CHAPTER 140: ROTTEN

The thought echoed as a sharp glint passed through his compound eyes. A flash of cold resolve.

He needed to shift the momentum—do something.

And then he noticed it.

A subtle pattern in the fight, almost invisible unless one was desperate enough to look.

Twenty-nine hadn’t attacked.

Not once.

From the moment their battle began, she had been purely on the defensive. Smooth, calculated, precise—like a masterful dancer dodging flames, not retaliating, only buying time.

His eyes narrowed.

"Why... why hasn’t she hit back?"

A chill gripped his chest.

"She’s buying time... but for what?"

Suddenly, a spark lit in Ricky’s mind.

His memories raced backward—through the blood, the battles, the chaos—until he landed on one detail he had nearly forgotten in the rush of combat.

"There were three undead princesses."

He had already killed the first.

Now he was locked in battle with the second.

But the third...

He hadn’t seen her.

Not once.

"Where is the third undead princess?!"

The realization hit like a falling star, and Ricky’s expression twisted, contorting into a hideous mask of panic and dread.

"Damn it..."

It was already too late.

For the first time in their duel, Twenty-nine’s expression changed.

The calm mask cracked just a little, and amusement glittered in her eyes.

She chuckled softly.

A sound that grated on Ricky’s nerves like glass dragged over stone.

"It appears," she said, her tone dripping with mockery, "you’re not as stupid as you look."

Her words ignited something feral inside him.

Ricky’s attacks grew even faster, more vicious.

He didn’t care what their plan was anymore.

He couldn’t allow them to succeed—no matter what.

Not if it meant losing the people behind him.

Not if it meant letting all of this—every sacrifice—be for nothing.

Meanwhile, back at the spiritual fruit orchard...

Sunlight trickled through the canopy of lush emerald leaves, casting dappled shadows over the tranquil grove. The trees swayed gently in the wind, their branches heavy with glowing spiritual fruits that pulsed softly with life. A few workers—half-human, half-beast—busied themselves at the base of the trees, carefully tending the soil and trimming errant leaves. The air shimmered faintly with spiritual energy, fragrant with the scent of ripening Amma-rich fruit.

High above, lying languidly on a thick branch, Dark Shadow swayed her legs back and forth like a child, humming a carefree tune. The melody was soft, cheerful, yet oddly eerie—like a lullaby from another world. Her eyes were closed, arms tucked behind her head, fully at peace in the moment.

Alexandria sat beside her, legs tucked to the side, her gaze distant as she stared down at the orchard below.

After a long silence, she finally spoke.

"Dark Shadow, big sister... don’t you think we’ve changed?"

Her voice was soft, contemplative. But as she glanced at the workers below—sweating, kneeling, straining to please—something else flickered in her eyes.

Superiority.

Dark Shadow didn’t even open her eyes. She simply continued swinging her legs, the same pleasant smile dancing on her lips.

"Changed how~?" she said, her voice airy and light. "I feel the same as always."

Her answer carried no hesitation, as if the thought itself was foreign to her.

Alexandria’s smile faded slightly.

A strange weight settled in her chest, though she didn’t understand why. Ever since she had returned from that inheritance place—where life and death had danced on a knife’s edge—something inside her had shifted.

She felt... different.

Stronger, yes. Wiser, maybe.

But above all, she felt apart from the others. As if the gap between her and these ordinary creatures had become too wide to bridge.

She didn’t hate them. But she no longer saw them as equals, or maybe they weren’t in the same league to ever begin with.

Dark Shadow wasn’t aware of the thoughts swirling inside Alexandria’s mind. Had she known, it would be interesting to see how she’d react.

Would she have agreed?

Or simply tilted her head with that ever-cheerful smile and whispered something vague and cryptic—perhaps dismissing the notion altogether, as if superiority and inferiority were concepts too small to matter?

---

Meanwhile, somewhere deeper within the wooden castle...

Faint green fumes lazily drifted through the narrow wooden corridors like will-o’-the-wisps, infusing the air with a revitalizing energy. The faint aroma of crushed herbs and spiritual sap clung to the walls, mixing with the scent of fatigue.

