forest before entering the common area.
The Black Princess smiled mysteriously at Rin and said, "Let's go, Rin, come with me and witness the most pinnacle battle in this world."
The most world-shattering battle...
As soon as Rin heard this term, cold sweat broke out all over her body!
It had been mentioned before that Altrouge was always accompanied by three Ancestor-level guards. Even if Altrouge couldn't participate in the battle today due to old wounds, dealing with them would still require at least three experts of a corresponding level. That would mean a massive melee of at least six or more Ancestor-level powerhouses...
Plus Altrouge, who was rushing over immediately, that would be at least 7...
Rin felt that even if she followed along and stood ten miles away to watch, it would still be dangerous.
"This is the place."
The Black Princess stood on a mountain peak, looking ahead and speaking cautiously. At this moment, her expression was completely different from before. If her demeanor when facing Anhalt earlier had been indifferent and composed, now she was calm and serious, appearing exceptionally cautious and careful.
Rin could feel that on the flat ground below the mountain, an unimaginably huge barrier, which could be called an otherworldly barrier, had been unfolded. The power composing this barrier was an incredibly vast force of faith.
"The Church..."
"Yes, this barrier was set up by the Church specifically to deal with me. Hmph, although they calculated well, they were ultimately one move short..." The Black Princess looked ahead and sneered.
"Then what should we do now? Help the black and white knights break out of their predicament and retreat together?" After listening to the Black Princess's narrative, Rin couldn't help but ask.
"How is that possible?" The Black Princess sneered instead. "All these years, the Church and those damn traitors have always wanted to get rid of me. I didn't fight back because I was worried about my injuries. Now that my injuries have fully recovered and my strength has returned to its peak state, of course I have to properly repay them. Heh heh, heh heh heh heh..."
Rin's hair stood on end from Altrouge's black-hearted sneer. Then, a flawless, jade-like hand slapped forward!
"Crack!"
The massive sacred barrier, formed from the convergence of endless power of faith, was split open by a single palm strike from the Black Princess, immediately creating a hole over two meters high.
This is the strength of the Black Vampire Princess!
"Boom!!!"
The moment the opening appeared, a surging wave of demonic energy erupted from the hole! Rin, standing near the fissure, was almost blown away by the sudden, overwhelming demonic energy.
"A dance of demons!"
Afterward, Rin followed Altrouge into this large, alternate-dimensional barrier. Violent power and heaven-shaking demonic energy filled the entire space, while roaring fluctuations of magical power swept across the world like a world-ending tsunami!
Rin felt as though she were in an ancient battlefield of gods and demons; the battles here were on a completely different dimension compared to what she had faced in the past.
Inside the barrier, a space completely independent of the outside world had formed. Rin and Altrouge stood on the side of a mountain. With her vision enhanced a hundredfold, Rin could clearly see that the battlefield here was divided into three sections, with each section separated by ten miles.
Several miles to the right, a great melee was underway. Although only two people were fighting, their battle was equivalent to a war.
One of them was a handsome blond youth wearing a white suit, holding a Western sword. He stood at the bow of the flagship leading a fleet of over a hundred ghost warships, waving his sword to command an army of ten thousand ghosts to charge forward, looking quite like a great general.
He was none other than one of the bodyguards of the Black Princess, and also the Eighth Ancestor of the Twenty-Seven Ancestors, the White Knight—Fein Blood Svelten. He was originally a Vampire Count and the captain of the ghost fleet.
The ghost army he commanded was his Reality Marble—Ghost March.
Reality Marble is a subspecies of Reality Manifestation, which processes things that already exist and erodes the real world with the caster's inner world. Theoretically, it is called the magecraft closest to Magic. Of course, it would not be wrong to insist on calling it Magic, because it is essentially the reproduction of a miracle.
Reality Marble is the highest goal that every Magus wishes to achieve, but those capable of using this magecraft are few and far between; in the entire Nasuverse, there are no more than fifteen known individuals.
Originally, the situation inside an Reality Marble could not be seen by people outside. However, whether because of this large barrier or because he had spread the erosion range of his Reality Marble across the entire space, the situation there could be seen clearly.
