Chapter 1 Lily's Idea

Lily possessed a miraculous talent: regardless of how outlandish the situation, she could conjure an idea and execute it with unwavering determination. Throughout this process, she maintained 100% enthusiasm and confidence. Nothing could ever depress or cause self-doubt in this perpetually hyperactive husky spirit—just as she firmly believed she could find the landlord, she now firmly believed that the lump of flesh before her, incapable of even conjuring braised spareribs, was merely a flashy illusion monster. There was no reason, but that's what she believed.

However, her oblivious confidence seemed rather inexplicable to others. Kalaxius stared in astonishment at the head wolf, unable to fathom any connection between the "spareribs" she mentioned and the monster before them. After careful reasoning, he concluded that the head wolf must have engaged in a difficult and perilous mental battle with the monster in the spiritual world, and "spareribs" were perhaps a key factor in deciding the battle's outcome.

Well, he wasn't entirely wrong...

The Templar had exerted great effort to restrain the monster—compared to ordinary chaotic demons, this lump of flesh in the smoke was like a mollusk, lacking any fixed shape. It twisted and struggled ceaselessly, and chains made of enchanted metal were unable to secure it. Finally, Kalaxius had to retrieve an iron cage engraved with runes from his dimensional container to confine the monster. He then layered the cage with imprisonment stones and runic chains before he could consider the task complete.

The high-ranking monk spat at the lump of flesh in the cage: "The Prison of Suktor, confining all things evil. A chaos monster should feel honored to be subjected to this artifact."

Lily looked at the imprisonment stone swaying outside the cage with some worry: "Is that thing really going to work? This monster is very strange; maybe it still has a way to escape."

"Imprisonment stones are harvested from the crystal clusters growing around the Pillars of Imprisonment," Kalaxius patiently explained, knowing that the "head wolf" knew very little about the human world. "They are an extension of the Creation Goddess's power. There is no evil in this world that can escape her divine power."

Lily gave a half-understanding 'oh', her golden eyes fixed on the black monster, which was now lying at the bottom of the cage as if giving up resistance. She recalled her adventures with Hao Ren, as well as some knowledge she had gleaned from Hao Ren's pile of work manuals, and suddenly said, "Uncle, who are you planning to assign to watch this cage?"

Kalaxius was already too lazy to correct the head wolf's address. He shook his head and pointed to the two Templars beside him: "Kevin and Gries are powerful Templars. I will also assign a combat monk to watch with them."

Lily shook her head: "Let my bear monster watch it."

"Bear monster?" The high-ranking monk didn't react for a moment. "You may not understand, but the Templars I brought in terms of combat power..."

"Let the bear monster watch it," Lily turned her head, her golden eyes flashing with the cunning of a beast. "Because the bear monster doesn't dream."

"Doesn't dream?" Kalaxius was a little stunned.

Lily smiled: "Not only should the bear monster watch it, but everyone else must stay as far away from this cage as possible when sleeping. If anyone is mentally distracted or dozes off around the cage, they must also be locked up with an imprisonment stone."

The black monster in the cage finally stopped pretending to be dead. It suddenly let out a terrifying roar, a roar as ear-splitting and dreadful as tearing steel: "Damn mongrel! Mortal! Where did you get this knowledge!?"

Lily turned her head, her face blooming with a smile: "The landlord taught me! The landlord is so awesome!"

The "head wolf" was smiling, but Kalaxius broke out in a cold sweat. At this moment, he finally understood the intention of Lily's arrangement. All he could feel was lingering fear, and at the same time, a deep curiosity about the man often mentioned by the head wolf, the one called "landlord."

Lily didn't offer any further explanation. She simply shook her head and turned to walk back to her "throne", as if disdaining the terrifying nightmare monster, leaving only a mysterious back view to the high-ranking monk and the Templars.

Another night in the jungle passed in this way. When the sun rose the next day, the "mixed legion" composed of the beast horde and the Holy Domain investigation team set off again. This time, they would accelerate and advance at full speed towards the southern frontier of Taros.

On the same morning, as the first ray of sunlight shone through the glass window of the airship cabin, waking Hao Ren from his sleep, White City appeared on the distant horizon.

Hao Ren dressed neatly and came to the upper deck of the airship. He saw the old knight Morian already standing at the bow with several personal guard knights, while a pale-faced Veronica stood behind Morian, looking like she was barely holding herself together.

