Am I going to be controlled by the players too?

…………

Silverlight City, Royal Palace.

Vilette was enraged when she saw Peng Longteng leading the elven army into the palace, and she raised her gavel high behind her:

"Peng Longteng, is the Empire going to wage war without a declaration?!"

"A war without declaration? Don't be so hasty."

Peng Longteng composed himself, glanced at the still-stalemate between the Holy Maiden and the Inverted Demon, took out a golden imperial edict from his robes, and read aloud:

"By the Mandate of Heaven, the Emperor decrees—"

"I have heard that the former ruler of Konoma has passed away, and chaos has descended from the heavens, causing the imperial regalia to fall into the wrong hands and the country to be without a ruler. Before, the crown prince was in hiding, fleeing to the mountains and forests; now, a powerful minister is abusing his power, arbitrarily holding a general election, and actually trying to allow a commoner to usurp the rightful throne of the royal family!"

The mandate of Heaven is constant, but virtue is its guide; bloodlines are passed down, witnessed by the gods. Konoma has stood for a thousand years, its royal power stemming from a single lineage. How can such a mere upstart be allowed to alter it overnight? Now, a false system prevails, propriety and music have collapsed, loyal ministers weep blood in court, and the people tremble in fear in the wilderness. This is not merely a tragedy for Konoma, but a perilous situation of the loss of the true Way.

As the supreme ruler of all nations, and with the duty of governing the world, how could I bear to see our nation, sharing the same origins, fall into the hands of barbarians, and our legitimate lineage die out in the hands of powerful ministers? Now, responding to the tearful pleas of the loyal and virtuous elders of Konoma, I have no choice but to obey Heaven and the people, unleash my thunderous wrath, and raise an army to punish them.

Upon the arrival of the imperial edict, it spread like wildfire, reaching every corner of the land.

—So be it.

After finishing his reading, he smiled at the saintess and said, "We sent troops to cleanse the court of corrupt officials and support the royal family for the sake of peace in our neighboring country. The Holy See should have no objection, right?"

"Bullshit!" Vilette roared. "We've already found the rightful princess, how can this be considered usurping the throne?"

"Princess? Where is she?"

Peng Longteng was slightly taken aback. After receiving the Empress's decree, she immediately led her troops into the underground city. She could not receive any signals from the outside world and was unaware of the changes that had occurred in the palace in the past hour.

"Isn't this him?"

Villette pointed to Cheng Cheng, who had shrunk into a safe corner.

"What a ridiculous claim! You're pointing at a deer and calling it a horse, and you still say you're not a treacherous minister?" Peng Longteng was amused. "Vilette, Your Highness is only nineteen. What are you pointing at with that little brat?"

"She really is!"

"The Imperial Army has arrived in your territory. This war is not for the slaughter of lives—it is to thwart the usurpation of power by treacherous officials." Peng Longteng pretended not to hear, raising his voice an octave. "Those who know what's good for them will hand over the real princess and kneel to receive the decree. Otherwise—"

Before she could finish speaking, the Inverted Demon beside her once again expanded its domain, engulfing the several elven soldiers behind Peng Longteng in an inverted space.

Peng Longteng retaliated with a slash!

The blade cleaved into the distorted space, shattering it before dissipating.

"There's still one demon to deal with," the saintess's voice descended from the sky. "General Peng, can we kill the demon first before we start arguing?"

"None of my business."

Peng Longteng slashed at the Holy Maiden with his sword: "Stop being so indecisive, like a woman. If you want to lose face for the Holy Kingdom, I'll beat you up too!"

"clang--!"

The blade flashed through the air, but was blocked three inches in front of the saintess by a phantom image of an ouroboros. The saintess took half a step back, and the mercury serpent beneath her feet emitted a low hiss.

The inverted demon stood at the edge of the square, watching this scene, a wider smile spreading across his face: "General, I am Prince Konoma. Why not join me in eliminating this treacherous minister? Afterwards, I will represent the kingdom in submitting to His Majesty the Emperor?"

"I already said I'd beat you up too!"

Peng Longteng swung his sword again, but the demon immediately reversed the target of the attack, turning the sword back towards Peng Longteng himself!

"According to the 'Regulations on the Management of Controlled Knives,' the use of Kaifeng knives is prohibited in this area!"

