Am I going to be controlled by the players too?

Long tables stretched from one end of the hall to the other, with roast suckling pigs lying on silver platters, their skin golden brown and an apple stuffed in their mouths; whole tuna lay across a bed of ice, the flesh sliced ​​thinly and rearranged on the bones; lobsters were piled into towers, crab shells gleamed red, and oysters lay slightly open on crushed ice.

As soon as the silver lid of the hot food section was lifted, white steam rushed onto the crystal chandelier and then dispersed, while the aroma of mushroom soup and roast beef mingled together and filled the nostrils.

Cheng Cheng picked up the plate, and just as his fork pierced a piece of roast beef—

"Miss Funina?" A middle-aged man holding a wine glass approached. "It's an honor to meet you! I heard you soloed a Gold-tier monster in the dungeon? Truly remarkable for your age..."

“Miss Li Xianyu!” Another voice interrupted from the other side, “Do you remember me? I’m Captain Jess, remembering your heroic battles…”

Cheng Cheng, his mouth stuffed with beef, mumbled "uh-huhs" in response, already making his way towards the dessert area; Li Xianyu, on the other hand, accepted everything offered, collecting business cards while chatting with someone about the price trends of corpse futures...

The two were surrounded for nearly twenty minutes before they managed to squeeze out of the crowd under the pretext of "going to get some wine" and hide behind the curtains by the French windows on the balcony.

"These nobles are incredibly well-informed." Cheng Cheng popped a macaron into his mouth. "How long has it been since the underground city incident?"

"Gold is scarce to begin with, and now two of them have appeared, both young girls." Li Xianyu pulled a stack of business cards from her pocket, raising an eyebrow. "Here, I received these tonight. A few offered very good prices, do you want them?"

"Keep it for yourself."

"Hehe, I also think it's more fun to go on adventures with the boss," Li Xianyu chuckled. "But they say there's a thousand-year-old corpse in my family's ancestral grave, and I really want it..."

Cheng Cheng chewed on a macaron, his gaze sweeping over the crowd and landing on the empty head seat.

Just then, all the lights in the hall went out.

Darkness pressed down from the dome for several seconds until a beam of light fell from the dome, and Sylvia's figure finally appeared.

Cheng Cheng stopped chewing the macaron.

Sylvia wore a silver-white gown tonight, the skirt flaring out from below her waist like inverted lily petals; the skirt was adorned with delicate starlight patterns, and with each step she took, the silver threads changed angle with the light, as if she were wearing the entire starry sky on her body.

Her right hand rested on Count Villette's arm, while her left hand held up a section of her skirt, making her look as elegant as a true young lady.

Cheng Cheng watched her walk down the stairs, the starlight on her skirt shimmering with each step.

The light illuminated the faces of all the guests in the hall, and no one spoke.

Were you stunned?

In my mind, Freya's voice rang out, not like she was jealous, but rather stating a fact: "Actually, this is what she was originally like... I've known her since I was a child, she was like this, polite, perfect, a young lady without a single flaw, even more like a princess than me. But when we met again, she had turned into a crazy woman who would draw her sword at the drop of a hat. I don't know who led her astray."

Why bring this up? It's not like it's me.

Cheng Cheng opened his mouth, but his gaze remained fixed on Sylvia, unable to look away.

The girl's lips curved into a perfect smile, neither too deep nor too shallow, just enough for everyone to perceive her as smiling, completely unlike the white-haired figure in the dungeon who charged into the beast tide with a sword.

"Perhaps... I really have led her astray?"

Cheng Cheng was lost in thought.

Not far away, Princess Mary stood on the edge of the platform waiting for her—although the royal family was dwindling in number, there were still one or two members of the royal family alive. This 56-year-old princess, who had no husband or children, was the aunt of the current Queen Alvira.

If it weren't for the fact that carrying the source matter would consume one's lifespan, and that only girls under thirty years old were chosen to inherit the throne, she would be the most likely successor right now.

Sylvia walked up to the princess, lifted her skirt, performed a proper curtsy, and then offered her right hand, which was gloved with a white gauze.

"ladies and gentlemen."

The eldest princess grasped her fingertips, turned to the guests, and spoke softly, but the court sorcerer had already used magic to ensure that every word she uttered was clearly heard by the guests—

"It is an honor to stand here tonight and formally introduce to you a true gem. Her wisdom, her beauty, her character, and her manners are all impeccable—but I am not here to introduce a young lady."

The princess's voice rose an octave as she lifted Sylvia's hand, holding it up to the light, making the silver embroidery on her white gloves gleam: "I am introducing—the future of the Claire family, the pride of the kingdom, a man who slays a demon lord, is about to become a legend, and has proven himself worthy of the title 'hero' with sword and blood—"

“Miss Sylvia de Claire!”

boom! boom! boom!

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, golden and silver streams of light shot from the ground into the night sky, blooming simultaneously at the height of the dome, turning the entire roof of the manor into daylight.

Applause erupted from all directions, and wine glasses were raised, the amber liquid swirling in tiny ripples on the glass.

Sylvia stood at the edge of the platform, her silver-white gown layered with the colorful glow of fireworks.

Logically, she should then descend from the platform, clink glasses with the noble children of her age, and receive blessings from their parents; she would begin attending banquets, hunts, tea parties, and salons, and dance her first waltz with some young talent on the dance floor—

Starting tonight, her life officially embarks on that track walked by countless people, strewn with flowers and signatures...

But she didn't, and she never would.

Sylvia de Claire, now a hero who has slain the demon lord and a near-legend, is about to step onto the chessboard and become one of the players in human history.

