Novel Full Chapter 1294: Chapter 21: Boundless Night
Chapter 1294: Chapter 21: Boundless Night
At eight in the evening, the first car sped toward the suburbs.
In the middle of a vast stretch of fields and wasteland, the bulletproof car stopped before a hill—only to see the flat ground suddenly begin to rise, revealing a huge steel plate covered in soil and weeds—the plate tilted open, turning into a special entrance.
Only then did the bulletproof car drive in… not far ahead stood a rocky mountain.
After “going underground,” there were lights and a straight asphalt road; after advancing roughly two hundred meters, there appeared a giant gate—when the gate opened, what could be seen was, shockingly, an enormous dock built inside the mountain.
There was only one small aircraft about thirty meters long… its shape resembled a fighter, and it felt as if this entire dock existed solely to serve this special warplane.
A dozen or so mechanics in gray uniforms and caps were currently working on this gigantic fighter—the bulletproof car finally stopped by a side entrance.
The Prime Minister hurriedly got out of the car, and someone came up to receive him.
The Prime Minister merely nodded, his face darkening slightly as he strode quickly into the entrance—the one leading the welcoming party was wearing a star-bedecked military uniform… judging by rank, clearly far from low.
“Is everything ready?” The Prime Minister’s pace grew faster and faster.
The officer beside him followed at a quick trot while speaking rapidly, “Preparations began thirty minutes ago as soon as we received your call… but we’re still in the adjustment phase. It’s estimated we’ll need another hour to reach optimal values.”
“An hour is too long, cut it down as much as you can.” The Prime Minister frowned. “The ones who hijacked the Queen this time are Non-Human creatures. That bunch of old fossils at the Knight Agency actually watched the Queen get taken away! That old bastard Perkins even had the nerve to tell me he couldn’t foresee it… that lot is still unreliable. We can only rely on ourselves.”
As they spoke, he and the officer had already ridden an elevator down and finally arrived in a control room—from here one could overlook everything happening in the dock—the entire staff in the control room stood up at once and saluted the Prime Minister.
“Get to work.” The Prime Minister waved his hand, then took off his coat and rolled up his sleeves, accepting a headset from a staffer. “Switch the screens to the adjustment chamber, let me see the state of these warriors!”
“Yes, sir!”
At the front console, a female officer in uniform flew across the keys with both hands—very quickly, an image came up on the screen.
A live feed from the so-called adjustment chamber.
There were a full twenty units of massive machinery lined up neatly in a vast empty room, each like some oversized game pod, yet also reminiscent of a CT scanner; on each one lay someone in a tight combat suit… some male, some female.
They were all very young, seemingly around twenty years old.
“Beautiful. Truly beautiful. This is our own Power… The Fianna. It’s time we let this Power shine before those proud and arrogant Knights.”
“Prime Minister, even if the corps’ warriors finish their adjustments… we still have no way of knowing where the Queen is currently being held, do we?” Although he had immense confidence in everything inside this base, the officer still had to consider factors beyond human capability.
“It’s fine. I can locate the Queen.” The Prime Minister spoke with full assurance. “Once this crisis is resolved, matters of the Non-Human Domain will no longer be the Knight Agency’s exclusive turf… Ancient glory? It’s about time those old diehards who’ve been pulling our strings all along started thinking about retirement.”
As he spoke, the Prime Minister took out a black box about the size of a cigarette pack, looked at the officer, and said, “Use this to trace the source of the signal. It’ll help us lock onto the correct position.”
“This is…” The officer was slightly stunned, as if something had just occurred to him.
Could it be that the Prime Minister had been secretly tracking the Queen’s movements all along… that he’d installed a tracker on her?
“Not on her.” The Prime Minister waved it off. “Don’t overthink it, just do as I say… I don’t care if it’s the Doomsday Myth or the so‑called Myth of Tomorrow—before sunrise tomorrow, I want these thugs never to see Dawn again!”
The officer stood at attention and saluted!
…
…
“Good, good, very good… what a well-behaved thing you are. Judging by your coat, that Queen must have really taken good care of you.”
In the room, Judas, long‑bearded yet monstrously strong of body, was cradling the tiny creature that was practically minuscule compared to him, teasing it—this was, of course, Her Majesty the Queen’s pet.
