Chapter 593: Cocoon

Chapter 593: Cocoon

The battle between Li Wei and Rose.

It brought an end to the seesaw warfare between the Underworld and the Northern Xuan Kingdom.

The two factions fell into a prolonged cold war.

No one knew when the fires of war would ignite once more.

Both sides erected fortresses and strongholds near the spatial rift, poised at any moment for defense or assault.

As the weaker party, the Northern Xuan Kingdom naturally lacked the leverage to launch an offensive.

Oates could only exhaust every resource to construct various formidable defensive citadels.

Following the retreat of the dark race legions back into the Underworld.

Rose vanished without a trace.

Li Wei descended as well, seeking out Gu Sewei and Gu Ze.

The two of them were together.

"Are you two alright?" Li Wei asked in a hurried tone.

Gu Sewei shook her head and replied, "I am fine. Several legendary professionals from the Underworld sought to move against me, but before they could find an opportunity, the battle concluded."

Li Wei said, "Do not expose your identity next time, be careful."

He had left a strand of divine power upon Gu Sewei for protection.

Yet it was impossible to guarantee that no one possessed sinister means capable of bypassing his divine power to harm her.

Should that happen, regret would come too late.

Gu Ze remarked, "This battle has dealt a devastating blow to the Northern Xuan Kingdom."

Li Wei shook his head, sighing softly, "It could not be helped. The adversary is the Underworld, a realm governed by a deity."

He omitted saying that the Northern Xuan Kingdom simply lacked the right to stand as their opponent.

Until now.

The Underworld had never launched a full-scale war, maintaining only minor skirmishes.

But this single, comprehensive onslaught from the Underworld had sent the Northern Xuan Kingdom into a precipitous retreat.

Leaving them entirely without the power to resist.

This was not only because a deity sat in their rear guard, but also because several legendary professionals led the vanguard.

In truth, neither the deity nor the legendary professionals had directly intervened in the conflict.

Their presence served purely as a deterrent.

The engagement was entirely a clash of sheer military might between the two armies.

Conclusively, the Northern Xuan Kingdom suffered a miserable defeat.

It was a reality completely beyond recourse; the two sides simply did not occupy the same tier.

Li Wei spoke, "Let Oates ponder the matters ahead, we shall return first."

After this clash, the Underworld ought to remain quiet for a time.

Until Rose devised a method to contend with Li Wei, she would not launch another large-scale invasion.

This granted the Northern Xuan Kingdom a fragile moment to breathe.

It also afforded Li Wei precious time to augment his strength.

Li Wei entered seclusion once more to cultivate bitterly, comprehending the fundamental laws of power.

Ever since tasting that bitter defeat, Oates found sleep elusive night and day.

He lived in perpetual dread that the dark race legions of the Underworld would stage a resurgence.

Because he himself could exert no influence over the current state of affairs, a profound sense of impotence and misery consumed him.

As the sovereign of the Northern Xuan Kingdom, it was his first time confronting such a plight.

Entrusting the security of the entire realm to the hands of another.

While he remained entirely powerless.

Not until the vanguard forces dispatched by the Ninth Prince arrived to reinforce him did Oates finally breathe a sigh of relief.

The Ninth Prince had sent the legendary expert most adept in warfare from his inner circle to Maple Leaf City.

Upon beholding that legendary figure, Oates was deeply astonished.

Yet, it was also within his expectations.

Reina, returning from the Middle-Earth, had already become a legendary War Knight.

Her prowess surpassed even that of her master, Owen.

This was owed to Reina’s extraordinary talent as a knight, alongside the bountiful resources of the Middle-Earth and the backing of the Ninth Prince.

The very first question Reina uttered upon meeting Oates was, "Where is Li Wei?"

Before arriving at Maple Leaf City, she had already heard rumors of the events that transpired here.

Particularly upon learning that Li Wei had single-handedly compelled the retreat of the Underworld's dark race legions.

She felt an overwhelming shock.

Having just set foot in Maple Leaf City, she could scarce contain her eagerness to meet this old friend from whom she had been parted for so many years.

