Two years ago, the day the inner world emerged, everyone looked up to see a massive mirror in the sky. Wisps of black dust fell from the mirror, on the other side of which was a serene, peaceful world.

The secrets of magic were revealed that day. People came to worship gods, and incidents of violence increased continuously, making people’s faith spiral out of control. The churches experienced a temporary spike in influence before meeting a dramatic decline.

The reason was simple: people realized that the gods could not be relied on. Not even giving away all their riches could buy the blessings of the gods. On the contrary, the clergy of the churches aggressively exploited the public, behaving more like capitalists than demons did.

It was better to believe in oneself than in a god!

Windsorians didn’t even believe in gods, much less in the Queen. Internal strife abounded, and the nation never went a day without gunshots and fire. The royal family’s rule didn’t last; their situation worsened after they lost control of the military.

Queen Sophelia convened a meeting with the Tulip Families at the headquarters of the Ministry of Magic. Ninety percent of them were absent, and only a select few barely remained loyal. Vice Minister Obed, Yvette, and Alan were in attendance. Representing their families, they were willing to continue serving the royal family.

How much of that was out of loyalty... well, the answer was in the eyes of the beholder.

Case in point, in Queen Sophelia’s eyes, Obed often looked at her neck, where the artery was, with a twisted look on his face.

Auston, the Tulip Family member whom Sophelia trusted the most, wasn’t there. The Darkness Knight was locked in an endless bloody battle with the Death Knight in the Great Cemetery of the Western District. Anyone who dared to intervene would be cut by the Darkness Knight like firewood to fuel the battle.

The rest of the Tulip Families all went missing. With the doom of the world on the horizon, they felt no point in faking loyalty. Instead, they stocked up on supplies and firearms at their home bases, reaching a non-aggression treaty.

The royal family was on the verge of losing power. Sophelia realized that she could only rely on herself. With faintly red eyes, she hurriedly ended the meeting and headed to Saint George’s Church with Yvette without delay, summoning Prince Edward and Princess Elizabeth, as well as Carol, the Prince’s fiancée, and Alistair, the Princess’s fiancé. Both had divine blood and might gain great power under the impact of Laws.

The Queen’s plan wasn’t that simple. The royal family was fraught with conspiracies and deceptions to begin with, and they weren’t so much a family but a combination of different interests. Under the influence of the negative information, the Queen was even less likely to trust her children.

She was going to extract her son’s and daughter’s divine blood for her own use.

Coincidentally, that was also what Edward and Juno wanted.

After a chaotic fight, Edward’s divine blood ended up taken by Sophelia, while Juno and Alistair had Carol’s. Then, Obed suddenly attacked the church. Hermann and Yvette kept him outside. The terrible battle ended in the mutual destruction of all three mages.

Meanwhile, the three angels fought in the Grey Space and reached the edge of the universe, accidentally unlocking Saint George’s legacy. Sophelia acquired the Oath Sword there, and the remains of the great dragon went to Juno and Alistair.

The royal family split into the Queen’s and the Princess’s factions.

Juno was a shrewd woman with a good grasp of politics. Knowing who the most valuable allies to have in Londan were, she went to the Great Cemetery with the dragon bones. There was no doubt that the Darkness Knight and the Death Knight would make the most useful recruits, more so than anyone else.

She couldn’t pick the Darkness Knight since he was Sophelia’s ex-boyfriend. Given their past entanglements and Auston’s loss of his wife, the two were likely to rekindle their turbulent relationship.

To prevent her mother from catching her off guard, Juno sought out the Death Knight and established an official partnership by leveraging the dragon bones. Sophelia, on the other hand, killed her useless husband and turned to Auston to continue their past relationship.

You’ve lost your wife and daughter, while I’ve lost my husband and son. We’re a match made in Hell.

Fuck off.

The Darkness Knight didn’t agree to an alliance in the beginning, but the Death Knight had gained two angels as allies, making it a hassle to fight him. Auston had no choice but to work with Sophelia.

The two parties divided the large city of Londan into two parts, one ruled by the Darkness Knight and the Queen, and the other ruled by the Death Knight and the Princess. Everyone else either chose a side or met their death.

The aggressive housecleaning lasted half a year. Most of the churches had been wiped out, leaving only small fry that didn’t even qualify as threats. The situation in Londan settled down.

Under the two factions’ iron rule, Londan had an unexpected period of peace.

The Darkness Knight had lost his beloved wife, whose remains were forged into an elite unit by the Death Knight, paired with the skeleton dragon as a set of dragonrider and her mount. The bad blood could not be resolved, and there was no stopping the battle.

After the temporary peace, conflicts escalated.

The two knights grew stronger day by day, tipping the internal power balance. The Queen and Princess went from allies to mere props and then to servants, living under the shadows of the two knights.

That was how today’s clash came to be.

Auston had set up a trap to lure Juno out—with a group of mages and the appealing Queen as bait. Wayne the Death Knight was lacking in intelligence; he could fight, but not strategize. Juno was the strategist in the faction. She bit the bait on purpose for a chance to capture her mother.

It would be best to catch Sophelia alive. The beautiful Queen checked all the boxes for the depraved daughter.

