Chapter 602 - 598 – THE CHAINS THAT SWALLOW SPELLS, THE PRINCESS’S ANSWER, AND THE LEGION DIVIDED

The wave of spells crossed three kilometers in three breaths.

Red fire, purple lightning, ice spears, and blades of wind swirled into a single vortex of color that swallowed the northern horizon. Its heat had already swept across the faces of the soldiers on the wall before its light even arrived. A young soldier dropped his spear onto the stone with a loud clatter. No one scolded him.

Sylvia stepped forward, half a step ahead of Zhaoyue, and opened her palm.

No spell. No magic circle lit up. Only the shadow beneath her feet suddenly lengthened, crept up the parapet, and then burst into hundreds of rusted black chains that shot into the empty air. The Chains of the Abyss spread like giant roots growing upside-down toward the sky, and each strand met a spell.

The fire the chains touched did not go out. It vanished. The purple lightning stopped mid-flash and disappeared without a sound. The ice spears did not shatter into fragments, but were simply erased, as if no one had ever created them. No smoke, no ash, no residual heat on anyone’s skin.

In an instant, the sky above the plain was clear again. Only the morning wind blew softly, carrying the smell of wet grass.

Silence.

On the crystal platform, five hundred Tier Seven and Eight mages still held their hands up in casting poses. Not one moved. They had just spent years of training in a single attack, and the result was an empty sky.

’You didn’t even break a sweat,’ Sol grumbled from the parapet. The golden light on his fur had already crept to the tip of his tail. ’I was all set to be a hero, you know?’

"You’ll still be a hero. In a moment." Sylvia glanced back slightly. "Celes, hold your troops. No one moves, no one attacks, until I say so."

"Order received." Celes sheathed half of her spatial sword, but her fingers stayed on the hilt.

Sylvia stepped past the parapet. She did not fall. Her shadow held up the soles of her feet like an invisible floor, and she walked through the air as if descending a staircase only she could see. Her dress fluttered softly. Behind her, Sol leapt from the parapet, and the little cat’s body expanded in the blink of an eye into a fifty-meter golden dragon, his wings spread to cover half the sky above the wall.

Dragon pressure came down like a lead blanket.

The hundreds of wyverns circling above the crystal ships lost their wing strength all at once. One by one they glided down, landing with bellies pressed to the ground, heads lowered, trembling like dogs scolded by their masters. No one was hurt. No one died. The Guard Legion’s entire air force had simply decided, all at once, that the ground was the best place in the world.

Sylvia stopped in midair, five hundred meters from the platform, at Tianming’s eye level. She looked at the prince without expression.

"Good morning, Your Highness. We haven’t been properly introduced, have we? I’m Sylvia. The foreign woman you said is dividing the kingdom."

Tianming’s face had been pale for some time, but now the pallor turned gray. He recognized that voice. He recognized that gaze. He had felt it once before in the palace hall, when something invisible touched the thread of his life.

"Y-you..."

"I’m only here to convey one thing." Sylvia tilted her head. "The Princess asked a question. And you, very rudely, answered it with an order to arrest her. I don’t think that’s finished. So how about we give her the chance to deliver her own answer?"

"Seize that woman!"

The shout came not from Tianming but from Grand General Wei Zhan. The old general wasted no more time. In a single breath, he vanished from the platform and appeared right in front of Sylvia with a silver sword wreathed in white lightning, its blade swinging toward the girl’s neck at a speed that would behead any Tier Eight mage.

The blade stopped a hand’s breadth from Sylvia’s skin.

Not because of a shield. Not because of chains. Wei Zhan felt his entire body halt, as if an invisible hand was gripping something far deeper than flesh and bone. His old eyes went wide. Cold sweat ran down his temples.

"A peak Tier Eight mage," Sylvia said quietly, almost like praise. In her eyes, a dull black thread stretched from the general’s chest, thin and nearly aged out. "Your life thread is very short, General. And I can pluck it with one finger."

Her hand did not move. It didn’t need to.

"But I don’t want to. Not yet." She smiled sweetly. "Now step back and listen to our princess speak. If you’re smart, you’ll enjoy it."

Wei Zhan did not answer. His jaw hardened, but his body was finally released, and he drifted backward gasping, his sword trembling in his hand. He no longer attacked. An old soldier knows when he’s facing something he cannot defeat, and his pride only dared speak once his life was safe.