The judge behind Villette struck the gavel, and another law was established. Peng Longteng's weapon disappeared, leaving him to withstand the blow with his bare body!

"Pfft!"

Peng Longteng reached out to stop him, but the blade flashed and slashed into his palm, splitting it in two. The blade then cut three or four centimeters into his forearm, cleaving his arm in two, flesh and bone flying everywhere!

"Damn it, Vilette, are you trying to trip me up?"

Peng Longteng cursed angrily, and the wound on her hand disappeared instantly. In its place, a faint white mark appeared on the palms of tens of thousands of elven soldiers behind her.

"You started this mess first," Vilette scoffed.

Vilette and the Saintess were already struggling to find any help in their battle against the legends, but now the arrival of that madwoman Peng Longteng has not only failed to provide any assistance in their fight against the demons, but has also sparked a civil war between Vilette and her. The three legends are now scheming against each other, making the battle situation even more unpredictable.

Seeing that Vilette and Peng Longteng were fighting, the Saintess's rewind was slowed down. The Inverted Demon, seeing his opportunity, chuckled and raised both hands simultaneously:

"reverse!"

Centered on him, the ground within a radius of several hundred meters simultaneously flipped, and everyone's feet slipped into the air, causing them to fall deep into the earth!

Peng Longteng roared, and the power of millions of troops converged on her. She slashed at the falling space wall with her sword, tearing a gash in it.

Vilette simultaneously issued a new decree, ordering the ground to become the ground again. The saint's mercury serpent bit its tail once more, reversing time and returning the fallen soldiers to their original positions.

But the inverted demon had already vanished once again during this moment of chaos.

"clang--!"

He was once again pulled back to the starting point by the saintess's time reversal.

The Saintess was constantly using wide-range rewinds, still targeting the Demon Lord, and a thin layer of sweat had formed on her forehead. Her authority was being consumed far more than the demon's; if this continued, she would inevitably be overturned sooner or later!

Vilette and Peng Longteng also slowed down their internal strife, and then charged towards the demon together!

"reverse."

The attack was deflected, and the two were struggling to deal with their own moves before launching another attack!

……

The battle quickly settled into a stalemate. Vilette continuously formulated laws to restrain the demons while strengthening her teammates. Peng Longteng led his massive army in repeated attacks, while the Saintess was responsible for initiating a rewind when the situation became irreversible...

Meanwhile, Vilette and Peng Longteng were wary of each other and neither went all out. Instead, they maintained their attack frequency in tacit agreement, guarding against the other party's sudden attack!

The noble ministers and palace guards had already fled when the war started. Only some of the reporters were reckless, their minds filled with the bloodthirsty idea that it would be worth dying for to watch this war, and they insisted on setting up their cameras to broadcast live.

Cheng Cheng, however, did not go far.

He, Sylvia, and Li Xianyu hid on the edge of the battlefield, occasionally launching an attack at the demon to distract it.

that's enough.

The use of authority is not without limitations, and one must maintain the highest level of concentration during battle, otherwise it is easy for the opponent to find a loophole. While the inverted demon is constantly rebounding and dodging legendary attacks, it also has to deal with the attacks of Cheng Cheng and others. Under continuous consumption, magic power and mental power will inevitably be unable to hold on first!

Besides them, Navel did not escape either.

Her eyes were filled with fighting spirit, and her right hand was raised high. She had already unleashed more than a dozen Five-Finger Fist Heart Swords at the inverted demon!

This move was originally extremely energy-consuming, and he wouldn't be able to withstand the rebound from the demon, but the saintess was there!

Every time her magic was exhausted, or she was cut to pieces by the reflected sword light, the saintess would rewind in time and restore her state... Navel had used the Five Fingers Heart Sword for half her life, and she was always very careful. She didn't even dare to use it like that for the fourth sword. She had never had such a satisfying fight before!

"Chance!"

Just then, seizing the moment when the Saintess rewound Navel, the Inverted Demon finally stopped holding back and unleashed its long-awaited ultimate attack—

"A Thousand Layers Stripped Away, Myriad Splendors Misplaced!"

It crouched down and inserted the five fingers of its right hand into the ground.

The Hanged Man's authority allows him to invert all concepts, and the devil's greatest skill is inverting space!

