Night time...
The festival is about to start many decorations we're being set up and different kinds of vendors we're selling local snacks and trinkets.
A big stage was being set up in the middle of the city, it was made by earth elements and ice elements to design the whole stage.
There were about 30,000 cultivators attending this event and the locals were about 60,000 which is higher than last year.
Maybe because the Queen is supervising the event or the Messengers of God are attending too, so many cultivators and locals are looking forward to what's gonna happen in this year's festival.
But those who have insider info will know that this year's event is going to be a new gateway of gaining strength to reach the top cultivation of the current plane.
(´-﹏-`;)(¯―¯٥)(¯―¯٥)(´-﹏-`;)
In a certain corner of the kingdom...
In a certain secret underground room, eight figures clad in black hooded robes we're sitting around a round table and was currently talking about something. There numbers in their black robe from 1 to 8 that signify their presence in the discussion.
"Is the plan ready to be implemented?" Asked Figure 1.
"The necessary preparations are ready and the target cannot escape the moment the plan is in action." Answered Figure 6.
"Good this time our plan should be successful no matter what, and if it succeeds we can take control of all the kingdoms and the divine city." Figure 3 said in a sinister way.
"We know your excited No.3 but it's not the time to celebrate yet we have to first succeed before we can talk about capturing the four kingdoms and the divine city." Figure 5 said in a serious tone.
"No.5 is right we should first succeed before talking about the future plan, for now, let's see if we can kill all the guardians in the city and capture the Queen." Figure 1 said in a firm tone.
"Agreed," All the figures said in unison.
"Let's separate for now and meet up when the guardians are successfully killed and since the Messengers of God are coming too, I will have a surprise for them, hehehe..." Figure 3 said and laughed a sinister way.
The rest of the figures nodded and immediately disappeared into the shadows.
No one knows that a disaster is arriving behind the joyful and lively festival. And that disaster is like a monster than lurks underneath them and ready to open it's wide open to swallow them whole.
...
Back to Autumn who was currently following the girls who are looking at different trinkets and desserts. While a swarm of girls we're following behind the two of them.
Autumn shook his head lightly when he saw that Mia and Sarah actually charmed all the female disciples of the Winter City and was following them everywhere.
The swarm of girls we're always screaming and looking at the two of them with dreamy eyes and completely ignoring the existence of Autumn.
He even doubted if he was actually handsome while touching his face.
Mia and Sarah saw Autumn doubting his handsome face and giggled as they look at him with teasing eyes.
The swarm of girls screamed in excitement as Mia and Sarah giggled. Oh boy were they loud, as the windows of certain shops we're shattered as many shop owners we're crying without tears at the damage of their shops.
After a couple of hours or so...
The festival is starting as the full moon is hanging in the night sky and it was surrounded by stars, it was a wonderful sight to behold.
In the center of the city was a massive fire burning at a height of 10 meters. The source of this fire was made by a bunch of firestone being clump together to make this fire.
It usually lasts about 2-3 hours until the fire elements inside the stones are used up and turning into ashes after all the fire element inside drained dry.
Everyone started to gather and looked at the center of the stage and saw a beautiful woman who wore a majestic robe and a crown on top of her head. She had creamy white skin and a facade that was cold as a thousand year old iceberg.
She was the Queen of the Winter Snow Glacier Kingdom, Canta Pur Ann the 14th generation royal bloodline of the Snow Fairy Royal family.
She was a beauty to behold as her every movement was followed by grace and poise many were enthralled by her beauty.
Many female disciples were shouting and screaming her name in excitement it was a very interesting sight to see.
The Queen only smiled lightly and gently waved to the crowd, she then gestured a moment of silence and prepared to make a speech.
"Hello everyone I'm your Queen Canta Pur Anne the 14th generation of the Royal bloodline. Today we are gonna start the annual festival every 2 months but this time it's different as I am going to supervise the event along with the Messengers of God. We will choose 500 participants that has the potential and strength to enter a secret realm the Divine City found." The Queen said loudly and looked at her subjects with a smile.
The crowd as boiling with excitement as they heard the opening of a secret realm. Everyone knows this is one in a lifetime chance as a secret realm usually appears every thousand years or if they appeared the Divine City usually monopolizes the secret realm for themselves.
So hearing that they have a chance to enter a secret realm is an amazing opportunity to them even though it sounds sketchy. As long as they can increase their strength it won't be a problem for them to die as a cultivator doesn't rely on sitting all day, but a cultivator relies on himself to progress and control his destiny with his own hands.
