Chapter 167 The Dark Willow and the Bright Flowers

In the gloomy, ancient passageway, a trialist was beheaded, his head severed and rolling far along the ground, his cut neck spraying blood vividly in the eerie blood mist, shocking everyone.

Just a moment before he was alive, yet in the next, he had been decapitated, all of it happening so suddenly that people could hardly react.

Right beside the now-fallen trialist, a tall stone soldier moved, its ten-foot-long spear swung in a slashing motion, fresh blood still clinging to its tip, confirming it as the killer.

That the stone soldier could move petrified all the onlooking trialists, an occurrence none had anticipated.

Several princes and princesses' complexions changed, initially indifferent to the Thirteenth Prince's words, but now his warnings seemed prescient.

Then, on both sides of the corridor, more tall stone soldiers began to animate, as if coming to life, their spears clanging as they were drawn and swung at the crowd simultaneously.