‘I won’t be able to use my martial art with one hand. Grandpa could use it with one arm but I doubt I can do the same.’

He perfected [Flow of the Tide] with the idea of using it with both hands so it won’t work with just one arm. A lot of his combinations will be impacted by this.

His grandfather’s swordstyle had the same foundation as his [Flow of the Tide]. His grandfather’s swordstyle was much more inferior, though.

It was only suitable for people who use rapiers or any other piercing weapon. Arnold from back then didn’t like using piercing weapons like spears and such but he really wanted to create his own swordstyle with the idea of fighting with swords. Thus, [Flow of the Tide] was born, an evolution of [Water’s Edge].

The two were created using the same concept of their foundation but they’re completely different in nature. One can’t call them the same swordstyle since Arnold used the knowledge of other martial art and swordstyle forms to create his very own. He used all that knowledge to perfect [Water Edge] into [Flow of the Tide].

Arnold’s swordstyle had better form, power and movesets than Water’s Edge. He could’ve easily overwhelmed his grandfather in swordsmanship alone if they were to fight each other today.

He’s never trained himself using it one-handed so he can’t use it now. His balance will be way off.

Arnold could feel the weight of the greatsword that he was carrying on his back.

He decided to take the sword since he defeated its previous wielder. It can be added to his weapon collection.

As of right now he had about 6 weapons. Of course, this includes his soul weapon and the demon sword. Those were his strongest weapons and he’d rather use them against opponents much stronger than himself.

“What the hell!?” Tanaera cursed when they reached the top of the stairs, “Another seal!? And this one is even more confusing than the first one!”

Arnold and Rafaela looked up at the large double doors hearing Tanaera’s frustrated whining.

“Is it not possible to break the seal like you did before?” Rafaela asked.

“Not even if I memorized and practiced the spell from before. This seal wasn’t created with magic, it’s an antimagic spell.”

“What a clever trick.” Rafaela sighed, “Whoever did this made us think that we can break the seals with spells.”

Antimagic barriers can’t be broken using magic spells. The concept of antimagic itself refers to a type of magic that nullifies the effects and abilities of its counterpart—Magic.

Whichever seal breaker spell thrown at the barrier will be nullified. Depending on the strength of the spell, there could even be no reaction.

‘Dammit, why didn’t I learn any antimagic spells when I was a sorcerer?’

Magicians despise people who use antimagic to fight. Lufulur was the same. Though he could harness any kind of magic, he refused to learn antimagic. Antimagic was for idiots and newbies.

His pride bit him in the behind this time.

“Should we give up?” Tanaera looked at Arnold, “There’s no way we’re getting in here. We can follow the trails of my summons. They found a bunch of hidden areas filled with treasure and magic items.”

“What about a library of some sort, or a place filled with books? Can you check if they found those kinds of places?”

“Alright.”

Tanaera closed her eyes. She opened them after a minute.

“I found something. It looked like a library.”

“Okay. We should head there. It’s likely that there are magic books there. Every magic book has an antimagic section. All you’ll need to do is figure out which magic circle in the books matches this one. Can you do that?”

Tanaera nodded, “I’ll try. I’ve never considered studying antimagic, though…”

A light suddenly embraced the giant doors, followed by a rumbling. A loud screech also resounded which sounded similar to metal gears being moved.

The antimagic barrier also vanished.

‘What’s going on?’

“Get ready to fight whatever comes out of there, Tanaera.” Arnold drew the greatsword.

“Got it.” Multiple magic circles manifested around Tanaera’s body.

The three of them waited in silence, waiting for the doors to open completely while ready to attack anything in sight.

Two somethings suddenly appeared from the other side.

“...Frost giants?”

Two blue giants were pushing the two doors open. There were slave collars around their necks and chains on their ankles.

A glorious sight greeted the three behind the two giants. A great hall, possibly the size of the average manor, stretched out beyond the entrance. The hall’s pillars stood a hundred meters tall, with red banners fluttering in the breeze of the cold air coming in through the entrance.

A trumpet resounded when the giants headed back inside. A warm breeze blew against Arnold’s face.

“…Should we go in? It’s like we’re being invited…” Tanaera asked from the side.

“Yeah… Strange how frost giants could be made into slaves… Well, let’s just go.”

Frost giants are S-class monsters. No human in history had ever made them slaves. It’s impossible to tame them as well since they’re much more aggressive than regular mountain giants. They usually live in caves and forests in snowy areas and rarely interact with human settlements.

‘High ranking knights, Winter Elves and now giants… Who the fuck lives here?’