Autumn, Mia, and Sarah heard the Queen's speech and was impressed by her strong charisma even Autumn was a little convinced by her speech but he immediately denied that feeling as he knew that it was a trap.
If Autumn guesses correctly there is something bigger behind this secret realm and he is going to enter the secret realm to satisfy his curiosity. He also had the confidence to protect himself as his strength continued to increase, so no matter how strong the secret realm was Autumn was sure that he can kill any enemy he faces.
Mia and Sarah were also excited by the mentioning of the secret realm as the blood inside them were boiling with strong excitement. Their face even started to flush as their breathing started to race up.
But then a cold chilling intent then entered their body and their mind was then sober and they look at each other and saw the sigh of relief in each other's eyes.
They didn't know what came over them as their composure actually started to break as the overwhelming excitement filled their sense.
Both of them then looked at Autumn who had a worried look on his face. Their hearts was filled with warmth as they saw his concern and immediately said that they were fine.
He breathed in a sigh of relief and then looked at the four figures behind the Queen. Autumn felt strong energy in each one of them, he had a feeling if he kills four of them his bloodline will then start to evolve.
He felt the strong craving from the dept of his blood and bones it made him want to immediately kill them but he restrained himself as it would be troublesome if they escape.
So he had to kill them in a place that had nowhere to escape. The thought of killing them made his blood boiled in excitement again as the previously restrained excitement rose again.
But it quickly disappeared as it quickly appeared, Autumn was puzzled as the weird craving immediately disappeared.
He shook his head lightly and ignored it for now as he will check it later. As of now, he will have to participate in the event to enter the secret realm.
You may be puzzled as to why he needed to do this when his strength is overwhelmingly strong that he can practically force one of them to spit out the location and information of the secret realm.
And the reason for that is because it will be troublesome to deal with those little ants that keeps crawling to him over and over again.
So he would rather spend this boring time participating in this event than face the troublesome ants. And don't forget he also has to protect Mia and Sarah, he may be able to protect them from ordinary cultivators but if the Queen and the Messengers of God join forces together he will have to constantly protect them.
They may also have trump cards that he doesn't know that can't be sense or see which is gonna be problematic because he will be fine if anything hit him but if any of their trump cards hits Mia or Sarah they will immediately suffer or worse die.
So it's better to be cautious than dive headfirst to that chaos. Then the Queen announced the start of the battle and the crowd cheered energetically.
Let's skip this boring battle and instead look at what the Queen and the Messengers of God are doing. (it's boring to write a tournament arc that has weak opponents so imma skip that part)
The Queen was currently watching the different matches and battles but all their skills, techniques, and experience are totally lacking while some of them have decent foundations most of them were utter garbage.
But she then sighed lightly as he knows that these "winners" are gonna be just cannon fodder in the secret realm. As she knew different kinds of geniuses and monsters from the Divine City, all of them were strong in the eyes of the public but they are considered to be weak in the eyes of the elite in the Divine City.
After countless battles and matches later...
200 "geniuses" we're selected out of then 30,000 wild cultivators and 300 "geniuses" we're selected in the 60,000 locals of the city.
In total that's 500 "geniuses" that's gonna enter the secret realm and was targeted with envy and jealousy from different eyes of the crowd.
The "500" geniuses enjoyed this limelight on them but Autumn looked at this proud garbage with disdain and intense disgust.
He saw in a glance that their skill, techniques, and experience we're like a shaky branch that could be broken anytime. Sarah could even defeat them when she was only a Warrior kevel cultivator.
That just proves how weak they are, do note that these 500 selected winners are around War King and War Saint rank but Sarah can defeat them when she was still at the Warrior rank.
Even Mia and Sarah looked at them with disdain and disgust as both of them knew that their foundation is weak. They won't even need to lift a finger to defeat all these "geniuses" as using a tiny bit of their element could massacre all of them.
Yes, massacre all of them with a tiny bit of their element. Mia's fire element can burn down the whole continent if she wants to and Sarah can turn the whole continent to dust when she wants too.
With them using a tiny bit of their element and killing them all is not an exaggeration as they could massacre them with only ashes or blood mist as their last footprint in life.
As the three of them were looking at them disdain the Queen announced the end of the tournament and the winners should wait for 3 days for further information.
...
Ahhhh.. done with the chapter.
Kinda boring chapter but it does explain how strong Mia and Sarah have gotten as for Autumn it was expected as he has a system.
By the way, this novel doesn't really focus the progress of Autumn but more of the progress of his companions as the MC is already OP might as well write a story about side characters being strong with the MC.
Imma eat smth, later nerds.
-Bloody Autumn