Chapter 68: The Walls of the Life Cage
“Finally finished.” On Furnace Island, Eleanor hammered in the last nail and said with satisfaction.
The girls had argued a lot about the purpose of Furnace Island, but in the end, the one with the most money won – since Nuo paid for all the building materials, Eleanor and Peggy had to give in.
The prototype of the manor had been roughly decided on the design drawings, but there were some hiccups during the construction process, and they even had to rework and waste materials several times.
Finally, they had the house in front of them – a tall and beautiful wooden house with two floors. The second floor was the girls’ bedrooms, and the first floor was the living room, dining room, and entrance hall.
To the right of the entrance was the kitchen, where they could cook food. To the left was the storage room, used to store various equipment, potions, loot, and essential supplies.
From a living perspective, this two-story wooden house was enough to meet everyone’s needs.
However, in Nuo’s plan, it was just the entrance building of the entire manor.
The entire wooden house frame was completed, but naturally, there was no interior decoration. The semi-plane characteristics of Furnace Island meant that they couldn’t even think about running water, but they could consider getting some temporary power supply.
By the time the girls moved the purchased furniture into the wooden house on Furnace Island, it was already late at night.
“Asker and Mia haven’t come back yet.” Medea said with a playful tone. “Maybe they’re on a date somewhere.”
Nuo frowned silently and heard Eleanor arguing with her:
“How is that possible! How old is Mia? Don’t you think it’s childish and ridiculous to say that?”
“Ah~” Medea seemed to be deliberately contradicting her. She gently touched her chin with her fair fingers, as if pondering. “But I heard that some men just like underage girls…”
“Shut up, Medea.” Before Nuo could speak, Peggy said coldly. “Pedo*hilia? That’s ridiculous, how could Asker be that kind of pervert?”
“Oh, do you know him that well?” Medea’s purple eyes rolled, as if she was amused.
“Of course, I was the first to follow him.” Peggy said.
“What do you mean, first?” Asker’s figure materialized from the air.
He looked at the beautiful wooden house in front of him, his expression slightly stunned. “It was built so fast?”
…
At the end of the sewer, the two indeed encountered an electrified barbed wire fence. So Asker teleported back to Furnace Island in advance, while Mia entered the Shadow Realm.
Then she took out the insulated pliers she had prepared beforehand and cut the wires one by one.
Cutting the barbed wire fence in the Shadow Realm wouldn’t cause any changes to the barbed wire fence in the main plane.
Instead, the gap in the barbed wire fence cut in the Shadow Realm would gradually extend and rejoin over time, eventually synchronizing with the main plane again.
Therefore, Mia quickly and smoothly cut a gap large enough to pass through without triggering any alarms.
Passing through the barbed wire fence and climbing out of the sewer from the Shadow Realm, Mia found herself in a courtyard, the colors around her turning into grays of varying saturation.
She moved quickly in the Shadow Realm, nimbly shuttling through corridors and passages, bypassing the moonlight outside the windows and the lights projected from inside the rooms.
Suddenly, she stopped abruptly. Because in the corridor ahead, two guards were questioning a stranger, the light from their flashlights blocking her path.
“It’s me.” The stranger took off their hood and sighed helplessly. “Do you recognize me?”
“So it’s Lady Varomina.” The two guards hurriedly saluted.
Since they were sent here to guard by Empress Zoe, they naturally recognized the official scribe, Lady Varomina, who always accompanied Empress Zoe.
“Who is this behind you?” One of the guards asked, shining his flashlight behind her. The figure was also wearing a hooded robe, their face hidden under the hood, their head bowed.
“She’s a relative of mine.” Varomina replied lightly. “She suffered from a serious illness when she was young and was disfigured. So I sent her to the monastery, you’re not going to check her appearance, are you?”
“No, no, no!” The two guards hurriedly waved their hands.
In this world, one of the most notorious disfiguring diseases was noma, a bacterial infection that attacked the facial skin, causing large areas of ulceration, and the pus was highly contagious. Therefore, people generally avoided people with disfigurements.
Zoe and Theodora had an elder sister named Eudokia. Because she was disfigured due to a childhood illness, she was also sent to the monastery by Emperor Constantine.
Even a princess of a country was treated like this, let alone the children of ordinary people. Those with better conditions were sent to monasteries to serve God, while those with worse conditions were directly abandoned.
Therefore, the two guards quickly stepped aside, allowing Varomina and the disfigured person to continue.
Mia in the Shadow Realm took the opportunity to swoop and jump, crossing the flashlight beams of the two guards, and landed lightly on the ground.
“Even so, you don’t have to ‘worry’ about her.” After walking a distance, Varomina suddenly spoke, lowering her voice. “The ‘care’ she receives is very strict, there won’t be any ‘accidents.’”
“I’m just ‘curious’.” The person behind Varomina also lowered their voice and replied. “After all, with ‘that person’ watching over her, no one with ‘malicious intentions’ could succeed. I just want to pay my respects to Her Highness.”
If Asker were here, he would definitely recognize this as the voice of Michael, the captain of the guard – although this guy had long been dismissed by Empress Zoe and no longer held any official position in the court.
“Indeed.” Varomina turned her head slightly, giving him a look that said “You understand.”
Mia in the Shadow Realm listened to their conversation, completely confused. But she noticed a phrase they used, which was “malicious intentions.”
Aren’t they talking about me and Asker!
Mia had a keen intuition that these two were actually communicating in code.
Since they both had malicious intentions, maybe their goals were the same. Let’s follow them for a while and see.