On the wall, Zhaoyue gripped the small crystal on the shoulder of her gown and stepped to the highest edge. The morning wind stirred the hem of her dark red gown. Ten years of life in the palace had taught her how to stand before many people without showing her trembling knees. Today she didn’t have to pretend.

"Last night," she said. Her voice was clear, echoing across the whole plain. "I was given until today to answer a question. The question is simple. Will I free the creature chained beneath the marble mountain, or let it remain bound for the sake of the capital’s splendor?"

A wave of whispers spread among the five hundred mages. Some who had been looking down now raised their heads.

"Don’t listen to her!" Tianming roared from the platform. "She’s a traitor! She’s been bought by foreigners!"

"I’ll answer first, Brother. After that, you may shout all you like." Zhaoyue took a deep breath. "My answer is yes."

Not a single sound.

"I will go north. I will shed my blood, of my own free will, onto the core seal that only a Hua descendant can open. The chains will come loose. Baihu will be free." Her voice trembled slightly at the name, then steadied again. "I know what I’m saying. I know that by this I defy the decision of my father, the Emperor who saved millions of survivors when the world cracked. I know many of you were born beneath white-gold walls that stand because of that creature’s suffering. And I know I will be accused of tearing down your home."

She paused for a moment. Beside her, Sylvia had already returned to the wall without a sound, standing with arms folded, watching the faces below.

"But I refuse," Zhaoyue continued, "to build my home on the body of someone who was tricked with a false covenant. I am not my father’s judge. He remains the founder of this kingdom, and I will always honor what he saved. But saving one group of people does not justify a crime against another."

A young mage in white robes in the front rank slowly lowered his staff. Then the colleague beside him. Then those behind them.

"And as for the Lower District." Zhaoyue lifted her chin. "I know what you fear. If the channels are cut, the magic core will go out, and the island will fall. That’s why I will not cut them carelessly. Nocture will install a replacement energy source before a single chain is broken. I have checked the calculations, and I asked the person who will do the work directly."

"You would hang the entire capital on foreigners!" Tianming shrieked. His voice cracked in the middle. "On that woman!"

"It already hangs on someone now," Zhaoyue answered gently. "On a chained, nearly dead tiger. If it must depend on someone, Brother, I would rather depend on a neighbor who comes bringing tea."

A small laugh sounded from nowhere. Perhaps from a soldier on the wall. Perhaps from one of the young mages on the plain. No one could be sure, and no one dared admit it.

"I’m not asking you to betray the Emperor," Zhaoyue went on, more quietly. "I only ask one thing. Stop being the hands that hide this. If you doubt me, lower your staffs and come north with me. See for yourselves. Then decide with your own eyes."

The silence that followed this time felt different. Not the silence of fear, but the silence of people thinking hard about something they had deliberately avoided thinking about. On the platform, the twelve senior mages standing behind Tianming exchanged glances. One of them, a middle-aged woman in white robes with a silver badge on her chest, slowly drew her hand from her staff.

"Commander Lian..." whispered a subordinate beside her.

"Quiet," the woman replied hoarsely. "I’m counting how many times I’ve sent my people north without asking what they were doing."

’Hm,’ Sol remarked through telepathy only Sylvia could hear, his voice strangely not joking. ’That little girl is braver than many dragons I’ve met.’

Sylvia did not answer. She only looked at Zhaoyue from the side, and for a while there was no mischievous smile on her face. Of all the answers the girl could have given, she didn’t know which she would have chosen herself. But she knew this answer did not deserve a joke in reply.

"NO ONE IS TO LISTEN TO HER!"

Tianming screamed until the veins in his neck stood out. His small silver crown sat crooked, and the handsome face that had been so arrogant now looked like a cracked mask. He snatched the hilt of the ceremonial sword at his waist and pointed it at the city wall.

"All Legion mages! I, Second Prince Hua Tianming, order you to attack! Anyone who refuses is a traitor and will be tried along with her!"

No one moved.

Two hundred wyverns were still stuck to the ground. Five hundred mages stood in place with staffs half-raised, their eyes shifting between the prince, the princess, and the giant golden dragon covering the sky. The order hung in the air with no one willing to catch it.

