Clyde smoothly passed the dust that had collected over several hundred years. The Bradians who had built this ancient mausoleum had died more than 500 years ago. The owner of this ancient mausoleum was Princess Annie, the first princess of the Bradke Empire, the most powerful of the Bradian nations.
After Princess Annie had committed suicide, the Bradians had sealed her corpse in a special coffin. More than a thousand years had gone by since then. Normally, her corpse would have already turned to dust, but she had successfully resurrected and was no longer a normal human. A thousand years were enough to change many things.
Since there were no valuable funerary objects, Clyde went straight to the main chamber of the mausoleum, planning to see her exact situation. It seemed she was quite confident in her strength since there were no guards present. Along the way, Clyde didn’t encounter any patrolling guards and freely entered the main coffin chamber.
The special coffin there had already been cracked open from the inside. Around the coffin were the remnants of a broken golden chain. It had once sealed the princess. Even after more than a millenia, Clyde could still sense a powerful sealing effect from those broken parts of the golden chain. Its power hadn’t weakened, but Princess Annie had accidentally received Ancient Demon King Tinas’s dark energy and destroyed the seal while resurrecting.
At this moment, Princess Annie was having secret talks with someone else, so she didn’t notice his arrival. In the side chamber beside the main coffin chamber, Clyde finally saw this over thousand years old princess who had triggered a high-level Undead calamity in Antaur Town. She was a silverish-grey-haired beauty with matching eyes. Her skin was fair and clear; one couldn’t see a trace of her blood. She had a peculiarly morbid beauty. After all, Princess Annie was already more than a thousand years old. On the basis of the Human Race’s lifespans, she couldn’t be regarded as a living person. Her skin color was very similar to Miss Sigrid’s who after 200 years similarly couldn’t be regarded as human.
Annie wore a tattered, worn-out grey robe. There was no way it could cover up her golden ratio figure. Generally, this kind of grey robe would only be worn by female prisoners. Before Princess Annie had been sealed, the Bradians had viewed her as a heretic. Her power and status as an imperial princess had been stripped, so they had treated her like a prisoner. She had not even been given shoes, exposing her jade feet. Clyde used his “professional gentleman” eyes to quickly size her up. According to his deductions, she likely wore nothing inside. As long as that tattered robe were torn off, he would see the alluring scenery below.
In front of her was a strange, big, oval mirror. Its frame was made of bone with a few gaping skulls directly above it. At first glance, this big mirror looked like something a sorceress or witch would like. In any case, Clyde didn’t have any interest in it.
Annie was talking to an image in the mirror. The scene reflected inside was impossibly a throne made up of bones upon which a vague figure was having a secret discussion with Princess Annie.
“Your Excellency Philip, can’t you change your conditions…”
“Nope. Princess Annie, at that time, I warned you about the Ghost Realm’s betrayal. After so many years, you should repay me! You were sealed before, but now…”
“That! Your Excellency Philip, I need some time to reconsider before I can reply.”
“What else is there to consider? When the Divine Realm’s Judgement Light falls, you will be finished. Are you still expecting help from the nearby Demon King Andrisno or Tinas? Don’t even think about it. By the time they respond to your request, the Judgement Light will have already fallen. Furthermore, the Divine Realm’s valkyries are no joke.”
The figure had a deep and magnetic masculine voice. It seemed he wanted Princess Annie to carry out a wicked dark ritual to obtain his help. While Princess Annie hesitated, Clyde emerged behind her and intimately hugged her slender waist.
Princess Annie stiffened. She suddenly realized that the death knight hugging her was not the death knight she had previously summoned. Annie was well aware of the Baron’s strength; it was impossible for him to reach the level of a Dark Knight King. She didn’t know the origins of this death knight. In any case, with her strength, she couldn’t summon one of this calibre.
“You! Let go of her! She is my believer.”
“What do you mean your believer? That was over one thousand years ago. It doesn’t matter now. Moreover, she is a believer of my master now.”
