The sound of synchronized footsteps echoed throughout the city, and the people were all driven to the vicinity of the city gate. The queen ignored the crowd's questions and strode forward. When someone mentioned her child, she turned around and drew a guard's sword, stabbing him.
Unfastening her blood-splattered cloak, she traversed the thorny thicket and spotted the two figures beneath the wall from afar.
Ahead of them stood a squad of guards who had just been petrified. The three of them gazed at each other across the irregularly positioned stone statues.
Shekh sat on a thick haystack, holding an apple in his left hand. He glanced at the Queen once before lowering his head to eat the apple.
Shi Jinzhe had just said that no matter what they said in a moment, she should plug her ears and not take it seriously.
The Queen stopped seven or eight meters away, her expression cold, as if she hadn't expected Sheikh to sit so easily on the haystack eating an apple.
Especially when I saw Shekh’s legs, I wondered if the god had run out of divine power.
【no. 】
Upon hearing the warning, the Queen decided to stop. These two were indeed suspicious.
Having observed Shekh before, when she looked at him again, she saw his half-grown white hair and realized that he was the so-called messenger.
The two held hands, their intimacy undeniable. The Queen remarked sarcastically, "So it was you who had him spread those rumors."
"What rumors?" Shekh looked up and asked.
“I’m talking about rumors.” Shi Jinzhe was multitasking, channeling life force into Shehe with his hands behind his back, while still retorting, “I said that she sacrificed her own child to the god of prayer to protect her people, which is truly moving.”
As if oblivious to how hurtful those words were, he repeated them verbatim to the Queen, "Not specifying how you'll die is already a sign of my respect for you."
These words stirred up the Queen's memories; the skin behind her temples tightened, and her eyes felt as if they were being burned.
"To satirize a mother who has lost her child, you believer are truly despicable."
She held her breath and said, "I will tell your parents this in person when you die."
Shi Jinzhe grabbed Shehe's shoulder and gestured to her to clear her mind and not think about anything.
“There are many kinds of altars. If you’re talking about a sacrificial altar, then I really can’t go up there.”
Shi Jinzhe had no intention of thoroughly understanding the Queen's experiences, nor did he expect the Queen to come to some understanding. He simply wanted to make things clear so as to buy more time.
The wall's energy cannot be absorbed. Facing the Queen, who has the system's assistance, it would be safer for Shekhdo to evolve once.
He was ruthless, saying, "You lost your husband because you were too naive, and you lost your child because you weren't mature enough. How did your husband die? How did your child get lost? What about your responsibilities as a mother?"
"Even if you were a princess or a duke's wife, surrounded by servants and with plenty of people to help you take care of your child, if you bring your child from your first marriage to a place that even the old king is wary of, what about the others, even if the duke treats them sincerely?"
"Frozen Harbor is a place of conflict, and the enemy country has been suffering from drought for years, with starving people and constant religious disputes. Don't you know how many conflicts there are? Or have you, this princess who doesn't know anything about the world, never understood it?"
"Your husband's poisoning only made you see power, but not the whole picture. Since you hate her, why do you keep using her name to appease people of the same faith? Why do you usurp her power? If you hate her so much, why don't you gouge out your own eyes?"
The barrage of questions assaulted the Queen's mind, leaving her dizzy and enraged. She laughed bitterly, her voice rising, "That's what she owes me! My child died because of her, she..."
"She did nothing wrong."
The Queen seemed to hear a joke and retorted defiantly, "Isn't my child an innocent victim? She accepted offerings, her idols are stained with blood, she did nothing wrong, so am I wrong?!"
"Of course you're wrong!"
Shi Jinzhe emphasized each word, each syllable like a needle: "Your mistake lies in your incompetence."
"you…!"
"You're so stupid you don't even realize it. You think you're a knife, but you're just meat on the chopping board, rotten and stinking meat."
The Queen swayed as if she couldn't stand, took a half step back, and felt a metallic taste of blood rising in her throat.
She forced out a sentence through gritted teeth, "You're asking for it..."
Her purple eyes glowed, and the queen raised her arm, unleashing a cloud of dark blue poison gas that shot towards Shi Jin's face.
He remained motionless, gripping Shech's right hand tightly, accelerating the final catalysis.
Seeing the poison gas approaching and about to encircle Shi Jinzhe, Shehe silently stood up, exerted his strength, and switched places with Shi Jinzhe, standing in front of him.
Her second evolution was completed at an unprecedented speed; in the blink of an eye, a purple snake molt floated down from before Shi Jinzhe's eyes.
The thin yet resilient snake skin caught the dark blue poison gas. The moment the snake skin withdrew, the offense and defense switched, and the snake tail, its color deepening again, lashed out at the queen, shattering the ground with a powerful blow.
Shi Jinzhe didn't see that Shekh's expression was gloomy and somber the moment he completed his second molt, and the murderous aura emanating from him only erupted when he approached the Queen.
He was pushed away from the center of the fight, and the Queen took the opportunity to quickly turn around, pulling a thin purple membrane from her sleeve with one hand to avoid being whipped.
She retorted provocatively, "Does this look familiar? It's your snakeskin."
Yes, mine.
To the Queen's astonishment, Shekh broke free of the snake's skin, grabbed the Queen by the neck, and slammed her heavily to the ground.
She gripped the Queen, her fingers tightening, and her body slammed into the ground, creating a large crater. Through the ribbon, she stared into those purple eyes that did not belong to the Queen.
The two locked eyes, and the Queen was completely restrained and unable to move.
Shekh's gaze was like a soul-capturing act; purple energy, shimmering with iridescent light, rose and floated from the Queen's pupils, converging into tiny, ribbon-like points of light.
Their eyes were like hourglasses that hadn't been tightly bound; the power that Shekh had once lost was actively seeking its return, pouring up from bottom to top, as if time had begun to flow backward.
As the power within her was drained, fine lines appeared at the corners of the queen's eyes, and traces of time began to show on her face.
She couldn't see Shekh's eyes, but she sensed a very strong killing intent.
An invisible, chilling wind made her tremble, cutting her hair into disarray as if it had been slashed by a knife.
This was a sense of pressure she hadn't felt when she faced Shekh the last time.
No, I should say I've never experienced it.
Even when she was tricked into coming to this place last time, when she knew that something was going to take away her power, Shekh had never shown such a powerful aura.
The Queen could not imagine how those compassionate, merciful eyes could display such an icy expression.
"Why…"
Her voice was hoarse because her neck was being choked, and her throat was painfully constricted.
"Curious that I have this side to me?"
Shekh kept looking into her eyes, seeing right through the Queen's thoughts.
Thanks to Shi Jinzhe's last-minute change of plans, he used his own purest essence of life force to catalyze her transformation. The effect of the blood was several times greater than before; even if she absorbed all the polluted walls, she wouldn't have achieved such a good result.
A voice powerful enough to destroy one's will emanated from beside the Queen's face, Shekh drawing out the last syllable, "You should know this perfectly well."
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