214 Empty Throne (Part 1)

“Come on, we have to go. We can’t just stay here and watch the show,” William said as he patted Remides on the shoulder, having just witnessed Blake shatter the spellblade in Morton’s hand and take control of the situation.

“What… Ah?!”

The female ranger, who had been focused on the battle nearby, turned at the sound of William’s voice and was surprised to see a second William standing behind her.

This one was dressed in armor called Evil Dragon Bones and holding the Withering Cold, a weapon that emitted cold air. He was the same man she had seen a thousand years ago, using the same equipment.

Meanwhile, the plainly dressed William stood frozen like a wax figurine, with a faerie circling around his head and occasionally stopping to wave at him as if trying to get his attention.

“What’s going on here?”

Remides looked back and forth between the two Williams, feeling confused. She looked at the man holding Withering Cold and asked, “Was the one just now only a Mirror Shadow? But how did you do it?”

Mirror Shadow was a Divine Realm illusion spell that could create phantoms that looked no different from the main body, but it couldn’t have a soul driving it and could only accept some inflexible orders.

However, Remides could clearly sense William’s liveliness and knew he wasn’t an inanimate object like an ordinary Mirror Shadow clone.

“That’s a long story… But time is precious. Are you sure you don’t want to deal with that guy first before talking about this?” William replied.

“That guy?” Remides tilted her head and asked.

“It’s that Tacma wolf you brought in.”

…

The elder known as Hill, who was registered at the Tacma Church, realized that things had gotten completely out of hand when the palace was pulled into Black Crow Gaze.

A high-level Moon Realm overlord had suddenly joined the battle, ruining all of Hill’s previous plans.

Therefore, under the cover of the crow feathers dancing in the sky and while everyone was focused on the three parties fighting, Hill seemed to blend into the air and disappear from the throne hall, a situation he couldn’t understand at all.

When he reappeared, he was above the endless sea in Black Crow Gaze.

What happened? What went wrong…

He stood in the air and looked at the sky and earth connected by the storm and waves, wondering what had gone wrong.

He shook his head and knew his most important task was to leave this place quickly and return to the Tacma Church to inform them of what had just happened.

However, once he returned to the church, the person taking over the entire plan would be…

This thought filled Hill with indescribable sorrow.

As an agent of the Tacma Church in Currere, he couldn’t escape blame for the failure of the plan to fill the empty seat on the eighth throne without bloodshed.

“It was just a little short.”

Thinking of this, he couldn’t help but sigh.

“And this little bit is as far away as a chasm.”

Suddenly, a hoarse voice sounded behind Hill, causing him to turn around.

A bolt of lightning happened to flash at that moment, illuminating the sky like it was daytime. This allowed Hill to see the person who spoke – a gray-haired man wearing distorted pitch-black bone armor. The man was floating in the sky less than 50 meters away from Hill with a cold gaze.

Beside the man was the Shadow Queen, whom Hill had served as an advisor for many years.

Hill looked at the man in front of him and slowly said, “You won’t understand…”

“I can listen to your explanation,” William replied calmly.

Suddenly, an azure nexus began to spread from the magical medium in William’s hand. The temperature within a 100-meter radius plummeted, and the storm that filled the sky turned into ice shards. Countless ice sheets floated on the undulating sea under his feet.

“That’s if you’re willing to explain yourself and not spout nonsense,” William continued.

As Hill watched the drastic changes around him and sensed the surging magic power he had never felt before, he looked at William in disbelief. He raised a finger slightly and pointed at the man in front of him with a trembling finger. Then, he said, “Could you be…”

He didn’t finish his sentence. The expression on the old man’s face instantly changed—it turned into a puzzled expression.

“No, you can’t be. No one can be…”

William’s last bit of patience disappeared.

William’s dangerous smile spread across his face. If this were a comic, exaggerated veins would be bulging out of his forehead.

“Good, very good…”

He nodded slowly with a smile.

Then he continued in a clear, deliberate voice, “In the past, I’ve often thought that if there’s a chance in the future that I can control my characters without following the established framework, I’ll personally beat up all of you riddlers who always put on an unfathomable appearance and speak enigmatically. And you like to come out after the fact and say how you were right. Well, I’ll tear your mouths apart.”

Hill, a Tacma, sensed the extreme hostility in William’s words and asked in confusion, “What… do you mean?”

William’s stiff, unnatural smile turned into a sinister grin.

“It means you’ll only have liquid food to sustain you for the rest of your life!”

He pointed the magical medium in his hand at Tacma, and in an instant, more than ten spells lit up the sea.

…

“You’re hiding something, aren’t you?”

Blake asked the girl on the ground as the battle on the other side came to an end.

She was covered in sword marks, half-kneeling with a sword in hand and panting heavily as

a dense flock of crows circled above her head. Ravens stared at her with blood-red eyes, as if they were waiting to attack at any moment.

But the girl remained calm and indifferent.

Blake stood just five meters away and examined her carefully.

Five meters was nothing to these two fighters, and from Blake’s position, he could easily end the battle with another swing of his sword.

But the girl only chuckled and didn’t respond to his question.

After waiting a few more seconds, Blake slowly raised his sword when he saw that the girl had no intention of answering or continuing the fight.

He knew that the God’s Descent state needed a medium, and when the medium’s vitality became extremely weak, high-level beings would choose to retract their strength to avoid getting stuck in Currere forever.

So his next task was to keep the girl’s life while keeping her on the brink of death.

“You’ve given me a tough job, Presiding Judge…”

Blake shook his head helplessly and complained. He didn’t like things that required precise control.

But just as he raised his sword to strike, the prophet said, “A piece of advice: the Presiding Judge you’re talking about will only lead all of you to a tragic death if you follow him, turning the Vic Continent and even Currere into a living hell.”