After dealing with the night’s big change on the Turricon Plains, Hollien didn’t return to the royal family immediately.
One mustn’t expect too much on their first attempt.
Public perception didn’t change 180 degrees just once.
There were still many people who cast doubt on the Fairy Queen.
Hence, the Allendia royal family wanted her to continue to calm the night’s big changes in the kingdom.
It wasn’t just to recover her reputation. There was a more practical reason.
Once the Fairy Queen came forward, it was far more effective than the troops!
“Hundreds of them destroyed thousands of monsters?”
“There weren’t even deaths? Only a handful of injuries?”
“Oh, my God, if we had known this, we would have begged the Queen to come forward from the beginning!”
Until that moment, the Allendia royal family had no idea of Hollien’s real abilities.
Even the Fairy King, who was trying to take care of his precious Queen, was surprised, saying, ‘Has my wife always been that strong?’
Of course, everyone knew that she was the heroine who had saved Latna and the most powerful Spiritist on Latna.
However, only a few people knew exactly how powerful she was.
In the Continental Three Powers, Hollien, who was in a high position as Queen, had no reason to show her ability in the royal palace’s limited space.
Most of the time, she used her strength in the center of the dungeons or the Four Prohibited Areas. Hence, there were few witnesses.
Everyone just guessed that she was strong because it was said that she was the best in the world.
The royal family of Allendia, who belatedly shuddered before the true power of the Transcendental, asked her to move in earnest.
Hollien readily agreed.
She was hoping, too.
Banastrel territory in the middle of the Fairy Kingdom.
The eyes of countless monsters flashed over the darkened ridge.
Nightmares covered the lands.
The monsters had invaded through the night’s big changes.
However, no one in the Fairy Kingdom Army was afraid.
Behind them, absolute power was standing firmly.
“Dirty monsters!”
“I’ll kill you all!”
They believed in their strengthened sword, armor, and body, allowing them to run toward the horde of monsters bravely.
Blood and flames were rising everywhere.
Soon, the citadel of light revealed its splendid appearance, and numerous milky-white blades cut through the sky and bombarded.
Boom!
Under the protection of Hollien, the Allendian Army relentlessly violated the monsters, which outnumbered them multiple times.
Everyone burst into cheers, praising and hailing the Fairy Queen.
“The Fairy Queen is watching us!”
“For Allendia!”
But in fact, Hollien wasn’t watching the Allendian Army.
She was distracted by the other side, roughly coordinating the situation.
‘They must be watching me somewhere…’
At best, they had moved the people’s hearts and brought her out of the royal palace.
Then she was sure they would make the next move.
“I’m walking around in the open.”
Hollien smiled as she appeared deliberately.
“Don’t you feel something? Come on.”
* * *
Hollien’s prediction was completely wrong.
The Holy Punishers weren’t observing her.
They were just agonizing together in a completely different place.
Six Templar Lords, Han-bin, and his companions hid in a secret hideout.
With a look of sorrow, Sabine Asil and Angelica sighed.
“What should we do?”
“Level 155? It’s so high that it’s hard to determine what we can even do.”
The Top Three were the three sinners who stole the divinity of the darkness.
The Holy Punishers made a plan revolving around the Fairy Queen Hollien as the first target.
It was the so-called ‘The Transcendental’s Punishment Operation.”
The following were the main steps:
Step 1: The Churches and the Holy Punishers had to be separated using the Goddess’s oracle to secure safety and shake Allendia.
Thanks to Ryu Han-bin’s initiative, they succeeded neatly.
Step 2, Hollien wouldn’t be able to stand it and would be induced to come forward.
That, too, went smoothly.
Kibie, the incarnation of the darkness, was frequently revealed, which led her to unravel Akhtarun’s Aliens.
As the Aliens’ appearance gradually deteriorated the Fairy Queen’s reputation, the Allendia royal family would try to erase rumors by putting her in person.
The biggest key was to reduce the damage caused by Akhtarun’s Aliens, which was also solved by the Han-bin’s initiative.
Eventually, Hollien moved as they had planned.
It was inevitable.
It wasn’t a loss from the other side at all.
Only step 3 was left.
It was to trap Hollien, wandering around the kingdom with few troops and defeating them with the Holy Punishers’ most powerful forces.
It was a scenario wherein the Allendian Army, which was in the middle of fighting the night’s monsters, would be surrounded by surprise, and Hollien, whose focus was divided to take care of her troops, would be lured. At that point, Han-bin’s group and the six Templar Lords would collaborate to finish Hollien.
Ryu Han-bin, Effir, Artis, Leon Hart, and other Templar Lords had to manage to win somehow.
It would be possible only if the Transcendental’s level were in the early 130s, as everyone had guessed.
But level 155?
The gap was so wide that it was meaningless to discuss the day’s condition as a variable of the battle.
Leon Hart muttered helplessly as if representing everyone’s feelings.
“We need to find another way. No matter what we do, there’s no chance of winning.”
* * *
“First, let’s check where we can proceed with the existing plan.”
Frederick, Sorondi’s Templar Lord, spoke up.
“We can still raid the Allendian Army while they’re fatigued due to the night’s big changes. Fortunately, the Queen is deliberately accompanied by only ordinary troops.”
Hollien’s spiritual arts were amazing.
Even third-rate Hunters of the countryside could compete against the church’s regular Templar with her support.
In other words, the power of the guards was stronger than expected.
However, it was a problem that could still be solved.