The three entered the palace while staying wary of the giants.

They suddenly heard multiple footsteps coming from behind the pillars when the banners were rolled up.

“…..”

The three looked in silence as hundreds of armored knights stood on both sides of the red carpet.

The knights looked much different from the ones they fought before. Their armor was different and they looked like regular humans, unlike the knights Arnold fought that were either twice of three times his size.

“…..” The three continued walking after a brief moment of silence.

“They’re just looking at us….” Tanaera walked a bit closer to Arnold as she looked at the knights.

‘Why aren’t they attacking us? We’re invading their palace… and all they do is watch us.’

Arnold had to admit that even he wouldn’t be able to fight them all. Every single knight in this long hallway radiated monstrous power. The knights they met outside couldn’t compare to this level of power.

‘Are they like the Imperial Knights of the empire?’

Imperial knights—or royal knights—are trained professionals tasked with protecting their monarchs and their monarchs’ children. This is to make sure that no harm comes to the royal bloodline.

The crown prince also had a small unit of imperial knights watching over him and helping to protect the border.

A single imperial knight can be considered as valuable as ten or so regular soldiers. The emperor was vulnerable without that small unit since their absence leaves a gap in his defenses. This is why the Great Nobles are protecting him, after all.

If Imperial knights can be considered as valuable as ten or so soldiers then the knights inside this palace are equal to ten imperial knights.

Arnold won’t be able to fight them as he was now. Strangely, none of them were directing any killing intent their way.

Arnold then had a thought.

‘Let me see something.’

He slowly reached up to grab his greatsword.

Immediately after he grabbed the hilt, a wave of killing intent assaulted his five senses like a tsunami.

The knights took one step forward in unison.

His entire body screamed for him to run or surrender.

“Eek!”

“Kyaak!”

Rafaela and Tanaera shrieked respectively. Both of them grabbed Arnold subconsciously.

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Arnold let go of the greatsword.

‘They’re not friendly at all. If we show our intent to attack then they’ll do the same. This is odd. Shouldn’t they be on guard against us regardless of whether we’re hostile towards them?’

Arnold looked down at Rafaela and Tanaera.

“Did a little killing intent scare you two that much?”

Both of them hurriedly let go of him.

“…..”

“….”

“Don’t show any intent to attack them. They’ll leave us be if we just walk quietly.”

“But why are they just looking at us like we didn’t just kill their guard dog? I was also the one who broke their gate’s barrier spell. Shouldn’t they show some reaction to what we did?”

“I don’t know either. It could be that the master of the palace is inviting us inside like you said earlier.”

That’s the only reason you’d leave strangers alone if they invade your residence.

Players who raid the bases of other players are always cautious of things like traps and ambushes. Guilds go through lot of effort to protect their belongings.

Unlike most MMOs, Star Fantasy leaves your base vulnerable to attackers if every guild member logs out. This caused Liam and Alecs to lose a lot of sleep back when they had only a few members.

To make life easier, players create their own NPC entities to protect their bases if they ever log out of the game.

Misteltein from back then only had homunculi protect their base since creating custom NPCs was way too difficult and time-consuming. Besides that, not every member of Misteltein was interested in creating NPCs on their own.

Homunculi were the majority of their security. Of course, the homunculi were fully equipped with all sorts of magic items and armor.

Some were even left in charge of the battleships for maximum defense. They were controlled by a learning A.I that could follow instructions.

Including Lufulur’s Dunfer, there were about five battleships surrounding their main base. Because of this their base was rarely attacked by others once their guild reached the top 10. Getting just one battleship was rare in itself. The top guild in the game only had three battleships so Misteltein beats them in overall firepower.

Taking all that into account, it’s possible that the owner of this palace wishes to speak to them. It could also be that the owner was playing games with them, giving them false hope that they can safely traverse the palace without being attacked.

‘Now would be the perfect opportunity to strike. But I guess the owner really is inviting us.’

“Eh? There aren’t any stairs?” Tanaera voiced her confusion when they came to a stop at the end of the hall.

‘Hmm, the second floor is fairly high up. Should we jump?’

Arnold looked at the two giant statues which were standing on both sides of the end of the hallway.

Arnold lifted his hand and squeezed out what little mana he had. He was curious so he wanted to try something.

The mana flowed towards both statues.

A rumble occurred, followed by a blinding blue light.

The giant statues suddenly moved as the runic patterns on their chests glowed blue.

“Guh, this is my first time using my mana. Well, at least it worked.”

It was a puzzle of some sort. It wasn’t hard at all, though.