Oates replied, "Mage Li Wei should have returned to the Mage Tower. No one has glimpsed his form these past few days; he is likely still within."

Hearing this, Reina relaxed her urgency.

It was enough to know that Li Wei was in Maple Leaf City.

They would meet sooner or later.

Reina inquired, "What is the current predicament of the Northern Xuan Kingdom?"

Oates said, "Wait a moment, your master Owen is coming shortly. Grand General Owen will recount the present plight of the kingdom to you in full."

Reina nodded, waiting for Owen's arrival.

Before long, Owen, clad in a suit of dark iron armor, strode into the palace.

Beholding Reina, he gave a gentle nod with a faint smile, saying, "Reina, you have returned."

Reina smiled and said, "Master, His Highness the Ninth Prince has commanded me to lead forces to your aid."

Owen nodded and said, "Good, let us dispense with pleasantries. I shall relate the recent circumstances to you now..."

It was not until dusk, when the twilight sun began to sink.

That Reina finally emerged from the royal palace.

She walked toward the Mage Tower.

Within the confines of the Mage Tower, two legendary figures met.

As Rayna, a legendary War Knight, had come to the Mage Tower, it was only natural for Gu Sewei to receive her in person.

Upon learning that Rayna had made the journey specifically to find Levi,

Gu Sewei was somewhat surprised and asked, "When did you first meet Levi, Miss Rayna?"

Rayna replied, "It was about twenty years ago, back when Levi was still just a mere mage apprentice within the Maple Leaf City Mage Tower. I knew him even then."

Gu Sewei could not help but steal a few more glances at Rayna, her mind turning over the nature of the woman's relationship with Levi.

After a separation of twenty years, Rayna's very first instinct upon returning to Maple Leaf City was to seek out Levi.

This stirred a flurry of thoughts within Gu Sewei's mind.

With a faint smile, Gu Sewei said, "Is that so? I had no idea you and Levi had known each other for so many years, Miss Rayna. You must be an old friend of his. Yet, I wonder why I have never heard Levi mention you before?"

Rayna looked at her with a touch of curiosity and countered, "Levi and I share an acquaintance, but why on earth should he have to tell you about it?"

Gu Sewei laughed and replied, "Because I am his wife."

Rayna stared at her in utter astonishment. "What? You are Levi's wife?"

She had been completely unaware of the bond between Levi and Gu Sewei.

The relationship between the two had only circulated as a whisper of gossip within a very small circle in Maple Leaf City.

Naturally, such trivialities would never find their way into the precious pages of wartime intelligence.

Rayna only knew that Maple Leaf City currently possessed two combatants whose strength reached or exceeded the legendary realm.

One was Gu Sewei, the newly appointed master of the Maple Leaf City Mage Tower.

The other was Levi.

Gu Sewei's prowess was explicitly confirmed to be that of a legendary mage.

Levi's true strength remained temporarily shrouded in doubt.

Even Oates did not know exactly what tier of mage Levi had attained.

At the very least, it was beyond the legendary rank.

Therefore, in the intelligence dossier provided to Rayna, Levi had simply been marked with the strength of a legendary mage.

This was the only piece of verifiable information currently known.

Levi had defeated the clone of Rose and forced the subterranean army of the dark races to retreat.

This only served to solidify the rumors of Levi's immense power.

As to exactly how powerful he was, no one truly knew.

Oates knew that Rose's clone was formidable, but he had no concept of the true extent of that might.

He only knew that several legendary-tier professionals within the dark race army obeyed her every whim.

Once Rayna suppressed the shock in her heart, she calmed herself and measured Gu Sewei with a steady gaze.

She said, "This is indeed a bit unexpected. Could you tell me how you and Levi met?"

Gu Sewei smiled subtly and replied, "Of course I can. After all, Miss Rayna is an old friend of my husband, and I imagine you must be quite curious about his experiences over all these years."

Watching her, Rayna felt an inexplicable, complex sensation well up within her heart.

