1338 Rafel’s Naivety Part 2 (2/2)
”Why is there no one standing guard around her room?” Nailisi asked, feeling something was off.
”Saleen is here then. Come in. And, oh, no one could make it across the bridge without my permission.” Lex's voice could be heard from inside the room.
”Your highness, I can only go this far,” Dumont addressed Saleen as he made his move to depart.
Saleen nodded and walked on the bridge. The bridge was ice-cold. If it had not been for the fact that Saleen was adept in Water Flame Alchemy and had unnervingly high resistance to low temperatures, he would have turned into a block of ice as soon as he walked on the bridge. Nailisi looked worried and was about to attack when Saleen stopped her. ”Lex was afraid of someone disguised as you and me, so she was testing us out. Just get past the bridge, and we'll see a familiar reaction from her.” It was only then that Nailisi lowered her spear and followed Saleen, walking across the bridge.
The bridge looked to be tens of yards long. The sides cast up a heavy mist as soon as Saleen walked on it, enabling him to only see the path ahead. There was a layer of elementite laid out on the bridge. While they were only of level 12, they were in substantial numbers. The only magic power imbued within the elementite was one that prevented any acceleration magic from being used. Because of this, Saleen had to resort to good, old-fashioned walking with his own legs. If he was in a hurry, he would have needed to run. The walk was more than ten miles long. Saleen's steps were evenly paced. He did not need to calculate to find out how long he had walked. Saleen was able to traverse the bridge fairly quickly despite not being able to use any acceleration magic, and that was because Nailisi was getting impatient and summoned nightmares, that she had hidden in her 12 Notes of First Purgatory. She and Saleen both rode one respectively and blitzed on the bridge.
After they crossed the bridge, the area before them looked like a veranda in a noble's garden. The platform was wide and there were magical plants planted everywhere. Saleen looked through a window and found Lex sitting beside a bed, watching over a young man. The young man looked pale, but his eyes were bloodshot. His face resembled that of Lex. He lacked strength, yet he smiled at Lex nonetheless and looked happy.
”Lex, Saleen's here, I can finally die,” Ojarvis said softly.
”Don't say that. Don't you realize you're my only family left here?” Lex said to her brother in a chastising tone.
”There are still uncle and our cousins.” Ojarvis panted as he finished the sentence. A servant from the palace quickly passed a cup and had Ojarvis drink some magic liquid from it. The young emperor of the Qin Empire was no longer able to eat anything. His life was only sustained using magic liquid produced using level-seven magic.
”Well, uncle doesn't see me as family.” Lex did not want her brother to be sad and thus didn't tell him the truth. The conflict between her and her uncle involved more than the problems of the succession to the throne. Lex wanted mages to be de facto leaders, yet Safilos believed only in the sword in his hand.
The army should be the core of a nation. Such was Safilos's thoughts. Despite agreeing to letting Lex take the throne and become empress, it did not mean that he would not turn against her rule at a later date. If Lex insisted on doing something, he had the right to chastise Lex all the same.
Arbola was not the only force in Golden Plains. The Grukos had been in seats of power for thousands of years, and there were countless powerful ones emerging in every generation. Those people would have naturally formed their own cliques, holding the reins of the empire's lifeblood. The people of Golden Plains would have not willingly served just anyone.
Saleen brought Nailisi and circled around the window, entering the room through a door at the side. They flipped open the curtain and found the room to be incredibly hot, yet there was still a fire magic array laid out on the floor, generating high amounts of heat continuously.
Ojarvis smiled at Saleen and said, ”I'm very sorry, but my body can no longer withstand any cold. If it hadn't been for the magic array, my blood would have automatically frozen right here, right now.”
”You've been poisoned!” Saleen was surprised. While Ojarvis was physically frail, he was still nonetheless an emperor of an empire. The number of mages protecting him would have outnumbered Saleen's followers. It would have been extremely difficult to poison Ojarvis, and the price for getting caught doing it would have been dire.
”Yeah, I'm poisoned. And it was Lex who did it,” Ojarvis blinked as he said to Saleen.
Saleen shook his head, and Lex smiled at him, explaining in a rather tired manner, ”Someone used Ultimate Shapeshifting and disguised themselves as me, infiltrating the royal palace and meeting Ojarvis.” Saleen quickly did calculations in his mind as soon as he heard the news.
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