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Page 377
"...What did you intend to do that you ended up doing too much of?"
He exchanged a somewhat helpless glance with the half-elf, and after confirming from her eyes that the emotions they sensed from the demon were largely similar, he silently scratched his head and muttered:
"What exactly are you guys doing at the medicine shop...?"
Before he could finish speaking, the surrounding scenery suddenly began to change rapidly. Latis was stunned for a moment, and upon closer inspection, he realized that the demiplane seemed to be rapidly overlapping with the continent of Atlantis. It wasn't just a certain point in the demiplane that was in contact with the continent, but the entire demiplane was rapidly descending.
"Could it be that scroll?"
Latis immediately guessed the reason. He glanced at Doug, who was clutching his head and screaming in terror amidst the tremors of the demiplane, sighed, and muttered:
"Well... this is the only way I can meet the insects on the lower floating islands..."
……
……
"Is this the legendary right-hand man of Lord Nig, his eldest son, Doug Nuri? Heh, seeing is believing, indeed."
The sarcastic, mocking voice made Nig Nouri's eye twitch slightly. His face turned as black as oil. He took a deep breath, glanced at the dazed-looking Shin Nouri, and, suppressing his anger, turned to Spike and asked:
"what happened?"
"Lord City Lord, it's all the young master's fault! I've been dragged down with him!" Spike cried out indignantly.
"I can't remember exactly what happened. I only remember that the young master asked me to help him deal with two passing refugees. I just arrived at the place and glanced at them before I completely lost consciousness..."
"What the hell is this?! One look and you lose consciousness. Do you think it's something you can't look at directly?!"
Nig cursed under his breath, not wanting to argue with Spike, and turned to look at the lower-ranking family members behind him. He took a deep breath and said awkwardly:
"You all heard it too..."
"Who would believe such a thing!" The lower-class families burst into laughter. "Why don't you just say you encountered a giant dragon and were terrified by its might!"
"Ha ha ha ha……"
Nig's words caught in his throat, and he sighed helplessly, as if on the verge of tears.
To be honest, he himself felt it was unreliable.
He originally wanted Xin to stand in for Doug and put on a good show to fool them, but he didn't expect that guy to be so useless. He didn't know what had happened to him, but he ended up with this ridiculous expression.
In short, the most urgent task now is to keep the nobles of Norard and the lower floating island alliance in check, and not let them believe that I let Doug go into the Herod ruins alone to explore.
"Haha... Actually, it's like this, it's quite a coincidence..."
Nig's face darkened, and he gave a dry laugh, saying haltingly:
“My son, Doug, he… hasn’t been feeling well lately…”
As soon as the words were spoken, the dense forest around them suddenly trembled, and then a magnificent platform topped with huge roots suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of them.
The enormous roots spread out in all directions, and along the way appeared countless flowers, trees, and many unknown mysterious creations, seemingly illusory yet right before one's eyes. In the turbulent spatial currents, it was just like a dream, indistinguishable from reality.
Nig lost his balance and fell to the ground. Before he could react, he heard a familiar voice call out:
"Father! I have fulfilled my mission and brought back the Herod Ruins!"
His heart skipped a beat, and he quickly opened his eyes, propping himself up to look at Doug, who stood not far away like a wild man. His face instantly turned ugly, and he glanced guiltily at the people around him before shouting sharply:
"Who's your dad? Who are you? I don't know you!"
Doug froze on the spot and shouted:
"It's me, Doug! Look, it's me!"
Nig's face was ashen. He gave Doug several meaningful glances and said through gritted teeth:
"Doug? He's resting at home! Who are you, impersonating my son?"
"I..." Doug looked at Nig, whose face was completely obscured in the dim light, and cried out in grievance, "Dad, didn't you watch me enter the ruins?!"
"You idiot!" Nig's blood pressure spiked, and he clutched his head, weakly crying out, "No, don't slander me..."
“…That’s about enough.”
Those in the lower ranks, who were barely able to contain their expressions, couldn't help but shout:
"Lord Nig, we can't let the child lose his father! Surely you can't be scared silly by the dragon's might, can you? Hahaha..."
"Oh?"
A deep, muffled voice suddenly appeared above everyone. Everyone felt a sudden darkness before their eyes, as if the light of the entire sky had been blocked. At the same time, an extremely terrifying aura instantly permeated the area. In a deathly silence, the magic lanterns that everyone was carrying quietly went out.
"Why aren't you saying anything?" the deep voice said, seemingly amused. "Are you all scared stiff by the dragon's might?"
Dragon, dragon's might...
The awe-inspiring presence emanating from the higher beings had left everyone drenched in sweat without them even realizing it. Their faces were stiff, they swallowed hard, and slowly turned towards the source of the sound, looking up with trepidation.
The roots, spreading outwards, gleamed with a cold, iron-like light. They converged on the high platform of the octagonal palace, behind which, behind the main root from which space it was impossible to discern, lay a vast shadow...
No, it wasn't a shadow! A huge dragon claw had somehow landed on the platform. Looking up along the claw, and up again, at a height almost three or four times that of the platform, they finally saw a giant dragon whose face they couldn't make out. It silently watched them in the shadow of the daylight.
"Titania City has taken over this demiplane."
The giant dragon, whose body appeared completely bald, without a single edge or wrinkle, spoke thus. He examined his smooth claws and asked, seemingly somewhat dissatisfied:
"Do any of you have any objections?"
"...Attack! Attack! All-out attack!"
The crowd finally realized what was happening and cried out in alarm. In a panic, they began to construct various magical runes, activate their magical equipment and scrolls, attempting to drive away the inexplicably appearing dragon.
"Ugh, this is such a hassle, damn it."
