Azure Scepter

Page 176

Trier was about to say something in his defense, but the next moment, Edith hugged him tightly.

“I’m sorry!” Edith’s voice trembled with a sob. “It’s all because of me that you broke your oath! I just used the Detect Good and Evil technique, Trier, and your aura is now so red it’s almost black… I’m sorry… I should be the one who broke the oath, I should be the one who killed Loseweg.”

Trier's face immediately darkened.

What does it mean for the aura of an alignment to be so red it's almost black? Even the demon lord of the Abyss wouldn't reach this level...

A few glistening tears rolled down Edith's face and fell to the ground. Edith lifted her tear-filled face and saw Trier's rather stiff expression, which further solidified her judgment.

“You’ve done so much for me, but I…” she said softly.

Instead of explaining the misunderstanding, Trier simply put his arm around Edith's waist and gently pulled her into his embrace.

Edith said all this because of her inner unease; she was terrified of being betrayed again and afraid of being abandoned. In the past, all these anxieties and fears had been suppressed under external pressure, but now, as the outside world gradually became safer, all her inner pain erupted.

Instead of being clueless and talking to yourself in a situation like this, it's better to just hug.

As his fingers traced Edith's smooth back, the girl's delicate fragrance and the earthy scent of rainwater wafted into Trier's nostrils through her blue-gray hair.

Edith's narration came to an abrupt end. She paused for a moment, then suddenly burst into even louder sobs.

"Can you hold me a little longer?" she sobbed, "My past..."

“You can keep hugging me as long as you want,” Trier interrupted softly. “This has nothing to do with the past.”

Edith hugged Trier tighter, burying her face in his chest: "I'm sorry..."

Trier did not answer; he quietly felt the girl's suddenly accelerated heartbeat and warm body temperature.

The rain seemed to have intensified, with a light drizzle pattering on the eaves. The continuous water droplets broke and wriggled, turning into a cold, damp mist that seeped into the house.

The fire burned quietly, its orange-red flames dispelling the chill and illuminating the shadows of two figures embracing tenderly.

Edith gently undressed her lover, shyly avoiding his gaze. She turned to look at the window, and the next moment, she froze. A terrifying chill suddenly shot from her tailbone up her spine and straight to the top of her head!

Before he knew it, his best friend Fythia appeared on the windowsill!

Futia looked shocked as she looked out the window.

Looking at her reflection in Fyde's deep blue eyes, Edith felt a surge of fear and guilt. Fear and remorse flooded her mind, and she instinctively tried to hide, but Trier wouldn't let go.

“I told you I can keep holding you as long as you want,” Trier whispered in Edith’s ear.

The princess struggled for a moment, then simply buried her head in the other person's, no longer looking at Futia outside.

"Clap."

The window was pushed open by Futia, and the noisy rain mixed with dampness rushed into the room.

Without a word, Futia took off her cloak, her pointed ears twitching slightly as cold raindrops fell onto the carpet.

She looked at Edith, who was playing the role of an ostrich, with a complicated expression. After hesitating for a moment, a blush suddenly crept onto her cheeks.

Turning around and closing the window, Fythia suddenly hugged Edith from behind and whispered in her other ear, "I thought you would come to me first to confide in me when you encounter problems, Edith."

Whether it was the cold rain or Fyodor's words, Edith suddenly shuddered, her expression contorted as she tried to explain, "Trier and I..."

“I already knew.” Fythia gave a forced smile. “I already knew back in Eraf.”

As she spoke, her fingers deftly moved upwards, but her deep blue eyes remained fixed on Trier.

“Fodia, are you having trouble too?” Trier asked.

If she hadn't encountered a problem, Futia wouldn't have climbed walls and windows for no reason, and there was also a trace of worry lingering between the elves' brows.

As Trier asked the question, he took Fythia's finger and gently pulled her to his side.

Futia took off her boots and stepped barefoot onto the plush carpet. Her perfectly curved arches sank deep into the soft fur, while her tender, snow-white skin was faintly visible through the warm carpet fibers.

Edith struggled to look away, and at that moment she suddenly realized that her mindset had become extremely strange.

