Chapter 188 Because I Don’t Want to

That's not even the current 1.0 plot!

The name of the 3.0 expansion is [Shadow of Avalon], and this is also the version in which the Tail Ring Ritual first appears.

The arrival of the Fallen Angels takes place outside of the main storyline. More specifically, it's a story that takes place in the 3.0 trailer. However, the Shadow Angels of Avalon arrive after the main boss of 3.0, the Fallen Angels who descended upon Star Antimony, is defeated.

The "someone" who was once a puppet of Xingti but is now independent and summoned Ying Tiansi is Isabel (the doll).

——This is the core of the Star Antimony Kingdom’s conspiracy, and it is also the reason why they dare to directly attack Avalon.

They used the most advanced technology - using golems, alchemy, rituals and necromancy - to create a replica of Princess Isabel, a puppet loyal to the Star Antimony. It even had an independent consciousness and could act independently without receiving orders.

Aside from the joints hidden beneath her clothes, she looked identical to Isabel.

Of course, her personality is very different from Isabel's. And because of her low intelligence in autonomous action mode, as long as the ministers have normal brains, they can easily see that she is just a puppet.

——But having a puppet as a cover is enough.

On the surface, Avalon was still controlled by the royal bloodline—even if it wasn't authoritarian, it was better than nothing. Ministers who betrayed Avalon and defected to Starry Sky wouldn't be blamed, and the hatred of the Avalonians wouldn't be entirely focused on the Starry Sky people.

People would only think that Avalon had lost a war and therefore signed a contract to sell out their interests, but they would never think that their new queen was just a puppet of the Star People.

Because in version 3.0, Isabelle became famous for defeating the Fallen Angels with the support and help of the Theocracy, people began to wonder - if it was Isabelle who defeated the Fallen Angels, then who was their queen?

It wasn't until the 3.2 episode that the puppet lost control of the Star Man and was forced to learn about Isabel's past. Eventually, the puppet gradually awakened to its own heart—or rather, it gradually lost control. She truly began to believe that she was Isabel.

I've forgotten the plot in between, but in version 3.4, the Puppet Lady and the Puppet Queen learned of the existence of the "Shadow of Avalon" and ultimately chose to sacrifice her brother John as Isabel, attempting to summon their ancestor, Lancelot I, to protect Avalon.

However, the summoning failed.

The summoning is bound to fail.

Because the ceremony that Merlin arranged before he became an apostle had long been modified by Lancelot's adoptive mother and Merlin's ex-girlfriend, Vivian, the lake fairy of the Path of Love.

After completing her great mission as a mother, Vivian also successfully became an apostle.

But she was not Hengwo's apostle, but became Yingtiansi's apostle.

According to the rules of the Path of Love, both superiors and subordinates are in love. Therefore, she can be considered the daughter or lover of Shadow Tiansi, and Lancelot is Shadow Tiansi's grandson - this is also the reason why he went to the Shadow Kingdom for training instead of becoming an apostle of the Silver Crown Dragon.

Vivian's original intention was probably to prevent Lancelot from being reborn.

Because everyone knows that if Lancelot dies again after rebirth, he will leave the Shadow Kingdom forever and become an apostle of the Silver Crown Dragon. But if he fails to resurrect, he will remain here as a warrior of the Shadow Kingdom forever.

Although Lancelot treated her badly, Vivian still loved him one-sidedly.

As a foster mother, a mentor, and also a lover.

Those who are transcendent in the path of love always have difficulty controlling their desires, and tend to mix and confuse different desires.

The reason why Lancelot treated her badly after he grew up was very simple - because Vivian did not raise Lancelot as an orphan, but fell in love with him after seeing him as a baby, and then stole him away from his parents.

But perhaps it was because Huan Tiansi had tampered with it, or perhaps it was just a coincidence, or perhaps the inspiration for the "Tail-Bearing Ring" ritual was this ritual... In short, after being modified by Vivian, this ritual just happened to become the "Tail-Bearing Ring".

When she modified the ritual, Huan Tiansi had not yet taught it to humans.

Lancelot's still-living body became the "living sacrifice" required for the Tail Ring ritual, and his close kinship with Shadow Sky became the foundation of the ritual.

The spark of the ceremony is the ignorant and pure desire in the heart of the puppet queen.

Wanting to live as a human being, as "Isabelle du Lac"—

The result was that the ritual absorbed John's blood, the puppet queen's heart, and Lancelot's body, turning it into a full-scale "Tail Ring" ritual and directly dragging Ying Tiansi down.

