Chapter 896 (2/2)

“Who are they?” Roland asked, raising his eyebrow.

“The Extraordinaries who survived the first Battle of Divine Will. It was them who founded the Union. Look at the documents on the table! Could this be…” Phyllis asked in surprise.

“Indeed.” Agatha’s voice was full of joy. “I never expected to witness the well-known vow of the three queens with my very own eyes!”

Roland was bewildered. He raised his head and tried to get a better look, only to find texts written with magic power, which were only readable to witches.

“Can someone explain what the vows were about?”

“Allow me.” Agatha’s voice came from in front of him. “It was considered as a symbolic event in the history of the Union where this loose organization integrated into a centralized power. This event was something every awakened witch had to learn about. After the end of the first Battle of Divine Will, the Union, which was entirely under the witches’ rule, was founded. At that time, different opinions were circling around the young organization, whether it was about the ruling of ordinary people or the methods of fighting against demons. Such debates lasted for years until three major powers emerged. Over time, the three forces grew until they finally overpowered the other lords and city-states, after which the Union ended up with the oligarchic organizational structure that we all know about.”

“Were the three powers Starfall City, Taquila, and Arrieta?” Nightingale asked.

“That’s right. Due to the special positions of these three Holy Cities, their lords were often crowned as ‘Queen,'” Agatha replied. “The Three Chiefs of the last tenure in the Union were the Queen of Starfall City Alice, the Queen of Sunchaser Natalia, and the Queen of Moonradiance Eleanor.”

“No wonder.” Roland thought. To witches in that era, the vow of the three queens was more or less the same as the founding constitutional amendments of a nation. This event signified the point after which the Union had transformed from an unofficial alliance to a unified political entity. No wonder witches like Agatha and Phyllis were this excited about the vow. Indeed, it had important historical significance. Although the Union ended up in a disaster, without the Three Chiefs system, it would have been defeated much sooner in the second Battle of Divine Will, let alone leaving behind the numerous witches who took on “resisting demons, recovering Taquila” as their lifelong mission.

But such information was not particularly interesting to Roland. With his mind drifting away, he laid eyes on the minor details in the phantom such as the witches’ clothing, the cups and stationery they used, and the furniture and decoration in the hall. Since Alice came from a time several centuries ago, the furnishings of her age were much shabbier. Obviously, after the defeat of the first Battle of Divine Will, the domain of the witches ended up in an extremely underdeveloped stage.

On the walls of the conference hall, Roland saw over ten portraits, and surprisingly, two of them were men. He guessed that they were probably some outstanding heroic figures from the war.

Apparently, at that time, the Union hadn’t started to consider ordinary people as lower beings, since men could still attend such an important conference.

Just when Roland was about to ask Agatha whether she knew who they were, he felt as if all the blood in his body suddenly froze.

An indescribable chill rose from the bottom of his feet and penetrated through his spine. The panic was so intense that goosebumps sprung on his arms and his fingertips started to shiver slightly.

“What’s wrong?” noticing his uneasiness, Anna asked urgently.

“That, that painting…” swallowing his saliva, Roland was able to barely stutter out his words.

“Painting?”

“The person in the painting… I’ve seen her before.”

It took him quite a lot of effort to utter those words—although the phantom was not as clear as the previous ones, he could still distinguish the silhouette of the person in the second to the last portrait. It was a middle-aged woman, not outstanding in appearance, with her black hair coiled on the top of her head, one of her eyes covered with a patch, and was sitting on a high-backed chair with her hands crossed over each other.

Her appearance was exactly the same as Lan, Garcia’s master in Roland’s Dream World!