Prime Originator

Within the Illusory Butterfly Formation, the Spider Queen stood at its center with a nonchalant look. Her vision was obscured and the poison yin mist filling the area seemed harmful to ordinary people, but she was not in a hurry to retaliate. 

After waiting some time, she raised an eyebrow.

"What kind of garbage formation is this? It does absolutely nothing." Arana snickered.

"You're too arrogant! The longer you stay in our formation, the quicker you die! You should not have let us set up our formation, or even better, you should not have crossed me!"

The Sect Master's voice overlapped with the surrounding mist and came from every direction, making the Spider Queen unable to discern the correct direction of the source.

"Insignificant tricks. You can't even hide your shadow and movements." 

The Spider Queen dashed towards a shadowy figure moving within the poison yin mist and made a swipe at it. The shadowy figure in the mist seemed to have detected the Spider Queen's attack and try to escape, but it was outmatched in speed.

"Nooo~!" 

The shadowy figure seemed to have cried as the Spider Queen's attack landed. 

However! 

Arana froze in the next moment with confusion. No feeling was transmitted to her as the shadowy figure and mist disperse from her attack. 

"What?"

The shadowy figure in the mist were scattered into countless shadowy butterflies and reformed into another shadowy figure elsewhere.

A jarring laugh soon followed the Spider Queen's failed attack, making her look foolish.

"Kekeke… Like I said, you are too arrogant! Did you think you can catch any of us in our own formation, miss Transcendent?! In this formation, the most unreliable thing to trust are your senses! Your arrogance will be the death of you! You may be powerful, but no matter how powerful you are, once trapped in this formation, you will still have to kneel!"

"You want to make this Queen kneel? You are not worthy. How dare you trick this Queen."

 Arana's eyes were suffused with cold light as she felt humiliated. She lashed out at several more moving shadows in the mist, but like the first time, they all scattered into butterflies and reformed themselves.

"Kekeke… Oh, I think I felt that one. Keep trying. Maybe you will catch one of us next time."

Arana was mocked by the Sect Master. She was irritated but continuing to attack the shadowy figures in the mist will not produce any result. 

"This Queen might have underestimated your formation a little, but if this Queen wants to leave, what can you do about it?" 

"You can try." The Sect Master snickered.

"Hmph."

Arana dashed in a single direction. Her movements were quick, easily covering a few thousand yards in a short time.

It was then that she felt something wrong and halted her steps. With the distance she travelled, she should have easily left the vicinity of the Illusory Palace by now. 

She did not run into the gate she broke down either. The world around her was still a dense poison yin mist.

"Cease your foolish actions. It is useless. You cannot escape once you are trapped. No one has ever succeeded. There is only one result for everyone that has been trapped by our Illusory Butterfly Formation, and that is death! I have already told you that your own senses cannot be trusted. That includes your sense of direction! Did you know you just look like an idiot running in circles? Hahaha!"

"You talk to much. Apart from meddling with my senses, your stupid formation has no other merits. Still a useless formation. I can wait all day, but how long can you keep the formation active? Once you are exhausted, I will just kill you all then."

"Big talk for someone who is about to die! The poison should have invaded your system any minute now!"

The Sect Master was smirking when he said this. As a sect specializing in poison arts, the combination of being able to trap and poison their opponents to death was the most fearsome aspect of their Illusory Butterfly Formation.

The Sect Master, elders and core disciples were confident that without taking further action, the Transcendent Beauty will simply succumb to their poison and die within the formation. 

Arana simply smiled coldly. She was aware of the poison, but there was a transcendental flame burning inside her that reduces the poison down to level even her body's immunity system could handle. 

"I could choose to wait for you to exhaust yourselves powering this stupid formation, but that would not be the style of this Queen. You have been far too impudent for this Queen to allow you all to live any longer. As such, you can all die now."

Suddenly, everyone's heart palpitated with a dangerous feeling. They were confused where the danger was coming from when the person was practically trapped in their formation.

In the next moment, they found out why.

