Chapter189

Elara looked at the stunning man kneeling before her and pulled her hand away again. "What I want even more now is for you to disappear from in front of me."

Her cold and calm words pierced through the man like a blade.

Haochen's dropped hand fell to his side. His face lowered, and the long red hair hanging by his cheeks hid his expression. His straightened posture collapsed, as if his spine had been pulled out, and his entire body slumped in defeat.

"Hahaha! Look at this lapdog kneeling and begging, but still being rejected! Hahaha!"

"Quick, record this scene and report back to the Lord. He'll be pleased and probably peel off a few more layers of his skin!"

"Sindri, ranked seventh on the continent's power chart and third on the assassin chart. Just his name alone is enough to make nobles from second and even first-tier nations tremble. And now, he's kneeling before the princess of a third-tier weak country, begging to be her dog. And she doesn't even want him! This is the wildest thing I've seen all year!"

"Hey, Sindri! How about you be my dog instead? I'm also a battle slave under the Lord, but I'm still better than some third-rate country's princess. That face of yours, the Lord liked it a lot. Why not lick my boots a bit? Hahaha!"

The jeering, mocking laughter echoed all around, but Haochen didn't move at all, like he couldn't even hear it.

The group of over three hundred death warriors who had suddenly appeared didn't spare Elara and her people a single serious glance. Their eyes were full of the cruel amusement and killing intent of hunters surrounding their prey.

The leader of these warriors was a middle-aged man with a beard already half white. He was tall and muscular, with bulging muscles, and the clothes he wore, along with his aura, were clearly different from the rest.

He was the only one who hadn't mocked Haochen the entire time. But his gaze toward him still held a high and scornful disgust, like he was looking at filthy trash too unaware of its place.

"You must be the Princess of Plumera Kingdom. Perfect timing. We originally only came for Sindri, but since he brought you along, you'll come with us too."

With the mission overfulfilled, the Lord would surely be pleased and reward them.

The middle-aged leader gestured with his hand. The death warriors who had been laughing and mocking suddenly changed. Bloodthirsty killing intent burst from their bodies, turning the entire area into a slaughterhouse.

Just as he was about to signal the attack, his hand froze in midair before it could fall.

All the warriors who had been staring at Elara with mocking eyes also stopped moving, like they'd been suddenly targeted by a beast. Their faces froze in fear, not daring to move.

Elara gently pushed Uno aside and stepped forward two paces. "Gentlemen, I may only be a princess of a third-rate nation, but I'm not stupid. I already knew Sindri was a spy planted beside me. Do you know why I still brought him out here?"

As her calm voice rang out, the whole mountain suddenly trembled, as if a giant beast was about to break through it.

The sight was even more terrifying than the arrival of the three hundred warriors.

In the endless forest, every seemingly normal place began to stir.

Rustling sounds rose with the shaking of leaves and trees. A few seconds later, the warriors, including their leader, stared in shock at the horrifying things crawling out from the dirt, crevices, and shadows.

Puppet soldiers.

They filled the mountain, layered and endless, covering the entire area in a sea of bodies.

Their half-rotted faces were stuck with bugs, mud, and dead leaves. It looked like they had been hiding there for a long time.

Their remaining eyes twitched horribly, swiveling at unnatural angles as they locked onto the warriors.

Elara looked ahead at the group of now-tense, expressionless warriors, and stepped forward once more.

"Sixty thousand puppet soldiers. So, gentlemen, do you think we can now have a calm conversation?"

Jonty looked at the sea of puppet soldiers and slowly lowered the hand he had raised to give the order.

His gaze toward Elara had lost some contempt, though he still held an air of superiority.

"It seems the princess isn't as useless as the rumors say."

Sixty thousand puppet soldiers might not be much in their eyes, but this wasn't their territory. The mission was only to take Sindri away.

Sindri's strength was terrifying. He ranked seventh in combat and third among assassins. Across all nations, only about five people could beat him one-on-one.

And he was a mad dog. Once he lost control, he didn't care about his own life, always fighting to the death. That made his killing power skyrocket, and in the past ten years, every task he accepted was completed without failure. No one dared to interfere.

They came now only because he was pregnant. His power had been drained by the rapidly growing fetus, leaving him weaker than ever.

Even so, he had cautiously brought over three hundred elite slave warriors, believing that only this would ensure the safe return of Sindri, who carried the bloodline seed.

Meeting Elara was a complete stroke of luck.

But since the source of the bloodline seed was her, and considering that divine bloodlines usually re-hide and vanish once their inheritors leave their homeland, this was why they hadn't directly taken action against Elara.

Now that they had encountered her anyway, he intended to take the divine bloodline inheritor back along with them.

The master still needed many experimental subjects. If she became useless or the tests were done, they could just throw her back.

It was just a minor side task.

He never expected that this third-rate weak country's princess, who in his eyes was no different from an ant, would actually turn the tables on them.

If this army of sixty thousand Puppet Soldiers had shown up near their territory, they wouldn't even need to lift a hand. The Gu Masters under the master could just release some poison, and the problem would be solved in minutes.

But right now, he didn't have any poison that could counter them, and he wasn't skilled in gu techniques himself.

Although he could barely recognize the low-level gu worms inside the puppets, he had to admit he had no way to suppress them.

