“You are my successor.”

Julia walked infront of Anna and looked down upon her, calmly continuing, “Anything that harms your harms me. For that reason, I will cut off this matter.”

Anna’s face paled even more. Her usually bright eyes slightly dimmed.

“Even if your life is endless, there are countless things more sensible to do.”

“Leaving aside her (his) threat to the world. The fact that you care for her (him) so greatly is sufficient reason for me to kill her (him).”

Anna said nothing for a very long time.

Her face continued to pale until, finally, it was like the snow at the Great Dividing Range, utterly devoid of colour.

But her eyes gradually regained their brightness, resembling a moon that had once surfaced after a hot summer’s day.

Then, the snowfield seemed to melt under the waxing moon. The warmth of the moon revealed a lone tree hidden beneath the snow, withered yet still extremely straight.

With a soft hum, a small knife appeared within the hall. Its blade had been re-sharped many times and its handle was stained with pig’s blood.

The knife in Anna’s hand was a completely ordinary kitchen knife.

Anna was certainly not Cai Hua or Ovid, who were capable of using an ordinary blade to cut down a clergywoman. Furthermore, the person before her was no ordinary clergywomen, but the most powerful individual on the continent; even Cai Hua could not defeat her.

Trying to assassinate Julia with a kitchen knife and the state of deacon was a completely laughable act. Anyone watching would have assumed Anna had finally snapped under Julia’s pressure, choosing to perform a completely hopeless and suicidal action.

In truth, they would not be far from the truth. However, Anna had not chosen to aim the knife at Julia, but herself!

She had certainly not lost her mind, so she never thought about threatening Julia with a meagre knife. She was threatening Julia with her life!

Now that she had learnt of the significance she poses in Julia’s heart. If she was fortunate, Julia would ultimately choose not to act and let Ovid escape.

However, in the next second, the gleam from the kitchen knife disappeared.

Before she could even bring the knife to her throat, it had disappeared without a trace.

A voice rang out, reverberating through the room.

It was Julia’s voice.

Her voice was so delicate, very sweet. Even the best singers that practised from their childhood cannot match the tenderness of the tone.

Yet the voice was also incomparably frightening.

While it was like the most beautiful of music, it was also akin to the most terrifying of storms, containing unimaginable power.

The word was a single syllable long, yet extremely long and difficult to understand, a fragment with endless meaning, overflowing with ancient spirit. In short, it did not sound like human speech.

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That was because it was the language of dragons.

The sound slowly unfurled throughout the city, breaking through the perfect bubble that isolated it from the outside world, it slowly raised up into the darkness of the universe.

The destruction around the city seemed to bring the word into an even higher state of mysticism, a hair-raising beauty that could only exist after destruction.

“Good. One must first be ruthless to oneself before all else… but in the end, this is only the fertile soil you can grow on.”

Julia gazed at Anna, whose hands were still before her, and expressionlessly nodded.

Not even the natural world can enter her palace without permission.

The person that had entered was Irene. She silently gazed at Anna but did nothing except lowering her head to stare at her shoes.

“Sent her back into her room and make sure she is restraint. Once Ovid is dead, I will handle the matter afterwards.”

Hearing Julia’s voice, Irene sighed and a hint of reluctance flashed through her eyes. She wanted to say something but ultimately chose not.

A soft breeze lifted up Anna’s body, slowly heading out of the courtyard.

Julia gazed at Anna. After a moment of silence, she noted something.

Everything Irene did was silent. Her steps were soundless, as was the person her wind was carrying.

Irene closed the door silently as well. She gazed at the unconscious Anna now on the bed and felt somewhat sad.

She was sad for Anna, but also sad for Ovid.

In the past ten thousand years, she was the closest person to Julia.

She knew that his death was certain if Julia acted.

Her meeting with Ovid was only within the blink of an eye in her long life. If Ovid died, she had no reason to be in grief, but when she thought about this, she grew even sadder.

Not moments after Anna’s body touched her bed, her eyes opened.

She was not one to faint, even under Julia’s dragon language. She had been conscious when Irene had appeared, though she was certain Julia cared little.

That was because although she could open her eyes, she could not move a single muscle otherwise.

Because the dragon word was actually a restraint technique.

This restraint technique was even superior to the one Glafx had used on Ovid.

That was because it contained the language of dragons.

Anna could not move, but she can speak.

Of course, she wasn’t in the mood to express herself, only quietly staring at the roof of the palace. If her gaze can pierce through the bricks, and that strange membrane, it would meet the celestial sky.

“My condolences,” Irene was surprisingly the one to initiate the conversation.

Anna continued to stare at the ceiling, saying, “Then why don’t you act?”

Irene was one of the younger saints to have appeared in the world. She thought to herself, even if I wasn’t heavily injured, I couldn’t do much anyway.

Anna seemed to understand that Irene had suppressed her injuries after her battle against the Pope, but the life and death of Ovid is currently a more important matter. She said, “I don’t think I’ve ever hated someone as much as Ovid’s mother. She is really too selfish of a person… I really can’t see why he worships her so much.”

“I was born too late. I don’t know who this person is.”

“From what Julia said, this woman must be really impressive.”

“Indeed.”

“She must be a bad person. Only Alexander has obtained such respect from Julia.”

---

Ovid was extremely tired from fighting Margrethe. Still, he patiently waited for the person to arrive on the scorched field.

Margrethe had already closed her eyes. She was waiting for death, but since Ovid had long all intents of killing her, it was clear that she was waiting for her current incarnation to be destroyed.

“You’re a good person… you definitely will stay alive.”

Before Anna had left the restaurant, she had said these words to Ovid. However, Margrethe’s words sounded far soberer. Perhaps it was since Anna had some form of hope, but Margrethe was aware that the person coming to kill Ovid was impossible to defeat. These words were more of a self-comfort than anything else.

Of course, at the last moment, she had also admitted that Ovid was not a shameless bastard, but a good person.

Ovid looked away from the direction to the city and to Margrethe.

But after having said those words, Margrethe had already turned into countless soft flames, which gradually extinguished.

Watching the embers die out, Ovid’s gaze lingered at that spot for a long moment, before he returned to the plain.

The sky had once again grown clear. The stars had finally returned to the black fabric that is the night, and the cries of phoenix had long died out and everything was serene.

Only the disappearance of the membrane that surrounded Julia reminded him that a person even greater that Margrethe at her height was coming.

This world’s sky was very different compared to Earth’s. But the strangest one is probably the strangeness of the sun, which fades in and out of existence.

The stars grew dimmer, the sky turned blue, and light more familiar to this world emerged from the sky.

On Earth, the sun rises and falls without a sound. The one in this world does so as well - it was like a feather landing into a pond.

As the feather landed in the pond, the sky suddenly grew brighter by a thousand fold.

A spot in the sky suddenly lit up.

Julia had told Anna that she was integrated into this world. To destroy her is akin to destroying the world itself.

At that time, one of the questions that surfaced, before quickly being suppressed in Anna’s mind was how Julia was integrated into this world.

But right now, it was very clear what place Julia has in this world.

She was the sun.