(MC POV)
Apparently my presence alone was enough to make everyone stand down, all of them throwing down their arms when I asked them to even if their commanders were demanding them to fight.
It didn't take long about my presence to be known to the rest, the ones that obviously recognised me quickly whispered my name and everyone nearby knew who I was.
As for the commanders, none of them were brave enough to come and stop me except for one rather foolish one.
He had drawn his sword and charged at me, yelling out a war cry.
I only had time to whisper "don't kill" before Gamma had swung her halberd in an arc, smacking the man across the face with the flat of the blade.
I'm pretty sure those white things I saw flying out were pieces of his teeth, right before the guy got sent crashing into a nearby wall.
"Where's the prince? Er… I mean King?"
No one answered, not even the one still kneeling on the ground in front of me.
Gamma slammed the butt end of her halberd on the ground, cracking it and making everyone jump at the sudden sound.
"Pa… Palace… Master Lin…" One of the nearest soldiers managed to croak.
Hmmm… Weird. These guys were already expecting us to come here, considering they had siege engines set up behind the wall already. So if the Second Prince was behind this, I would have expected him to at least be here to watch.
If he was aiming for the throne, he would be here to make sure his competition was taken care of right? I mean, that should be the natural thing to do right?
Unless he wasn't the mastermind of course. One of the Major Houses perhaps? Using the Second Prince as a figurehead of sorts while they were the ones holding the reins to the country. The standard shadow ruler trope of course, nothing new about that.
In that case, it's best if we can get a foothold of the gates first.
"Open the city gates," I ordered.
The soldiers looked at each other.
I sighed, "Either you guys open the gates yourself or I blow the entire thing off its hinges and trust me, you don't want that."
That motivated them to start moving to carry out my order.
I hopped off Gamma's back, ignoring the moan of protest that came from underneath her helmet.
"Make sure the rest come through here and secure the area safely, I'll be heading towards the palace to see what this entire thing is about."
She bowed her head, "Yes, Master."
Leaping off the wall to the streets below, I sent Manami a telepathic message to get our group through the city gates, giving her a brief summary of what I've learnt here.
The girls wanted to follow me but I told them that securing the front gates was more important and they relented.
With that, I made my way through the empty streets of the city.
At least whoever took over still had the sense to make the civilians evacuate, letting them seek shelter elsewhere before we had reached the city. The only question is where?
Moving further through the city, I realised that not only had the commoners evacuated, but it seems like everyone else in the city was gone too.
Now this is even more suspicious… The Major Houses and the Sects were also gone too, what could make these people just abandon their roots willingly?
With nothing else to go on with, I passed through the gates of the palace unhindered, which for some reason had no guards at the gates either.
Even the inside of the palace was strangely deserted, I was expecting at least a few guards around to maintain security but it seems like they didn't need that either.
Now I'm really questioning why they bothered to defend an empty city?
Was there something here that whoever took over wanted?
Still missing an answer, I reached the throne room where the current King was, the former second prince, Bei Li Yong.
He was seated on the throne with his legs crossed, piles of books stacked all around him while he was engrossed in reading one of them leisurely. So engrossed he was that he didn't notice me enter the room.
I stopped a short distance away from him and cleared my throat.
His only response was to flip the page on his book.
I coughed, louder this time.
He continued to ignore me.
"Ahem, Your Highness?"
He waved his hand at me, "Just leave the food there, I'll get to it later."
"Your Highness, I am not room service."
He finally looked up from his book, narrowing his eyes at me.
"So you're not dead."
I raised an eyebrow, "Any reason I should be?"
He shook his head, "I thought whatever those idiots were trying to summon would kill you. Lilith, was it? She's supposed to be some cosmic entity or something."
"Cosmic entity? Isn't she a demoness?"
He snorted, dropping his gaze back to his book, "Seems like the Legendary Immortal Master Lin isn't all-knowing, huh?"
"Never claimed to be. I didn't even know about her existence until recently."
"Figures… All records of her were supposed to be destroyed. It was a wonder that the Dark Sect even got a hold of something about her."
I sighed, "Alright, enough stalling. Why are you here?"
He gestured to the books around him, "Reading. What else?"
"You do know your sister has returned right?"
"She has? Good for her then."
