[East of the Divine Realm - The Celestial Pastures]
While the majority of the realm's forces had rushed toward the capital, a few sentries remained at their posts on the floating farm islands. However, their cultivation was far too low to detect the distortion of time rippling through the air.
Libinea moved like a ghost. She didn't kill the guards; she simply paused them. One sentry froze mid-yawn, while another remained suspended in the middle of a step, unaware that an intruder had just walked right past him.
After venturing through the outer pens where lesser beasts were kept, she finally arrived at the massive silver gates housing the Celestial Cows. But before she could touch the handle, a sudden sensation washed over her—as if the very life was being siphoned from her marrow.
Her vision darkened. Her skin turned grey. She felt her knees buckle under the weight of absolute entropy until multiple small stars began to manifest around her peripheral vision. They did not heal her completely, but they acted as an anchor, preventing her life force from being erased.
She turned around to look at the source of the anomaly.
The sky above the Divine Realm had been carved in half.
To the west, over the capital, the world was consumed by a blinding, ethereal light—the domain of the Goddess. To the east, where Libinea stood, the world was drowning in a suffocating, infinite darkness—the shadow of Raiking. The clash of their opposing Laws had turned the atmosphere into a war zone of Yin and Yang.
When Libinea stepped back toward the light, she felt revitalized, old training wounds healing in an instant. When she stepped toward the dark, she felt death.
"He is fighting seriously..." Libinea whispered, realizing the magnitude of the distraction. "I must hurry."
She faced the darkness once more, but this time she cast her Time Magic on herself, slowing down the rate at which her life force drained. She pushed open the heavy silver gates.
Inside, she found herds of Celestial Cows grazing on star-grass. To her disbelief, the beasts were adorned in the finest silks, with gold rings piercing their noses and crushed spirit stones acting as their bedding.
"They treat the cows better than my Phoenix tribe..."
Libinea felt a spike of anger, but she swallowed it down. The mission came first. She approached the nearest cow—a massive beast with a coat like polished marble.
"Get in," she ordered, holding up her Spatial Ring.
Nothing happened.
She poured more mana into the ring, trying to envelop the beast in spatial energy. "I said, get in!"
The ring flickered and sparked, but the cow remained firmly planted on the grass.
"Moo," the cow lowed, staring at her with dull, judging eyes.
"Why is the Spatial Ring not working?!" Libinea hissed. Then, the realization hit her. These were not ordinary beasts; their spiritual density was too high to be stored in a standard pocket dimension. They were living, breathing demigods in bovine form.
"Moo!"
Libinea felt the mockery in that sound.
"Do not test me, beef," she threatened.
She looked back at the distant capital, where the darkness was growing more aggressive. She had no time to find a Beast Bag large enough. She had no choice.
"Fine. We do this the hard way."
She grabbed the massive cow by its silk-covered legs and hoisted it into the air. The beast weighed as much as a mountain, but Libinea's physical cultivation was nothing to scoff at.
"You owe me, Little Brother," she grunted, staggering under the weight as the cow chewed a mouthful of grass, letting the green slobber drip onto her pristine white robes. "You owe me big time."
---
[Dawnfall Prison]
In the murky depths of the royal dungeon, Sir Lerikmen found himself chained to the damp stone walls. Despite his predicament, the seasoned advisor's expression was not one of a man resigned to his fate. Instead, he appeared utterly perplexed as he stared at the lone barred window high above him.
The atmosphere was charged with panic, spreading rapidly among those present.
"What in the world is happening?!" the Prison Captain muttered, stumbling backward as the light streaming through the window swung erratically from dazzling white to oppressive black.
"Is this... the End Times?" a guard stammered, his fingers gripping his spear tightly.
"LET ME OUT OF HERE!" a frantic prisoner screamed, throwing himself against the iron bars. "THE GODS ARE ANGRY! WE'RE ALL DOOMED!"
"Silence him!" the Lieutenant commanded, cracking her whip on the stone floor, though her own hand quivered slightly.
"Captain, what should we do?" a guard asked, his voice breaking.
The Captain was at a loss. In his thirty years of guarding these cells, he'd never seen the sky split in two. The screams from the city above seeped through the ventilation shafts, a symphony of terror that made the underground prison feel like a tomb.
"Captain."
The voice cut through the chaos like a cold blade, calm and composed. It was a woman's voice, an unexpected presence in the midst of this turmoil. The Captain turned sharply. When he saw who had entered through the heavy iron doors, his face turned pale.
