When Adrian woke up, he found himself lying on the floor of a very dark room.
Earlier, Gilbert not only broke all his limbs but also knocked him unconscious.
Seeing his current situation, Adrian quickly figured out who must have rescued him.
"Why you take so long to wake up? So weak!"
Nicola's mocking voice came from beside him. She had just opened the door and walked in from outside. Seeing Adrian's condition, she asked in a sarcastic tone while taking out a metal ring-shaped object.
"Perfect timing! I been trying to use this thing for so long but dunno how. Can help me check if it's spoilt from the previous fight or not?"
The ring was actually the crown that Adrian used to wear on his head.
Because she had overheard the conversation between Selene and Gilbert, Nicola knew how important Adrian's crown was. Since rescuing Adrian, she had been playing with the crown for quite some time.
She had tried wearing it once or twice, but nothing happened - it seemed just like any normal crown. Now that the owner was awake, she couldn't wait to ask him what was going on.
"Well..."
At this moment, Adrian's four limbs were still broken, making him unable to move. He hadn't even figured out what was happening, let alone worry about why his crown was in her hands. Though he hesitated a bit, he still answered truthfully.
"Only people with Loren Family blood can use the crown properly. No others can get any response from it, even angels!"
The Loren Family was the royal family that had ruled Parristol for thousands of years. No wonder he didn't seem worried at all about others taking his crown.
"Tsk, what a waste!"
Though Nicola had suspected this earlier, she still felt very disappointed when it was confirmed. Her initial plan to replace Adrian and take control of Lantine Oasis was completely ruined, so she just threw the crown back to him.
"Where are we?"
Finally it was Adrian's turn to ask questions. After all, he had no idea what happened during the time he was unconscious, and as the new king of Parristol, he was very anxious to understand the situation.
"Should be some underground warehouse!"
Nicola shrugged, as she wasn't very sure about the exact location either. She only remembered dragging Adrian for a very long time, and since Lantine Oasis's underground space was huge, they were now far beyond the area invaded by the Ancient God Religion. The enemy probably couldn't find them for a while, so they were temporarily safe.
"Then what about the Ancient God Religion?"
Adrian quickly asked, but the situation wasn't looking good.
Nicola had just gone out to gather information. According to what she found out, the remaining few dozen church guards had successfully invaded the underground space. Moreover, Selene was still alive, and both she and Gilbert remained as troublesome as ever.
Although in the previous fight, Selene had rapidly aged several decades after she released time control over her body. She was originally very young. The total life force she lost wasn't too much, so unluckily the accumulating side effects didn't kill her directly.
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Later, to find the two escapees, Selene even tried several times to turn back time to before they escaped. Fortunately, Nicola could choose not to be affected, so the enemy didn't succeed. Nicola also discovered another major weakness - Selene could only turn back time for at most one minute.
This showed that even god-given powers had many limitations.
Because time kept being reversed during the whole process, even though not much time had passed since Nicola rescued Adrian, it felt much longer to her.
"Thank you, if not for you, I don't know how bad my situation would be now!"
After hearing her explanation of what happened, Adrian immediately expressed his gratitude.
After all, Nicola was originally very powerful! She had broken through Lantine Oasis's city barrier all by herself, and Adrian hadn't forgotten this shocking scene, even though she was injured later.
As for the High Priest who appeared later and could easily control time, Nicola still managed to help him escape from the enemy's pursuit. To him, this was already beyond what normal humans could understand.
"As expected, the legendary angels are really powerful, worthy of their reputation!"
Because he had never actually seen angels before, and Nicola couldn't be bothered to explain that she was a special case as a Wind Angel, Adrian thought all angels were this powerful.
However, there were still many things he couldn't understand, like how Nicola seemed to hate him so much at first, but ended up risking herself to save him in the crisis?
"Of course it's for that crown on your head! If you die how to control such a big city? Don't forget my original purpose was to ally with you against the Ancient God Religion!"
Nicola thought for a moment before answering. It wasn't completely made up - during their process of working together against the Ancient God Religion, her anger towards Adrian had already decreased quite a lot without her realizing it!
Of course, this didn't mean Nicola had completely forgotten about how the Adrian from another world had stolen her love, but for this world's Adrian, he was indeed innocent, and she finally could stop transferring her anger to him.
More importantly, he had just admitted she was more powerful! The strength difference between the two worlds' Adrians wasn't big, and this time Nicola had saved his life, doing him a huge favor. It was enough to show who was superior, and she finally felt vindicated after so long!
As her resentment disappeared, she naturally didn't find Adrian so unlikeable anymore. She even readily agreed when he asked her to help take some things out from his storage ring since his hands and feet weren't working.
"What are all these?"
Adrian's storage ring was filled with all kinds of arrows. Some had writing, some didn't, and they had feathers of different colors - it was really dazzling!
Following his instructions, Nicola took out a bunch of arrows with blue feathers and stuck them one by one into his injured joints. Suddenly, Adrian, who couldn't move at all before, became energetic again and jumped up from the ground.
The first thing he did after recovering was to pick up the crown and put it back on. He said he could directly connect to the city's monitoring system to check the enemy's situation.
"Not good, they've already reached the underground shelter!"
According to what Adrian described, there were quite many invaders, almost all gathered in that place. The High Priest who controlled time still looked the same as when they first met, not appearing very old.
Nicola guessed that after she escaped, Selene probably used her time control power again to reverse her body back to its young state. However, such frequent releasing and suppressing of side effects couldn't possibly come without any cost.
As expected, Adrian soon observed that Selene needed others' help to walk, perhaps due to blindness or leg problems - most likely another side effect of her time control power.
"They're gathering all the civilians and forcing them to tell where we are. Several who refused to talk were killed on the spot!"
The problem was that this large group of invaders gathering in the underground shelter would definitely clash with the Parristol refugees. Soon Adrian saw something he couldn't accept, he grabbed his weapons and was about to rush out.
"Wait first! You can fight them or not? Running there now is just going to die for nothing!"
Nicola quickly pulled him back. They had barely survived when facing just High Priest and Bishop earlier, not to mention now with so many church guards called down from above ground as support.
Very likely the scene they were seeing now was deliberately set up by Selene and Gilbert - they were just waiting for Adrian and Nicola to take the bait!
"As long as we keep control of the city, even if we can't beat the Ancient God Religion, we can still use it as a bargaining chip or even use it to escape."
Anyway, the tide had turned against them. At worst, leaving invaders with a dead city they couldn't control was acceptable - still better than letting the enemy completely take over Lantine Oasis. This was Nicola's plan.