Silky strands of web shot out from the Spider Queens fingers and lashed at the surrounding indiscriminately. It was an omnidirectional attack that would not care for its friend or foe. 

Swoosh! 

The attack summoned a torrential storm of its own as the surrounding was barraged in hundreds—no, thousands of whips from the ten silky thin strands of webs from the Spider Queen!

Except for the Sect Master who managed to react quickly, everyone else hidden in the formation was diced into hundreds of fleshly pieces. They could not be deader than dead.

Everything happened too quickly.

With no one left to supply power to the formation, the thick poison yin mist dispersed. The ground within a 200-yard radius were completely devastated with innumerable marks. 

All tricks and schemes were nothing in the face of absolute strength.

"There you are. You ran pretty quickly." 

Arana locked onto the Sect Master.

The Sect Master laid on the ground with a pale face just outside the marble gate. He had managed survive the onslaught of whip-like attacks, but only with half his life. He had lost his legs and one arm in the attack. He was basically crippled and unable to escape.

"I didn't expect for the tables to be turned so easily." The Sect Master chuckled bitterly. 

If he knew the person was powerful to this extent, no matter how unwilling he was, he would have still conceded to the person's demand. 

"Just who are you? The only person who would address themselves as 'this Queen' is the Queen of the Crawford Kingdom, but that person shouldn't be you."

"You don't need to know."

Arana did not waste further words on a dead person. 

The Sect Master was killed by a thousand cuts, before Arana turned towards the beautiful white Illusory Palace.

"Now to claim by prize." 

Her lips were curved up as she took her steps towards the white palace. Only a queen was fit to live in such a majestic building…

Creak…

The subtle sound caused Arana to suddenly freeze as her eyes opened widened. The creak and grinding sound became more evident as half of the Illusory Palace collapsed into countless diced rubbles.

Arana wore a dumfounded expression and stood on the same spot for a long time. 

"At least there is still half a building left…" She comforted herself as she took another step towards her new home.

However…

The other half lost its structural integrity and shortly collapsed with a boom after. Arana was rooted on the spot blankly. 

Something inside seemed to have also cracked.

…

While Leon was spending his time in the Capital, his mother, Elizabeth had returned to the temporary military camp in the Grassland Region with her army after taking a detour through a nearby town in the north.

"Congratulation on your victorious return, Your Majesty! May you ever be victorious in a thousand more!" The soldiers at the camp shouted while they saluted on one knee.

Elizabeth waved for them to be at ease helplessly as she shook her head and thought to herself, 'What victorious return? The enemy was already slaughtered when we got there and had to clean up the mess instead.'

"Report. What's the current situation on camp?"

"Yes, Your Majesty! All the wounded on camp has been healed and are all ready for battle, except for a few whose limbs we could not retrieve. The elite team of palace guards have also returned to the underground to collect relics." A commander faithfully answered.

Elizabeth nodded before she paused and asked, "Did you say healed? Not treated?"

"Yes, Your Majesty! Elder Evergreen and his people had lent their hand and healed all the wounded soldiers with their miraculous wood ability!"

Elizabeth was surprised to learn there was so many wood-users from that group of underground villagers. "That's great! I must express my gratitude to them! But before that, tell me the rest of the report. What's the situation in the south?"

"Eastfell City has been burned and destroyed. Many innocent residents had also been slaughtered by the enemy. Supposedly, members of the Bloodfiend Sect had given the order to slaughter the innocents and burn the city."

"Brigadier-General Rohan is currently guarding the Eastfell Region border, while some troops had been delegated to escort the surviving residents of Eastfell City to other cities to take temporary refuge."

Elizabeth's eyes glinted with a cold light while clenching her fist when she heard the news of the innocents being slaughter in Eastfell City. The people of the Bloodfiend Sect were not humans!

After giving the oversized army a sweeping look, she ordered, "Rally the soldiers. After I come back meeting Elder Evergreen, we will depart for the Valaran Kingdom!" 

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

The Commander shouted with an excited look.