Longing, jealousy, guilt, and concern, fermented by both friendship and love, twisted into a bittersweet and heavy state of mind that even the person involved could not describe.

Faudia hesitated, but finally she closed her eyes and chose to kiss.

Long eyelashes brushed against Trier's face, tickling her slightly. Trier responded to the elf's kiss while gently guiding her onto the bed.

“My mother sent several envoys; they want to take me back,” Futia whispered in a muffled voice. “I managed to escape them by stealth.”

"This group seems to have ill intentions," Trier thought to himself.

"Don't you want to go back?" Trier whispered back.

“I haven’t found my sister yet…” Futia paused for a moment, gazing at her reflection in Trier’s dark eyes. “And Trier, I don’t want to leave you.”

“Me too,” Trier replied. “Don’t worry, they won’t succeed.”

At that moment, Noi suddenly passed through the wall and entered the room... Upon seeing the scene before her, she widened her ruby-like eyes and was completely stunned.

She tugged hard at her silver-white hair, but a moment later, her eyes lit up, and she smiled and said, "Master, the envoy from the Elf Embassy has entered Wilt. They are looking for Futia and hope to keep her away from the dangerous vortex."

“The most dangerous part is over,” Trier complained. “Their reaction time was way too slow.”

"So what is your decision?" Noy asked as he asked for a solution, while naturally putting his arm around Edith from behind, supporting her with both hands, and then slowly kneading and twisting her fingers, his fingertips stroking and picking at her.

"Your Highness, do you like it?" She breathed into Edith's earlobe and then teased softly.

Edith and Trier froze simultaneously—Noy had activated sensory sharing!

“Don’t call me Your Highness… I haven’t been for a long time.” Edith’s cheeks were burning.

“Let’s respond later, let them wait a bit,” Trier said softly.

Three days later, in a tavern somewhere in Wirth.

Orton, the second son of Schilzson, the rotating chairman of the Elven Fate Tribunal, finally grew angry after an endless wait.

"These arrogant humans are playing us for fools, absolutely!" Orton slammed his fist on the table, his expression contorted with rage. "Just a few days ago, a high-ranking priest from the Church of Radiance responded to us, and now even that priest has vanished! This is absolutely intolerable."

“Miss Shadowpo may have already perished,” the elven mage opposite Orton analyzed quite rationally. “Humans are trying to cover up the crime to avoid diplomatic disputes.”

“Human political systems are different from ours.” Another hooded elf shook his head. “They are still under a rather primitive feudal system, so it’s hard for them to have such a comprehensive perspective. I’ve been gathering information these past few days—civil war here is about to break out. These warlords who are about to fight each other don’t care about the overall relationship between humans and elves. In other words, the influence that the embassy provides for us doesn’t exist here.”

“Whether Frya is dead or alive is not important at all.” Orton took a deep breath. “The key is to use Frya as a breakthrough point to get Master Irina to reveal the secret of the Spark. If we can find Frya’s body, then it won’t be a big problem. I know a few necromancers who are quite skilled.”

“I have an idea,” the seemingly rational elven mage suddenly said. “Based on my observation, the magic level of the Ork is as primitive as that of monkeys. If we can provide some magical consulting services to these lords who are about to have a civil war, then we can gain real influence. If given the opportunity, we can even try to manipulate these foolish barbarians.”

The mage pushed up his glasses, his eyes reflecting a hint of coldness: "Trier is young, he acts aggressively, he's brutal, and he's even naively thinking that he can subdue everything through violence alone. I think he's the perfect target to manipulate."

The hooded military attaché at the embassy couldn't hold back any longer after hearing this: "Do you know that Trier is a legendary mage?"

The mage turned his head and snorted coldly: "I think this is a human misconception. These Orko people have no idea what a legendary mage means. They probably just saw one or two magical items that we smuggled in and mistakenly thought they were legendary magic—pretentiousness is a necessary skill for a lord, and Trier is probably the same."

As if to prove his point, the elven mage pointed out the window.

“Look, there are people over there calling Trier Saint Trier.” The mage shook his head with pity. “In the human religious system, ‘Saint’ represents a respectful title for a deity. Look, the number of people praying over there has increased again. This is absurd. Alas, short-lived creatures.”