The three angels fought in the sky. After a year of fighting, they all knew each other like the backs of their hands. There was no determining a victor unless outside forces were involved. There was also no determining a survivor.

Wayne the Death Knight was waiting. He observed the angels locked in a life-and-death battle with two orbs of red light quietly glowing in his eye sockets. He was waiting for Auston to make a move.

However, Auston had not shown up for whatever reason, not for a long time. If he didn’t join the fight, Sophelia would surely die.

“Are you using me to kill your insolent pawn, or are you waiting for me to make a move first?” The Death Knight stroked the scar on his skull, feeling a sting like the injury had been inflicted just yesterday.

Something must be wrong! If the enemy doesn’t move, I won’t, either! Whoever makes the first move will die!

Those were what Juno had taught him. He found merit in her words and concluded that Auston had to be brewing something given his unusual patterns today. He believed in Auston’s superior intelligence. With a huff, he rode his undead warhorse away.

The cloak of Death spread out like a veil, sweeping across the ruined city and erasing all life in its way. When the sweeping veil reached the center of the battlefield unhurriedly, the three angels ran away in a hurry, avoiding the all-encompassing cloak of Death energy, not daring to take the brunt of its power.

Receiving the Death Knight’s signal to retreat, Juno swallowed the complaints at the tip of her tongue, threatening to make a wife of her mother before hurrying away with her fiancé. Sophelia would like to give chase, but she didn’t have the support of the Darkness Knight. Swallowing her grievances, she flew toward her home base.

What about following the plan? Why did the Darkness Knight suddenly change his mind? Was this a new kink of his?

***

Lando Estate.

The front gate to the estate was half open, with the engravings and the emblems on the gates obscured and the metal rivets rusty. Inside the estate, what met the eye first was a desolate garden.

Weeds had overtaken the garden, with wilted vines wrapping around the weathered statues. What little vegetation remained was barely alive in the grove only because of the Darkness energy that sustained it.

The main house had half collapsed. On the other side of the shattered windows, tattered curtains swayed and rustled in the wind. Through a roof with broken tiles, rainwater seeped through the cracks, leaving damp water stains.

The interior of the house was an even bigger mess of upturned furniture, broken ceramics, and scattered books and clothes. Every part of the estate was soaked in sorrow like an abandoned island isolated in the ruin of doomsday.

All the laughter and lively chatter that had once filled this space had faded, replaced by desolation and destruction.

Inside the grove, Auston reached out and smoothed a hand along the tree trunk in front of him, his hair grey and his crimson eyes glinting in mourning. He took a pocket watch out. Its time had stopped the moment the Death Knight broke into the Church of Nature, when Silvia died.

This forgotten island was where Auston’s heart belonged. Looking at his wife’s photo in the pocket watch, the vicious light in his crimson eyes surged. Turbulent killing intent morphed into pythons of Darkness that hovered above the estate. Their incredible might distorted the air and conjured ripples of Darkness.

“You need to remain rational, Master.”

Megan stood behind him with an expressionless face, wearing a suit and a pair of white gloves to complete the clean, sophisticated look. Auston’s killing intent receded as he turned to her. She had short blonde hair and appeared identical to Silvia.

Megan had grown up mimicking Silvia, with an identical figure and a face with a seventy to eighty percent resemblance to her. After Silvia’s death, the resemblance became a hundred percent, allowing Auston to retain the last shred of sanity in his madness.

“Silvia...” Auston reached out and put his hand on Megan’s face.

She closed her eyes and tilted her head, pressing her cheek to his calloused palm. She murmured, “Yes, it’s me. I’m always with you.”

Auston took a deep breath. The red light in his eyes faded somewhat, and he pulled his hand back coldly.

Megan wasn’t surprised. She was used to the disappointment of being a failed substitute, and she was used to feeling envious of Silvia.

She strongly believed that she had been unable to replace Silvia because she had died; her death had etched a bone-deep yearning in Auston’s heart, and without resolving that, there would be no space for another person.

If Silvia were still alive, Megan would be able to take her place or at least become a secret lover. That was what she believed.

Not far from them, a black-robed figure stood motionless. “Have you made up your mind, Sir Knight?”

Under the hood was a porcelain-like fair face. The puppet had no flesh or blood, merely a shell to contain the thoughts of the Church of Darkness’s Holy Maiden, Anastasia. She had come to Londan to seek the Darkness Knight’s help in fighting the Church of Nature. She wanted to kill Senna to avenge her father.

“I’ve considered your offer, and I’m not interested,” Auston said without turning around. “This is the inner world. Neither of us has a future. My only target is the Death Knight. I’ll kill him before the world’s destruction.”

His icy voice cut like a chilling wind. Though Anastasia didn’t have a living body, she still shuddered under the fierce killing intent.

“Sir Knight, you have Twilight Despair. You have a fu—”

“My world is dead. I have no future!”

Auston knew what Anastasia was suggesting. Yes, he might be able to become a demigod and leave the world, but what then? Where would he go? Was he supposed to find himself in the surface world and replace him?

That wasn’t his world, and his beloved didn’t exist there. He would only fall into worse despair when he witnessed the hope and wonder.