Following the two deep into the monastery, Varomina and Michael came to a room at the end of the corridor and suddenly stopped.
Mia also stopped – her spiritual intuition told her that there was some kind of danger lurking at the door of this room. If she stepped in, even in the Shadow Realm, she would be exposed.
“Your Excellency.” Varomina took out an imperial edict from her sleeve. “I have come to visit Her Highness the Elder Princess under the holy decree of Her Majesty. Please withdraw your detection barrier first.”
The dangerous attention extended out, examined the imperial edict in Varomina’s hand for a moment, and then slowly retracted – the demigod from the Church didn’t carefully check Varomina’s identity, nor the hooded figure beside her.
The main reason, of course, was that the imperial edict was real.
Another reason was that he had heard that the Orthodox Church had held a cardinals’ meeting this morning. The Patriarch expressed concern about the rapid expansion of the Seljuk heretics in Anatolia. Therefore, his attitude towards Empress Zoe’s sudden palace coup had changed from initial indifference to cautious conservatism.
Perhaps the Elder Purple Princess in the room would be sitting back on the ivory bench in the Golden Throne Palace in a few days.
At this time, it wouldn’t be wise to obstruct others from meeting her with the attitude of treating a prisoner.
The dangerous spirituality was gone! Exactly as Asker said! Mia was dumbfounded. The demigod behind the scenes was really letting them through!
With a mixture of fear and luck, Mia stepped into the room from the Shadow Realm.
As Asker had said, the demigod behind the scenes maintained a minimum of respect for the person imprisoned in this room, so he didn’t cover the entire room with his spirituality.
Sitting in the room was a stunningly beautiful girl of about 17 years old. Just sitting by the bed gave people a sense of her noble status.
At this time, Theodora was not wearing a veil, only a thin nightgown. Therefore, the moment Mia saw her appearance, her eyes were firmly attracted.
What a perfect face it was, almost making Mia feel ashamed of her own appearance.
By the time she came back to her senses, she saw that Varomina and Michael had already exchanged information with Theodora quietly and turned to leave the room.
Theodora stood up from her chair and looked out the window melancholically, her expression heartbreaking.
They have left, I must act quickly according to the plan, or the demigod will shift his attention back at any moment!
This thought flashed through Mia’s mind, and her body had already started to move.
Return to the main plane!
Teleport the unsuspecting Theodora to Furnace Island!
Return to the Shadow Realm! Then run, run, run, run, run, run, run!!!
She ran with all her might as if her life depended on it. About a minute later, a spiritual storm suddenly swept through the entire monastery.
“That demigod has discovered it!” Mia thought, almost terrified, and quickened her pace.
In the main plane, Varomina and Michael were walking in the corridor when a figure in an Orthodox robe suddenly appeared in front of them.
“Stay where you are!” The Church demigod said coldly, once again activating the magical item beside him with his spirituality, frantically searching the entire monastery.
To be precise, the monastery in the main plane.
“Your Excellency, we…” Varomina was instantly extremely nervous.
If Empress Zoe found out that she had brought Michael into the monastery, then her “betrayal” would be completely confirmed.
“Shut up!” The Church demigod roared, his sharp gaze falling on Michael.
“Take off your hood, quickly!” He ordered urgently.
Michael had no choice but to take off his hood, revealing the face of the captain of the Royal Guard. The Church demigod stared at his face, scanned him from head to toe with his spirituality, and his expression suddenly became strange.
“You two stay here! Don’t go anywhere without my permission!” The Church demigod ordered, scanning the monastery in the main plane again unwillingly, but still found no suspicious faces.
His right hand reached for his waist, grasping a golden pendulum.
He began to scan the nearby sea of the subconscious.
On the other side, Mia had already returned to the sewer, passed through the gap in the barbed wire fence, and started running wildly.
A few minutes later, she finally found the entrance she had come from and climbed out nimbly.
Then she returned to the real world and flew out of the alley.
At the same time, the Church demigod’s search finally yielded results: in the Shadow Realm, his full-field scan detected something unusual underground – the electrified barbed wire fence in the Shadow Realm had been cut.
“Damn it! The enemy exploited the material synchronization delay between the Shadow Realm and the main plane!” The demigod went to the sewer location without hesitation, held and activated another magical item with his left hand – a pitch-black hourglass, and began to scan the Shadow Realm near the monastery on a large scale.
With his right hand, he took out his phone and quickly dialed an emergency number.
Just 10 seconds later, a huge, translucent circular wall formed by supernatural power suddenly appeared on the circumference of a circle with the monastery as the center and a radius of 1000 meters, completely separating the inside and outside of the circle.
No living beings, spirit bodies, or even mental bodies could pass through this wall.
Its isolation effect was so simple and crude that it immediately caused a certain degree of chaos.
On the road, a night bus was speeding, carrying its passengers and crashing into this translucent wall at a speed of 25 kilometers per hour.
The bus passed through the wall smoothly, but the passengers inside turned into lifeless mush, plastered against the backrests of the rear seats.
In a nearby apartment building, an unlucky guy got up in the middle of the night and was using the toilet when the translucent wall blocked the entrance to the toilet, trapping him inside.
He wasn’t the unluckiest one… On the circumference of the circle with a radius of 1000 meters, there were probably more than a dozen unfortunate people whose beds were located on the circumference. The moment the wall appeared, their bodies were cut in half.
If it weren’t for the fact that it was late at night and most people were sleeping at home, it would probably have caused even greater chaos.
Leave a Reply