The corridors twisted and wound ahead, the spell marks along the walls flickering with faint, hazy light that provided only the barest illumination.
The passageways on Level B5 seemed endless. The silhouettes of the group slipped across the walls, vanishing an instant later.
With Antanas leading the way and carrying a map as an on-duty guard, they had sprinted along the optimal route from the very beginning.
Not until the group rushed at full tilt into the exit teleportation hall did Hyperion finally breathe a sigh of relief and set the Poet of Great Love steadily back onto the ground.
For a good while, she didn't dare loosen her hold, worried that the Poet of Great Love might collapse again.
Antanas, having reached the safe zone, immediately slipped into slacking-off mode. She felt there was basically nothing left that required her attention.
It was an inexplicable sort of confidence.
She figured that at most, when they headed down to Level B6 to negotiate with Pranay of Truth, she might have to follow the New King into the cell to act as an escort.
"I've finally reached this place after all this time," Sinora said with composure, standing in the teleportation hall and looking at Antanas, a hint of post-crisis relief showing on her face.
In truth, Sinora feared not only her own phantom, but the New King's even more. She couldn't begin to imagine how invincible the New King's phantom would be; it might obliterate her in a single face-off.
She looked ahead.
Standing atop the steps at the far end of the teleportation hall was a void teleportation gate, its deep-purple mirror surface shimmering with ripples of light.
The gate bore no danger warning, indicating that the space on Level B6 was relatively stable.
In the past, reaching this spot would have been useless anyway, as she had lacked the authorization to pass through the void portal.
Now, however, she possessed a legitimate Protos Empire identity and could walk out open and proud, which gave her an enduring sense of security.
Sinora wondered, though, why the New King had remained silent ever since arriving here.
The King must surely be deep in thought.
Even though the New King had already breezed through five consecutive floors of Herrom Prison, she surely wouldn't be so absentminded as to completely look down upon the place.
After all, besides the warden stationed on each floor, Herrom Prison had a troublesome head warden. The final, most difficult hurdle was bound to be Warden Bakas. When leaving Herrom Prison, they absolutely could not let him spot any flaws.
After a long time.
"..."
The Poet of Great Love snapped back to reality. Evidently, while being slung over Hyperion's shoulder on the run, he had made one hundred percent use of his time, holding quite a lengthy conversation with Warden Bakas over at the Protos Royal Magic Academy.
Now his focus returned to Herrom Prison.
"Could you tell me a bit about Pranay?" the Poet of Great Love asked, looking at Sinora.
Before heading down to the final level, Level B6, Lanqi decided to ask Sinora the Spellbreaker about Pranay of Truth.
It was already confirmed that the great demon on the final floor was Pranay of Truth, and Lanqi had long since heard the intel from the Ice Snow Witch passed on by Hyperion: the one closest to Pranay of Truth was Sinora the Spellbreaker.
The Ice Snow Witch considered Pranay an intractable and uncontrollable demon, but Lanqi had never understood the specific reason.
"Pranay is my older brother," Sinora explained helplessly. "We both hail from distinguished Demon Realm families, but compared to fighting, he preferred studying ancient demon ruins and ethics. He believed that war ran the risk of reducing centuries of Demon Realm culture and art to ashes, and he vigorously advocated investigating whether there was an invisible hand orchestrating that war from the shadows. However, the militant faction universally branded him a coward who feared battle and disrupted military morale."
Her brother was the genuine conservative; even she had taken the field far more often than he had.
"Didn't your brother's doubts make a lot of sense? Why wouldn't anyone listen?" Lanqi asked. He felt it was rare for the demon race to produce such a rational, wise figure.
As the only true civil official and scholar among the tier 8 great demons, his advice ought to have carried significant weight.
Looking back on the Holy War from the present day, the demons' motive for initiating hostilities, along with many inexplicable turning points throughout the conflict, left plenty of unexplained blanks.
Regardless of the specifics, judging purely by the ultimate outcome of the demons' defeat, Pranay had undeniably been proven right.
"Because my brother was far too cautious," Sinora replied. "If a battle didn't offer a hundred percent chance of victory, he would rather flee than fight. Everyone knew his temperament back then. His cowardice, dread of battle, and undermining of morale were also entirely real—they didn't accuse him falsely."
"..."
Lanqi and Hyperion exchanged a glance, feeling words catch in their throats.
The old Demon Realm truly was something else.
The great stage of demons: no act, no entry.
"Pranay believed that since the demons held absolute superiority and time on their side, if they truly wished to conquer humans, they should first learn to understand them," Sinora sighed, continuing as though lamenting that Pranay had been born into the wrong era. "By assimilating into human society and coexisting with them, demons could slowly encroach upon and erode human civilization from within. That was the conclusion he drew from deciphering ancient demon ruins."
His thinking, in fact, overlapped remarkably with the New King's.
"Yet not every demon possessed patience like Pranay's. It went against demon nature; they couldn't stand being so dawdling and tedious."
Perhaps the New King would be willing to listen to Pranay's words, though with the New King's wisdom and competence, there was no need for Pranay as a strategist anyway.
"What about your brother's innate magic?" Lanqi asked.
Lanqi now felt that the Ice Snow Witch's intelligence was rather abstract. Whenever he asked Hyperion, "What specific intel did the Ice Snow Witch share about the great demons?", Hyperion's answer basically boiled down to two points of ignorance: she didn't know this, and she didn't know that.
"He can see through falsehood. No magical disguise works against him, and in combat, he can predict his opponent's movements to a slight degree," Sinora answered.
Just as she prepared to elaborate further, she noticed the New King had already fallen into thought, seeming to understand this type of innate magic innately, so she decided against saying more.
After a while.
"It's a pity your brother lacked sufficient time to mature," the Poet of Great Love remarked with a sigh. "If he had reached tier 9, that Holy War might not have broken out at all."
It bore some similarity to the Blood Clan authority True Pupils of Blood possessed by the Blood Clan baron who had visited Purgatory Corridor Academy for an inspection. Although Pranay had not reached the level of seeing through souls, his innate magic could still evolve.
If specialized toward space, it would become Clairvoyance; if specialized toward time, Foresight.
Clairvoyance was more precise, capable of detecting changes across an entire nation's territory immediately. Foresight, while gazing further ahead, could not affect tier 9 entities and would interfere with other Prophets, making it less accurate than Clairvoyance.
Had Pranay chosen the path of Clairvoyance, he would likely be able to witness major events unfolding far away on the surface of the Protos Empire even from inside his prison cell.
Even an embryonic form of Foresight would yield glimpses and fragments, though they would likely lack precision.
"..."
Sinora stared at the New King, deeply moved that the King held her and her brother in such high esteem. After all, back in the old days, they had been anything but welcome.
"When we see my brother in a moment, I'll help you talk to him," Sinora said. "Knowing that Talia and Efatia haven't forgotten about us truly brings me immense comfort."
The Sinora siblings had once held key rear administrative positions in the Demon King's Castle. They had interacted very little with the frontline generals, but were quite familiar with demon royalty instead.
Among the surviving great demons, the two princesses were likely the only ones who had taken Pranay's words to heart.
"Then I'll leave it in your capable hands," Lanqi said.
In his heart, Lanqi felt fortunate that he was helping Talia rescue her demon friends.
None of them had forgotten her!
Once the final disputes here in the Northern Continent were resolved, Lanqi would definitely bring all of Talia's friends home and make sure they had a wonderful New Year!
Chapter 436