Mystery Paradise: Wishing Power Demon
Chapter 428 - 426 The Place the Key Leads to

Chapter 428: Chapter 426 The Place the Key Leads to

"Report, report! The enemy has retreated!" A messenger soldier ran into Jinsui Palace, exclaiming to Qibo and the others, "The Northern City District has not fallen!"

Upon hearing this news, those gathered in the Royal Palace showed no signs of victorious joy, not even a hint of the relief that comes with the lifting of a heavy burden.

All minds were shrouded in confusion.

The occasional explosions coming from the north indicated that a fierce battle was underway, and someone was fighting valiantly against the enemy forces. However, everyone was well aware that the Longjiu Family’s army had never left the Inner City District, not to mention repelling the enemy or securing victory.

"Big brother, what on earth is going on?" Zigwey looked incredulously at Qibo, "Who exactly is the new king!?"

Seeing Qibo remain silent, he turned and grabbed the messenger soldier, demanding harshly, "You must have seen which troops are engaged in the fight with the enemy! Speak, who are those people? Are they Lord Egohan from the Hills? Or is it Earl Mundo, the Vulture? The lords in the west who support the Longjiu Family and have the strength, there are only a few of them, right?"

"Could it be that father appointed them as king? How is that possible?" The always gloomy younger brother couldn’t help himself, "Only the descendants of the Longjiu Family can succeed father’s will!"

"I, I don’t know..." stammered the messenger soldier, "They looked just like the Longjiu Army, no other troops should have been equipped with Steam Knights yet..."

"Let him go." Qibo suddenly said coldly.

"Huh?"

"I said let go of this soldier! Can’t you hear?" The Crown Prince glared at Zigwey, speaking slowly and deliberately.

After a moment of eye contact, Zigwey chose to relent. He scoffed and then pushed the messenger soldier away.

"Go out and have a look."

"What did you say?"

"I said go out and have a look... The rest of you, come along," Qibo took a deep breath, rising from the throne, "Now that the battle is over, the other nobles wouldn’t dare make any rash moves for the time being. If we head to the edge of the Inner City Wall, we should be able to see where the troops fighting for the Longjiu Family come from."

After saying this, he led the way outside of Jinsui Palace.

Everyone exchanged glances, ultimately no choice but to follow.

Passing through the Half-mountain Garden and an elevated corridor, Qibo and the others arrived at a viewing platform—standing over ten meters taller than the Inner City Wall, it offered a view encompassing over half the Royal City. At this moment, the sun had almost set beneath the horizon, leaving only streaks of deep purple clouds in the sky. The torches inside and outside the city walls were lit, along with street oil lamps, and the street lanterns on both sides weren’t enough to completely obscure the situation on the ground.

However, what differed from the usual night scene was the shimmering on the streets within the Inner City District, as if a river reflecting the sunset.

"Hiss..."

When Zigwey clearly saw what it was, he couldn’t help but draw a sharp breath—

One after another, the Steam Armor knights stood tightly arrayed together, stretching from the gates of the Royal Palace all the way to the gates of the Inner City District, the numbers reaching into the hundreds, if not a thousand!

He often led his troops into battle and knew exactly how many elite warriors his family possessed!

The first requirement to operate Steam Constructs is to be a Talent; secondly, the cost of crafting each suit of armor is exceedingly high. Even with the financial capability of Gao Feng Company, they had amassed less than two hundred suits over the years! A qualified armor required reinforced steel for forging, with over thirteen thousand parts, including gears, transmission devices, and pipelines, necessitating the collaborative work of approximately a dozen factories. On the Old Continent, only Gao Feng Industrial Company could organize such a production line!

No... it was more than that.

Above the heads of all the Steam Knights, a strange spider-like machine was perched, and its structure looked just as complex, definitely not the kind of crude animal toy. When the armor took a step forward, they would lower their center of gravity and actively adjust their position to avoid slipping, almost as if they were alive!

If one could say that these armors were perhaps Gao Feng Industry products, then the Steel Spiders were something Zigwey had never seen before.

What baffled him even more was that this powerful army had actually emerged from within the Royal Palace!

What kind of joke was this!?

After taking the Royal Capital, the Longjiu Army carried out a thorough search of the Royal Palace. First, to find the whereabouts of the Crown Prince and the Second Prince, and second, to eliminate the stubborn enemies hidden deep within the palace. The palace had private prisons, torture chambers, wine ponds, and even chambers for palace women, but definitely no factories!

An army would also not be permitted within the bounds of the Royal Palace.

In other words, this group of steam-clad troops would make much more sense coming from anywhere but the inner court of the Royal Palace!

"My father did not have a private army, and all that you see does not belong to the Longjiu Family," Qibo suddenly said with melancholy. "In fact, I was just as ignorant as you all are before stepping out of Jinsui Palace. I accepted my father’s arrangements, but I never truly believed that the entire Kingdom could break the cycle and enter a new era... But now, it seems my father might have been right."

"Let’s talk over there..." Zigwey gestured towards a vacant spot.

"There’s no need, we can talk right here. After all, everyone here is a pillar that Duke Longjiu values... Without your support, the family would not have reached where it is today," Qibo surprisingly shook his head, rejecting his younger brother’s suggestion. "It is indeed an extremely important secret. But that was before I went to the Royal Palace Underground Chamber. Now, it’s still a secret, but not as significant."

With that, he looked at Zigwey, "You should know about the secret room in the palace basement that father frequented these past few months, right?"

"Yes," the latter nodded solemnly. "I asked him what was inside, but he never answered me. And the entrance was guarded by his personal guards. Even I wasn’t allowed to get close."

More precisely, it was ever since the Longjiu Family conquered Star Peak City and seized the Panlogical Machine.

At that time, all the ministers believed that the army, with its high morale, could take advantage of the situation to attack the northern mountains and the Middle Eastern part of the Kingdom, securing control of the entire Old Continent within a year and burying the Laurel Dynasty deep into history.

However, the Duke rejected this proposal and requested the troops to rest in place, assimilate the resources of the Royal City and share the fruits of victory. It wasn’t to say that this was a wrong decision. At least the other lords who followed the Duke supported this decision enthusiastically, and the generous income of Shengxia solidified the core status of the Longjiu Family even further. But it objectively provided an opportunity for the fleeing Kingdom Army to recover and allowed the Paradise Sect to grow in strength.

"What exactly is in that room?" Zigwey realized then that the blue key was the pass to open the door to the chamber.

Qibo’s expression was complex, struggling with words... He seemed hesitant, but ultimately, he still spoke.

"It’s a special prison, a divine prison built to imprison the Goddess of Abundance."

In an instant, he felt like he was back to the moment he opened the door to the chamber.

Images of intense suffering flooded into his mind, almost causing a mental breakdown.

In these chaotic and murky visions, he saw a vast field of wheat and a divinity nailed in the middle of the field with countless iron chains. The ends of these chains pierced the Goddess’s hands, feet, and torso, causing her to constantly bleed, and her blood, soaking into the earth, gave rise to tomb-like metal crosses.

Yes, what grew in the wheat field were not wheat. These metal crosses were also not unfamiliar to Qibo, for the weapons carried by the executive priests of the Abundance Sect, with whom they had fought many times, were these Second Order Constructs shaped like crosses.