The lion that had lain in wait for so long finally bared its fangs.
But the one impaled by that long-hidden greatsword—Lionfang—was beyond anyone's expectations.
Reinhardt's timing was exquisite: the split second before Mordiana circulated her magic power to meet the Empress head-on—the very instant her guard was at its loosest.
And the aura he erupted with wasn't the "peak Tier-7, second only to the Empress" described in the intel.
It was —
Tier-8.
The pinnacle of human strength. One step beyond that was a realm only gods could tread.
A Tier-8 Grand Knight swallowing pride and honor, finding an opening, and committing to a full-force sneak attack…
The shock and devastation were easy to imagine.
Mordiana, tall for a woman, looked like a little girl in front of the old lion. The greatsword speared her through like candied hawthorn on a skewer—lifting the Shadow Queen up—
Yet she still didn't give up.
For an Arcana Mage, a momentary setback was nothing. As long as she could chant, ignite her mana, and lever the Weave—shadow magic was endlessly mutable. This didn't have to be defeat!
Just before the first syllable of her esoteric incantation could leave her lips—
BOOM!
Reinhardt spun a full one-eighty with Mordiana still impaled, and slammed her head-first into the ground. Marble shattered, debris flying.
But that was only the beginning.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Reinhardt didn't stop. Lionfang became the arm of a giant, and Mordiana—caught in that hand—was hurled and smashed into the earth again and again.
Protective magic could shield your body.
But what about a concussion?
The grand hall played host to a ridiculous, brutal spectacle.
The "invincible" Empress was stunned. Mordiana—pierced through the torso, slammed into the floor over and over—spat out blood mixed with bits of ruptured organs, her face full of disbelief. The old lion remained expressionless.
Only Linen narrowed his eyes in satisfied approval, as if everything had unfolded exactly as he expected.
And only Teresia—sharing much of his perspective—noticed that Linen's right hand, which had been gripping his cane so tightly, finally loosened a fraction.
His back was already soaked through.
Before returning to the ballroom, Linen had said this would be his only real gamble tonight.
Now Teresia knew—
He'd won.
It was absurd. A Ring-bearer from the Tower of Chronomancy wasn't an idiot. For the Duke of the North—who had guarded Zijinghua's northern frontier for decades—to "defect" would require deep coordination between both sides.
And Linen?
Aside from that unexpected meeting at Eden Academy and the ball, the two of them had only crossed paths twice. They'd had no private communication at all.
And yet, just from those two meetings, Linen had gambled that the old lion would flip at the crucial moment—
And actually won.
How did he know?
Was it really as Linen claimed—aside from the Holy Light, Moon Goddess, and Earth Mother God, even the Goddess of Luck was favoring this blond prince?!
If you hugged enough goddess thighs at once, would they really scramble to fish you out?
Had he actually been telling the truth?
Teresia felt her entire common sense take psychic damage.
The Empress flickered across the ash of the incinerated throne and appeared beside Linen.
"Well done."
She didn't turn her head, but her steady, unruffled voice carried a trace of approval.
Linen clicked his tongue.
"When you don't know how to praise a subordinate, you say 'well done.' That was Quinn's advice, wasn't it? And for the record, I was the one who told her to tell you."
Her Majesty didn't refute him—effectively admitting it. Then she said, "If we can eliminate Mordiana for the empire, your contribution is undeniable. Name your reward. I will grant it."
"How distant, Mother," Linen said with a grin. "And popping champagne at halftime is a bit early. Get ready, Your Majesty. A proper boss…"
He showed his teeth, meaning thick in the smile.
"…has a second phase."
As if to answer him, Reinhardt—still mid-slam—suddenly halted.
On the tip of the greatsword, the Shadow Queen who'd been impaled there was gone.
In her place was a Mana Spirit creature beaten by raw force into something like a meatball—so mangled you couldn't even tell what it had once been.
Shadow Realm Substitute!
A forbidden shadow art with terrifying practicality: a mage capable of traversing the Shadow Realm could link their fate to a Shadow Realm creature in advance. In a crisis, that linked creature would "bear" the caster's fate.
The price was enormous—astronomical materials and cost. The method was brutally cruel. The failure rate was ridiculous.
Almost no one could afford to use it.
But Mordiana, the Shadow Queen, of course could.
She'd used a preselected Shadow Realm creature to take her injuries. And Mordiana herself—the true body of the Shadow Queen—had slipped back into her "subjects."
All the shadows in the hall twisted and churned, finally merging into the shape of a woman with one hand pressed to her forehead, breathing raggedly.
With each rise and fall of her chest, the hall's darkness contracted and expanded, like a massive heart pulsing in shadow.
"You dare… humiliate me like this…"
"I'll have you all… die!!!"
Linen took a small step back, placing himself between the shadows and the Empress, shielding his mother with his body.
The Empress remained expressionless, showing no displeasure at his gesture.