It was not envy, nor was it disappointment; it was not jealousy, nor was it regret.

Suddenly, she felt the profound weight of how time alters all things.

She felt that people inevitably change.

She was no longer the Rayna of twenty years ago.

And Levi was no longer that budding mage apprentice who had just begun to show his brilliance two decades past.

Recalling the bygone days, her heart filled with a deep, silent sigh.

There were words she wished to speak, yet when they reached the tip of her tongue, she knew not how to utter them.

Rayna could only sit quietly to one side, listening to Gu Sewei narrate the story of how she and Levi had first crossed paths.

When Gu Sewei finished her tale, Rayna chuckled softly.

"So the two of you truly did not strike up a friendship until you struck blows against each other, Hahaha... Still, why is that fellow always so terribly heavy-handed when it comes to girls?"

Gu Sewei's eyes betrayed her curiosity. "Why do you say that?"

Rayna smiled and said, "My very first encounter with Levi was also a battle."

Rayna began to recount the story of the duel she had once challenged Levi to.

The two women conversed in the chamber, and from time to time, ripples of laughter drifted from within the room.

Though it was their very first meeting, both found the conversation exceedingly pleasant.

Perhaps it was because they shared a common subject of interest.

In the end, upon learning that Levi was currently engaged in secluded cultivation, Rayna suggested that she would return another time when the opportunity arose.

She chose not to disturb Levi's training.

Once Gu Sewei realized that Rayna's visit was born merely out of a desire to see an old friend,

Her demeanor grew exceptionally warm, and she even invited Rayna to stroll through Maple Leaf City together whenever she had the time.

Rayna accepted the invitation with pleasure.

"Rayna, when you have some free time, let us wander through Maple Leaf City together. There are still so many places within the city that I have never visited," Gu Sewei said.

Rayna replied, "Very well, I have not returned in a long time myself. Since Maple Leaf City has changed so dramatically, I too wish to wander about and truly understand the transformation it has undergone."

"Goodbye for now, then. I shall take my leave first. You are welcome to come find me at the Golden Shield Manor whenever you wish; you will always be welcome."

"Mhm, I will certainly pay a visit when I am free."

Rayna departed from the Mage Tower and returned home.

By virtue of standing firmly on Oates's side, Rayna's family, the Golden Shield Clan, had long remained prosperous and enduring within the Northern Xuan Kingdom.

Later, because Rayna had earned the high regard of the Ninth Prince in the Middle-Earth World,

The Golden Shield Clan had leapt forward to become a hereditary earldom, transforming into the most powerful noble house in the Northern Xuan Kingdom, bar none.

However, the patriarch of the Golden Shield Clan had always been exceedingly cautious and prudent.

The Golden Shield Clan was also a family of knights, adhering strictly to the knight's code of honor, benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness.

Consequently, despite becoming the preeminent noble family of the Northern Xuan Kingdom, they never suffered the suppression or ostracization of the various rival factions.

Instead, they became the object of successive attempts by all sides to flatter and win them over.

Unanimous praise was sung for the Golden Shield Clan across the realm.

The knightly descendants nurtured by the Golden Shield Clan were popular candidates eagerly welcomed wherever they went.

This only served to further cement the Golden Shield Clan's unshakeable status within the Northern Xuan Kingdom.

In the political arena, the patriarch of the Golden Shield Clan lent his full and unreserved support to Oates, earning the illustrious reputation of being a founding family of the nation.

They enjoyed the veteran privileges of those who had established the kingdom alongside Oates himself.

While many of the other noble houses from the era of the kingdom's founding had already withered and vanished, the Golden Shield Clan remained as stable and unyielding as Mount Tai.

Now, with Rayna returning to Maple Leaf City as a legendary War Knight.

The Golden Shield family's status became ever more secure and unshakeable.

There was even a faint, looming sense of them eclipsing Oates himself.

This by all rights should have been a thorn in Oates's side, a mortal threat to his peace of mind.

No sovereign desired a faction beneath them to grow more powerful than the crown itself.