Princess Annie didn’t dare to act rashly. Although she didn’t know how she had become a believer of another, it was not good to open her mouth before understanding the current situation. She could only remain silent. The vague shadow in the mirror was clearly angered by Clyde’s actions. Seeing her tacit approval only increased his dissatisfaction. That fellow also didn’t care about harming friendly forces and launched a spiritual attack from within the mirror.
A huge energy hand extended from the demonic mirror and grasped toward Clyde. From the looks of it, he planned to directly capture Princess Annie and bring her to the world inside the mirror. Clyde could sense the energy aura of a demon king from that huge hand. Since he was familiar with Ancient Demon King Andrisno and Tinas’s auras, his guess shouldn’t be wrong.
Clyde released Princess Annie and took that huge energy hand head-on. He didn’t use any weapon only punching out bare-handed. Under the powerful impact, the huge energy hand immediately dispersed. In addition, cracks appeared on the demonic mirror’s surface before it loudly shattered. Then, many indistinct ghosts flew out from the broken pieces before disappearing in the winds and finally finding freedom.
“You… exactly who are you? You were able to shatter Mogadis’s Demonic Mirror so easily even though it is one of the priceless treasures of the Demon Realm used to connect with this realm. This… how is this possible!”
“That broken mirror was a treasure of the Demon Realm? Its quality was too poor. Was that annoying guy a Demon King?”
“Yes, His Excellency Demon King Philip is one of Demon Realm’s…”
“Whatever. It’s not a problem; that guy asked for it. Let the Demon Realm come to me for compensation. As for whether they can receive reparations, it depends on their ability.”
Eyeing the shattered fragments on the ground, Princess Annie knew that she was not his opponent. She could only tell him the real situation. Demon King Philip was the Demon King who had given a saving grace to the Bradians over a thousand years ago. Although that male Demon King was not cruel and ferocious, unlike most demon kings, he liked to perform all kinds of taboo rituals. In the past, he had wanted to use Princess Annie as a material to perform a ritual for greater dark power as a reward for leaking the news to the Bradians. However, with her death, that ritual had been delayed for over a thousand years.
His current position was deep in Hamilton Marsh, south of Antaur Town, not far from here. In the far past, because he had been too obsessed with various taboo rituals, most of the other demon kings had viewed him as a heretic and hadn’t dared to walk too close to him, including both Andrisno and Tinas.
In the end, Philip had been sealed by the heroes of the Human Race. As an Ancient Demon King, he had actually been successfully sealed by the Human Race’s heroes, greatly embarrassing the other demon kings, so they had allowed him to remain sealed there without bothering to rescue him. However, the method the Human Race’s heroes had used to seal him was still a mystery.
That vague shadow Clyde had seen in the demonic mirror was just Philip’s demonic soul; he didn’t have a physical body since it was stuck in the depths of Hamilton Marsh. His current state was similar to Ancient Demon King Tinas’s former state.
“Miss Annie, he’s just a demonic soul. He can’t even be regarded as an Ancient Demon King. You don’t need to listen to him. Moreover, it has already been over a thousand years, so the contract should be written off anyway.”
“The contract I signed with him is special. If he employs its contractual power, I will not be able to control myself. However, since there are other demon kings here, Philip has certain misgivings. He fears that the other Ancient Demon Kings will discover me and snatch me, this experimental material. Therefore, he didn’t dare to blatantly control me. He’s just worried about exposing his traces.”
“Even if it’s like that, there will be no problem. I can go look for him and have a chat. If he is unwilling to accept my suggestions, I don’t mind beating him back to the Demon Realm. How about you give control over Antaur Town to us?”
Clyde straightforwardly stated his purpose. Although he didn’t clearly state his identity, just the matter of Ancient Demon Kings Tinas and Andrisno being his subordinates was enough to prove that it was not simple. Originally, Princess Annie had been half-believing, half-doubting him, yet after seeing Clyde easily smash the treasure of the Demon Realm in person, she believed him. After an intense ideological struggle and weighing the pros and cons, she finally accepted his offer and peacefully transferred control over Antaur Town to Steinbeck Fief’s army. Clyde only needed to help Annie resolve that troublesome contract she had with Ancient Demon King Philip when the time came. It was her only condition.