Ever since that childhood coma, her son had seemed like a different person. He said strange things sometimes—things even Novie, the one closest to him, didn't always fully grasp. The Empress didn't understand them either.
But that was fine.
Her Majesty had never been a woman who relied on thinking.
She expressed emotion with methods far more direct.
"She doesn't have a second phase."
"Oh?" Linen arched a brow, looking at his mother.
"Because she's already dead."
BANG!
With an earth-shaking blast—like a teleport—Her Majesty vanished from in front of Linen.
Linen's eye twitched.
He knew his mother—a pure, unrefined dragonblooded barbarian who couldn't learn a single Arcana spell—certainly couldn't teleport.
So he lowered his gaze to the spot she'd just stepped from. The marble floor had cracked outward, spiderweb fractures blooming.
Not teleportation.
Just a sprint so fast and so powerful it might as well have been.
"Barbarian…" Linen sighed, shaking his head.
And faster than the spreading cracks, that vivid red figure had already appeared before the massive female shadow.
Mordiana—merged into the darkness—let out a furious roar. The hall's shadows writhed wildly, twisting into spirals that stabbed toward the Empress.
"Your Majesty," Reinhardt called out, "Shadow Fusion merges the caster with the shadow. Ordinary attacks won't work."
He offered advice—but made no move to help, merely standing there with Lionfang in hand.
The Empress ignored him.
She even ignored Mordiana's attack.
Instead, she extended her right hand—five pale, jade-white fingers reaching for the wall where Mordiana's shadow was reflected.
"Foolish Red Dragon—you think—what?!"
The impossible happened.
Those slender, fair, almost delicate fingers met stone—and the palace's supporting brickwork crumbled like tofu, poked straight through.
But that wasn't even the most unbelievable part.
The truly unbelievable part was this:
Mordiana—the Shadow Queen, hidden in the shadow, removed from the real plane—
The moment the Empress's hand touched her shadow, Mordiana was hooked out of it.
It was absurdly surreal, like a two-dimensional figure being dragged out of a painting.
"Oh!"
Even Linen raised his brows, genuinely impressed.
He truly hadn't known his mother could do that.
If he'd known earlier she had such a convenient ability, he wouldn't have picked a fight with her so readily.
Why go through all that trouble finding "heroine candidates"?
Just have Mother yank a few out of the shadows for him.
Yukinoshita Yukino, Elysia—whatever—
"Somehow I feel like you're thinking something extremely disrespectful," Teresia said flatly.
"Just reminiscing about the wives I've yet to meet," Linen murmured.
"W-wives?!" Teresia's voice tightened. "You're engaged?"
"Just kidding." Linen chuckled.
The system had already interpreted the Empress's ability—it was a skill within the Dragonification skill tree.
...
[Yellow King's Blessing]:
Bronze Dragon King's Blessing.
Can strip or grant blessings possessed by the target.
...
The same ability that had once granted Linen other dragon blessings, when turned on enemies became a shameless buff purge.
All your flashy tricks and fancy powers? Gone. Now fight me with your fists.
For a barbarian like Mother, it was basically handing a furious "smash superstition" worker the hammer-and-sickle flag.
Linen couldn't help smiling.
"Looks like someone's about to stop smiling."
The Empress dragged Mordiana out of the shadow one-handed. With her other hand raised, the spiral shadow-stabs meant for the Empress plunged through their original owner instead, spearing Mordiana's body.
"Tivira, you—"
The Empress twisted her wrist, snapped Mordiana's neck, then tossed her aside like a torn burlap sack.
As expected, another flare of light.
A Mana Spirit corpse—stabbed through again and again, neck broken—hit the floor.
"Sewer rat," the Empress muttered, red flame burning over her hand to purify the blood. "So hard to kill."
Then a surge of mana burst from her.
BLESSING CONVERSION
...
[Blue King's Blessing]:
Blue Dragon King's Blessing.
Converts battle aura to mana and mana to battle aura.
(Physical attacks gain mana, and vice versa.)
...
Seeing that blessing appear, Linen lifted a brow.
He knew it was time for him to exit the stage.
As the Empress converted blessings, Linen also quietly converted his own. He shifted his three-god blessing from purifying "Holy Light" to the Moon Goddess—who held the authority of "guidance"—and slipped away without a sound.
"Since the rat has entered the trap, there's no reason to let it leave alive!"
The city-class barrier that had saved the castle earlier lit up again—only this time, its range was tiny, covering just the banquet hall.
But because it was small, its strength was multiplied by who knew how many times.
No being could enter or exit without the barrier's opener—the Empress—granting permission.
Even creatures lurking in the Shadow Realm… were no exception.
The Red Dragon Empress—who had passed seven Holy Trials and earned the recognition of five former monarchs.
Fighting her wasn't fighting one unprecedented legendary Empress.