She has embarked on a path fraught with blood and thorns, and she has no regrets.

The fireworks were still exploding, and the applause hadn't stopped.

Sylvia withdrew her hand from the princess's palm, pressed the gloved hand against her chest, and took a breath:

"I, Sylvia de Claire, have decided to officially participate in the Queen's Contest today—"

Boom boom boom—!

The girl's declaration was shattered by the sound of an explosion!

Chapter 94, The Night of the Assassination Attempt

"Boom boom boom—!"

A violent explosion ripped through the night sky, as if the foundation of the entire city had been punched from below. Crystal chandeliers shook violently, and specks of light swirled wildly across the marble floors. A wine glass slid off a table, the sound of it shattering being swallowed up by the next shockwave.

Everyone turned their heads at the same time.

Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, a mushroom cloud slowly rose, and the orange-red flames turned the entire night sky into daylight. The shockwave arrived three seconds after the sound, but it was blocked by the manor's magic array and slowly dissipated.

Sylvia was still standing on the high platform, staring at the sea of ​​fire in the east of the city, frozen in place.

Villette was the first to react. She leaped into the air, smashed through the glass window, and flew towards the direction of the explosion, reaching the outside of the manor wall in the blink of an eye.

The night wind rushed into the robes, causing the hem to flutter loudly.

The flames in the east of the city turned half the sky a dark red, and debris from buildings toppled by the shockwave was scattered across the streets for miles around. The air was filled with the smells of burnt wood and stone dust, which mingled together and filled the nostrils.

Soon, Villette landed 300 meters from the center of the explosion.

The asphalt road surface was softened by the heat, and the surrounding broken walls and ruins were piled up like small mountains. The center of the explosion was a huge crater with a diameter of nearly 100 meters, and even the soil at the bottom of the crater was burned into a glassy state.

Such a powerful attack must have come from a monster at least at the peak of the Gold rank... no, it should be a Platinum rank monster...

Damn it! Of all times!

Who did it? The Empire? Or the devil...?

As Vilette deduced who was behind it all, she unleashed a torrential downpour to extinguish the flames and summoned a fierce wind to disperse the smoke.

Then, his pupils contracted, and he saw a figure standing at the bottom of the pit.

The figure seemed to sense his gaze, raised its head, and through the surging heat and dust, Vilette saw a blurry face—then the mouth on that face curved slightly, and then the figure rose from the ground, without a trace of magical fluctuation, but shot straight into the night sky like a falling object, becoming a small dot on the sky in the blink of an eye!

Villette immediately gave chase, her eyes fixed on the increasingly smaller black dot ahead, her right hand spread wide, palm facing up.

A golden light seeped from his palm.

Behind him, threads of light intertwined, piled up, and rose upwards, finally coalescing into a colossal phantom of a judge. The phantom was thirty meters tall, its outline indistinct, but one could discern it wore heavy robes, its right hand gripping a gavel, raised high—

Villette and the phantom judge behind her spoke simultaneously, their voices overlapping, as if a deity held divine authority, ordaining the fate of all things:

"According to the amendment to the City Management Act, Article 1, Section 13, effective from the time of promulgation of this Act—"

As the gavel fell, a golden ripple spread outwards from the center of the gavel head. Wherever the ripples passed, the rules, according to Vilette's will, began to twist, compact, and finally settle.

"Except for law enforcement personnel who are officially authorized by the Royal Court, no individual may fly at a speed exceeding one meter per second."

The verdict is successful; the rules are in effect!

This is the true killing move of "justice": defining the rules of all things by the justice in one's heart!

The ripples spread like lightning, quickly catching up with the fleeing figure ahead, slowing it down to one meter per second as if it had crashed into an invisible wall!

At the same time, the distance between Villette and him rapidly decreased.

He reached out, fingers spread, fingertips almost touching the man's collar—

The figure stopped, slowly turned around, like a mouse chased to a corner suddenly turning around and baring its teeth.

The firelight illuminated his face.

Villette's fingers froze in mid-air, her pupils suddenly contracting!

"Your Highness... Prince."

He paused for a moment.

"You didn't die in the battle against the inverted demon—"

His words abruptly stopped, and the shock and nostalgia in Villette's eyes gradually faded. He withdrew his hand, his five fingers slowly curling into a fist:

“No.” His voice deepened. “You are—”

The prince smiled.

He was gentle and refined, reserved and polite, and his face had the same smile as in the portrait when he disappeared ten years ago, but in Villette's eyes, that smile was like a skin covering something.

"--demon."

The prince's eyes curved slightly, and then everything in Villette's vision began to turn upside down.

Everything related to direction—front, back, left, right, up, down—became upside down, causing chaos in space. The sky and the earth flickered and alternated before her eyes. Vilette tried to take a step, but instead of moving forward, she retreated rapidly, walking a hundred meters before stopping.

The prince's voice came from all directions—

"Shikai - Fall down, Gyōfu".

Welcome to the upside-down world.

Villette bit the tip of his tongue, and he looked up—no, he looked down—no, he looked in the direction where the prince had just been standing.

It was completely empty.

In this upside-down world, he was the only one left, suspended in the void where there was no distinction between up and down.

In the distance, torrential rain flew into the sky, firelight flowed into the ground, and the city skyline stretched out at our feet like an inverted sawtooth.

"An upside-down world... The demon trapped me here because..."

Villette gripped the scepter tightly, her knuckles turning white.

He could use the power of "justice" to constantly establish new rules and straighten out the chaotic space—but by then, the devil would have already accomplished what he wanted to do!