When the pumpkin carriage stopped, Silas looked out the window and found himself in the mountains outside Backlund.
He followed the Queen out of the carriage. The Witch's corpse was also carried down by invisible servants.
The servants busied themselves around the corpse, beginning preparations for "spirit channeling."
"Your Majesty, don't forget, she might be silenced by some power..."
Silas reminded her.
At this moment, his mind was noisy and turbulent.
Intense pain brought madness, and the dead lambs in turn affected his potion. Ma'am M's illusory figure stood behind him, cradling his head with her hands, maintaining the balance of his spirit.
"I know."
The Queen glanced at him.
She chanted in a low voice, and the environment around them gradually changed. The mountain peak disappeared.
Seawater surged from all directions. The ground beneath their feet rose up, and vivid flowers grew wildly.
Moist sea breeze carrying the fragrance of flowers drifted to their noses.
Silas discovered they now appeared on an island. Outside the island, water vapor obscured everything.
Peace, tranquility, remoteness, warmth.
"This is the ideal land at the world's end, the island of the otherworld that isolates everything."
The Queen explained concisely.
"Here, external influences find it difficult to take effect."
Her abilities were as dreamlike as ever. He just didn't know what myth or fairy tale this came from.
"Come out."
The Queen didn't waste time.
She quickly channeled the spirit, forcibly extracting Panatiya's soul from the corpse.
Under powerful spiritual suppression, Panatiya trembled, not daring to disobey at all.
"Tell me, why did you create this disaster?"
A glow flashed through the Queen's eyes.
"To digest my potion, and also to further awaken the 'Primordial'..."
Under this light, Panatiya answered honestly. "But that was just incidental..."
"What was the main purpose?"
The Queen continued to press.
Resistance clearly surged across Panatiya's face, but after only persisting for a few seconds, she spoke again:
"To advance the progress of the era... The Great Smog incident will greatly change Loen's political landscape. A new order will be established..."
Hearing Panatiya's answer, Silas froze, then felt rage surging up, impossible to control.
Advance the era, establish a new order?
What bullshit logic!
What about the people of East Borough? Were they just garbage to be casually discarded!
"Who is the mastermind behind you? Who made you do this?"
The Queen continued pressing.
"I can't say..."
Panatiya's resistance grew stronger.
The Queen looked at her coldly.
After a moment, Panatiya's soul body began to flicker like a gas lamp with poor airflow, accompanied by her shrill wails.
"It's the King, it's George III!"
She finally couldn't endure it and shouted out the answer.
The air fell silent for an instant.
"What kind of joke is this?"
Even the Queen was shocked by this answer. After a moment, her expression became grave as she pressed further.
"It's true!"
The Witch had completely given up resistance, her illusory soul body trembling ceaselessly.
"It was the royal family who took the initiative to contact our sect, which led to everything that followed!"
"..."
Silas instinctively stepped back.
The King of Loen, George III, theoretically the protector of all citizens, was actually the true culprit behind this disaster?
A tremendous sense of absurdity flooded Silas's mind. For an instant, he even had the impulse to laugh.
He certainly understood that this country was built on the upper class exploiting the lower class.
But even so, this behavior of directly disregarding the lives of commoners was simply endlessly crossing the bottom line!
This could no longer be measured by human moral standards!
Silas recalled life in East Borough.
When mentioning Loen's industrial miracle, even the most destitute vagrant could proudly puff out his chest.
In the taverns, those drunken men would occasionally raise their glasses and wish that King good health...
Unfortunately, their King had betrayed them, letting them die on the cold night before New Year's.
The Witch used them to digest her potion.
The royal family used them to change the political landscape.
They were the dust abandoned by the era, silently hidden in the ash and earth.
"Thump! Thump!"
Silas could hear his temple blood vessels pounding wildly. After the sense of absurdity receded, extreme rage began to rise, licking and burning his heart.
This damned bastard...
Just for this kind of reason, he killed my lambs, killed so many people in East Borough...
What right does he have to consider himself King!
"Why did George III do these things? What is his purpose in advancing the era by any means necessary?"
The Queen's eyes also suppressed rage as she continued pressing.
And in the next instant, many things happened.
First, this isolated island was opened from the outside.
A female figure wearing a classical robe appeared outside the torn space.
Behind her were the mountain areas outside Backlund.
This woman had beautiful features, with pure black hair and eyes, but appeared extremely rigid.
"In order to..."
At the same time, before Panatiya could speak her next words, because of suddenly gaining contact with the outside world, her spirit body instantly collapsed.
Silas and the Queen had no time to care about her.
They simultaneously looked toward that black-robed woman.
Just as Panatiya had once been frightened by the Queen, the Queen now, when facing this woman, similarly appeared alarmed!
That woman looked indifferently at everything happening inside.
Seeming to realize her actions had caused the spirit channeling to be forcibly interrupted, the expression on her face suddenly became lively.
She winked at Silas, as if expressing apology.
"!?"
Silas had no idea how to react.
Fortunately, the other party didn't need him to respond.
Under their gaze, she stepped back. Her body was erased bit by bit, hidden, until she disappeared from view.
***
A few minutes earlier.
Klein was being relentlessly pursued by "Trissy Cheek." He'd exhausted every method, going up to heaven and down to water, running for his life.
His paper substitutes were used up, his spirituality was almost depleted.
Seeing that Mr. Azik still hadn't appeared, he was truly in danger!
Klein could only keep running, dragging out time.
Behind him, that stunningly beautiful girl in a black dress was walking gracefully yet keeping up with him at a pace that seemed slow but was actually fast.
The ice spikes and curses she occasionally threw kept Klein struggling on the edge of death.
But at this moment, a beautiful black-robed woman with a rigid expression appeared before them.
The black-robed woman looked toward Trissy.
"Crack!"
The sapphire ring on Trissy's finger immediately shattered, and she herself lost consciousness and collapsed on the ground.
What the hell...
Klein's heart was still pounding.
Then he saw that black-robed woman smile slightly at him before disappearing without a trace.