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Helplessly, they were outpaced in skill. Moreover, The City of Silver had already been depleted of troops after a ratman attack, and along with the death of the city’s Lord, all that was left were widows and orphans. Although Captain Kado refused to submit, he was eventually overpowered by the situation and they were all locked up in prison.

“I was originally planning to find a way to notify you and then come up with a plan, but you moved faster than I had anticipated.”

The Elf Scout looked at the body beneath Duanmu Huai’s feet, speechless.

“Any servant of Chaos only has one path, death.”

Duanmu Huai responded without a care, and the Elf Scout just shook his head.

“Forget it, this is not the place for talk. Let’s find somewhere else.”

Soon, the group left the hall and found a secluded spot. Here, Duanmu Huai was updated on the recent developments by the Elf Scout.

To put it simply, the current state of the Empire was in utter chaos.

Firstly, the Imperial Emperor had suddenly died whilst on a expedition, and before his body even arrived back at the Royal City, the Great Crown Prince couldn’t wait to declare himself as the new Emperor of the Empire, demanding that his other siblings submit to him. Even though the Empire practiced primogeniture, everyone knew that… indeed, something like this simply couldn’t be true.

Of course, becoming Emperor wasn’t that simple for the Great Crown Prince, as according to the Imperial tradition, only a royal offspring that had gathered all four Holy Artifacts would be able to ascend as the new Emperor.

These four Holy Artifacts are: the Hammer of the Fire God, the Water God’s Gift, the Wind God’s Scepter, and the Earth God’s Wrath.

The function of the Water God’s Gift is to purify and obtain water sources, the Hammer of the Fire God is used to forge indestructible weapons and armor, the Wind God’s Scepter can control the climatic changes of an area, and the Earth God’s Wrath can alter the topography.

According to the Royal family’s tradition, only one who is in possession of all four Holy Artifacts can become the next Emperor. After which, when he fathers an heir, he will divide these Holy Artifacts among his offspring, starting the next round of contention.

Now, the Great Crown Prince was demanding his siblings hand over the other three Holy Artifacts.

The Great Crown Prince himself possessed the Hammer of the Fire God, while the Second Prince held the Wind God’s Scepter, and the Third Prince possessed the Earth God’s Wrath. The Water God’s Gift was the only one without an owner and had been secretly stored in The City of Silver— Well, Duanmu Huai could more or less guess who the potential holder was.

Considering the demand of the Great Crown Prince, the remaining two naturally refused and consequently, a civil war broke out within the Empire. The Great Crown Prince possessed the Hammer of the Fire God, which conferred significant advantages. His soldiers, clad in unyielding armor and wielding potent weapons, dealt blow after blow to the two other Princes’ forces.

However, that wasn’t the end of it.

Upon hearing of the Emperor’s death, the expedition army, already defeated, was further enraged by news of the Great Crown Prince usurping the throne. A faction among them expressed their intention to storm the Royal City and strangle the traitorous son who had plotted for power even before his father’s body had cooled. However, another faction argued that a country cannot be without a ruler for even a single day. The Great Crown Prince was the eldest son and naturally the rightful heir. Especially during this critical period, with the Empire under the scrutiny of foreign enemies and the expedition having failed, unity should be the priority. Everyone should support the Great Crown Prince’s ascension to the throne for the sake of the Empire!

However, the other side clearly did not agree with this view. For them, their loyalty was to the Emperor, not to the Empire. The Emperor’s death and the plotting for power were just the beginning of the problem!

So… the expeditionary forces split into two factions and then began to fight.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

Accompanied by the chaos of the Three Emperors’ War (all three princes claimed to be the Emperor), the already unstable environment within the empire grew increasingly turbulent. And the alien races who had been under attack were not exactly saints. They counterattacked at the news of the empire’s internal strife and eagerly took advantage of the opportunity.

On top of that, other powerful lords within the Empire, who had never given up their ambitions, came out of nowhere and publicly declared that they were not subjected to the Empire’s rule anymore…

So, in short, the Empire was now in chaos and the Great Crown Prince’s throne was far from stable. He had no choice but to send his faithful subordinates to other territories, with the mission of “recapturing” them as much as possible.

The City of Silver was also unlucky enough to be targeted for this reason. To make matters worse, it was also under attack by the Evil God Cultists, with its Lord being killed —— for the Great Crown Prince, this place was the absolute perfect unclaimed territory.

However, much to his surprise, Duanmu Huai killed the subordinate he sent to take over, with a single blow of his hammer.

“In my opinion, you should gather your valuables and then hide in a secluded forest where no one is around. You can come out after their fights have calmed down.”

After the Elf Scout’s analysis of the current situation, Duanmu Huai decisively gave his own advice. In his view, the City of Silver was essentially doomed. The citizens were practically gone and the defending soldiers were heavily wounded from previous Corrupted Believers and Ratmen’s joint attack. As far as Elisa was concerned, even though she was highly likely to be the Emperor’s fourth heir, it ended there.

