Chapter 1 The Nameless Ancient City

In the desolate wilderness shrouded in darkness and mist, the abandoned, nameless ancient city lay silently dormant, its desolate, ancient stones and corroded metal remains standing silently in the cold wind, as if guarding some secret after the demise of civilization.

In the center of these ruins, the long-extinguished furnace device pointed straight at the sky, its black tower devoid of any heat. Near the furnace device, thousands of chaos-corrupted monsters gathered silently. These normally berserk creatures, constantly moving blindly or fighting fiercely, were now as quiet as pilgrims. They watched the Furnace Tower in the darkness, motionless, strangely.

Even the old knight Morris had never heard of such a sight, not even in the royal family's ancient book archives.

Veronica and her knights hid behind a low wall, each equipped with full armor and swords, quietly waiting for the moment to strike. This distance was the safe distance determined by the old knight and her after several discussions: the perception ability of the corrupted monsters was very subtle. They were affected by the power of chaos but not completely transformed, so they could not be compared to ordinary chaos servants. Beyond a certain range, they were deaf, blind, and extremely stupid, but within a certain range (some scholars called this range the "control zone" of the corrupted monsters), their perception intensity could almost reach a hundred times that of ordinary humans, and they possessed the ability to directly "smell" life, like chaos servants.

Therefore, when ambushing chaos monsters, distance was extremely important.

The knights carefully lowered their bodies. Although each of them was battle-hardened, they were still quite nervous. A faint, almost imperceptible glow floated on the surface of each person's body. This glow was the effect of the Order Amulet. The power of the holy object was like a lighthouse in chaos, so naturally it couldn't be brought here. Therefore, the knights, like Veronica, had activated their Order Amulets. They were like astronauts in spacesuits performing an emergency mission in space, and they had to complete the ignition task within an extremely limited time to survive, which brought enormous pressure.

As for that holy object, Hao Ren had temporarily taken it away. It wasn't that he felt sorry for the plastic Number Five Factory plate, but rather that the thing was too attractive to the corrupted monsters. If a corrupted monster with a particularly sensitive "nose" sensed the location of the plate, the entire lure plan would be ruined.

As time passed, the knights became more and more nervous. The duration of the Order Amulet was limited, so this kind of lurking became the greatest test of patience, courage, and discipline. The old knight tilted his head slightly to look at Veronica, the inquiring meaning in his eyes very clear: "Your Highness, can that 'Ancient Guardian' really be relied upon?"

Veronica returned a firm gaze, but no one knew whether her heart was as firm as her expression.

She raised her head and looked across the plaza.

There, the collapsed building wall had created a wide gap, as if a huge monster had rampaged into the plaza, creating an almost unobstructed path from the gap to the outside of the ruins. If they were to lure away the monster swarm in the plaza, that gap would be the best direction. Veronica waited quietly for the agreed-upon action to begin.

After an unbearable silence, a flash of light finally appeared at the gap.

"Boom boom!"

Two earth-shattering explosions were the beginning of the entire operation—the "Ancient Guardian" seemed quite adept at the spells of fire and storms. His attacks were always so fierce and astonishing. As the grand explosion tore apart the night, Veronica saw two stone buildings on the edge of the plaza almost completely fly up. Broken stones and metal rained down on several monsters near the gap, instantly battering those ugly, twisted monsters as if they were torn sacks, riddled with holes.

The sudden attack caused all the monsters in the plaza to fall into panic and shock. Whatever their previous strange silence was, it had now been interrupted. These monsters, with little reason to speak of, were immediately controlled by madness and rage. Heart-wrenching roars came from every direction. Several huge monster bears slapped away the weaker monsters around them, roaring and charging toward the direction of the explosion. These chaotic monsters had little fear or reason. Most of them would not analyze the strength of the enemy or consider whether there was a trap. Faced with this act of provoking their majesty, the only thing they could think of was destruction!

At this moment, a figure jumped out of the smoke and dust of the explosion. Veronica clearly heard that angry roar: "You grandsons!!"

Then there was another continuous series of explosions, interspersed with some kind of powerful beam attack. The monsters on the edge of the plaza were swept by the beams and fell to the ground.

The corrupted monsters were completely enraged. Only roars echoed through the sky, and heavy footsteps rang out in confusion. Almost all the monsters in the plaza turned their heads to look at the gap, and then ran wildly towards it.

Veronica felt the ground shaking under her feet, and even the dilapidated buildings beside her creaked and swayed. The surrounding knights looked at each other in horror, and someone muttered in a low voice: "Goddess bless..."