"Yo, feeling better today?" Hao Ren went over to greet the princess. "Looks like you can come out for some fresh air."

"Better," Veronica took a deep breath. "Thank you for the magic potion you gave me. After taking it, I finally had a good night's sleep."

Hao Ren waved his hand: "It's just some motion sickness medicine and altitude sickness medicine. To be honest, you should have taken it before boarding the ship. I gave it to you a little late, so the effect is not as significant."

Although Hao Ren spoke lightly, the knight princess was still very grateful for the two small pills the other party had given her yesterday—she guessed that they must have been made by alchemists of the previous generation for front-line soldiers. The effect was simply incredible. The shelf life of ancient medicines was really unbelievable...

But Hao Ren's thoughts went in another direction: in Collow, people already had flying vehicles like airships, and it seemed that such flying units were not too rare, but this world did not have corresponding anti-motion sickness measures, nor the technology of high-altitude sealed cabins. This was a bit abnormal. He believed that anti-motion sickness medicine was an accessory technology of the "airship" technology. If the latter had been widely used, yet the former was a blank space, then in addition to a skewed technology tree, there was only one possibility:

Technological discontinuity and degradation.

It seemed that although the humans of the Collow world had been protecting their heritage and maintaining a stalemate in the Chaos War to this day, the long war of attrition lasting 10,000 years had inevitably damaged the civilization's foundation. Some of their technologies had been irreversibly damaged.

This was an unavoidable phenomenon, yet it was still regrettable.

"Where are we now?" Hao Ren sighed in his heart, then his sight was drawn to the white expanse on the horizon. "That's..."

"That is Taros's royal capital, White City, that I mentioned to you," Morian nodded to Hao Ren. After the other party cured the princess's motion sickness with "magic potion," the taciturn old knight's attitude towards Hao Ren was obviously much better. Before, it was just simple respect, but now this respect had more from the heart. "You probably don't know this city. It was the capital built by Taros's founding monarch three centuries ago, seven hundred years away from your era."

Hao Ren gave an 'oh' and tried to recall how Vivian would react when she heard this kind of thing, pretending to be a truly long-lived old undead while observing the White City, which was gradually becoming clearer. "A magnificent city. One can imagine how much glory this city has carried."

"You will certainly receive the highest courtesy and gratitude from my father," Veronica said to Hao Ren seriously. "You not only saved me, but also helped us bring back valuable intelligence from beyond the Border of Order. I think that's worth at least a count's title."

"I don't lack titles," Hao Ren said casually. "I just hope to use his help to find someone."

Veronica was a little curious: "What kind of person are you looking for? Excuse me for speaking frankly, but leaving aside the entire Ansu continent or even other continents, White City alone has a population of hundreds of thousands. To find someone in the vast sea of people is quite difficult."

Hao Ren thought for a moment: "First of all, I can be sure that she's not too far away from me… she should be within your Taros territory. Secondly… that guy is a troublemaker; she should cause a big commotion, right?"

He didn't know that he had spoken the truth. That husky spirit really caused a big commotion, a commotion so big that it was even a little scary...

In the somewhat anxious wait, the airship finally gradually approached the holy white city.

The white walls and orderly streets slowly retreated below, and the towering walls of the White City Palace appeared before them. The airship slowly adjusted its direction and approached the large platform in front of the palace. Hao Ren saw that the platform was neatly lined with a welcoming royal honor guard and a large group of people who looked like civil and military officials. Below the platform were large swathes of commoners like mountains and seas, and ribbons and flags were rising and falling in the sea of people. The joyous atmosphere seemed to rise from the ground all the way to the airship.

Long before the airship arrived, the accompanying magister had already contacted White City through communication magic, which was why this grand welcoming scene appeared.

After seeing this scene, Morian was also excited. His face glowed with brilliance, and he shouted loudly: "Attendants, release the emblems!"

Several attendants immediately ran to both sides of the airship. A moment later, two huge colored streamers hung down from the ship's sides. The other two airships also received the signal and lowered streamers in the same way a few seconds later.

The streamers depicted the Taros royal family's eagle emblem, and at the end of the streamers was Veronica's personal mark: a golden rose blooming on a sword blade.

On the large platform below, Rudolf III also saw the emblems hanging down from the ship's sides. The resolute king gripped the scepter in his hand, his face twitched a few times, and he gently exhaled: "She's finally back..."