Huh? Adrian came to inspect?
Hearing this news, I was truly shocked. I really didn't expect this situation! Just now we were discussing with Cysper and the others about possibly infiltrating the Chromos Tower from underground, but suddenly the whole process got skipped.
"If I'm not mistaken, this king should be referring to Adrian, right?" Cyra looked back in surprise towards where the voice came from, then glanced at me, only to see me still standing motionless. She couldn't help but ask in puzzlement, "Didn't you want to see him? Why don't you hurry over and take a look?"
"I...it's not...it's not what you think!" I answered in a muddle. At this critical moment, I felt somewhat hesitant, not taking a step forward for a long time.
Of course, it's not that I suddenly didn't want to see Adrian anymore. In fact, the biggest purpose of this trip was indeed to see him. But I felt the king's visit was too abrupt. My heart wasn't fully prepared; now wasn't the time...
"Tsk, you're just too shy. You've come all this way, why are you still being so shy about this and that!"
But Cyra didn't care about all that. She saw through my thoughts at a glance and dragged me straight towards the crowd without another word. But even so, we were still a step too late. The area around the king was already surrounded by three rings inside and outside, with almost everyone from the entire shelter gathered there. There was no way for us to get any closer.
"Why don't we reconsider? We can find another opportunity..." Seeing this scene, I couldn't help but want to back out even more. Are you kidding me? No matter how Adrian would react to seeing me, the premise wasn't in a situation like this!
The ideal reunion would be just the two of us, without any outsiders disturbing or making a fuss. After all, I had many things I wanted to ask him privately, definitely not in this crowded shelter under the eyes of the masses.
Not to mention, don't forget the most important point - from outward appearances, he and I are still in an adversarial relationship. Even if we really met, who knows what consequences it would cause in front of everyone's eyes.
"What's there to be afraid of? Just taking a look is fine too!"
However, Cyra didn't consider any of this at all. Seeing that gentle methods couldn't break through the encirclement, she strained and forced her way through, actually opening up a path for the two of us to squeeze to the front row.
It was only then that I finally saw the appearance of the King of Parristol.
Indeed, it was Adrian! Previously I had always had a slight suspicion that this new king might just be an unrelated person with the same name, but now it proved I was overthinking it.
However, Adrian's identity was now completely different. First of all, he definitely wouldn't be wearing that adventurer's archer outfit anymore. Although he still had to wear armor due to the wartime situation, the quality of his equipment was definitely incomparable to before.
Of course, the most eye-catching was definitely the crown on his head! From afar, you could see a fantastical and mysterious glow emanating from the surface of the crown, giving an extraordinary feeling at first glance.
"Damn, this is seriously like upgrading from a musket to a cannon! Once he became king, his whole demeanor changed!"
Cyra sighed a bit enviously. Adrian was now busy smiling and chatting with the surrounding crowd - this kind of political performance was exactly the same script no matter which world.
Unfortunately, the good times didn't last long. Before they could approach us, as the crowd gradually dispersed, it became easy to see the familiar shadowy figures standing not far behind the king, hidden under cloaks.
Mirium, and the red-haired demon...what was his name again? And the "man" I had seen before at Sun Lake! Although they tried to hide their identities, based on their body features from my previous impressions, I quickly recognized all these monsters.
Damn! Almost all the most dangerous enemies were gathered! Leaving the others aside, the most deadly was that red-haired demon...uh, what was his name again? As a monster, he was extremely sensitive to the existence of angels. The moment our eyes met, he suddenly stared straight at Cyra and me.
It didn't matter that we hadn't spread our wings - we could only fool those humans and low-rank monsters unable to clearly sense light elements. For high-rank monsters, as long as their brains weren't completely gone, they could easily discern angels with hidden wings.
Of course, the red-haired demon would be no exception! No matter how deeply we hid in the crowd, it was useless.
"Run!"
I didn't want to get caught in this situation, let alone by the crazy demon who had suffered major losses at Cyra's hands. The unlucky thing was not just getting discovered by the red-haired demon, but those troublesome dragonkin were also present! Even with Cysper and Mike's help, we might not be able to win.
So this time, I ended up grabbing Cyra's hand and dashing back the way we came. "There are infiltrators, protect the king!"