"Princess!"
The guards fell to their knees in unison, their armor clanking against the stone.
"Relax," the Princess instructed, her gaze sweeping across the terrified men. She seemed unfazed by the flickering sky. "By order of the Crown Prince, I am here to assume custody of the high-value prisoners."
"The... Prince?" the Captain stammered.
"We are to escort Sir Lerikmen to the Army Barracks until the situation is under control," she declared, her tone allowing no dissent. "The Palace dungeons are no longer safe."
The Captain understood. Amid the chaos above, if a riot erupted or the prison was breached, a key political prisoner like Lerikmen could either be killed or escape.
"Certainly, Your Highness," the Captain replied, signaling the Lieutenant. "Open Cell One."
The Lieutenant advanced swiftly, clutching the iron key. As the door swung open, Sir Lerikmen stood, the chains clinking loudly.
He scrutinized the Princess intently. He was aware that the Prince had spared him from immediate execution in the throne room, which fostered a degree of trust in the Prince. Yet, he was also cognizant of standard protocols, and prisoner transfers were typically not part of them.
Something unusual is happening, Lerikmen realized, but he decided to cooperate for the time being.
As the Princess's personal guards freed him from his shackles and formed a protective circle around him, the Captain approached again. "Your Highness... what about the incident outside?" he inquired, gesturing toward the flickering window. "Is the Kingdom under siege?"
"We lack answers for now," the Princess replied smoothly. "But rest assured, my father is currently in discussion with the Council. A resolution will be reached soon."
"That's... reassuring."
The Captain, the guards, and even the listening prisoners exhaled. They needed something to hold onto, a hope that the King could mend the sky.
However, as the Princess led Lerikmen out of the dungeon and they caught a glimpse of the heavens through the main archway—a sky torn between blinding divinity and a consuming void—the fear crept back in. Though they refused to fully acknowledge it for the sake of their sanity, deep down, they knew.
This was beyond the King's power to fix.
---
[1 Hour Later - The Royal Carriage]
The wheels clattered over the cobblestones, steadily moving away from the turmoil of the capital.
Inside the carriage, the blinds were drawn tight.
After departing the dungeon, Sir Lerikmen's suspicions started to crystallize. With four decades of service to the crown under his belt, he knew every road in the Dawnfall Region like the back of his hand.
"We're not heading to the barracks," Lerikmen stated, breaking the silence. "The barracks lie to the East. We're heading West."
The Princess sat across from him, her face softly lit by a dim spirit lamp. She did not flinch at his assertion.
"Where are we going, Princess?"
"To Greenhollow."
Sir Lerikmen frowned, mentally scanning for the significance of such a modest settlement. Then it hit him. Greenhollow was the last outpost of civilization before the Western Mountains, the threshold of That Sect.
He peered through the window slit at the entourage accompanying them. There were no siege engines, no legions—just a small unit of the Prince's personal shadow guards. This was not an assault party.
"The Prince wants us to investigate the Sect?" Lerikmen whispered, the gravity of the situation settling in.
Instead of answering directly, the Princess gestured to her loyal guard. The soldier handed over a crumpled parchment—a fresh scout report intercepted before it reached the King's War Council.
"Read this," she commanded.
Lerikmen adjusted his spectacles as he reviewed the report detailing an event from earlier this week: a sword deity had descended from above, menacing a village and forcibly seizing a specific individual.
The more Lerikmen read, the more his brow furrowed.
"A... Nanny?" he asked, looking up, puzzled. "Why would a being capable of leveling mountains kidnap a village nanny?"
"That is precisely what we intend to discover," the Princess replied, reclaiming the report.
"And the King?"
The Princess's silence was telling.
Lerikmen leaned back against the plush velvet cushions. This was treason. The Prince and Princess were acting behind their father's back, effectively orchestrating a soft coup to take control of foreign policy. Yet, as he observed the Princess's unwavering resolve, he realized it mirrored his own beliefs. The King sought a war of pride; the children sought the truth.
To prevent the slaughter of thousands, they first needed to understand what their adversary truly desired.
"I understand," Lerikmen said, bowing his head slightly. "I am at your service."
The carriage rumbled on, carrying them toward Greenhollow. Sir Lerikmen gazed westward, preparing himself for high-stakes diplomacy with a formidable warlord, oblivious to the fact that the "horrors" awaiting them involved a crying baby, a weary God, and a Phoenix attempting to steal a cow.