The dragon muttered to itself, glancing with a headache at the various notifications that were starting to flood the magic network. It didn't really want to disconnect them one by one; that would be too much trouble.
Therefore, sensing the reinforcements from the demons in his consciousness, he extended his dragon claw, casually slapped it down, and symbolically uttered a cry:
"The Mage's Hand!"
The crowd's vision went dark, and they instinctively looked up at the dragon claw that blotted out the sky.
They immediately lost consciousness.
Chapter 375 King Herod
"That should be about right..."
The bald, attribute-less dragon put the half-elf hidden on its back back onto the ground, and in a flash transformed back into Latis. It glanced at the remaining dragon claw print on the ground, and couldn't help but scratch its head. But since things had come to this, it could only leave it as an urban legend.
A palm strike that fell from the sky? Interesting...
“I wonder when this spatial overlap will recover…” Ateliers looked up at the roots on the high platform of the Palace of Blessed Virginity, blinked, and suddenly her expression changed as she exclaimed:
"Ah, almost there, it's starting to move!"
"That's good, otherwise I really wouldn't know what to do if they kept overlapping."
Latis breathed a sigh of relief and began to wait for the demiplane to return to normal.
Just now, his dragon claw strike instantly shattered the attacks of these teams. However, as the mage's hand was about to land, he slightly reduced his strength, only accidentally breaking the legs of a few unlucky family heads.
Even if all the families on these lower floating islands were to die out, they would quickly be taken over by worldly merchants and nobles, plunging them back into chaos.
In the current situation, the living families are more valuable than the dead, after all, the reputation of Titania still depends on these people who experienced it firsthand to spread it.
Latis kindly gave the Nuri family a chance by reviving Nig first, allowing him to take away the unconscious teams in order to gain their attention and gratitude.
However, the price is that the Nuri family's background must be fully revealed, and they will become Titania's secret mole in the future.
Nig had already served as a dog for the Queen and the middle-class families, so he had absolutely no reason to refuse the opportunity to become a servant of three families... three surnames. Moreover, although the dragon in front of him looked like a bald man and was very ugly, his strength was unfathomable and immeasurable. So he immediately switched sides and declared that the Nuri family was willing to be the plantation of Titania City forever.
Loyal! Sincerity!
Latis silently cursed Nig's overly self-assuredness for a long time before readily rejecting the proposal. He didn't need the Nuri family's wealth at all; he only needed to be a neutral third party independent of all other forces to stand at the center of the game.
Nig was very disappointed that he couldn't become Nuri of Titania.
In short, before leaving, Nig signed a soul contract promising never to reveal today's secret, and also explained his past background.
Originally, the Nuri family were just local farmers in Shuangxia Territory. In reality, they were serfs of the local nobles. Nig was abandoned by his father when he was a child because of his dark skin. He ended up with a group of serfs and jokingly formed a "slave family".
As he grew older, one day, the nobles to which he belonged were suddenly conscripted, and all the serfs were then sent to other lords. Nig was no exception. He and his friends from the "slave family" were scattered before he could say goodbye. He eventually arrived near the Castle of the Iris and received an apprenticeship at a school as a middle-aged farmer.
Soon after, he learned that all the farmers selected to receive education would become part of the Cindy Project.
This Cindy was the later Queen Whiteley.
Latis was initially shocked to hear this. It turned out that the Queen had started making trouble even before she took the throne. But thinking about it, it made sense. To be able to control the current Kingdom of Norard, the Queen probably started planning long ago. Perhaps she was the one ruling in the later years of the previous king's reign as well...
It's just unknown when exactly the Queen started using methods like the Black Hat to control the overt and covert aspects of the Kingdom of Norard. In any case, according to Nig, the Sindria Project has been going on for at least a decade.
After that, Nig followed the Queen's orders to infiltrate the floating island system. After years of ups and downs, he eventually became the current Nuri family. Although he is still only ranked forty-seventh and at the bottom of the list, he has recovered most of the former "slave family". Now he is living a peaceful old age on the floating island, occasionally picking cotton and reminiscing about the ups and downs of the past.
However, the Queen's instructions were very few and had no clear objectives. She would only occasionally ask him to cooperate with some action. In this light, the Nuri family was just a part of the plan, and the whole picture could not be seen.
After learning this, Latis let him go. Consider this a hidden threat to the Queen; who knows when it might come in handy.
As for now...
hum!
The roots that stretched into the distance began to slowly disappear. Latis came to his senses and immediately realized that the demiplane was about to overlap. He quickly grabbed Ateliers's hand, hugged the pillar of the Palace of Blessed ...
The demon that had previously aided Latis returned to its original state and hovered in the air. The blue lucky bird landed back on Atelius's arm and chirped softly.
"So what were these guys doing before...?"
Latis stepped forward and teased the Lucky Bird a couple of times, then teased Atelius a couple more times. Under her reproachful glare, he chuckled and said:
"Speaking of which, could they be activating some kind of magic array... like channeling magic power to make the control core of the demiplane appear?"
"Huh? That's possible."
The half-elf's brow furrowed, as if he had remembered something. He raised his arm slightly, sending the Lucky Bird back into the air, and then took Latis's hand and walked back into the palace.
After the surrounding vine walls dissipated, the palace within the octagonal colonnade was no longer dark. Under the existing fireflies and the faint light of the demons, the white interior walls began to gleam with a warm glow.
Aside from the not-too-tall shrub maze, Latis saw that there were actually some exquisite tables and chairs around the inside of the maze. Above the tables and chairs, arched flower stands, like intersecting sloping arcs, formed a circle with subtle angles inside.
Delicate white flowers adorned the drooping branches of the flower stand, like floating stars. Latis walked to the small table beside the maze, brushed aside the flowers and leaves above her head, picked up the book on the table, and glanced at it.
The Will of the World Tree