After a moment's thought, Orton finally made up his mind.

"Humans, these uncivilized monkeys, could not possibly be legendary mages—and a legendary mage at twenty is simply absurd," Orton said. "We elves hadn't even started public school when we were twenty, so these outrageous rumors only prove their falsehood—let's do it Loren's way, it's time to let these monkeys see the power of magic."

P.S.: I'm rewarding myself with a chapter about romance.

Chapter 336 Interlude (Part Two)

For three days, Trier did not stop for a moment except for casting "Delay the Plague Outbreak" every morning. After all, Edith could cast Holy Light, which could not only heal injuries, but also remove drowsiness, fatigue, exhaustion and other statuses.

The light streaming through the window changed from the silvery-gray of the drizzle to the grape-purple diffused by the post-rain mist, then to the dusky yellow of twilight, the starlight of early night, followed by bright sunlight, the orange-red of the afternoon, and the moonlight of late night, in a continuous cycle...

afterwards!

Trier carefully twisted his wrist, quietly pulling his arm out of the sleeping Feudia's embrace.

As dawn broke, the firewood in the fireplace had long since died down. In the warm room, everyone except Trier was fast asleep from exhaustion, even Noy, who theoretically didn't need any rest at all.

Seemingly sensing Trier's movement, Fythia's eyelashes trembled slightly, but the next moment, she only murmured a muffled word before turning around and curling up in Edith's arms with a soft moan.

The time traveler sat up, feeling completely refreshed, the long-accumulated pressure vanished.

But a moment later, he felt a splitting headache again—the fatigue that had been forcibly suppressed by a large amount of Holy Healing and Restoration spells surged up all at once, and dizziness and lightheadedness flooded his brain like a tide.

Even with a constitution of 20 points, Trier felt a sudden darkness before his eyes, as if all the capillaries in his eyeballs had completely stopped working, and the whole world seemed to start spinning.

He took a deep breath and calmed himself for several minutes before standing up and tiptoeing out of the house.

"Let's adjust the order of the plan. After the scepter is forged, let's use the Wish spell to increase the attributes first." He muttered to himself, "Don't waste the 3 free attribute points from the Oath of Vengeance. We'll increase them as needed after we use the Wish spell."

"In addition, after being stripped of her divine duties, we should also find an opportunity to contact Ms. Bloodthorn and fulfill the contract, since she did indeed contribute a lot."

Trier suddenly tapped his swollen head and frowned slightly.

"Wait, did I forget something?"

He tried to think for a while, but due to extreme fatigue, he felt as if countless shards of glass were churning in his brain, and all his thoughts were fragmented. So he simply shook his head.

"Never mind, it shouldn't be anything important. Let's take a look at the city first."

With this thought in mind, he focused his consciousness on the surveillance network formed by the Secret Eye, monitoring the entire city of Wilt.

The elven mage Loren reverently received the "Destiny Compass" from Orton and carefully placed it in the center of the ritual circle.

The pointer, forged from mithril and meteorite fragments, is as thin as a cicada's wing. With a subtle hum, the twelve concentric rings symbolizing the constellations of the sub-plane, the astral plane, and the material plane slowly rotate clockwise.

The elf envoys were indeed arrogant, but to be fair, they did have the right to be arrogant.

Although even the strongest among them was far from legendary, they carried legendary-level magical items.

The "Destiny Theodolite" is a legendary artifact that can be used to assist in divination spells—Irina Shadowverse personally handed this precious item to the envoys to ensure that they could successfully rescue Futia from the vortex of the Southern Duchy.

This item can greatly improve the accuracy of divination spells; however, at the cost of the prophesied object, the object will suffer misfortune. Therefore, the elves do not use this item to directly predict Fythia's whereabouts.

But making a prophecy about Trier is another matter entirely—in other words, bringing misfortune upon Trier can actually help them offer magical advice and thus gain influence through him.

Elvish was beautiful and elegant, with alternating accents and falling tones, like a tightly coordinated piece of music. As each syllable rang out, the magical wind gradually became active, and in the next instant, the eternally burning crystal core at the center of the "Destiny Theodolite" suddenly began to spin, slowly revealing the phantom of the prophet.

"boom!"