It was fighting Zijinghua's eight dragonblood warriors at once—six of whom could erupt with power far beyond their tier at any moment.
"Damn that Red Dragon—fine—but even Reinhardt is stepping on my head now?!" Mordiana raged.
"And that parasitic bastard—what the hell is it doing?!"
In the Shadow Realm, within the coordinate corresponding to the castle's grand hall, Mordiana—having once again "grafted" her death away through secret art—watched the hall through a magical screen, seething.
By her original design, it should've been her and Reinhardt two-versus-one against the Empress.
Who could've imagined the board would flip in an instant—and she'd become the one getting jumped?
The sneak attack and the hard counter were bad enough. What made her sick was this:
That damned Red Dragon had raised the barrier while Mordiana was reviving, and the old lion stood guard at one side while the Empress guarded the other.
The mighty Shadow Queen…
Was being camped at her respawn point.
If she faced either one alone—plus her shadow legion—Mordiana still had strong odds. But that lion's sneak attack had been vicious. It had genuinely wounded her. Even forbidden arts couldn't restore her fully.
And the Empress's abilities hard-countered her. One versus two—she couldn't gain an advantage.
Staring at the endlessly twisted space of the Shadow Realm around her, Mordiana frowned.
Shadow traversal wasn't omnipotent. If the real plane had a powerful sealing barrier, the Shadow Realm would be obstructed accordingly. Mordiana couldn't jump freely.
And staying inside this warped world too long—plus exchanging fate with two lives within it—had already begun to show signs of assimilation.
Once assimilation completed, even the Shadow Queen would become a crazed Mana Spirit.
That was Shadow Arcana's greatest limitation.
There was no free power in the world. Everything tainted by mana was, by nature, a double-edged sword.
Feeling the Shadow Realm gnawing at her, Mordiana's brow twitched.
Then she realized—
This was an opportunity.
Because of the erosion and the secret art, her link to the Shadow Realm was even tighter now.
And with a forbidden art that could graft "fate," combined with the Shadow Realm's twisted rules…
She could try to twist the forbidden art itself.
Change the grafting of "fate" into grafting her "position" and "mana."
In plain terms: sacrifice most of her mana to relocate herself outside the banquet hall barrier.
That wasn't a problem.
And it wasn't a shameful retreat.
Mordiana had plenty of ways to recover mana.
More importantly, leaving most of her mana behind would give the Empress and Reinhardt the illusion that she was still hiding in the hall's shadows—turning the barrier that should imprison her into a cage that trapped them instead.
And this castle didn't only contain one Ring-bearer.
There was also the "Fate Worm" parasitizing the Head of House Morris.
As long as she could contact that parasite and join forces—
Two Ring-bearers chosen by the Tower, against two.
Both of them carried the world's fate, qualified to advance into sages. How could they lose to two "minor characters"?
As long as the price of twisting the forbidden art didn't drain her dry on the spot, she could flip the board again.
Time was tight.
Once she decided, Mordiana began the secret art again.
Mana bled out of her in a torrent, making the Shadow Queen look unavoidably shabby.
But so what?
Mordiana didn't care.
History—like the search for Arcana's ROOT—never cared about the process.
Only the result.
She was a Ring-bearer. That was the result.
She would find that idiotic worm and rise again. That was the result.
She would win. That was the—
Final ending.
At the last instant before her mana ran dry…
The forbidden art completed.
...
A Shadow Realm gate flickered open. Mordiana stumbled out—and found herself at the castle's outer wall.
Morning wind brushed her face. Far out on the horizon, the sun had already risen.
Bathed in dawn, feeling the hollowness of having bled too much mana, Mordiana wasn't dispirited.
She laughed wildly.
Partly from the triumph of her gamble.
Partly from the enemy's stupidity.
Her landing spot was a bit off from what she'd expected—she had no idea why she'd ended up here—but she'd escaped.
Only, the mana left in her body was even less than she'd expected. Maybe Fifth Ring at best.
The forbidden art had reversed her injuries, but her back still prickled with pins-and-needles pain—surely the aftermath of the lion's sneak attack.
Yet Mordiana didn't fear. Her eyes grew even more scornful, more pleased.
"Hehehe… hahahahaha! That muscle-brained Red Dragon really lives up to her reputation. If she'd had her soldiers patrol the castle after cleaning up the Mana Spirits, then running into me right now would actually be troublesome…"
"But what a pity. What a pity—AH!!!"
Skrt!
A longsword made entirely of the Moon Goddess's silver divine power punched through Mordiana's chest from behind.
Linen appeared without a sound at her back—and twisted the hilt hard.
"Surprise~"
His voice was soft, smiling.
Better than watching someone else get backstabbed…
Was doing the stabbing yourself.
Linen's favorite, favorite part.
Second verse, same as the first.
---
T/N: sigh... one more chapter before goodbye linen...
uhhh this was affected by spring cleaning so i will be dropping this tl alongside a few more :(