Only Tip, the ex‑disciple of a Secret Medicine Practitioner, was here accompanying him… this thin, bespectacled man watched the little thing that didn’t seem the slightest bit afraid of strangers and was even snuggling in Judas’s arms; his face dark and gloomy, he frowned. “Judas, since when did you become so full of love and tenderness?”
Judas merely glanced at Tip and said casually, “I’m actually the same as you.”
“The same as me?” Tip was taken aback.
Judas watched Tip sitting at the table, sorting through all sorts of bottles, jars, and various tools. “You Secret Artisans fight using a whole pile of gear and props. Every time you prepare, you can’t afford even the slightest carelessness, right?”
“Yeah, that’s basic common sense.” Tip nodded.
Judas said blandly, “I’m different. I only fight with my fists, so all I need is to keep my heart calm… this helps me settle down.”
“Are you sure it’s not because you’re basically a cat‑petting, litter‑scooping housekeeper at heart?” Tip snarked. “At least take out your gauntlets and give them a polish, so I can feel like you’re actually making some kind of preparation for battle, okay?”
“What are you so tense about?” Judas shook his head instead. “Tomorrow’s important, yes, but it’s not like we’ve never danced on the edge of life and death before… Is it because that female Secret Medicine Practitioner got to you back at the theater?”
Tip’s rage back then, even to the point of blowing his own cover, had its reasons—reasons tied to his past. Back in the Magician’s Association’s Secret Medicine Practitioner qualification exam, he’d been framed for cheating by his opponent, and in the chaos he’d even accidentally injured the examiner; in the end, he was stripped of his right to ever qualify as a Secret Medicine Practitioner.
At the theater, to have that female Secret Medicine Practitioner dismiss him so lightly, saying he wasn’t even fit to be an apprentice, had naturally jabbed right into the thorn lodged in Tip’s heart. How could he possibly stomach that?
“Hmph…” Tip’s brows knit slightly. “If she dares show up again, I’ll make damn sure she gets a taste of the terror of my Ten Secret Medicines.”
“I’d advise you not to go picking extra fights.” Judas shook his head. “From what we saw at the theater, that man and woman don’t seem interested in our business at all… Tip, the mainland is vast. The Leader may be strong, but there are definitely people out there stronger than him… You saw that invisible barrier too, didn’t you? Even the Leader’s full‑force punch couldn’t break it, and he ended up hurting himself instead.”
“Maybe all he’s got is defensive Power, and in everything else he’s trash with a combat power of five at best.” Tip snorted coldly. “There are tons of defensive tools… Doesn’t the Magician’s Association have that so‑called ‘Absolute Defenses’ Divine Artifact, The Flaming Sky’s Sevenfold Circles? And I’ve heard the bloodsuckers’ Thirteen Clans also secretly keep a secret treasure said to have been used by the bloodsuckers’ progenitor Cain, called Blood Glory, which is also supposed to be nearly impossible to break with physical attacks.”
Judas gave a wry smile. “Come on. Everything you just named is either Legendary Divine Artifacts or secret treasures worth a fortune… If it were that easy for us to just bump into one, I’d better go buy a lottery ticket before sunrise; maybe I’d even hit the jackpot. That way, even if tomorrow’s operation fails, I could at least retire in comfort.”
“Spineless old fossil!”
“Little dog.”
Tip actually wasn’t that old… He looked middle‑aged, but that was only because years of dealing with secret medicines had left his body eroded by all sorts of toxins, making him appear much older than he really was—in truth, Tip was only seventeen.
Back in the world of magicians, he’d once been hailed as the most gifted genius of the past century—yes, he really was only seventeen this year.
Bickering… was probably just another way of “relaxing.”
Outside, the sound of a harmonica suddenly drifted in… Outside, under a tree, Caesar was sitting on the grass, playing the harmonica, while Catherine leaned against him.
Looking at the moonlight, and at the clouds watching the night.
…
When Lance came back to her senses, her lips were wet… When she woke up, she found herself lying on the ground—with a coat laid beneath her.
It was the one Her Majesty the Queen had been wearing.
And at this moment, the Queen was using a dampened handkerchief to moisten her lips… She was even resting her head on the Queen’s lap.
“Your Majesty… how can I let you do this?” Lance struggled, trying to sit up.