Wei Zhan finally moved first. But he did not attack Sylvia. In an instan,t he vanished from the air and appeared on the city wall, right behind Zhaoyue, his lightning sword raised. If the princess fell, everything could still be saved. Perhaps that was all that remained in the old general’s mind.

Silver light split the air.

Celes’s spatial sword came out of nothingness and struck the lightning sword with a clang that made dust jump off the wall’s stones. Wei Zhan flinched back a step. Celes was already before him, not hurried, not angry, just cold like a knife in snow. The tip of her silver blade rested against the general’s throat before the man could draw his next breath.

"Apologies, General," Celes said flatly. "The Queen said no one moves until she permits. You just moved."

Fifty elite troops of Nocture stepped forward in unison. Their black armor clanged once, like a single body, and fifty spearpoints aimed at Wei Zhan without a single tremor. The general froze. Zhaoyue herself did not shift from her spot. She only turned, looked at the general who had once taught her to hold a bow as a child, and said quietly, "General Wei. Lower your sword."

That old hand trembled. A few seconds. Then the lightning sword went out, and Wei Zhan lowered his blade with a motion like carrying the weight of ten years.

"Your Highness," he whispered, barely audible. "You do not know what you are about to release."

"I know. That’s why I’ll do it properly."

On the plain, Sylvia landed softly on the crystal platform, right in front of Tianming. The twelve senior mages stepped back at once to make way, like water parting around a rock. Tianming retreated one step, then two. His shoe heels touched the platform’s edge, and he stopped because there was nowhere left to retreat.

"Don’t come closer," he said hoarsely. "I am the Second Prince. If you touch me, Father will..."

"Your father slapped your cheek in front of the whole banquet," Sylvia cut in amiably. "I don’t think he’ll be sad if his prince goes home intact." She stopped one step before him. "I won’t kill you, Hua Tianming. I’m bored, not hungry."

Tianming’s expression eased slightly, a sign that something inside him had begun to collapse.

"My terms are simple. The entire Legion lands and piles its weapons on this plain. Your crystal ships become guests in the square, next to the six ships that have been waiting since last week. You and your old general become honored guests at the governor’s mansion. The food is good. I guarantee it."

"You think this is over?" Tianming laughed, a dry sound almost like choking. He looked down at the crystal floor beneath his feet. When he looked up again, his eyes glinted with something other than anger. Colder. More bitter.

"You think I’m the only one who knows?" he whispered. "You think I’m the only one who kept his mouth shut in this family?"

Sylvia narrowed her eyes. Before her, the dull black thread from the man’s chest trembled faintly. She had looked at threads like this too many times not to know the difference. Someone who lies always makes his thread twist. Tianming’s thread was straight.

"Who?" Sylvia asked quietly.

"Ask my warm, smiling brother." Tianming grinned bitterly. "Ask Hua Tianyu what he does every year on Father’s birthday."

On the wall, far behind, Zhaoyue heard that sentence, because the crystal on her shoulder was still glowing and broadcasting it across the whole plain. Her face paled until her lips were almost colorless. Her hands, clenched on the parapet, slowly loosened, like someone who has just lost her footing on a stair she hadn’t known was there.

"Brother Tianyu..." she murmured.

Sylvia took a breath, letting the silence float for a moment. Then she turned to the wall, looking at the little girl in the dark red gown who had just stood alone before five hundred mages without flinching, but now looked as if she might fall over from a single name.

"Zhaoyue." Her voice was gentle, meant only for the princess’s ear through a small whisper spell. "Let’s finish this first. Then we go north. Tonight."

"I still have until tonight," Zhaoyue whispered. But her voice was no longer as firm as before. "And Baihu only has a week."

"Both are enough."

In the sky, Sol shrank from a fifty-meter dragon into a small golden cat, landed on Sylvia’s shoulder with a soft thump, then whispered through telepathy in a tone that was not joking at all.

’If the one in the north hears that the Hua princess is coming of her own accord,’ he said, ’I’d very much like to see its face.’

Sylvia smiled faintly. Behind them, the five hundred mages of the Guard Legion began, one by one, to lower their staffs and pile them on the grass. And beyond the northern horizon, far past the purple storm of the Deathcloud Mountains, something that had slept far too long began to breathe a little deeper.