‘Tch, what a boring puzzle.’

“What are those things doing?”

The statues squatted down and put their arms into the holes in the floor. It seems like they were pulling something out.

A rumble ensued. The statues pulled out strange pillars from the floor. They rotated the pillars.

The ground rumbled yet again. The floor in front of the three moved upwards.

‘Stairs?’

The floor turned into a flight of stairs.

The statues suddenly pointed up, as if telling them to go.

The three proceeded up the stairs silently.

◇◇◇

The three arrived on the second floor. They arrived at yet another hall. The only difference was that there were no knights or any other being of any sort here.

Only paintings graced the walls.

Arnold walked up to one of the paintings.

It was a portrait of a woman with white hair, pale blue eyes and a white dress. Her skin was a sickly porcelain color and she looked to be as young as 20 years old. She was the perfect depiction of a Snow White.

“Is she the owner of the palace?” Arnold noticed the tiara on her head, “A princess maybe?”

It wasn’t a crown like a queen would wear so she couldn’t be a queen.

Arnold walked away from the painting.

“Why are all the people’s faces in these paintings covered with black paint?” Tanaera wondered.

Arnold noticed the same thing.

Every other portrait’s face was covered in black paint. The only face they could see was the Snow White woman.

“It looks like this woman’s family.” He guessed by the clothing they were wearing. Who else would the royal family put up in their halls besides paintings of themselves?

“Ah, look here.” Rafaela called out to the two of them after she pulled down a piece of cloth from the wall.

“?” the three looked at the painting.

“A boy…” there was a single boy in the painting. He was sitting on a chair.

“He doesn’t have legs.” Tanaera pointed out the obvious.

Just like she said, the boy inside the painting didn’t have any legs. His long blonde hair covered his face. It’s like the artist did it intentionally to create a sense of eeriness.

‘This painting looks really realistic. The overall theme of it is quite disturbing though.’

It aroused many questions:

Who was the boy?

Why is his face covered?

Why were there a man’s pair of shoes on the left side of the chair and a woman’s heels on the right?

Why… were there legs in the shadow of the corner in the painting?

‘Why did the artist include a monster… What does this painting mean?’

“That’s pretty creepy…” Tanaera backed away.

“Yeah.”

Only the monster’s legs were shown. The rest of its body was obscured by an abnormally dark shadow. One would criticize the skill of the artist for not knowing how to produce realistic lighting and shadow but the dark corner was obviously intentional.

Arnold’s warrior instincts suddenly screamed. He instinctively swung his arm when he felt a cold breath on his neck.

His arm was caught, the shockwave of his swing caused the entire floor to rumble.

“Wha…”

“!”

Tanaera and Rafaela noticed only a few seconds later what was going on.

Arnold looked at the thing that caught his arm.

No, it wasn’t a thing. It was a person, well, they had a face. The rest of their upper body was covered in some kind of armor. Yes, they only had an upper body. However, their body was being held up by some mysterious fleshy monster with tall legs. The monster’s face was hidden underneath the armored person’s cape so Arnold couldn’t tell what monster it was.

Given the length of its legs, it was undoubtedly fast.

Arnold looked back at the painting.

The monster in the dark corner was gone!

He looked towards the person this time.

“Who—”

“I apologize if I frightened you.” The person spoke, “I was sent here to greet you all.”

“Greet… us?”

The person let go of his arm.

He picked up the cloth that Rafaela pulled down and covered the painting.

‘How did this guy stop my swing? I sent all my power into that.’

If it hit a wall then the wall would’ve collapsed. He couldn’t control his warrior instincts since Sebas trained him to be on full alert even when his back was turned and his attention was elsewhere.

This thing—no, this person caught the full force of his swing with one arm and didn’t even flinch.

Arnold stepped back to look at the tall figure. Judging by the voice, it was a man, despite his tall nose and delicate rosy lips. The man towered over Arnold.

He had blond hair that rested on his shoulders. The helmet on his head was covering half of his face so Arnold couldn’t see his eyes.

The creature that was holding him up bent down so that they can meet eye-to-eye.

“I am the royal guard of the owner of this palace,” the man looked at Rafaela and Tanaera, “I take it Fridulf is dead?”

“……”

All three of them went silent.

What was this monster standing in front of them? He felt as strong as the great wolf from before.

No, perhaps he’s much stronger than the wolf?

“…Are you its master? What are you going to do to us now that we’ve killed it?”

“It was Queen Siana’s best friend. Well, even if you didn’t kill Fridulf, it wouldn’t make a difference since Her Majesty is not allowed to see the wolf. Alive or dead, it doesn’t matter.”