——To be honest, Ying Tiansi must be also very confused.

Because it is impossible for a celestial being to want to be dragged down by the Tail Ring - even if they are killed, they can be reborn in the dream world, but if they die in the material world, they will no longer be celestial beings after rebirth.

Although the phantom will be reborn after death, the "equipment" will be dropped.

Ordinary phantom demons don’t have much equipment, but Tianshi have authority... that is, their Tianshi fragments.

If you die in the dream world, you can be resurrected with full health as long as the person who killed you is not a fellow warrior who can absorb your fragments. However, if you die in the material world, the fragments will fall directly into the void.

It is the disintegration of this part of authority and the re-emptying of the occupied power nodes that allow the extraordinary on this path to break through their limits and make further progress. It was after Ying Tiansi died once in the material world that the rare shadow power was finally unlocked.

Now that the puppet queen is gone, Aiwas can't say whether Ying Tiansi will be able to successfully descend.

But he was certain that Vivian had definitely changed the ritual. In other words, no matter what, it couldn't be Lancelot who descended. Perhaps it would be Vivian, or perhaps it would still be Shadow Tiansi. The best chance was his former brothers, the other knights who had become apostles of the Silver Crown Dragon, but it definitely couldn't be Lancelot.

But another troublesome thing came.

That is, Aiwass could not stop the Queen from performing the ritual.

—Now that twenty members of the royal family have died, the ceremony only needs one more step to be completed. And then you, an outsider who has never heard of this ceremony before, suddenly jump out and say, "There's something wrong with this ceremony, stop it immediately"?

There's no need to think about it, he can't be persuaded.

Even if she knew there was a problem, the old lady would definitely give it a try.

Because without Lancelot's protection, Avalon would have found it difficult to survive the painful period - and this is indeed the case. Without Lancelot, Avalon was directly defeated by Xingti's F2A wave.

However, the world level is currently too low, and few people can even reach the upper limit.

If you want to change all this, you have to wait until the big event of version 2.0... At that time, the upgrade speed will increase suddenly.

If they really pull out Ying Tiansi now, they will be doomed - at this time, the whole world cannot gather a sixth-level team, and the demon incarnations of the Rosicrucian Society are all stuck at the fifth level, the upper limit of the level.

If you are not at the sixth energy level, how can you possibly defeat the descending Heavenly God... If you don't have enough priority, you can't even break through the defense.

That would mean Avalon would drag the whole world down with him.

...Then, let's think back. Is it possible to fix this ritual?

It's not impossible.

If Merlin is summoned and told that Vivian has changed something in his ritual... can he find a way to change it back?

This is like a one-off program I wrote when I left my job over 400 years ago. Because it was a one-off, I didn't include any comments. Now the program is ready to run, but it has a bug. I hope he can come back to the company and fix it now.

... Aiwass thought about it and felt that there didn't seem to be much hope.

The best option would be to destroy the ritual directly. This wasn't difficult, since the ritual's foundation was Lancelot's body.

Although Aiwass couldn't understand this complex apostle-level ritual...but if he wanted to fundamentally solve the problem, all he had to do was kill Lancelot. Lancelot's body was the foundation of the ritual, and his death would automatically terminate the ritual.

After all, it was just a body without a soul. It was like a sixth-level powerhouse in a deep, inescapable slumber, making it easy to kill.

But if that happened, there would be no turning back. He would have to prepare other means to fight against Xingti.

However, Her Majesty the Queen basically did not think about it in that direction.

This wasn't a plan orchestrated by Avalon, after all, but a flexible countermeasure to the conspiracy of Star Antimony and Iris. To have devised a counterattack in such a completely passive situation, surrounded by enemies, and facing internal and external troubles was already remarkable. And now, with less than a year to go, if Aiwass demands a complete overhaul...

Tsk, my tooth hurts a bit.

Aiwass suddenly felt that knowing too much was not a good thing.

As a result, no matter how he moved, it seemed to lead to unexpected situations.

…Logically, we could just let the story unfold. Let Avalon perish, let them flee, and eventually the problem should be solved… Let Avalon rise from the ashes, reborn in the flames.

But can he do that?

Aiwass rejected it without a second thought.

There's no complicated reason.

——Because I don’t want to.

Chapter 2: I’ll write it after I get a meal!

(End of this chapter)