I waited for a moment but he made no other comments and continued reading, the only action he did was adjusting his glasses slightly with a hand.
"So it wasn't you who fortified the city walls in order to kill her procession?"
"No, that was me," He admitted without hesitation.
This guy is really annoying to talk to.
"And why?"
He looked up from his book, clearly irritated, "You are awfully full of questions aren't you? Is it your hobby to bother people while they're reading?"
"I'd at least like to know why things around here don't make sense. Like why you are defending an empty city for one and why you helped the Dark Sect for another."
He rolled his eyes at me, "If you are so great, Master Lin, I'm sure you can figure it out yourself."
I sucked in a deep breath before exhaling, "You do know I can just rip your head off right?"
He snapped his book shut, "A few days ago, perhaps. But not anymore. Funny how an aura of normality could get me this far but it seems it doesn't work on you for some reason."
Aura of normality? That basically allows him to do whatever he wants without anyone seeing it as strange or out of place. This is supposed to be a Legendary tier Soul Technique that messes with the minds of everyone around the Practitioner, I didn't even notice he was exuding it until he mentioned it.
"How did you even get something like that? I do not sense any innate Quarks within you."
"You did not think all the books I had been reading thus far are storybooks did you?"
I stretched out my hand and one of the books teleported itself to me.
The cover was plain but a quick flip through it and I understood what the contents were.
"You have been studying the Abyssal beings…"
"And learning how to harness their powers for myself."
Since he wasn't a Practitioner, he can't be manipulating any Quarks to draw their energies directly from the Abyss. Which, by the way, isn't something that anyone can just do without anything bad happening to them.
I would know since that was what I did back then to infuse myself with Dark Quarks and ascend to the Cloud Plane. That was also what led me to my first meeting with those damn tentacled monsters and I have to say, it was not pretty nor something I want to repeat.
As though sensing my question, he lifted his shirt with a smirk, showing the scars of a very elaborate inscription circle directly grafted into his skin.
The entire circle stretched from his upper torso to his lower abdomen, all the runes carved with extreme detail.
"Took a while for me to do it since it was quite difficult to carve them using a mirror. I had to learn how to write the runes backwards."
This mad man, he actually took a knife and grafted his body to obtain this power.
"Why?"
"Read stories about the other Planes and realised how boring this place was, the Spiritual Plane sounded like somewhere with much more interesting things."
No, that was obviously a lie, "One of those things came to you and offered power, didn't it?"
"Seems like you are quite knowledgeable about this topic at least. You are correct."
"Don't you know there is always a price to pay?"
He shrugged, "It'll be worth it."
"I highly doubt so… I didn't think you would be someone who would do this."
He rolled his eyes, "You don't know me very well, Master Lin. Neither do I know you, nor do I care."
"And that has to do with you emptying the city and trying to kill your sister… Why?"
He was about to answer when the air around us shifted, the atmosphere feeling much heavier than before.
"It seems you came at a rather uncanny time, Master Lin," he grinned, tossing the book he had aside.
The earth began to tremble, starting with slight tremors before the entire room was rocking back and forth.
He grinned at me, "I am not cruel, the people of the city are safe in a camp North of here and I never intended to kill my sister, just needed her away from the city for what I'm about to do. Though even if she had died I wouldn't have cared. I would suggest you tell your little procession to turn back if they don't want to get hurt."
Huh, so he even got the stubborn nobles and arrogant Sects to obey him? Either he was very charismatic or his normality aura had something to do with it. I'm going to bet on the latter.
"And your own soldiers?" I interrogated.
"They were told to stay away from the palace. They were my personal guards, really loyal, that bunch."
"You have no idea what you're dealing with."
"I know enough."
"What are you doing then?"
"Ascending, Master Lin."
He stretched out his arms and the floor around us exploded upwards, dozens of tentacles appearing from the cracks.
I tried to throw an energy lance at him but there seemed to be a shield around him that was protecting him. Guess he wasn't lying about that part.
The tentacles converged on Bei Li Yong, wrapping him up in a tentacle cocoon that glowed in a purplish light.
This lunatic was trying to merge with one of those tentacled monsters!
Just as I thought so, a laughter echoed through the hall.
"!UOY LLIK OT KCAB EMOC LLIW I UOY DLOT I"