Second World

Aldryth, Arthur, and Bowler were thrown out of the other side of the portal. They landed on the ground and found that they were outdoors. They saw in the distance, the capital where they were in a moment ago. Messephyria was burning as the battle now mostly took place inside the city.

Aldryth ran to the rock wall where they came out from. No sign of a portal was there. She hit on the rock wall.

"No! Mother…," her voice was weak. It was close to weeping.

"It appears the secret exit only works one-way," Bowler said.

Arthur came to Aldryth and consoled her, "Princess, please be strong. Your mother wants you to live."

"Sir Arthur, we need to go back!" Aldryth pleaded.

Arthur shook his head. "Doing that will waste your mother's sacrifice."

"She might still live!" Aldryth insisted.

Arthur just sighed in response.

"Your Highness, the enemies planned to conquer Hydrurond. Killing your mother and destroying the throne are their objectives," Bowler said. "There is no reason for them to spare her."

Aldryth looked down in grief. She knew that was the truth. She knew she was just wishing for empty hope.

Seeing Aldryth had slightly cooled down, Bowler said, "We should leave. Once the throne is destroyed, the lower rank soldiers might switch sides. We will be in trouble if we stay close to the capital."

"That won't happen," Aldryth said. She stood up. Her face was now back to her usual determined expression.

"How do you mean?" Bowler asked. "I thought that was what happened when someone takes over the sovereign role?"

"It is if the previous sovereign has no more heirs, but I'm still here," Aldryth said. She took out a communication stone. The stone had a shorter range compared to the message transmission device that natives normally used, and it could only transmit messages to a corresponding recipient stone.

This stone was given to her by Frorryntiar when they were on their way to the secret exit. The communication stone it responded to was one held by the main general of the defending army, Dytess, who was also one of the lord dominators.

*

Inside Messephyria, both armies were still fiercely in battle.

Most of the zombie army, Liguritudum army, and Aurebor army, had breached the city from the opened gap in the wall. The battle was complete chaos without any semblance of formation.

Jeanny and the others tried to chase after Master to the palace, but the enemies were too many. The enemy army had now switched roles and blocked them from going toward the palace.

Jeanny was frustrated. The battle situation didn't look good.

To make matters worse, she heard another bad news.

"Oh, no!" Pagram, the native Hydrurond's commander, exclaimed.

"What's wrong?" Jeanny asked.

"The enemies have entered the throne room," Pagram answered. "They are currently attacking the throne. We won't be able to make it…"

"Shit…!" Jeanny cursed. The fact that the enemies were attacking the throne room was most likely that they had killed the queen.

'This is bad,' Jeanny thought. If the world system acknowledged Master as this country's new sovereign, the army would be under his control. Jeanny didn't worry about officers like Pagram. These high-ranked natives had better free will. They won't submit to the invader's authority, but the lower-ranked soldiers were another matter.

She might need to call her guild members to retreat while they still could.

Before that, she sent a message to Bowler who was supposed to be with the queen, to make sure of the queen's fate.

Bowler, who had just escaped via the secret exit, reported the news to her. Jeanny was down when she heard that Queen Frorryntiar failed to escape. However, Bowler assured her that the army won't switch sides when the throne was destroyed.

Even so, the battle was lost. Bowler told her to start retreating. Princess Aldryth was at the moment also requesting the Hydrurond army to flee from the capital. He sent her their current coordinates.

Jeanny heard a horn then. She saw the army change their movements.

"It's the retreat command!" Pagram informed Jeanny.

Jeanny was also sending instructions to her guild members to retreat. She also sent the info to Megan who was organizing the other Hydrurond players. Most Hydrurond players would stop resisting the enemy army once Master destroyed the throne. The players would not receive any more war contribution points because the war would be considered ended by then.

Hydrurond's army retreated to the southeastern side, which was where the princess was located outside the capital. The gates were opened and the army trickled out under the harassment from the enemy.

During this time, the notification they most dreaded was heard. The enemy had killed the sovereign and the throne was destroyed. The Liguritudum ruler now held dominion over Hydrurond. Master could rule this country directly or appoint a puppet monarch in his stead.

Hydrurond's losing army continued to retreat. Their number was culled in a short time in one night. They retreated with 900,000 soldiers.

Furthermore, they lost another lord dominator during the battle. Balzrim covered the others during the retreat, sacrificing himself to hold the opponents from killing more soldiers.

Only one lord dominator remained, Dytess. She was the main general who oversaw the remnant of the Hydrurond army.

Liguritudum and Aurebor's armies slowed their chase after Hydrurond's army left the capital. Most of their casualties were suffered by the zombie army, who forced themselves on the defending army at the start of the battle. The zombie army was reduced to 600,000. All these fallen zombie soldiers could no longer be revived.

As for the live army, both Liguritudum and Aurebor only lost a little. Ligurutudum still had 1,000,000 soldiers, While Aurebor's army was 1,200,000 strong.

Although these two native armies suffered little loss, World Maker and World Ruler still paid a steep price to win this battle. The guild siege weapons would be gone after this battle even if they were not destroyed. The remaining zombie soldiers revived by the Necronomicon would also die once the Army of Darkness' effect ended.

Even so, no one would have expected the Hydrurond capital, Messephyria, to fall from a battle in a span of only one night.