Her face was flawless and paler than a white jade, giving more contrast to her vibrant green eyes. Just like her mother, her hair was golden and glittered with her every move.
Near her golden hair, Elydir Luberus' blond-like hair would be considered dim and opaque, leaving him in shame.
Seth felt that she was the most perfect delicate fairy that existed. Her face shocked him to the core and he forgot to reprimand her for deceiving him about her real identity.
He kept looking at her and she did the same, however, the Elf Princess was feeling guilty after recalling that she deceived the man that just arrived before her. He came out of nowhere, but saved her from a bad elf that wanted to do bad things.
The entire situation left them both speechless, since they didn't know how to react properly to one another and the silence remained for some minutes.
Seth was already accustomed to see the epitome of beauty, since Serene was his girlfriend, so he was able to get his composure back after some time. He felt that the situation between them was very embarrassing and decided to break the ice and ask something he wanted to know.
"Who are you really?"
The Elf Princess turned her head down in embarrassment. Out of all possible questions that Seth could make, he chose to do the one that made her feel embarrassed the most first. It was the question that made her remember of her shameful behavior of lying to him.
"Eh... Ahn..."
"No lies this time around." He said while giving her a deep look.
"I'm sorry, it was not my intention to deceive you, but mother said it was necessary for me to protect myself, especially if the other person was a human."
"Mother?" Seth recalled that this person was a shut-in and realized that that part of the story might have been real.
"Ah, yeah. I shouldn't be telling anyone this, but..." The Elf princess saw that she would not leave this situation if she didn't tell him the truth.
She lifted her head and said: "My name is Rina and I am the Elf Queen's daughter."
"What?! The Elf Queen's daughter?!"
The Elf Princess nodded.
"Wait... That doesn't seem right."
"Why not???"
"Why would you be here in this competition? You would absolutely gain nothing participating on it."
"I... I am not here for the competition... I came hidden from my mother, just like what I did at that time in the forest."
"Holy shit! If the Elf Queen finds me with you, I'll be dead."
"No... Mother is a bit strict, but she wouldn't do something like that."
'A bit strict? She practically caged you inside the royal palace, girl...'
"Your mother must love you dearly, she probably did it to protect you from any harm." That was the only plausible scenario Seth could think off.
"Yeah, I think you're right... She said once, that I should never trust any human, since they are very cunning, however, I feel that you seem a bit different."
"..."
"Well, you don't have to worry, since I won't harm you. Actually, I'm really curious about what brought you here, was it to explore the dungeon?"
"Ah, no. I wanted to get some Spirit Enhancement Stones."
"Hm? Are there Spirit Enhancement Stones here?"
"Yeah. They say there are a lot of them inside the core region."
Seth almost had a heart attack after hearing her words.
"Are you perhaps crazy, girl? The core region is where the strongest beasts live in. With our strength we would undoubtably die in less than a second there."
"Ehhh??? I didn't know about that..."
"Sigh... Come on, you should leave this place while there is still time."
"Eh? Why?"
"Didn't you see what that elf did just now? There is a huge thing happening inside this dungeon and only those strong enough will be able to leave this place with their lives. The others are going to serve as nutrients for the raging wild beasts. The strength of the beasts around here is not enough to threaten you, but once the inner layer beasts break through that layer and come here, things are going to get wild."
"But that is impossible. I heard that there is an energy wall separating each layer and it serves as an obstruction for beasts only. They can't step out of their territory because of that."
"Heh... That would be correct if the situation we are right now wasn't so special. The barrier is still working since I have seen it before, but there are already some beasts constantly trying to break it and rip it apart."
That barrier was the main reason for Seth not going towards Caizhi's group first. The other reason being because of the existence of the Eleventh Palace Master of the Glazed Lake Sect.
That barrier was not able to stop Seth's Soul Sense too, so he had a very clear vision of what was happening there. After Elyra and Elyon had their fight, she tried to find those people she witnessed receiving his orders, but all she was able to find, were Mana Perception and Mana Control corrupted wild beasts. They fought each other or attacked her without stop.
Seth saw that after infecting most of the beasts, the members of the Secret Security Unit one after the other, used their talismans to leave the dungeon and a bad feeling started to rise inside his heart.
'Why are they leaving?'
Suddenly, Seth saw some cracks appearing on that protective layer surface. The cracks were expanding very quickly and with each attack the barrier received, they grew a bit more.
CRACK!
Everyone inside the dungeon heard what seemed to be the sound of the entire world splitting in half and they started to look towards everywhere, trying to search for the cause.
The Elf Queen had just entered the dungeon and was about to use her aura and search for her daughter when she heard that loud noise.
She concentrated her attention at a certain direction and felt that the sound was coming from the inner layer barrier.
After that, she heard the sound of the dungeon door behind her closing. When she turned back, the door had already disappeared.
"A trap?" The Elf Queen was not as na?ve as her daughter was and realized instantly that she fell in a trap, however, she didn't panic. Immediately she realized that Allannia or Elyon were the ones that probably did it, but it wouldn't be that easy to ask them why now.
Everyone inside the dungeon was trapped there without the chance to leave, only those who had that talisman would be able to leave, but no one actually knew the severity of the situation. Many groups continued to hunt for more beast core as if nothing has happened.
The Young Master of the Luberus Family, Elydir Luberus was one of the few people that understood what was actually happening. He knew that the orders were for him to leave as soon as the signal was done. But instead of doing that, he decided to stay behind since he wanted to do something else first.
"What just happened, Young Master Elydir?" Wang Lei's group was together with him, since they randomly met inside the dungeon. They agreed to hunt for the other humans and some other groups together, what was convenient for Elydir. However, Wang Lei didn't know anything about the signal, since he was left out of that. In fact, he didn't even know if there would be any signals, he just wanted to know what was that loud sound from before.
"Don't worry, it's part of the plan. Let's go we are already late..."
Elydir's group was a bit special. Outside of Wang Lei, a Profound Mana initial-stage Realm practitioner and his five disciples, he was actually being accompanied by four Mana Control Elves from his family. They came disguised as competitors while using some artifacts to suppress their aura. Elydir was the fifth member, while his father was the protector.
Elyon left right at the beginning, leaving his son in the protection of those four.
"Found them!" One of those four Mana Control practitioners, was very good on finding targets and he has been scouting for Caizhi's group. It was Elydir's orders that he was following for now.
"Good! Where are they?"
"They are four kilometers towards that direction, hunting a Qi Transformation middle-stage beast." He pointed towards the east.
"Let's hurry, we are running out of time."
'Running out of time?' Wang Lei didn't understand those words thoroughly, but he started to feel that something was off, just that there was no way for him to check it.
.
.
.
Bang!
The dead body of a Qi Transformation middle-stage beast dropped down and Xiurong extracted its core precisely.
Out of all of the groups that were competing, they were the ones that had the greatest number of cores, but there wasn't a way for them to know about it.
Seth has left for almost two hours already and there were no signs of his return. The girls kept hunting for all this while, but they decided to stop after this beast they had killed.
"Ahhh, finally... Time to rest." Jiayi sat on top of her old book, feeling rather tired of fighting many times.
Caizhi and the other girls were about to accompany her, when suddenly they saw a group of eleven people approaching their location.. The strangest part of it all, was that six of them were humans and five were elves.
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