"Now, it's your turn!"
Leilin turned around, coldly staring at Resiman.
……
Several days later, an explosive piece of news spread across the South Coast.
The Dark Wizards had attacked the Evergreen Gardens headquarters once again. Every wizard left behind at Evergreen Gardens perished without exception, the gateway to the secret realm was destroyed on the spot, and even Second-rank Wizard Resiman, who had arrived to provide reinforcement, fell in battle.
What astonished people the most was that the attacking Dark Wizards had not come out unscathed either. Not only did the leader Kopen die in battle, but every elite Dark Wizard dispatched alongside him had been completely wiped out.
After the great battle, Leilin's reputation spread far and wide.
As the mastermind behind the deaths of two Second-rank Wizards and the destruction of the secret realm gateway, Leilin became the target of a joint bounty issued by both Dark and Light Wizards.
Any Second-rank Wizard on the South Coast was a figure of considerable influence, enough to command serious attention.
Furthermore, an unbound lone Second-rank Wizard who possessed that kind of terrifying ability capable of tipping the balance of a battlefield in an instant — Leilin's very existence had already provoked deep wariness among many high-ranking wizards!
His epithet, "Venomous Demon King," began to circulate in whispers as well.
……
In the western reaches of the South Coast, there lay a region known as the Land of Eternal Light.
There stood an inverted castle that appeared to be flipped upside down, its structure rising in a peculiar manner from the ground. Defensive runes etched across its surface flickered with a faint luminescence. This was the stronghold of the Porterly Family, long rumored to possess the gift of prophecy. Though the family had declined somewhat in recent centuries, it still retained a fraction of its former glory — as evidenced by the two strange stone sentinels flanking the castle gates.
Before the main entrance, two guardian statues stood with massive swords plunged blade-down into the earth. Each statue stood over ten meters tall and two to three meters wide, their faces carved with sharp, chiseled features that exuded an air of stern determination.
At that moment, inside the castle, within a cellar filled with white, frigid mist…
Transparent, enormous blocks of ice filled the space. At the very center of the frozen cellar, inside a crystal-clear ice coffin, a noble young woman lay perfectly still. Her delicate hands were clasped together over her lower abdomen, and an air of refined elegance surrounded her even in repose.
Though Jenna remained unconscious, the curse wound on her neck had already begun to spread relentlessly. Black tumours and dark veins crept outward one after another, and around her face, a ring of black gas coiled and linger, writhing like tiny serpents.
As the dark tendrils continued to tighten their grip, Jenna's eyelids fluttered violently, her expression twisted in agony.
Nearly a month had passed since Leilin had laid the curse upon her. The curse on Jenna's body was now on the verge of full eruption.
If she could not be saved in time, Jenna would inevitably become nothing but withered bones, just like Manla.
Bang! The cellar door was yanked open, and the old woman who had only just met with Leilin strode inside.
"Jenna! Our guiding seer of this generation! By the will of the Great Mother of Peace, you shall continue to live!"
The old woman murmured, placing a blood-red key atop the ice coffin.
Hummm! Waves of crimson light radiated outward from the key, slowly seeping into the coffin. The red glow spread across Jenna's entire body in an instant.
Beneath the crimson illumination, the dark gas on Jenna's face gradually receded. The fearsome power of the curse retreated at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"The cleansing rune Leilin provided truly works!" The old woman watched the coffin bathed in red light, a clear look of delight spreading across her weathered face.
After completing her deal with Leilin — exchanging a fragment of the family's inherited high-tier Meditation Method for the curse-dispelling rune — she had raced back to the family estate without a moment's rest, arriving just in time before the curse fully erupted.
"Leilin Farell! You blasphemer! You shall face the judgment of the Mother of Peace!" The old woman traced several hand seals in the air and whispered as though in prayer.
Drip!
Small droplets of blood-red liquid melted free from the key, penetrating through the thick layers of ice, and falling directly onto the snow-white skin of Jenna's neck.
Ssss! Plumes of white vapor rose up, and under the coating of the crimson liquid, the wound on Jenna's neck began to heal at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Hummm!
Jenna, who had been unconscious this entire time, suddenly opened her eyes!
Crack-crack-crack! The ice coffin shattered into countless fragments that scattered in every direction. Rings of peculiar energy waves rippled outward, reverberating throughout the entire cellar.
The old woman recognized this energy fluctuation immediately — it was the telltale manifestation of a Porterly seer entering a prophetic trance!
"She's beginning to prophesy already?" A look of startled uncertainty surfaced on the old woman's face.
"I see endless death! The Demon King! A Demon King who commands the power of poison is approaching rapidly…"
Jenna's eyes suddenly turned entirely white, and from her lips came a low, clipped voice.
"Poison? Demon King? Could it be…" The old woman's heart lurched. A recent piece of intelligence flashed through her mind.
Hummm!
The blood-red key suddenly levitated into midair, blazing with a blinding radiance.
"A tracking sigil? No—" The old woman's pupils contracted to pinpoints!