Inside one of the castle’s dim rooms, Valemont sat hunched in a corner, fiddling absently with a small marble between his grimy fingers. His robes were torn and wrinkled, stained with traces of ash and alchemical residue. His hair hung wild and disheveled, shadowing his sunken eyes. In his current state, he looked less like a brilliant scholar and more like a beggar discarded by the side of a bustling city road.

But this was no ordinary exhaustion.

His face was dark, eyes rimmed with sleeplessness, haunted by formulas that led nowhere. For the past several days—perhaps weeks—he had worked relentlessly without rest, diving headfirst into theory after theory. Still, no matter what path he explored, it always ended the same way:

Dead ends.

It was as though the solution he sought simply didn’t exist.

Across from him, Rosary lounged with casual ease, one leg draped over the other. A small, gleaming knife twirled expertly between her fingers as she stared out of the wooden-framed window, boredom flitting through her expression like drifting clouds. Her crimson eyes sparkled every so often as she imagined the chaos unfolding beyond the trees.

She didn’t know, of course—not yet—that the Federation army had been completely wiped out.

Had she known... well, that would be a reaction worth witnessing.

But for now, ignorance served as a strange kind of bliss.

Over the past month, Rosary had seamlessly integrated herself into Valemont’s daily routine—not as a formal assistant, of course. No, in her own words, she was simply guiding the ignorant Valemont toward the correct path.

How gracious of her.

She claimed she was only helping him out of pity for his intellectual blindness, but there was something oddly warm about the way she kept checking on him. Her words were always sharp, but her knife never left its dance.

And so, the two sat in that dim, smoky chamber—one lost in unsolvable puzzles, the other waiting patiently for the world outside to catch fire.

While the top powerhouses of the Emerald Green Kingdom waged brutal battles to shield the nascent kingdom from the invaders beyond its borders, the rest of its inhabitants had already begun to grow accustomed to their new lives.

In the wooden castle nestled within the heart of the forest, there was no fear. No uncertainty. Only calm.

Even the thought that Ricky might fail—allowing the undead to breach the first line of defense—never once crossed their minds.

Their belief in him was absolute.

Not logical. Not even blind.

It was faith—a visceral, unwavering conviction that their Venom Fang Sovereign would set everything right.

A belief etched into the marrow of their bones.

Why would not they have such belief, after all this was not the first time that forest was facing something out of their legaue, earlier it was the shadow cult then radiant knight order, only their enemy had changed but their saviour was still the same.

---

At the edge of the wooden castle’s protective boundary, where the natural forest blurred into shadowed defense wards, a figure quietly emerged from the darkness.

A simple robe cloaked its entire form, hiding any trace of identity—save for a single pair of luminous eyes.

They shimmered with mischief and wonder, as if a child had stolen the stars and hidden them beneath her hood.

Those eyes flickered with sudden awareness.

She sniffed the air lightly. A grin crept onto her face beneath the veil.

"Little sister Forty-five’s scent... What a surprise."

The twinkle in her eyes deepened into amusement as her soft voice echoed, laced with unhinged affection.

"Ehehe~ Little sister Forty... you snuck out alone? So naughty. So very, very naughty."

She took a step forward, her body blending once more into the shadows.

"I suppose... big sister needs to discipline you first."

Eastern Dragon Divine Ridge.

Once the ancient backbone of the world—its peaks scraped the heavens, crowned in eternal snow and awe.

Legends said the dragon gods once roared here, their mighty forms slumbering beneath the stones.

But legends fade. Time consumes all.

And now, this ancient ridge had been tamed by man. Flattened, carved, and reborn into the most prosperous cities of the Eldros Kingdom.

But prosperity breeds arrogance.

And arrogance... invites ruin.

Today, those cities stood silent.

Rotting.

The cobblestone streets were soaked in blood. The once-vibrant plazas filled with husks. Lifeless corpses roamed where once children laughed and merchants shouted.

The mighty Eldros army—the iron backbone of the kingdom—was nowhere to be seen.

Not retreating.

Not resisting.

Absent, not even a single soldier.

As if the royals themselves had signed a silent contract with doom, offering up their own kingdom in exchange for something far more sinister.