“Why have you come? I don’t recall inviting you, Mr. Orman.”
The Winter Queen sat leisurely on her throne with one leg crossed over the other, her fierce eyes sending chills through anyone who met her gaze. It felt as though lingering on her for even a second longer would freeze one’s body solid.
She was the queen of the Northern Ice-Snow Elves, the creator of authority and order. One of the most brutal figures on the Camiran Continent, her very name alone left all who heard it—beastmen included—unsettled and on edge. Even the Heavenly Wing Clan regarded with great trepidation this lotus blooming amid the ice plains.
She had never known defeat. To her, the Camiran Continent was little more than a chessboard. That all changed the day she realized she had traversed back to a world over a hundred years in the past, retaining her memories from the reset. Suddenly, she discovered the existence of forces beyond her comprehension.
Take, for instance, the revival of the Evil Dragon. It should have been a being only slightly stronger than herself, one she had once driven away—a pitiful human who nonetheless defeated it. When Nina heard the news, she could scarcely believe her ears. Yet with the world’s reset, the Evil Dragon had reincarnated in an even mightier form, capable of assuming human shape and wielding the fearsome power of Super Tier Layer 3.
Take, for instance, the man before her now.
A dangerous aura emanated from his entire body. Yet, up to this point, Nina had never truly witnessed him in action.
“Superhuman stamina, the ability to withstand nearly anything, and… a Holy Sword that can cleave through dimensions?”
That was the intelligence Muir had passed along to her. While these details held undeniable importance on the battlefield, reading between the lines, Nina discerned one primary truth:
Orman was strong—pure and simple.
Nina’s heart thudded heavily.
“Winter Queen, do you still remember our agreement?”
“What nonsense are you spouting at a time like this? If memory serves, isn’t it tomorrow?”
“It’s already the next day, isn’t it?”
Orman extended his hand toward the throne. Nina’s eyes widened in fury.
For in the corner of her vision, the sun had vanished.
Just moments ago, that clear azure sky had been there. And now… it was gone?
Impossible. What in the world was happening?
Nina fought to suppress her shock, keeping her panic from showing on her face. She held her tongue to avoid blurting out anything that might betray her fluster.
“Where is Dolores?”
Orman strode over to a nearby chair and table. The spot where Dark Filth had lingered sparked a flicker of disgust in his eyes, but he sat down anyway. He unclasped his cloak, leaving only his black combat garb, then lifted his head to regard the imperious queen. In an interrogative tone, he asked again:
“The appointed day has arrived. I have no desire to break our agreement—lest you die an even uglier death.”
“I have no obligation to tell you. You’ve slaughtered thousands upon thousands of elves, and you haven’t dealt with the beastmen or the traitors as per our pact.”
“I have dealt with them.”
Orman half-closed one eye.
“Is that so?”
“The elves now are no different from a pile of rotting meat. The Elder Council of the Southern Elf Kingdom is no more. They need only take matters into their own hands to forge the peace they deserve.”
Nina’s delicate brows furrowed slightly.
Yes, this man had resolved the issue by slaughtering every last elder in the Elf Kingdom… a indiscriminate massacre. That was what he had spent the past six days doing.
Yet it hadn’t altered the overall course of events. Swarms of elves still fought for their idealized “peace.” They were no longer the blank slates Isabella had so carefully nurtured but ordinary creatures stained with filth.
No longer pure, they tore into one another, devouring each other’s flesh and blood. Soon, the entire Elf Kingdom would be shrouded in an impenetrable crimson mist.
Nina had no right to question it.
Orman’s actions were undoubtedly a classic case of moral blackmail and deliberate inaction. But sending him out again to fix the unfixable was nothing short of a pipe dream.
“And the beastmen?”
“Winter Queen, you know better than I whether those fellows will actually launch an attack.”
Orman’s words pierced Nina’s throat like a blade.
“What do you mean by that?”
“From what I know, the Elf Queen’s death is inevitable, as is the hypocrisy she wields. The beastmen are encamped on the northern edge of the great plains, but they haven’t brought the means to march on the elves. If they tried, they’d run out of supplies long before reaching the Royal Palace.”
Orman’s eyes glinted faintly, as if he could see straight through Nina—body and soul alike. But his next words filled her not just with dread but ignited a blazing fury within.
“Her name is Isabella, the Elf Queen.”
“You bastard…”
Nina shot to her feet from her throne, glaring at Orman with uncontainable fury. Ice crystals spiderwebbed across the walls, radiating a crystalline blue glow like flawless diamonds. The temperature plunged, the air so frigid it could shred the lungs of anyone who dared to breathe, freezing them solid from within.
The Winter Queen shuddered.
“Why do you know her? Why do you know her name, damn you…”
“It seems your intelligence network leaves much to be desired, Miss Nina.”
“!!!”
Nina locked eyes with his unflinching gaze, her mind a storm of conflicting emotions, questions crashing over her like tidal waves. She simply couldn’t fathom how a mere human had pierced the plan she and Isabella had meticulously plotted for years.
The rift between the elves, the engineered chaos, the airtight scheme masked as craven retreat… And if this man had foreseen Isabella’s every move, then surely…
“Word is, the Elf Queen and the Winter Queen are at bitter odds—the latter even staking out her own domain. That talk of friendship between the Northern Border Elves and Southern Border Elves? It’s all smoke and mirrors, a bond shattered beyond repair. Plenty of folks now see Frost Elves and Elves as two wholly distinct races.”
“You clashed twenty-seven years ago in a battle the whole world watched. The Elf Queen took a spear through half her body and lost. But that pact you made five years back? That’s hard fact, etched in stone.”
“You’ve been lying to me from the start, haven’t you…” Nina murmured, her voice low and hollow.
He knew it all.
She had no idea how he’d pulled it off, but the masquerade was over. It had failed.
Orman rose to his feet as well. He paid no heed to the seething queen, instead bowing his head to study the golden Holy Sword that gleamed in his grasp. His fingers traced the intricate patterns on its scabbard, along with the rain-streaked scars of battles long past—marks whispering of ages and antiquity.
“…”
“‘Gazing at the Past,'” Orman said, his eyes glinting faintly. “‘Omni-Vision’ holds no appeal for me. Your history, your past, everything you hold dear—it’s all laid bare before my eyes…”
“I only wanted to gauge how far you’d go. To figure out which side Kris is truly on. And that other one… The weak all share the same frailty. But what intrigues me most is who tipped you off about my arrival. Even among the gods, betrayal casts its shadow.”
“Now, hand over the Ice Holy Key. It’s the smart move for both of us. You’re no fool—you won’t want the Northern Border and Southern Border sharing the same grim fate.”
A faint smile curved Nina’s lips at Orman’s words.
Did Orman truly not know about the Ice Holy Key?
Her shock melted away in an instant, replaced by amusement. Smiling, she replied:
“If you want it so badly, then come take it~”
“If you can.”