Tanaera pointed at one of the paintings, “Is the woman with white hair the queen?”

“Yes, that is a portrait from a century ago. She is no longer a princess so I will have to take it down.”

“Why are her family members’ faces covered in black?”

The man faced Arnold.

“You are a stranger yet you wish to know about the royal family?”

“Yeah.”

“Very well. But let’s talk as we walk. Her Majesty’s room is still far from here.” The man—no, the creature holding his body—turned around and began walking.

Arnold looked at Tanaera and Rafaela. Both of them seemed as wary as Arnold.

‘I don’t blame them. This freakshow appeared out of nowhere and began having a nice chat with us as if we didn’t just invade their residence.’

“Well, come on then. What’s keeping you three?”

“Right…”

The three of them caught up to the man.

“First of all, My name is Sceptim. I have no surname anymore since I’ve abandoned any ties to my previous life. My master has done the same. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m the Queen’s Royal Guard. Those knights who met you outfront are under my command. Their sole objective is to protect Her Majesty. Her family… well, they didn’t get along with her after a certain incident.”

“A certain incident?”

“She awakened a soul power over a century ago. The ability to freeze anything her power touches, even time itself. Her family feared this power and wanted to kill her if there was no way to take the power away from her. Alas, they couldn’t take it away. Her own brother snuck into her room one night. He was ordered to kill her because she trusted him the most and wouldn’t be on high alert. Her Majesty distanced herself from her family when it became apparent that they both feared and hated her. Her eldest brother was different—”

They passed a corner. A different landscape was outside the windows to their left. It was as if they warped to another place when they turned the corner.

“—He put up a kind façade all those years just so that he could kill his sister when the time called for it. He had an underlying motive, however. Knowing Her Majesty’s beauty, I can understand why even her blood would be attracted to her.”

“You mean…” Rafaela seemed to get what he was insinuating.

“Yes, he raped her. He wanted to feel his sister’s warmth before he kills her. They say that raping a corpse can lead to you being haunted by your victim. Our people believed that fairytale. The prince took the risk to commit rape even though his life was clearly in danger. Why did his sister let him do what he wanted when she could’ve frozen every cell in his body in mere seconds? It’s simple really: She wanted to know if her loving brother was still in that man and that he would stop. But he didn’t so she killed him.”

‘Why am I suddenly being reminded of that prick Jurius….’

“Where were you when it all happened?”

“I was coincidentally sent out on a mission to kill a demigod-level threat . The full report was that it broke through a portal that led to other worlds. But I was lied to and returned to the palace when a premonition came over me…. I didn’t hesitate to kill her family when I heard what they tried to do. Well, I spared the children since they were innocent of the adults’ crimes and made sure they were taken care of. Ever since then a cold unlike any other surrounded her beating heart. The result… well, it is as you can see.” The man pointed to a corner, “Her heart freezes everything outside this palace but the palace itself is beginning to lose its magical defenses and freeze over in certain areas as well. If the cold around her heart isn’t dealt with then she may die as well as all of us.”

It was quite ironic how the royal family was living in a magical palace but their people considered all magic the work of evil.

“Why don’t you just leave if your life is in danger?”

“It’s my duty to be here. If I can’t be there to provide her cold heart warmth then I can only protect her… She even suggested leaving our side so that she wouldn’t hurt us but we vowed to stay by her side. I could not imagine her dying alone in the cold in the middle of nowhere. She is such a kind person, worrying about others while she’s in danger of dying.”

Sceptim went “Ah”.

“We’re here.” He said.

They stopped at the end of the hall. In front of them was a door covered in layers of ice.

Sceptim held his hand against the ice and closed his eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m communicating with Her Majesty through the ice she conjured. She gets very grumpy if we ever arrive unannounced. Each particle has her will inside of it. Her will links to her subconscious, allowing her to feel when others touch the ice. She can also observe the world through her ice.”

‘Observe the world, huh….’

Arnold thought back to that mother and child duo whose final moments he saw.

Did this queen see the same thing he saw?

The door suddenly opened the next moment when the ice fell down.

A sweet voice came from inside once the doors opened.

“—Thank you for bringing them, Sceptim.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Arnold peered inside the room. There stood a single big canopy bed with no other furniture.

On the bed was the same woman he saw in the portrait. It was as if she hadn’t aged in over a century.

Her power can freeze everything it touches, even time itself.

Was this what Sceptim meant?

Her ghastly sky blue eyes looked straight at Arnold. She smiled weakly.

“Welcome to my palace.”