The Queen pressed her body down and blinked. “Look at you, child. Right now you don’t even have the strength of this old woman, so why still force yourself?”
“But…” Lance opened her mouth.
The Queen smiled lightly. “Back in my prime, I also took part in the war. I was only in a women’s support corps, but I do have some experience taking care of the wounded… Though I haven’t done it in many years, so I’m a bit rusty. Your right hand looks like a serious fracture… did they do this? I can only give you a simple fix; after all, the conditions here are really limited.”
Lance laboriously raised her arm. Her arm was wrapped with cloth strips around two pieces of wood—it was obvious these bits of wood had been pulled off that wooden chair.
“No…” Lance shook her head.
The fracture in her right hand had happened even earlier… A day ago, her right hand had been holding Lake Light the Indestructible, taking head-on the cleaving strike from the legendary strongest Great Knight, Farael. Not only had the Treasured Sword shattered, but the shock had directly broken the bones in her hand.
Thinking of Lake Light the Indestructible, she then thought of having her Inheritance Power stripped away… Her gaze couldn’t help but dim.
“Looks like…” At this moment the Queen lowered her head to look at her and said softly, “In places I couldn’t see, you really did work very hard.”
“I… I’ve lost a Knight’s Power.”
Her Majesty the Queen covered her eyes with her palm and said slowly, “Right now, the darkness you see is only temporary. When I lift my hand, the Light will appear before your eyes once again. But I don’t want to let it appear just yet. Do you know why?”
“Why…” she asked subconsciously.
The Queen said, “Because the darkness lets you quiet down; you can’t see your own cowardice… So, you can cry your heart out. But when the Light appears, you’ll need to be ready… child.”
Lance said nothing more.
The Queen could only feel, in the center of her palm, a growing dampness.
Just then, from outside the stone chamber, there faintly came the sound of an instrument—the sound of a harmonica… Her Majesty the Queen recognized it.
Her left hand still covered Lance’s eyes, but in her right hand she was now holding something… a black card.
She had been given this at the theater, when she saw again that respectable yet terrifying teacher from years past, just before she left.
—Little Elizabeth, if you run into something you can’t solve, make a wish to this card, okay? Teacher will appear. But in return, you’ll have to pay something precious.
“Teacher…”
Her Majesty the Queen fell into deep thought.
…
…
By the time they came out of the other theater, it was already more than ten minutes past eight in the evening—they hadn’t managed to see Turandot in full, but the club’s boss and his Maid pair had quite successfully watched the famous The Phantom of the Opera.
In this month’s weather, the streets of the Fog Capital still felt rather cold.
Many passersby were wrapped tightly in their clothes, walking into the wind—of course, for the Boss and the Maid, the notion of feeling the cold didn’t really apply.
Elegant, yes… that was how the Maid was dressed for going out today.
But didn’t it also make her seem a bit thinly clad?
“Master?”
All of a sudden, the Maid felt the cold—that kind of chill truly felt with one’s own body—she could no longer remember how long it had been since she’d had this frail-human-child sort of sensation.
To change her body like this, with her having no perception of it at all, there was probably no one else in the world who could do it besides her Master.
“I suddenly realized that the stronger one’s Power is, the more interesting things one can no longer feel.” Luo Qiu merely smiled, then took the Maid’s hands in his own, lifting them to his lips and breathing warm air onto them.
Rubbing them lightly to bring warmth.
“For example, like this.” Luo Qiu smiled. “Does this make me seem too mean?”
“You can… be even meaner to me.”
Luo Qiu only smiled without replying. Instead, he took off his coat and draped it over the Maid’s shoulders… Though it looked a bit loose on her, scenes like this were hardly rare on the street.
Those lovers deep in the throes of romance probably looked much the same.
The street was lively. Wrapped in her Master’s coat, the Maid leaned against Luo Qiu, holding her handbag, head lowered, walking quietly.
Then the two of them stopped before a group of street performers.
It was a band playing on the roadside… The reason Boss Luo had stopped was that he had spotted a former customer.
“It’s Mr Cheng. So he came here to further his music.” The Maid looked on, slightly surprised.
That eastern young man holding a guitar, playing and singing.
Amid the crowd, he wore a baseball cap, accompanying himself on the guitar as he sang a piece, “Remember Me.”
Luo Qiu smiled at this moment. “So he’s found something that belongs to him now…”