As one of the three bodyguards of the Black Princess, the strength of the White Knight is unquestionable. Every ghost soldier he commands possesses combat power rivaling that of a Color-ranked Magus. With various combat tools, weapons, and battle formations exuding murderous intent, their brandished magical weapons unleash continuous, overwhelming attacks like a tidal wave, with each wave of attacks possessing the power to slaughter a city.
Yet such fierce attacks did not crush the enemy; in fact, they were locked in a stalemate. The reason was simple: his enemy was equally powerful.
The opponent fighting him on the other side, although looking like a beautiful boy of about twelve years old, could not be underestimated because of his appearance, for his identity was the Dead Apostle of the Ancestor of the True Ancestors, Crimson Moon—Merem Solomon!
He is ranked twentieth among the Twenty-Seven Ancestors. Although his ranking is relatively low, the Twenty-Seven Ancestors were never ranked by strength to begin with.
He can be called the greatest eccentric among the Dead Apostles. While being a Dead Apostle, he is also the Fifth Seat of the Burial Agency, an anti-demon organization belonging to the Church, and a super-powerful demon user who uses four imaginary demon beasts as his limbs.
Although his talent as a member of the Blood-sucking Race is limited, as the "Terminal of the Star," a divine child capable of manifesting the wishes of others, he can manifest imaginary demon beasts from fantasy. Except for his left-hand demon, the Emperor of Rats, which has no combat power, the other three imaginary demon beasts each possess combat power equivalent to an "Ancestor."
At this moment, Merem has already summoned his right-hand demon—the Crafted Maiden.
It was a ten-meter-tall girl-knight formed from giant, tattered scraps, covered in weapons. Although she had an expression of complete lack of motivation, every sword strike she unleashed was enough to split mountains and sever rivers, and the destructive power she caused was completely on par with the battle formation impact of the ghost soldiers!
This is only natural, because as a combat-type constructed mechanism, the Crafted Maiden possesses exceptionally powerful weapon combat abilities, even enough to qualify her for the Saber class in a Holy Grail War. Coupled with her massive body, the range and power of the attacks she unleashes are even more terrifying.
However, trying to deal with the White Knight with just one Crafted Maiden is simply impossible. At this moment, Merem Solomon is standing on the back of another imaginary demon, his right-foot demon—the King of the Land, a massive monster nearly 200 meters long, currently sweeping through the ghost army with an incredibly overbearing stance.
Of course, saying it is "sweeping through" only looks that way; in fact, every clash with the ghost army is a draw, and it is hard to say who is stronger or weaker.
The collision between the ghost army and the giant demon god erupted with earth-shaking power and magical energy, completely resembling an apocalyptic scene where the sun and moon lose their light and the heavens collapse and the earth splits.
Perhaps because the battle had reached the time to decide the outcome, besides these two, Merem also used his final trump card, his left-foot demon—the King of the Sky.
It was a collection of all animals, the beautiful King of Beasts soaring in the sky. Its massive body was like an aerial fortress, ready at any moment to deliver a fatal blow to the White Knight!
The King of the Sky soared above the firmament, opening its sharp mouth. A white-hot mass of magical energy, brighter than the sun, gathered in the King of the Sky's mouth. From several miles away, Rin watched it gather from the size of a ping-pong ball to the size of a basketball.
The White Knight reacted the moment the King of the Sky appeared. He waved the Western sword in his hand and pointed the tip toward the sky, and the main cannons at the bows of the hundred ghost warships simultaneously began to flash and charge.
"Boom!!!"
"Boom!..."
The King of the Sky and the ghost fleet exchanged magical cannon fire! The two sides ended up in a stalemate in mid-air, and after finally reaching the critical point—
"Boom!!!!"
It was like a shining, blazing star burning one's eyes, like a massive explosion in interstellar space! The shockwave of the explosion spread out in a ring, booming. Rin activated all her magical power, gathering it under her feet, stood in a horse stance, dug her feet firmly into the mountain beneath her, and blocked her face with her arms, only then managing not to be blown away by the shockwave of the explosion from several miles away.
Next was the area directly in front of Rin, where the battle was perhaps the most brutal. The reason was simple: one of the parties fighting was none other than the one ranked first among the Twenty-Seven Ancestors! The monster created by gaia, the beloved dog of the Black Princess, the Killer of Primates: the White Beast!
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