Yet, precisely because the Golden Shield family was a lineage of knights.

Oates harbored no fear that they would compromise his grip on the Northern Profound Kingdom.

The Golden Shield family had long since sworn their fealty to him.

So long as they cherished the sterling reputation of a knightly house, they could never breach the code of chivalric honor.

Rayna was well aware of the precarious precipice upon which her family stood.

Unless they departed from the Northern Profound Kingdom, their current trajectory of growth.

Would sooner or later invite catastrophe upon their heads.

The Northern Profound Kingdom could never tolerate a legendary knightly clan.

The pond here was too shallow to nurture such a leviathan.

Rayna's return to Maple Leaf City was not only to reinforce the kingdom under the Ninth Prince's decree.

In truth, she harbored the intent to migrate the Golden Shield family to the Central Earth.

The Northern Border was, after all, a backward and desolate frontier.

Its resources paled in comparison to the boundless wealth and bounty of the Central Earth.

Here, the Golden Shield family would find their ceiling capped forever as hereditary earls.

However, such matters would have to wait until she resolved the dire straits currently engulfing the kingdom.

On the fifth day after Rayna led her reinforcements into Maple Leaf City.

An ominous shifting stirred within the dark legions of the subterranean world.

Swarms of dark race soldiers poured through the spatial rifts, launching a ferocious assault on the kingdom's defensive lines.

This onslaught bore an unprecedented, desperate savagery, as if burning all bridges behind them, throwing every single soldier into the fray regardless of the cost.

Their ruthless advance left the forces of the Northern Profound Kingdom crying out in utter despair.

Fortunately, the reinforcements led by Rayna had arrived in the nick of time.

Shrouded beneath the radiant auras of two War Knights, the kingdom's army barely managed to scrape together the strength to withstand the relentless tide of the dark vanguard.

Rayna calculated grimly that, given the current searing intensity of the conflict.

The lines of the Northern Profound Kingdom could hold for a single day at the absolute most.

Before the entire front collapsed into total ruin.

Driven to desperate measures, Oates sought out Guesewe, imploring her to intervene and turn the tide of ruin.

Guesewe was a legendary mage, and her impact on the field of slaughter could eclipse even Rayna's.

A single forbidden spell possessed the raw power to utterly reshape the destiny of the war.

Yet, just as Guesewe manifested on the battlefield and prepared to weave her forbidden magic.

She was marked by a legendary assassin of the enemy.

The lethal shadow of a legendary assassination plunged Guesewe into immediate, mortal peril.

Beneath the divine protection of Levi, she emerged unscathed from that first lethal strike.

However, Guesewe could no longer brazenly channel her forbidden incantations in the open.

Gazing out at the distant, churning meat grinder that the battlefield had become.

A dark, creeping premonition began to take root within Guesewe's heart.

Boom! Crash!

Suddenly, a colossal tremor accompanied by a deafening roar shuddered across the earth.

Guesewe focused her gaze through the chaos, only to see over a dozen subterranean magical beasts of the seventh rank materialize upon the field.

The entry of seventh-rank magical beasts into the fray.

Instantaneously crushed the morale of the Northern Profound Kingdom down to absolute zero.

The two factions were simply no longer of the same cosmic weight.

The seventh-rank beasts reigned supreme on the battlefield, entirely without peer.

The forces of the Northern Profound Kingdom completely lacked the means to contend with so many seventh-rank monstrosities.

Whether it was the legendary mage Guesewe or the legendary War Knight Rayna.

Both had long been marked and pinned down by the legendary powerhouses of the subterranean world.

They possessed absolutely no strength to spare for the seventh-rank beasts rampaging through the ranks.

Left with no other recourse, Guesewe could only call upon Levi.

Sensing Guesewe's desperate summons, Levi arrived upon the battlefield without a moment's delay.

The instant he manifested, a dense, vast web of silken threads materialized out of the surrounding heaven and earth.

The tightly woven, suffocating shroud of silk formed a massive cocoon, enveloping Levi completely within its depths.

(End of Chapter)