“We also need to increase the number of our troops.”
Originally, only high-ranking Templars were to be gathered. They would start the raid with about 300 soldiers.
It would be easier for those who mobilized the best troops to move secretly and reduce unnecessary sacrifices.
But due to what was happening, they prepared to sacrifice themselves, using all their might for the Holy Punishers!
“It’s an ignorant way, but it’s going to work. We’ll manage to fill the power gap.”
Palmer, Yessen’s Templar Lord, spoke next.
“We can use that to lure the Fairy Queen into a trap. It’ll give her a lead.”
The key point of the inducement was to give Hollien a glimpse of Kibie, the incarnation of the darkness, taking advantage of the confusion caused by the raid.
No one had dared to bait her in the past.
They always had to keep in mind when the Top Three might move together.
“But I just got some new information…”
It was after Hollien had dealt with the night’s monsters at the Turricon Plains.
The Allendian Army withdrew and left a considerable amount of trash behind.
Of course, it happened when the army moved.
Junkmen took the garbage, and Han-bin’s group also moved to take it.
It was just in case Kibie could use a shadow reading on the items used by the Fairy Queen.
And they hit the jackpot.
It was the empty bottle of liquor of the delicate wine of Durand, which Hollien had thrown away without thinking.
Even while staying with the royal family, she communicated with the Thunder King and the Archmage while drinking that wine.
Her residual ideology remained in the bottle.
Unfortunately, the bottle left behind was empty, so there was only fragmentary information.
She must’ve been holding a glass the whole time, and she would only hold the bottle to pour more wine into the glass.
Still, they managed to gain extremely important information.
Kibie mumbled, clicking her tongue.
“I was wondering why the two of them never showed up. I didn’t know that was the reason.”
The Thunder King and the Archmage hadn’t moved.
As it turned out, it was because of their ‘life span’ that was more precious to them than anything else in the world.
Since they finally knew for sure that Hollien was fighting alone, they could boldly bait Kibie to lure Hollien.
Of course, Kibie would never directly participate in the battle and only appear from a distance far enough, but it would be enough to attract Hollien.
“What comes after that is the problem.”
Palmer sighed and continued.
“What should we do?”
The Templar Lords, groaning, looked back at Ryu Han-bin as if they were puppies holding in number two.
“… Do you happen to have any other extraordinary ideas?”
“I mean, an Earthling-like ploy.”
There was nothing like that.
No, Ryu Han-bin wasn’t a legendary strategist, but there was no way he would come up with such a plan even if he were.
It had been going too well so far.
‘I have no choice but to say something since they are watching me so anxiously.’
Han-bin scratched his head and muttered.
“Isn’t that the only answer?”
The opponent was stronger than expected. That only meant they, themselves, weren’t strong enough.
So what would be the solution?
“Then, we should become stronger.”
The eyes of the Templar Lords became very warm.
“Who doesn’t know that?”
“We have no way to do that quickly. That’s why we’re agonizing now, right?”
“Should we all be stuck in the high mountains and deep valleys and spend the days of hard training? So we can level up by 10, 20, or more?”
Angelica sighed deeply.
“If there were a way to be strong in a short period, we would have already done it.”
Preleu’s Templar Lord, Merdill, shook his head.
“We can’t be gain that much power within mere months. Even the Aliens’ growth slows significantly when their levels rise.”
Aliens were much faster in growth than Latnains.
However, that gap could be greatly reduced if they became a higher level.
As their level rose, the number of necessary experience points to reach the next level increased exponentially.
For example, say there was a level 100 Alien.
And let’s say the required experience point for his next level-up was about 10 billion.
If the Level 100 Alien killed a Level 100 monster, would he gain 10 billion experience points?
In reality, less than 100 million were gained.
Required experience points and acquired experience points were strictly different.
For Level 100 to reach Level 101, more than 100 monsters had to be slain.
If they were lower-level monsters, the Alien should hunt hundreds of them.
“It would take at least a couple of months to raise one level just by hunting monsters day and night in the Four Prohibited Areas. The higher the level, the longer it will be.”
Even in Dungeons, Such huge numbers of high-level monsters didn’t show up.
While tracking and exploring, sometimes monsters formed a large group, so they had to lure some of them to kill.
“There’s no such thing as a dream dungeon, where only one monster appears when it is needed.”
If unlucky, it took even a few days to kill a same-level monster.
“In the meantime, if you get injured, you’ll waste time again, and you’ll have to take a break…”
They could fight for hours without a break if it were a game, but in reality, they had to rest for two or three days even if they fought with absolute power for one or two hours.
“Even with the power of spiritual healing, it would take at least one day.”
Artis and Effir, who had similar abilities as Aliens, couldn’t raise their level in a short period even if they tried to hunt monsters starting that day.
Merdill made a soothing arrangement.
“It would be more realistic to expect to be luckily strong enough to win.”
Ryu Han-bin scratched his head.
“No, I didn’t say it because I didn’t know…”
Everyone was saying that they couldn’t become stronger overnight, but there was only one person that could become that much stronger in a short period.
It was Ryu Han-bin himself.
“Right now, I’ve increased the amount of Aura thanks to the Sacred Heart of Darkness. I’m sure my skills have improved.”
Looking back at Kibie, Han-bin asked a question.
“Do you happen to have any more sacred items of the Goddesses?”
He heard that there were six Goddesses in Latna.
“Then there must be six sacred items as well, right?”
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