However, where there’s a policy from above, there’s a countermeasure from below.
Through the memories of that cultist woman, Chen Xing learned how they managed to get into the royal city.
To be honest, the method was pretty cruel.
They’d find a victim, use magic to rot away their flesh and organs from the inside, leaving only a perfect layer of skin.
Then, by wearing that skin, they could pass as a normal person.
Unless someone did a really thorough check, it was almost impossible to notice.
Of course, there was another thing to keep in mind: bribery.
Bribing the gate guards was totally normal—just pay up and they wouldn’t bother with any detailed internal inspections.
But now, bribery didn’t seem to work anymore.
Judging by the icy look in the gate guards’ eyes, these people were already under the Snow Queen’s magic.
They were absolutely loyal now.
Even if you piled up mountains of gold in front of them, it wouldn’t make a difference.
Chen Xing was a little worried she’d get caught, since there wasn’t a single part of her that wasn’t blackened.
If she got found out here, then once she got into the palace, where there were detection devices everywhere, there’d be no way to get close to the Queen.
If it didn’t work, she’d just have to force a marriage! “Hope this works.” With a nervous heart, Chen Xing stepped onto the magic circle.
As a burst of holy white light flashed, her vision was temporarily blinded.
She didn’t even dare open her magic eye for fear of giving herself away.
Luckily, Chen Xing’s luck held out.
It seemed like the inspection didn’t find anything this time.
Maybe it was because the versions were different—this was a low-level darkness meant for second-generation witches, but the darkness on Chen Xing was way too advanced, beyond the array’s ability to detect.
Because of that, Little Dragon Girl Freya, who had been directly infected by Chen Xing, also passed the inspection without a hitch.
The group made it into the city smoothly.
Once inside, Chen Xing felt like she’d stepped into a world of ice and snow.
All the buildings here were made of ice blocks.
There was little wood in the polar regions, and the temperature was always below zero, so ice blocks made great building materials.
Lining the insides with animal skins kept things warm.
“Um, Freya, I should go back and report in.
After all… I’m the only one who made it back alive this time.”
Since she was playing the role of Leticia, she asked her master for permission.
Chen Xing didn’t make things difficult for her and said, “Yeah, go ahead.
I’ll call you if I need anything.”
Chen Xing wasn’t worried about being a stranger here, since she had both Leticia’s and the princess’s memories.
She already knew this country inside and out.
Now, all she had to do was go to the marriage registration office and sign up for the Queen’s marriage contest.
The Snow Empire was one of the top countries in the world, and plenty of people coveted its throne.
Not to mention, the Snow Queen was famous for her beauty.
Even with all the rumors, there were still tons of people coming for her.
Some people even knew what fate awaited them, but just to catch a glimpse of the Queen’s face, they were willing to die.
Chen Xing had Salina forge her an identity as a fallen noble’s descendant with a powerful magical heritage.
As one of the cult’s leaders, Salina could handle that kind of thing easily.
There were still three days left to sign up, so Chen Xing wasn’t in a rush.
Before that, she had a little something to take care of.
She’d had her eye on that squad captain before, thinking of using her for an experiment.
But now, seeing how many people had their hearts frozen, there was no need to go out of her way to find her.
Night fell…
Lights shone on the ice buildings, sparkling beautifully.
Chen Xing wandered the streets, looking aimless, but her eyes were actually searching for prey.
She could see that a lot of the patrolling guards were already under the Queen’s magic, so it didn’t take long for Chen Xing to pick her target.
It was a small squad patrolling the outskirts, not many people.
Under a section of the city wall, far from any houses and with little light on the road, a four-person squad patrolled in the dimness.
They all had blank faces, eyes empty of emotion, moving mechanically and silent.
Clearly, their feelings had been sealed away.
Suddenly, a shadow flickered.
Three of the squad members didn’t even know what happened before they passed out cold.
The last one was pinned down, her mouth sealed shut.
“Master, I caught her.” Little Dragon Girl had grabbed the only woman in the squad.
She didn’t want her master touching any men, so she picked this victim.
“Yeah.” Chen Xing didn’t care much.
She walked up to the female soldier, her face morphing into a twisted mask of black liquid.
It was the kind of ghostly face that would terrify anyone, but the female soldier showed no fear at all, her eyes still cold.
“Such absolute calm.” Chen Xing raised her hand, extending a finger as her black nail grew longer, then stabbed it into the soldier’s temple.
It was called ice-heart magic, but the organ that controlled emotions was the brain.
“Mm!” The soldier still didn’t show fear, but when her body was hit with absolute darkness, she reacted instinctively.
But compared to others who’d been corrupted by darkness, she was absolutely calm.
Before, when Chen Xing’s darkness reached a certain spot in the brain, the person’s mind would change.
But this time, Chen Xing hit a wall.
She could melt this person’s brain and turn it into dark matter—she actually did that.
But she’d underestimated the Queen’s magic.
The brain turned to darkness, but it didn’t affect the soul.
It seemed like the frozen soul was the key.
This was a world of magic, and the soul was the core of a person’s mind.
Right now, Chen Xing could forcefully control this person’s body, but she couldn’t affect her mind.
Her soul was still tightly frozen, running on its previous program.
Chen Xing’s darkness was like a virus, trying to infect this program.
“This is tricky.
With the Queen’s power, there’s no way she’d let me just infect her brain.
And I don’t want a puppet with no emotions, so I still need to figure out how to unfreeze her mind and feelings.”
Chen Xing tried to infect the frozen soul.
Maybe because normal people couldn’t handle the Queen’s level of freezing magic, and this was just an early-stage version, it was easy for Chen Xing to break through.
Soon, her darkness had corroded the coldness in that soul.
“Whew—easier than I thought.”
Chen Xing pulled her finger back, and the look in the woman’s eyes changed.
“Master.” She’d become just like Salina, since her brain had already been corrupted.
But as a test subject, Chen Xing didn’t plan to just take in some random person as a servant.
She killed her on the spot… “I’m in my good-guy mode right now, so I’ll let you go.
Just keep playing your role and live out your life.”
Chen Xing didn’t want to kill someone innocent at random, so she let this person go.
“Yes.” The woman’s eyes turned cold again as she slipped back into the role of a soldier.
For her, it was hard to say if this was good or bad.
Her mind had been corrupted into a servant of darkness, but her emotions had returned—she was no longer just a cold machine.
After casting a simple spell on the others to make them forget what happened here, Chen Xing went back to her place.
This experiment made her a lot more confident.
She thought she could corrupt the queen now.
But she was wrong, or maybe she just underestimated how ruthless the queen could be with herself.
Every method of corruption she tried today might be useless against the queen.
When that time comes, Chen Xing will have to find a new way to make the queen fall—something that’s never been done before, not even in any of the doujinshi she’d seen in her previous life.
