“That princess really knows how to make things difficult.
The treasure she wants is impossible to find.
How am I supposed to fool her?”
After leaving the princess, the cultist woman didn’t go far.
She kept hiding somewhere in the city.
While she was racking her brain about how to deal with the princess, she didn’t notice the shadow beneath her feet changing.
A puddle of black liquid oozed out from her shadow.
It was only about the size of a baby’s fist, but it could stretch and spread out endlessly, quickly wrapping around the cultist woman from all directions.
“What the hell is this!?” Like the filling in a dumpling, the black substance stretched out a thin film, instantly wrapping the cultist woman inside.
Since it was stretched from a fist-sized blob, the layer was as thin as silk.
But even though it was that thin, the cultist woman couldn’t break free.
She was wrapped up in a human shape, as if her body was covered in a layer of opaque black rubber.
You could see her struggling, her arms constantly tearing at the sticky stuff on her body, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t pull it off.
“Mmm! Mmm!” The black stuff covering her face puffed up with her breathing, then caved into her mouth, but her breathing quickly stopped.
Her struggles ceased, and her human shape slowly shrank and dissolved, like a bar of soap melting in water.
In the end, she was completely absorbed by the black substance, which shrank back to the size of a baby’s fist and slipped back into the shadows.
At the same time, in the inn, the black goo wriggled out from the shadow in front of Chen Xing.
Seeing it, Chen Xing bent down gracefully, stretched out her slender, pale fingers, let the thing crawl onto her hand, and then absorbed it into her skin.
“So that’s how it is~” After reading the cultist woman’s memories, Chen Xing understood the deal between her and the princess.
“Hmph~ A nobody who doesn’t even deserve a name isn’t qualified to be my servant.
Your soul will be my snack, my nourishment~ Consider it an honor~” Chen Xing started chewing, as if she were eating a piece of gum.
That cultist woman who only appeared for a moment had no power and wasn’t important, so Chen Xing didn’t bother turning her into a servant.
She slowly chewed on the woman’s soul, savoring the overflowing fear.
Ah~ Delicious~ “Looks like the princess really has a lot of complaints about her sister.”
From these memories, she learned that the deal between the princess and the cultist woman was for the cultist to find the Heartfire in the witch’s vast treasury, something that could melt the ice in the queen’s heart.
The princess seemed to want the queen to regain her emotions, and in exchange, she would help the cultist get the witch’s relic—the witch’s necklace.
But unfortunately, the naive princess had apparently been tricked.
There was no such thing as the Heartfire in the second-generation witch’s treasury.
“Oh dear~ Looks like I’ve gotten myself tangled up in some family drama~ Let me help you sisters break down those barriers~” Chen Xing smiled slightly, then her body disappeared into the darkness.
She reappeared outside the inn where the princess was staying.
Using her magic eyes, Chen Xing saw that the area was covered by an invisible ice magic barrier.
Anyone who entered would fall into the princess’s domain.
“Still pretty cautious, huh~” Chen Xing pondered how to deal with the princess next.
“Should I just swallow her up?” If she wanted the queen’s secrets, then Chen Xing would definitely have to eat the princess.
But she saw that the princess was level 46, even higher than Salina, with half the strength of Little Dragon Girl.
She wasn’t sure if swallowing her by force would cause a big commotion and alert some powerful people.
“Hmm~ Just like with Leticia, I’ll have to wait until she lets her guard down and then strike suddenly.
That’s the only way to do it without anyone noticing.”
Chen Xing thought about swallowing the princess just like she did with the cultist woman, but since she was about to enter the kingdom, if the princess got tainted by darkness, it might be discovered.
“In that case~” As she spoke, black substance appeared on Chen Xing’s skin.
When it covered her whole body and then faded away, her appearance had completely changed.
She had turned into the cultist woman she’d just devoured, pulling up the woman’s memories from her mind and decompressing them.
She couldn’t let the memories of the people she’d eaten stay in her mind all the time, since that would affect her sense of self, so she only read them when she needed to.
After previewing the cultist woman’s memories, Chen Xing quickly slipped into the role and stepped into the princess’s frost domain.
The moment she entered, the princess sensed Chen Xing’s presence.
“Hmm!” The princess, lying on the bed, opened her eyes warily.
In her own domain, she had a god’s-eye view, so she immediately saw who it was.
“Why is she here?” After seeing who it was, the princess relaxed, got up, put on her clothes, and opened the door.
“What are you doing here? Didn’t we just part ways a couple of days ago? Did you really find what I wanted so quickly?”
“We’re really lucky, Your Highness.
I must have stepped in something, because I found exactly what you were looking for.”
“Really!?” Raised in a greenhouse and always the center of attention, the princess was apparently very easy to fool.
After hearing Chen Xing’s words, the princess’s excitement was written all over her face.
She hurried over.
“Let me see it, that thing.”
Actually, the princess didn’t know what the so-called Heartfire was.
She’d only read about it in ancient books, which said it could melt the ice in one’s heart.
She wanted to use it to save her sister and the country.
“Here it is, Your Highness.”
Chen Xing took out a prop she’d prepared in advance—a thing that looked like a kerosene lamp, with a small flame burning inside the glass.
The flame glowed an eerie green, gave off no heat at all, and looked pretty convincing.
“This is the Heartfire.” The princess wasn’t stupid.
As soon as she got close, she tested it with cold air.
Even at a hundred degrees below zero, the flame kept burning, so it clearly wasn’t an ordinary fire.
“It’s hard to tell if it’s real while you’re holding it.
Hand it over and let me take a look.”
“Okay.” Chen Xing didn’t hesitate.
She reached out to hand over the flame, secretly grinning: “Hehehe… Your Highness, you’re way too easy to trick.”
Chen Xing’s plan was to swallow the princess the moment she handed over the lamp, when they were closest together, giving her no time to react.
But just as they made contact, something unexpected happened.
The temperature around Chen Xing plummeted, and in an instant, it was like the whole space froze.
Her body was sealed in a thick layer of ice.
