Has the Forest Mistaken Its Master?

Falling asleep and waking with a start felt like it happened in a mere instant. Tina woke up.

She gripped the ring on her ring finger, carefully feeling its intricate patterns.

Good. It seemed she had truly woken up.

But it was already dark outside. The clear sky had suddenly turned pitch-black—a complete darkness devoid of any moonlight, as if the heavens had transformed into the entrance of an abyss.

The chains on her body were gone.

“Why?”

This was by no means good news.

What had disappeared along with the chains was Sathya’s magic, and that was what worried Tina the most.

She immediately walked out of her room, only to find that aside from her own floor in the quarters, it was quite noisy outside.

The lights on the airship decks were lit, and seven airships hovered in the air, looking very much like a brightly lit city at night.

Several structures resembling boarding ladders connected the airships to the ground dozens of meters below, and people were climbing up one after another.

Was the White Dusk Operation over?

Tina ran downstairs and rushed onto the deck. Just as she was about to leap off, a voice stopped her.

“Miss, where are you going?”

A knight was waving to her.

“The airship is about to take off.”

“Where are Sathya and the others?” Tina tried asking.

“Sathya? I don't know your classmates, haha! Maybe she's down below!” The knight pointed to the boarding ladder.

“She is an apprentice Saintess,” Tina said. “She's always in the newspapers.”

“Apprentice Saintess?” The knight looked even more confused. He laughed helplessly. “Anyway, I'm sure everyone will be back. Don't go back down. This isn't the city. If you get left behind, you won't be able to walk back!”

Did they really not know of the Saintess's existence? Are there really such fools among the knights? Tina didn't even stop to consider that possibility.

Every knight surely knew exactly who Sathya was, and the Saintess program was a well-known, large-scale operation of the Church. Back then, they had been searching all over the world for compatible candidates.

Suddenly realizing something, she leapt up and plunged down into the vast open sky, as if lying in a cradle of wind.

Tina looked toward the four airships at the rear. Although their lights were also fully lit, almost no one was returning to them.

Where had the paladins gone?

And these people hadn't noticed at all?

As the airship engines roared to life, Tina became certain that these guys truly had no idea.

Or rather, they had “forgotten.”

Tina put on the Chaos Mask.

A magic circle suddenly appeared beneath her feet, forming a solid platform. Using it as a stepping stone, she dashed off into the distance. In the eyes of the knight, Tina vanished like an illusion.

Tina was “flying” through the air.

She recalled that during her first time in White Dusk, she had also encountered many people whose memories, and even common sense, had been altered. However, the impact back then had not been this massive—massive enough to make everyone forget the existence of both the Saintess and the paladins.

A terrifying thought cropped up in Tina's mind.

What if there was a magical beast behind that door?

Perhaps that magical beast was currently in a state of “malnourishment,” which was why it hadn't appeared yet.

And now, there was Sathya, who had lost her magic core.

Magical beasts were almost unconditional allies.

However, it was not entirely unheard of for a magical beast to actively devour a companion that had lost its magic core to gain even greater power.

“Damn it, damn it...”

Tina's eyes grew hollow.

When she landed, she shattered the ground beneath her, unleashing a powerful shockwave that snapped trees and even uprooted them.

She ran swiftly into the depths of the forest, relying on her instincts to dodge the increasingly dense trees.

The ground ahead gradually began to turn pale, and the trees transformed into towering, black, ancient giants.

It was as if the world were now left with only black and white.

Soon, a wall appeared before her.

It was a solid wall formed by twisted, tangled white branches, blocking the only path to the central area.

Standing directly in front of the wall were two Inquisitors.

Clad in red armor, they stood straight in Tina's path, forcing her to halt.

One of them raised a steel pitchfork, while the other swung a massive iron axe.

“Miss, passage ahead is forbidden.”

“Those who pass shall die.”

A mithril dagger appeared in Tina's hand. She accelerated instantly, turning into a blur in the Inquisitors' eyes.

The armor on the chest of the guard on the left was pierced in an instant. However, the Inquisitor managed to react and dodge to the side. Immediately after, Tina flipped her dagger. In a flash of cold blade-light, she severed his arm cleanly. The heavy armor seemed completely meaningless before her.

Seeing this, the other Inquisitor quickly grabbed the shield on his back to block Tina. Dropping his giant axe with his other hand, he drew a long whip to immediately create some distance between them.

—They were Morgan's personal guards.

The ten strongest Inquisitors would be promoted to this position, every single one of them a veteran of life-and-death struggles.

But he suddenly felt a chill on his back, followed by his neck. Before he could even retreat, Tina had already appeared behind him and slit his throat.

Then, as he fell, she plunged her blade into his chest for a finishing blow.

Blood splattered, but the girl's expression remained entirely blank.

Her movements were clean and precise, without a single wasted motion. Her cute school uniform and her chilling killing intent seemed as though they should never belong to the same person.

She slowly turned her gaze to the other guard, who was kneeling on the ground with his severed arm, and walked over.

“Where are the Saintesses?”

“This is the Cardinal's secret. Kill me, I won't say a word.”

“Where are the paladins?” Tina brandished the dagger, the very weapon she had used to sever his arm.

Yet not a single drop of blood had stained the young girl's school uniform.

“Kill me.”

Tina knew that talking any further would be a waste of time. She casually picked up the giant axe discarded on the ground and hurled it at the man...

Now, it was time to pass through this wall.

This tree wall hadn't originally been so massive and dense; now, it might very well be over a thousand meters thick.

Clearly, anyone who had ever dealt with magical beasts would know that the current situation was undoubtedly linked to one.

But then, the unexpected happened.

As Tina approached the tree wall, the branches began to tremble as if they had sensed something.

They seemed to come alive. Or rather, they were all under the control of a magical beast, and that beast had already sensed Tina's presence.

Then, they actually began to retract and curl away, as if they had touched fire. Just like that, a path was carved right through the tree wall.

No, it wasn't cowering in fear—it was submitting.

It was like clearing a path for their monarch. And Tina was their monarch.

Tina looked back, only to see the two Inquisitors lying dead in pools of blood.

There was no one else...

This was something that had never happened before.