This wasn't the first time they had seen Hao Ren make such a commotion, but the combat style of a demolition genius wasn't something you could adapt to after seeing it once or twice. Facing this kind of violent power purely for destruction, the knights still couldn't help but be moved.

Thousands of monsters rumbled toward the gap in the plaza. Soon, Veronica's view became clear, and the Furnace Tower stood hundreds of meters away under the night sky. There wasn't much obstruction between her and the tower.

But not all the monsters had been lured away. As Hao Ren and the princess had predicted, not every monster "ate taunts." Corrupted monsters were products of chaos pollution, so various anomalies and mutations were one of their major characteristics. Some monsters would stubbornly stay in place even when provoked, while some of the more powerful monsters had a little more vigilance. When more than ninety percent of the monsters had been lured away by Hao Ren, those mutated or more "clever" guys remained on the field. They circled around in confusion, becoming the last threat around the furnace.

The Princess Knight drew her sword: "Charge with me!"

The knights immediately released the light-shielding spells on their sword blades, and a flash of snow-white silver light instantly appeared from the darkness. Dozens of people jumped out of the low wall, roaring as they charged towards the Furnace Tower in the center of the plaza.

The monsters instantly reacted after these humans entered their "control zone." They roared at each other and met Veronica and her knights at an astonishing speed, colliding head-on.

In Veronica's vision, only the black, ten-meter-tall square tower in front of her was her target. The furnace guided the direction of the knight princess like a lighthouse in the dark night. She charged forward, sweeping her longsword horizontally to the side. A wrist-numbing impact came from the blade, and a black wolf-like monster was directly and violently knocked away by the princess.

The black wolf's figure rapidly disintegrated in mid-air, and a pale silver light burst out from the wound in its abdomen. When it landed, its entire body was almost burned to ashes.

Veronica continued to advance. After retracting her sword, she felt her arm faintly numb. If it were a normal fight, destroying a corrupted black wolf would be a trivial matter for her, but it wouldn't be a one-hit kill like this. In order to save time, she had used the knight's physical burst ability, which brought unusual consumption and backlash.

But the Furnace Tower was getting closer and closer.

"Don't waste time with these monsters," Morian's voice rang out loudly beside her, "Defensive formation, cover the princess to the furnace!"

At this time, all the corrupted monsters remaining in the plaza and surrounding streets had been alarmed. The increasing number of monsters even made Veronica wonder if those guys that had been lured away by Hao Ren had run back—of course, that was impossible. It was just that there were originally a huge number of corrupted monsters in the plaza. Even if Hao Ren lured away ninety percent of them, the remaining ten percent, if concentrated together, would still be a chilling situation.

Just like the scene Veronica saw before her now.

Thirty meters from the furnace.

The wounded knights were replaced in the inner layer of the formation, continuing to provide support with military crossbows. The other knights formed a strong guard around Veronica, hacking out a bloody path through the monster swarm. The corrupted monsters pounced layer by layer, gnawing and tearing at the flesh and blood that formed the defense line in a primitive and crude way, and then they were hacked back layer by layer by these battle-hardened, powerful warriors, leaving behind a ground of burning ashes and human blood.

Ten meters.

Veronica felt that victory was in sight. Although the pressure was increasing, she felt that it was no longer a problem for her and the knights to break through this last bit of distance, so she couldn't help but start worrying about the situation of the "Ancient Guardian." She looked up in the direction outside the town, seeming to try to find the figure of that guardian and the thousands of terrifying monsters in the darkness.

Charging alone into the endless chaos, fighting to the death with thousands of monsters, Veronica suddenly realized how crazy she had made that "Ancient Guardian" do. Even in the exaggerated hero stories of the bards, this was already a surreal feat.

Yet that guardian had actually gone and done it.

Even the old knight Morian next to her began to suspect whether that guardian would just leave and never return.

But at this moment, an eye-catching ball of light suddenly rose from outside the town.

The ball of light was like a newborn moon, reaching out from the darkness, and then illuminating everything with a brilliant light. Then it quickly shattered, and a huge mushroom cloud rose up in the smoke and flashes.

The deafening explosion and the trembling of the earth came afterward.

The furnace was already in sight.

The knights quickly turned around, forming a solid wall between the princess and the monsters. The old knight Morian shouted loudly: "Your Highness! Ignite!"

Veronica was already prepared. Without hesitation, she turned her sword around and cut a wound on her hand. Blood, red with a hint of golden light, immediately flowed out. She flicked the blood onto the base of the Furnace Tower and recited the ancient oath:

"In the name of the Creation Goddess, in the name of the Ancient Covenant, in the name of Korlo, the keeper of the seventy-seven thousand seven hundred and seventy pillars of imprisonment is here, the light of Order will surely illuminate all things!"