With her personality, one could hardly expect her to become a queen.

So… Running and saving your lives is most important now.

The world is vast. Where can’t you go? Even if the Empire is in chaos, aren’t there other countries on this planet? Even if you rule out the territories of elves and dwarfs, there are still many other nations, right?

Everyone felt helpless about Duanmu Huai’s suggestion, but they had to admit that it was the only solution for now. The City of Silver itself was desolate and extremely remote. To be honest, staying here and resisting till death wasn’t a good choice either.

If this were a web novel, Duanmu Huai should have stayed to claim the city, declared himself as king, then used his power to absorb refugees and continue to conquer the Empire… But Duanmu Huai thought otherwise. As a Judge, his priorities were to eliminate Chaos and search for Holy Artifacts, not to play lord and master.

Besides, even if he did want to play, he would prefer a place with higher civilization standards than the medieval ones.

Although they made a decision, Duanmu Huai disagreed with the Elf Scout on another matter.

That was whether or not to take the “Gift of the Water God”.

Duanmu Huai thought it would be useless to take it and might even bring disaster to others. He preferred to leave it here and let those princes fight for it. But the Elf Scout insisted that this was a royal holy artifact and couldn’t fall into the hands of greedy people. Therefore, she thought they should take the gift and leave the Empire, then find a secret corner to seal it completely…

Of course, Duanmu Huai didn’t think this was a good idea. Haven’t there been many fantasy RPG scenarios where a protagonist lives in a peaceful village and then one day, the village is destroyed by a large army because it hides a big secret? Wasn’t it ridiculous?

From this, it is clear, there is no such thing as a secret that can be kept forever.

Especially when it comes to these royal symbols, basically something everyone wants, expecting them not to track it is simply too difficult.

The two argued for a long time, and in the end, both sides took a step back – Elisa was allowed to leave with the holy artifact, but before she left the country, she would have to hand over the hot potato, to avoid courting disaster.

After all, the primary function of the Water God’s gift is to purify water, turning any liquid into pure water… For an ordinary person, this artifact really isn’t that significant.

Eventually, the escape plan was settled this way, and the only thing left to do was to remove the seal and take the Water God’s gift.

So, in the evening that day, Duanmu Huai and the others returned to the temple.

The temple was still filled with a gut-wrenching stench. Although the bodies of the Ratmen and the Corrupted Believers had been completely incinerated, the spatters of dark red blood on the walls and the yellow and green things of unknown color all mixed together were still enough to make people want to vomit.

The Elf Scout came to the divine statue again, chanted the spell again, and unlocked the seal. Then, the gigantic pearl once again appeared before everyone.

Looking at the pearl in front of her, Elisa hesitated for a moment before walking up and slowly extending her hand. As expected, she didn’t get blown away against the holy artifact like the Elf Scout did. On the contrary, the moment Elisa grasped the pearl, the gigantic pearl flashed, and its previously dull surface began to emit a faint glow.

And at the same time…

“………Huh?”

Looking at the system prompt that suddenly popped up, Duanmu Huai was taken aback. He looked at the system information and then at the pearl held by Elisa…

Could this be happening?

For Duanmu Huai, this certainly was a surprise. Remember, he had scanned this pearl before, and the system didn’t respond at all. But now that Elisa held it, his system responded? Could it be that the seal had blocked the fluctuations of the whole holy artifact, so he couldn’t sense it before, and now that Elisa had removed the seal, he could sense it?

Was there such a thing?

“…Sir Knight? What’s wrong?”

Seeing Duanmu Huai staring at her in silence, Elisa looked somewhat bewildered. Duanmu Huai, however, was silent for a moment, and then turned to look at Elisa.

“Elisa, why don’t we strike a deal? Give this to me, and I will ensure your safe departure from the empire.”

“Eh?”

At this, both Elisa and her mother were startled, and the Elf Scout furrowed his brows.

“What do you mean by that?!”

“Just what I said.”

Duanmu Huai turned his head to look at the Elf Scout.

“I came here to find certain things, and this is one of them.”

“But you didn’t mention it before.”

The Elf Scout remembered that Duanmu Huai had checked out the Water God’s gift with him, but he didn’t say anything at the time.

“I didn’t know this was what I was looking for until Elisa took it and the seal was lifted. That’s when I felt its presence…”

As he spoke, Duanmu Huai turned again to look at Elisa. But to his surprise, Elisa didn’t wait for him to say anything else, she extended her hand and handed the pearl to Duanmu Huai.

“Please take it, Sir Knight.”

“Oh? Are you sure about this?”

“Of course.”

Hearing Duanmu Huai’s question, Elisa gave an embarrassed smile.

“Sir Knight has saved me many times, and… this thing doesn’t really do me any good. If Sir Knight came for it, then please take it.”

“Thank you.”

Looking at Elisa, Duanmu Huai nodded and reached out to take the “Gift of the Water God.”

“I promise, I will safely escort you out.”