In an instant, the palace and the underground city were switched places. The ruins of the square in front of the palace disappeared from their original location and were replaced by the desert of the fifteenth level of the underground city.

Yellow sand rolled over everyone's ankles, the eternal white sun overhead, then the black sea of ​​the sixth level, the boundless city of the eighth level... layer after layer, every level of the underground city was moved to the palace by the inverted demons, overlapping, intersecting, and squeezing.

One moment they might be in the desert, the next step would lead them to the Black Sea. Space was in complete chaos as it kept overlapping, and the rules of each layer began to conflict with each other. The red moon over the fourteenth layer, which was stained with blood and maple forest, had just risen when it was burned through by the eternal white sun of the fifteenth layer.

Villette's decrees flickered in and out of these overlapping spaces, forcing him to apply the laws to organize the space.

Just as the saintess was about to rewind, she discovered that the overlapping of spaces compressed her rewind range to a few dozen meters around her; Peng Longteng's army was divided into different levels of spatial fragments, each fighting its own battle.

The inverted demon stands at the intersection of all the spatial fragments.

Its domain resonated with the rules of each level of the dungeon, forming an ever-changing labyrinth, and then it raised its hand.

Monsters poured out from every layer of spatial fragments: limbs, death moths, multi-rabbits, gruesome corpses, faceless spirits, harpies—tens of thousands of monsters poured out from the spatial rifts and pounced on everyone present!

"kill!"

At Peng Longteng's command, the elven soldiers raised all kinds of weapons, and bullets rained down on the demonic tide!

Cheng Cheng sighed, switched control target to Sylvia, and then pulled out the Dragon Roar from the box; Li Xianyu squatted on top of a leaning stone pillar, a bamboo flute held to her lips, and the Corpse Immortal of Myriad Industries crawled out from the shadow at her feet, each of its four arms grabbing a demon's head and smashing it to the ground.

"Freya!"

Cheng Cheng roared as he slashed down a magical beast.

Freya emerged from behind Sylvia, raising her staff high. A fiery dragon, Yanlongxiao, erupted from the tip of the staff, grazing Cheng Cheng's head and burning a whole row of charging corpses to ashes.

Cheng Cheng turned around and looked at the constantly distorting space in the center of the square.

The three legends are still locked in a battle with the Inverted Demon, which constantly alters the rules of the surrounding space. Every time Peng Longteng's longsword strikes, its direction is deflected. Vilette's decree, just issued, is reversed in meaning. The Saintess's ability to rewind is becoming increasingly limited...

Just then, Peng Longteng's strength suddenly suffered a significant and undeniable drop. She almost immediately broke away from the battle, took a few steps back, and then angrily cursed at Vilette: "Damn it! What have you done now?"

“I didn’t do anything!” Vilette said, feeling wronged.

"Bullshit! I brought a thousand soldiers, how could my strength be..." Peng Longteng suddenly froze, "Strange, did I only bring a thousand men?"

She looked around and saw an army of a thousand men using various weapons, continuously striking the monsters on the periphery under the shared power of her "Chariot" card.

The "chariot" allows her to concentrate the power of a million-strong army in one body, and also to distribute her own injuries among the soldiers. Therefore, her combat power fluctuates greatly—the amount of troops she leads determines the amount of power she possesses.

But as she racked her brains, she realized that she had only brought a thousand soldiers, yet she had fought her way to the palace...

Why was the power so much stronger before?

Suddenly, another wave of dizziness washed over her. Looking at the five hundred soldiers around her, her senses began to blur…

Seeing that the opponent's attack had weakened, the inverted demon took two steps back, opened its arms, and was about to pull in more layers of underground space when it suddenly stopped in place.

In its perception and consciousness, the underground city only had twenty floors.

The dungeon is the passage from the human world to the abyss, so as the demon lord, it naturally possesses partial control over the dungeon... Therefore, it can clearly perceive that the dungeon truly only has twenty floors, and in its own memory, there are only twenty floors...

This is unreasonable!

These twenty levels are all named after the 22 legendary flames, each corresponding to one of them. However, the levels for "World" and "Pope" are missing... It just doesn't make sense...

"Watch out! The source matter hasn't found a container for too long and has started to riot!"

The saintess was the first to realize the reason.