Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?-Chapter 335 - 133 Nightmare Beast

Purgatory and the Netherworld were radically different.

If the essence of the Netherworld was sorrow, then the essence of Purgatory was pain.

The moment they stepped through the teleportation portal, everyone felt an oppressive sensation surge into their hearts.

It was a hard-to-define feeling, not just physical discomfort but also mental oppression and pain, gradually overflowing from the depths of the soul.

"Ah~" Medusa took a liberating deep breath in her mind, "Have I come to Heaven?"

"It’s Hell." Medea said coldly.

"I was just making a metaphor..." Medusa was speechless.

Unlike the sunny and beautiful scenery of Fire Island, the sky of this Limbo half-plane was red, like the deep red of a burning furnace roof, while the ground was a dark, blackish color, composed of what seemed like charred, fine dirt, giving a soft, crumbling sensation underfoot.

On the distant horizon, there was a range of continuous mountains with extremely sharp peaks reaching straight to the sky, like countless serrated blades. Between these mountains, in the valley, stood a red city known as Lingbo City.

This city had no walls. Its architectural style seemed to deliberately mimic the distant mountains, consisting of numerous dense and sharp buildings, extremely narrow at the base and very tall at the top, erected like slender fingers.

Thira was completely dumbfounded by this magnificent and bizarre world, which gave her an incredibly unreal, fantasy-like false impression. Medea, having visited a few times as a child, was relatively more stable than Thira, just quietly observing the distance.

Marquina whistled, and from afar, four tall horses came running. Their fur was also a deep black, blending in with the land of the same color almost imperceptibly when still, sparks scattering like flintstones striking each other whenever their hooves hit the ground.

Their eyes were crystalline, like rubies, as if something was burning within them.

The smallest of the horses approached Thira and silently lowered its sleek neck and head, as if indicating for her to sit on it, yet Thira stood frozen, too scared to approach.

"Mount it," Aske urged, seeing her desire to flee yet her fear to move.

"I... wait!" Before Thira could react, Aske had already picked her up from behind and placed her securely on the black horse.

Without a saddle, she sat unusually steadily on the horse’s back—more precisely, the black horse seemed to have its own ’Spirituality’, securely holding its rider.

"This is..." Thira hesitantly asked.

"Children of the Night, Nightmare Beasts," Marquina said with a smile, "They feed on people’s nightmares and can freely traverse Purgatory and the Subconscious Ocean. Nightmare Beasts are extraordinarily choosy creatures; once they take a liking to a person, they will not consume anyone else’s nightmares."

"Are you saying that it... feeds on my nightmares?" Thira grasped her meaning.

"Yes, have you been sleeping especially well lately, rarely having fearful nightmares?" Marquina asked with a smile, "That is precisely why it’s drawn to you. In a sense, you’re its keeper."

"I see." Thira slowly stroked the little Nightmare Beast’s mane, which responded with happy neighing.

The other three Nightmare Beasts also approached their respective ’keepers’. Aske’s Nightmare Beast was the largest and most majestic, affectionately nudging his chest—a clear indication that the Squad Leader experienced immense pressure during the day, providing ample meals for the Nightmare Beast each night.

Marquina’s Nightmare Beast was smaller in size, seemingly ordinary and docile. Only Medea’s Nightmare Beast appeared gaunt and frail, walking as if ill.

Medea: ..........

The Nightmare Beast looked at her with a plaintive gaze and then snorted loudly.

Obviously, due to Medusa’s presence, this Nightmare Beast had hardly been fed; most of the painful emotions from the nightmares had been preemptively siphoned away.

The four Nightmare Beasts, carrying the four individuals, sped swiftly forward and quickly arrived at Lingbo City.

Lingbo City had no walls, just like Fire Island, bleakly situated in a half-plane space, naturally requiring no defensive measures.

The closer the houses were to the edge, the lower and flatter-roofed they became. The residents around them were mostly exaggeratedly hunchbacked, shuffling along with difficulty like elderly crones, wrapped in linen black robes resembling shrouds, clutching knotted canes like tangled roots in their dry, taloned hands.

"These are..." Thira tentatively asked again.

"Correct, they are not human." Marquina smiled slightly but elaborated no further.

These residents are not human... Thira did not press further but instead stared at these creatures that resembled old women, striving to remember the details of their appearances.

The deeper one ventured, the more towering and sharp the buildings on either side of the street became. It seemed that the architectural style here favored slenderness and pointedness. The passersby also gradually changed into some kind of ivory-colored, puppet-like creatures, with no features on their faces, and limbs without fine lines, merely walking along the roadside with a calm creaking noise.

Before Thira could ask, Marquina introduced:

"These are also not human."

"What race are they...?" Thira asked.

"The ugly ones in the surrounding district are Pisto (Believers), while these in the downtown area are Fanatico (Fanatics)," Marquina explained.

"And what race are you, Marquina?" Aske casually asked, "Bishop?"

"You really are amusing, Lord Aske." Lying across the back of the Nightmare Beast and veiled, Marquina laughed so hard she couldn’t get up, and seriously said, "I’m just a weak woman without the strength to truss a chicken."

"Don’t believe her," Medea quickly warned him via mind communication.

"Of course," Aske indicated he was wary of her, "Is she a mind ability user?"

"Not sure," Medea shook her head, "My spiritual intuition doesn’t react to her."

"But that doesn’t mean she isn’t a mind ability user," Aske said. In this world, the parallel sensing of spiritual intuition wasn’t infallible; many hidden methods could obscure it.

"Compared to her, the one you’re about to meet is who you should really be worried about," Medea stated, "She’s a true mind system demigod; without any mind-related abilities, your thoughts are laid bare before her like an open diary, completely transparent."

"So what can you do?" Aske looked at her askance.

"I can help shield your mind," Medea narrowed her eyes, "Even though she can easily breach my defense with her demigod level mind power, at least we’ll be aware—instead of being utterly vulnerable to having our thoughts read without knowing."

"What about Thira?"

"Let Thira stay in the side hall. I guess she’s only interested in you."

The two of them exchanged secretive communications on the mind communication channel, and after explaining to Thira, they quickly reached an agreement.

The palace of the Enchanting Demon Queen, like the other buildings in the city, was still shaped like a monument rising high into the heavens. As they walked into the palace gate, Thira suddenly said:

"I think I won’t go in. Can I just have a look around nearby?"

"This..." Marquina hesitated somewhat.

"Marquina, my mother probably only wants to see me and the Squad Leader," Medea calmly stated, "Or did she give you a strict order to bring all three of us to her?"

"Indeed not," Marquina grinned, "Actually, Her Majesty initially wanted to meet only Lord Aske. The invitation for Her Highness to accompany him was a personal suggestion I made to Her Majesty."

Medea: .........

"See," she said rather tartly in the communication channel to Aske, "I have no mother-daughter affection with her. Whether or not you can get the Magic Potion will depend on your performance later."

And so Thira left the group early to roam around the city. Guided by Marquina, Aske and Medea headed deeper into the palace.

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