Chapter 1084: 71. Alliance
After Hamreign and Muen disappeared, only silence remained inside the chapel.
Everyone still stood where they were, staring at one another, completely at a loss.
Although the show had been extremely satisfying to watch, the sheer magical absurdity of the matter itself had left every person here in a state of “I understand what happened, but I am still completely stunned.”
A Calamity!
Crashing a wedding!
Was this something that could happen in reality?
Was this really not some novel sold by a roadside vendor?
No, wait. Even those novels were not this outrageous!
“I never imagined such an accident would happen... But is this really all right?”
After a long silence, Professor Prang could not help asking Lorne beside him, “Your son was abducted by that kind of dangerous person. Aren’t you worried?”
“Didn’t she say it just now? She came to crash the wedding.” Lorne’s face was stiff. “I’m more worried that when that brat comes back, there’ll be a pile of dragon whelps calling me Grandpa. My House Campbell... has never had any half-human, half-beast descendants before.”
“That should be something the girls he hooked up with should worry about.”
Professor Prang sighed. “What matters are the rumors about that one. You should know that since she has shown herself and found Muen, it definitely cannot be anything good. For all we know, that brat is going to get dragged into some ridiculous crisis again.”
“...”
Hearing this, Lorne fell silent for a long while.
He looked at the place where Muen had vanished, then turned his head and gazed into the distance.
“It seems I need to notify Madam and have her postpone the little darling’s hundred-day banquet until I return.”
“You mean keep the banquet and wait until Muen comes back to hold it?” Prang raised an eyebrow. This fellow had looked indifferent just now, but sure enough, he still...
“No.”
Lorne shook his head.
“What I mean is... the first child is basically ruined. I need to hurry back and keep a close watch on the second one, or else there won’t even be an heir left in the future.”
“...”
“...”
Another silence followed.
Until King Indra, who was usually quiet and taciturn, opened his mouth to remind them.
“Everyone, should the thing we ought to consider most right now not be what to do about this wedding now that the groom has been stolen, and... what to do about Her Majesty?”
“...”
In an instant, everyone inside the chapel shuddered.
Right. Muen Campbell had been captured, and that was that. He could be said to have simply left.
But those of them who remained... would have to endure Her Majesty’s wrath.
The dignified Empress of the Empire had actually had her wedding crashed. Once this spread, it would not just be Her Majesty losing face. The Empire’s dignity itself would be utterly disgraced!
Under normal circumstances, the Empire would have to raise a bloody storm no matter what. Every relevant person who had failed in their duty would suffer severe punishment...
But...
“After all, it was that one...”
“Yes, after all, it was that one... Even if this gets out, it doesn’t really count as humiliating, does it?”
“Rather, having one’s wedding crashed by that one is practically the first case in the entire continent...”
“The kind that could get its own page in the history books...”
Several people looked at one another again... truly having no idea how this matter should be handled.
There was no precedent!
“Too hateful! Even if it is that one, she cannot be so arrogant!”
Lorne suddenly slapped his thigh, strode toward the exit with sharp steps, and roared angrily, “I will go draft a plan to subjugate the evil dragon right now! When the time comes, even if we must exhaust the strength of the entire nation, we will help Her Majesty regain face!”
“The relevant magic must also be put on the daily agenda.”
Professor Prang shook his head with a face full of grief, a teleportation formation frantically sketching itself beneath his feet. “We must remember this humiliation!”
“Correct. The orphanage’s education in this area cannot be neglected either. I will immediately return and launch a related safety theme.”
King Indra pressed his palms together, his figure gradually fading. “We must warn the children: beware fire, beware thieves, beware evil dragons...”
...No matter what happened afterward, and no matter how it was handled, escaping first was the highest respect!
Very soon, all the guests in the chapel scattered with a roar, leaving only the priest standing blankly on the platform.
The guests could run. They could claim they knew nothing. But he, the priest who had been standing closest...
The priest looked left and right, then his gaze landed on the scripture lying on the floor.
The scripture was open, and the Goddess’s teaching entered his eyes.
Salvation is here.
“Ah, Lady Goddess...”
The priest trembled as he picked up the scripture.