The crystal core suddenly disintegrated! A few seconds later, the entire legendary artifact seemed to have been hit head-on by the "Great Disintegration Spell," exploding into countless fragments!

The reflection of the mithril fragment flashed by, followed by a sudden burst of blood.

The shard happened to pierce the mage Loren's eye socket, and blood gushed out immediately.

Loren screamed and fell to the ground. Whether it was luck or misfortune, his hand had just destroyed part of the ritual's safety valve...

Thus, his prophecy about Trier continued—

Suddenly, Loren's last eyeball bulged out, and fine, worm-like blood vessels covered his face. He opened his mouth wide in pain, as if staring at some indescribable monster in the void, and saliva mixed with blood slowly dripped from the corner of his mouth.

"Don't just stand there! Save him!" the military attaché from the embassy shouted, then pulled out a tranquilizer and plunged it into the monk's neck.

"A marvel! My marvel!" Orton stared blankly at the fragments on the ground. "It's all over, all over!"

"Stop fucking thinking about your wonders!" The military officer released the syringe, and after confirming that the mage was alright, glared angrily at Orton behind him. "We're in real trouble!"

"You insulted me? You dare insult me? You actually used such vulgar language in front of me—" Orton recovered his composure, then frowned sharply. "You are indeed in trouble—the artifact Master Irina gifted to our family has broken. Are you prepared to face..."

"Idiot." The military officer couldn't take it anymore. He grabbed Orton by the collar and slapped the commissioner across the face. "Did you live the past hundred years as a lark? An earthworm's brain is bigger than yours! Do you even know why artifacts explode?"

“Earthworms don’t have brains,” Orton retorted instinctively, but after a moment, he seemed to understand something, and then his body trembled violently. “Trill is really a legendary mage?”

"I saw him, so he saw me too." The mage suddenly opened his remaining eye and stammered, "He saw us! He's here, he's here... his retinue is here..."

Upon hearing this, the military officer felt as if he had fallen into an ice cave. He hesitated for a moment, then gritted his teeth, drew his rapier, and looked up at the doorway.

Before anyone knew it, several lifeless warriors draped in dark red cloaks appeared at the courtyard gate. They all wore hooded helmets, and dried bloodstains were congealed on their armor like runes.

The military officer's eyelids twitched. He was astonished to see that the grass behind these soldiers withered and died within a few breaths, then turned into a cloud of ashes.

After years of heavy drinking and hallucinogenic abuse, the crevices in Orton's brain had long been etched into smooth curves, but even he, in his foolishness, realized that the problem seemed rather serious...

"Looks like you need some help!" A strange figure made entirely of brass machinery slowly emerged from the protection of the undead, his tone light. "50 Star Coins, and I'll help you rescue your companion!"

Unlike the chaotic monetary policies of human nations that often artificially devalue their currencies by deliberately reducing the gold content, the elves have used Starlight Gold Coins as their standard currency for thousands of years. In terms of gold content alone, the gold content of a single Starlight Gold Coin is more than three times that of the Golden Dragon minted during the reign of King Calvin of the Kingdom of Orko.

"Don't kill me! My father is Syldesson!" Orton stammered. "You'll regret it if you kill me! My magic will tear you to shreds! Fireball, sorry!"

The military officer sighed, shielded the esteemed and wise Commissioner Orton behind him, and then carefully took out 60 Star Coins from his pocket and respectfully handed them to the strange robot that had suddenly appeared.

This robot is none other than the mind flayer lich Orenroz.

For the past week, it has been frequently traveling between the City of Nevers and Wilt City—a tycoon of a goblin farm in the City of Nevers has been doing everything he can to win over Orenroz after learning that he had been in contact with Trier.

After several days of hospitality and courtship, the vampire tycoon who controlled nearly 15% of the goblin trade in the City That Never Sleeps finally made a request to Orenroz: the vampire tycoon hoped that Orenroz could persuade Trier to abandon the purge of Count Bortard on his behalf, and in return, he would provide Trier with substantial financial assistance.

—The current Earl of Bortard is the chief enforcer of this vampire tycoon in the violent suppression of the goblin riots, his business agent in the Kingdom of Orko, and a direct descendant.