Without control over these puppet soldiers, no matter how strong their internal martial arts were, they would eventually be worn down and killed.

Jonty raised his hand, signaling the three hundred slave warriors behind him to take a step back. He stepped forward and looked at Elara.

"What does the princess wish to talk about?"

Elara glanced at him and the three hundred guards, then raised her hand. The army of Puppet Soldiers all stepped back in perfect unison, causing the mountainside to tremble slightly.

She pulled a totem stone from her robes and turned it over in her slender white hand. "This is what you want, right?"

"You haven't absorbed the Phoenix Token yet?!" The moment Elara revealed the stone, Jonty and his warriors all stared at it with a subtle but intense expression.

They looked like starving dogs seeing a piece of meat. They desperately wanted to snatch it but held themselves back, clearly afraid of something.

"Sindri!" Jonty glared for the first time at the still-kneeling man near Elara. "You dare report false information and deceive the master!"

She clearly hadn't absorbed the Phoenix Token, but Sindri claimed she had. That's why the master didn't act and take it directly from her.

Elara watched their reactions calmly, but her mind tightened.

It was Sindri who had told her how to open the totem stone.

But now they thought she hadn't absorbed it?

Did that mean her method yesterday was different from what they considered the correct one?

Was she supposed to absorb the whole stone instead of being able to hold and use it?

Elara rubbed the engraved patterns on the stone and quietly thought for a moment.

When Jonty fixed his hungry stare back on her, she moved her fingers slightly. The stone floated up from her hand and began to sway gently with her thoughts.

"What did you do to the Phoenix Token?!"

Even after all these years of collecting divine tokens from bloodline inheritors, Jonty had never seen one move like this.

The master had researched them for so long, and even he had never heard of such a thing.

Their stunned reactions didn't escape Elara's notice. So this was the Phoenix Token, and clearly, no one else had ever been able to control it like she could.

Being able to move it with her thoughts was something Elara discovered after absorbing that bloodline thread yesterday. Like the sudden appearance of that tree, the token had become part of her.

She thought everyone who opened a totem stone could do this.

But now it was clear that wasn't the case. Not everyone had this ability, which meant she held more power in her hands than she'd realized.

As the token swayed with her thoughts, it suddenly struck a nearby rock with a crisp crack, leaving a shallow mark.

The burly warriors watching the token closely all held their breath the moment it hit the stone. A few of them almost leapt forward to catch it, afraid she'd break it.

But after one knock, the token floated back into Elara's hand.

"What exactly do you want?"

Jonty's gaze grew darker.

Elara twirled the token in her fingers. "It's simple. I already said it. I just want to make a fair and equal trade."

If someone from another nation had proposed such a trade, Jonty would have laughed and struck them down immediately.

Even second-rate nations had no right to bargain in front of their master, let alone speak of fair trade.

But looking at the token, now marked and spinning in her hand, Jonty forced down his contempt and impatience, staring deeply at Elara.

"What kind of trade?"

The totem stone spun again in her palm as her voice remained steady.

"As you can see, once I realized how important this token is, I used a secret method to make it recognize me as its master. It obeys my will and can be destroyed whenever I want."

The word "destroy" made the warriors tense up again, their muscles ready to strike.

In this world, secret arts were countless. Even after thousands of years of excavation, no one dared claim to have mastered all of them.

And they had just seen the token obey her commands.

Jonty's gaze turned colder. He didn't want to believe it, but he had no choice.

Elara's lips curved slightly as she played with the token. "Since this token is so important that you came from thousands of miles away to find it, I naturally don't want to destroy it unless absolutely forced."

"To be honest, ever since I got this totem stone, I've tried everything, but I still haven't figured out how to absorb it."

"So I want to make a trade."

Elara looked directly at Jonty. "Tell me the correct way to absorb the stone, and for the next three years, your people must not step foot into my kingdom."

"After three years, once I understand the secrets and powers inside this stone, I'll hand it over and share everything fairly with you."

If she hadn't been spinning the token so casually, Jonty would have laughed at her outright for dreaming such nonsense.

By her logic of a "fair" trade, he might as well be a fair person too.

In every deal he'd ever made with other nations, he had always been the one to take everything. When had anyone dared try to take advantage of him?

And now, this little princess from a third-rate weak nation dared to ask him to reveal the secret of the Phoenix Token first, and even demanded that they stay away for three years.

In return, she offered only an empty promise to share in the future.

This was the most "fair" trade he'd ever heard.

Jonty sneered at the woman across from him. "It's still broad daylight. When did the princess start dreaming with her eyes open?"

A third-rate country like hers could be wiped out with the wave of a finger.

Elara didn't flinch at his reaction. She just held the token calmly and spoke again.

"Don't be so quick to dismiss it. Think it over. After all, you came all this way to this little backwater country, even sent the third-ranked assassin of the elite assassin list to sneak into my side, all for what's inside this token, right?"

Elara glanced at the still-kneeling Haochen. "I'm guessing that only I can fully unlock the Phoenix Token's secret. Otherwise, you wouldn't have gone through so much trouble. Wouldn't it have been easier to just destroy Plumera and take it?"

"But you chose to spend so much effort here, even placing someone like him beside me in secret."