Holding this scripture he had only finished reading yesterday, his heart felt incomparably peaceful.
Tomorrow, he would truly join the Church of Life!
“Your Majesty, I really don’t know anything!”
Bang!
...
...
“Hm?”
The reflection of Belrand.
Celicia swung the Sword of the King and was just about to continue her attack, but at that moment, she seemed to hear something, and her movements suddenly paused.
“Wait!”
“Heh, is Your Majesty finally going to admit defeat?”
Anna smiled seductively, but facing Celicia’s voluntary pause, her own offensive finally stopped for the moment as well.
It was not because she was that obedient.
It was because... the consumption really was a little heavy.
The battle had already lasted half an hour. The entire reflection was already battered and broken. Although this was something Anna could restore with her authority, it still showed from the side just how fierce that battle had been.
Not only Ariel and An, who had been the main close-combat attackers, but even Liya, who bore vast Holy Light, and Anna herself, who possessed authority, were clearly growing tired.
If they kept fighting like this, then later they might truly end up like shrews fighting, using teeth and fingernails to determine the outcome.
“Admit defeat? Heh. Wait until you actually wound me before saying that.”
Celicia exhaled deeply. The battle just now had indeed brought her a certain degree of trouble. She also had to admit that each of these women was a troublesome opponent.
But to make her lose?
Heh. They were still far from it.
No matter what, the current her bore the power of the Empire’s authority, and fighting here still gave her an enormous advantage.
So the final victor could only be...
Hm?
The voice she had heard just now grew clearer and clearer, making Celicia subconsciously listen more carefully again.
And this time, without interference, she finally heard the urgent message sent by Pink Bear.
“Disaster! Someone... no, a dragon crashed the wedding!”
“What?”
Celicia’s pupils shrank, and her mind began operating at high speed.
But compared to using thought to analyze the amount of information contained in those words, her instincts had already made her act.
Her figure flashed and vanished from the spot.
When she appeared again, she was already high above Belrand.
And right then, she happened to see that figure woven from fiery red and pitch black easily tearing open the grand barrier protecting Belrand, easily ripping space apart, about to leave.
And behind her...
Was the bound Muen.
“Stop!”
Celicia shouted sharply. The crown rose, authority descended, and an unimaginable sword strike slashed straight toward that figure.
“Oh?”
That figure turned back gracefully.
The sky was nearly torn apart by the sword scar. That wrath-filled strike from the Empress of the Empire was enough to shave mountains flat and divide the sea.
Even if the four of them from before had joined hands, they would have had to retreat before this sword.
However...
The figure only raised a jade hand and lightly caught it.
Ding.
When the Sword of the King touched flesh and blood, it actually produced the sound of jade striking jade.
And then...
It could not advance another inch.
“Human, somewhat interesting.”
Hamreign’s golden pupils moved slightly as she sized up Celicia, and there was actually a trace of praise in her words.
“But too immature. Such a frail body is ultimately unable to fully bear the authority of a nation, much less... stop me.”
In short...
You still need practice!
Hamreign’s palm suddenly pressed downward. The sky abruptly darkened, and Celicia seemed to see a gigantic dragon claw, so vast it nearly covered Belrand, about to crush the entire city completely.
Yet when she snapped back to herself, where was there any dragon claw?
There was only that pale, jade-like palm.
“For the sake of your ancestor, and because this fellow kept pleading, I will spare your life.”
The jade palm struck toward Celicia. The defense Anna and the other three had failed to break through despite using every method they had was easily shattered by Hamreign.
Amid the endless roaring gale, Celicia only felt the sky suddenly rise higher. Hamreign and Muen’s figures rapidly moved away, while her mind went completely blank. She only felt unimaginable pain sweep through her entire body.
At the final moment before she lost consciousness, she saw only that tall figure taking Muen with her, disappearing into the endless spatial turbulence, destination unknown...
...
...
“Muen!”
Celicia suddenly opened her eyes.
But where were Muen and that heart-shaking, hateful figure before her now?
Daylight passed through the stained glass and fell across the empty seats. Only then did Celicia abruptly realize...
This was the chapel.
The chapel where she and Muen were supposed to form a lifelong bond.