But we had barely left the crowd when a huge commotion arose from behind, as if the entire shelter had exploded, with endless shouts to catch the infiltrators.
"What's going on? Don't tell me you actually went to openly meet Adrian right then and there?"
When we rushed back to the corner, Cysper and Mike also looked completely dumbfounded, asking me in disbelief.
"You must have been blinded by emotion to cause such a scene in this situation!"
Hey, I didn't even do anything yet. This was really unfair!
But there was no time to dwell on it anymore. Fortunately, Mike was alert early on and had already pushed away a large stone block on the wall surface, revealing the hidden passage entrance behind it.
This was an extremely narrow underground passage. Unlike the large underground passages with all-metal walls outside, this one was almost entirely made of ordinary bricks and stones, gradually sloping upwards into the darkness - there was no way to tell where it led.
Now that the situation was urgent, everyone couldn't care about such details and could only first hide inside to escape. However, the situation behind was also rapidly changing. The ordinary guards hadn't noticed us yet, but the red-haired demon had already taken off, charging straight this way. Unexpectedly, our escape route had been under his watch the whole time, leaving us with no chance of slipping away.
Cysper entered first. At this point, he didn't care if leaving the shelter would cause his body to dissipate. But as he was leaving, he tightly grabbed Cyra's hand, dragging her into the passage with him.
It was obvious he knew Cyra's importance to him, which happened to align with my own thoughts. After all, Cyra's strength was the lowest, so I did want to let her go first in case she put herself in mortal danger again.
"Quick! Mike, you follow in too!"
Next was the ever-loyal Star Glory knight. Hearing my words, he simply nodded without saying more and crawled into the hole. As for me, I directly spread my wings, volunteering to be the last one.
No choice - who asked us to waste Reed's trump card so casually? In a situation like this, I could only stubbornly buy time myself! Of course, this wasn't purely a suicidal move. More importantly, I still harbored a guess in my heart that might give me a slim chance of survival...
By now, almost everyone could notice the abnormality over here. Facing the black flame sword descending from above by the red-haired demon, I stood unmoving at the passage entrance, blocking it without retreating. At this moment, I finally remembered her name.
Though that demon Arick had been beaten to a pulp by Cysper before, defeating him myself would still require quite an effort - at least using ordinary methods would probably be ineffective.
*Clang!*
The crisp clashing sound didn't last long. Soon, the first sword turned completely red-hot from the black flames, becoming unusable. But I had anticipated such a situation - regulation longswords were ubiquitous in the kingdom's army, so I had stolen more than one.
Immediately, I drew a second longsword with my other hand, while kicking out several purification light orbs. This combo not only successfully forced my opponent back, but also gave me enough time to fly up and transform into my blue-winged form.
Originally, I had planned to catch Arick off guard by utilizing the dehydrating effect of the Water Abyss Sword. At the very least, if I couldn't kill her outright, I could likely severely injure him for over a year. But I completely didn't expect the other enemies to arrive so quickly!
I saw Mirium and "that man" suddenly appear around me, joining Arick in a three-pronged encirclement. In an instant, all my pre-planned strategies became useless - I could have been captured right then and there.
"It's you again, this angel! I warned you not to stir up trouble here, why didn't you listen?"
Seeing me, Mirium couldn't help but frown slightly. She waved her hand, directly tearing off the cloak covering her body, and said to "that man" on the other side.
"Since that's the case, don't blame me for being impolite! Fernando, don't intervene this time, let me handle this alone!"
"Do as you wish..."
I finally learned "that man's" name was Fernando! Hearing this, he silently turned away, too lazy to spare another glance this way. But then another man's voice suddenly cut in. It wasn't Arick, nor was it Cysper and Mike suddenly returning - it was Adrian.
"Stop, we're all on the same side, you may have misunderstood something!"
Probably because he couldn't fly, Adrian was the last to arrive on the scene. He was followed by a large group of local soldiers, standing on the ground to stop Mirium who was about to attack me, while loudly proclaiming while pointing at me:
"She is my queen, do not be so rude!"
"..."
"..."
"..."
Who knows how many wild horses were galloping through people's minds at that moment? As for me, I was completely flustered. Although I had guessed Adrian would likely come to my rescue, I never expected him to suddenly bestow upon me the deadly title of "Queen"!
Is this still worth living for?