And now, there was nothing here. It was empty. Aside from the priest on the floor, who could be seen at a glance to have knocked himself unconscious, there was only...
“No—”
Someone pounded the floor in grief and indignation, and an inexplicable background music began to play...
“My Muen! No! How could you be stolen away? Hateful giant dragon! Hateful Calamity! Hateful!”
“...”
“We already know the situation.”
Following the voice, Celicia turned her head. Anna was leaning against a corner of the wall, shaking a glass of champagne she had somehow opened from who knew where, her tone carrying obvious schadenfreude.
“I never imagined that the dignified Empress, despite all her clever calculations, would in the end have her prize snatched away by someone completely outside the plan. Her wedding was crashed. Should I call it laughable... or laughable?”
“...What is there to laugh about?”
Celicia pushed away Liya’s hand, which had been helping heal her. “Muen was stolen away. Are all of you very happy about that?”
“...”
Anna’s smile faded.
Liya puffed out her cheeks and huffed. “You don’t know what’s good for you.”
As for An, she was already crouched in the corner drawing circles. Anyone who did not know better would think she was cursing someone, but only by moving closer would one discover that she was actually trying to reproduce the dragon-slaying formation in her mind...
As for Ariel...
Her tears had long since dried in the wind.
Yes.
For them, there was no victor this time.
After all, even the “groom” who symbolized victory had already been stolen away. What meaning did their battle and their dispute still have?
All that work for nothing.
Thinking this, the women looked at one another, and in the same awkward predicament, a slight feeling of sympathy unexpectedly arose.
They were all pitiful people whose beloved had been taken from them...
“The one who stole Muen away is Hamreign, the legendary Dragon of Death and Doom, chief among Calamities, an existence that has survived from a thousand years ago until now, and is rumored to have destroyed several nations.”
Anna looked up at the sky and said slowly, “With any one of us alone, even if we trained desperately, we might never be her opponent in our entire lives... even if every one of us is special.”
A maid who had inherited the Demon King’s memories.
A sword-bearer who possessed part of the Authority of the Silent Moon.
The pure Saintess of the Church of Life.
An unparalleled genius unmatched in battle at the same rank.
And...
The Empress of the Empire.
Every person here, once they grew to the end, would be enough to influence the entire continent’s situation.
But...
Against an existence like a Calamity, the Dragon of Death and Doom, who was so powerful she had almost drifted beyond the continent itself, the titles and glory behind them were not worth mentioning.
They might spend their whole lives and still find it difficult to touch such a distant height.
If that dragon kept holding on to Muen and refused to let go, and if it was really as some of the “witnesses” had said just now, that dragon had one hundred percent come to crash the wedding, one hundred percent come to monopolize Muen...
They might have no way at all.
So...
“Shall we join hands?”
Anna extended her palm. She seemed to have set aside all previous grudges as she smiled sincerely.
“Until we take Muen back.”
“...”
Celicia looked at that slender palm.
Before this, if any of these seductive vixens had said something like joining hands to her, she would have scoffed.
She was the Empress of the Empire. She was the fiancée by law. She was the woman only one step away from monopolizing Muen. How could she possibly tolerate joining hands with others and sharing equally?
Her concessions in bed before had already been the limit.
However...
Celicia once again recalled that hand, those...
Cold golden pupils.
High above.
Impossible to reach...
And along with them, Muen at that time had also been so far away from her...
So far that if she allowed him to leave like this, her wedding dress might never again have the chance to be worn in her lifetime...
“Fine.”
Celicia grasped Anna’s hand, and sharp light once again burst from her cold eyes.
“Before we stew that dragon into soup, I think I can temporarily endure the fox stench on all of you.”
“Heh. As far as stench goes, right back at you. I just went and took a look at that wedding dress. The design inside was truly something. Who would have thought the dignified Empress would secretly...”
“Shut up.”
The others also slowly rose.
Five slender, fair little hands clasped together, feeling one another’s determination and unwillingness.
This sort of thing could not defeat her.
Nor could it defeat them.
This war was not yet over...
And victory had not yet been decided.
Even a Calamity Dragon might not necessarily become the final victor!
So.
Wait for us, dear Muen!
We will very soon rescue you from the hands of that hateful evil dragon!