Lin Sanjiu waved her hand and converted her platform into a card. After storing the card in her body, Lin Sanjiu hugged the pillar tightly with both her arms. The muscles from her fingertips to her chest starting hurting as she tried her best to withstand the suction force. As the artist added brushstroke to his painting every now and then, the suction force from the painting grew stronger and stronger. It had only been five or six seconds but Lin Sanjiu could feel her body trembling as exhaustion set in.
If this continues, Lin Sanjiu knew she would be dragged into the painting.
She forced her pounding heart to calm down. At that very moment, she couldn't think of any way out of this predicament. She ran through all the Special Items and abilities she had in her mind and realized that she couldn't think of anything that could help her right now. While she gradually grew more and more anxious about the situation, she turned to look behind her once more and realized that the artist was standing beside another pillar.
The guests and other artists had already moved aside to avoid getting in the way of the two people. Though they were visibly startled, their reactions were still very unusual. It was as though they were just watching two people squabbling. Lin Sanjiu wondered how this situation actually played out in the story. Lin Sanjiu narrowed her eyes and took another glance at her target through the strong gale that the suction force created. Clenching her teeth, she pulled her wings out from the pillar she was holding and released her grip.
A fraction of a second later, her body along with her skeletal wings flew toward the painting without any resistance, as if a piece of dried leaf in the wind. Lin Sanjiu's body was almost reaching the canvas. A glint of delight finally flashed across the artist's eyes.
The next second, however, his elation was cut short. Lin Sanjiu's body stopped moving.
When Lin Sanjiu was just a few millimeters away from the painting, her wings created a sharp grating sound as they scratched the pillar. Sparks flew due to the friction. Lin Sanjiu barely managed, but she got a grip on the pillar with her wings. After that, she quickly thrust her skeletal wings deep into the pillar. Even though her body was still floating weightlessly in the air, Lin Sanjiu felt that a sense of relief washed over her as her pair of strong wings held her in place. Her body was covered in cold sweat and she felt as though her heart was almost bursting out from her chest.
"It's my turn now," she said softly as she aimed a kick at the easel.
She avoided the canvas. Just as the tip of her feet was about to touch the easel, she pulled her feet upward such that it tipped the easel forward. Before the canvas could touch her legs, she quickly withdrew them. She curled her body and reached forward, stretching her arms. She tapped the easel with her hand.
However, nothing happened.
Her [Planar World] was not activated. Nothing was changed into a card. Just as the easel was about to touch the ground, the artist quickly grabbed the easel with his hand. The suction force suddenly started again.
Lin Sanjiu was flabbergasted.
The item weight limit that her [Planar World] had already reached one and a half ton after the last level up. Lin Sanjiu also knew that she could not convert any living thing into a card. However, that easel should not be affected by both limitations. She didn't know why her ability failed.
When Lin Sanjiu noticed that the artist was about to pull his easel backward, she became hasty. She disregarded her uncertainty and launched a kick toward the artist. With her current height, she could easily reach the artist with her leg and kick him to the ground. However, when the tip of her feet nearly touched the artist's head, the muscles on her leg contracted. As if she had a sudden cramp, her leg tensed up and she drew her leg back sliding past the artist without touching him.
Lin Sanjiu exhaled and narrowed her eyes. She even pulled her wings out of the pillar. She shot her body toward the artist. A mere second before she nearly got suck into the painting, Lin Sanjiu raised her hand and struck the artist's chest with a slap.
With a quick rush of air, the artist and the painting disappeared. Lin Sanjiu fell from mid-air hitting the ground with a thud. By then, she had a new card in her hand: [An Unfinished Oil Painting].
If she didn't sense that the artist was not emitting any heat through her hypersensory state, she would really have mistaken the artist for a real human. From the beginning, that Special Item wasn't that painting but it was the artist.
She finally understood why Hei Zeji said she was blind.
After she stood up from the ground, the narrator's voice rang out again:
"Gabrielle and Joseph's quarrel drew many of the guests' attention. As one of Queen Margaret's lovers, Joseph was always willing to stick up for the queen…"
With the clue from the narration, Lin Sanjiu found the baron called Joseph. "He seemed to the person who had brought the artists to the ball. He is one of the queen's lackeys. "
Sitting far from Lin Sanjiu, separated by groups of guests, Queen Margaret's face became icy cold once more. However, that did not diminish the woman's beauty. Lin Sanjiu stared directly at the woman's cold azure eyes for a few seconds and made a decision.
The only requirement to complete "Time Travel" was that the player had to survive until the end of the round. There weren't any rules stating that she couldn't kill others.
Even though Lin Sanjiu had avoided being killed by that attack, there was no telling what would happen next. Lin Sanjiu did not know when she would be attacked again and whether she would be able to overcome it next time. Rather than waiting passively for other people to attack her, she preferred taking a proactive role to strike first.
Lin Sanjiu took out her platform again and placed it back on the track. She stood on it once more before that one minute limit.
Her action seemed to signal to the others that she had her guard down. Queen Margaret looked at her once and turned her head away. This wasn't strange because the track she was on was quite a distance from the throne. If "Gabrielle" remained on her platform, there was no way she could get close to Queen Margaret.
But, of course, Lin Sanjiu didn't plan to play by the rules.
While she was still in the set of an ongoing scene, she could not leave the place but she could move around with her board within a limited area. As she observed Queen Margaret's every move, Lin Sanjiu pretended as if she had slid her platform accidentally to the part of the track that was closest to the throne.
Even though that was the closest spot, she was still a few hundred meters from the throne.
When Lin Sanjiu took a closer look at Queen Margaret, she realized that the woman, as elegant as a swan, looked even more graceful and dainty than she expected. The woman had a svelte figure and her golden hair was in an intricate updo. When Lin Sanjiu stopped, the queen was saying something to her servant. As she did that, the pearls on her neck shimmered in the light. It was as though that woman had been beautifully carved from diamonds.
Even though her opponent was very beautiful, Lin Sanjiu didn't have even a hint of sympathy for that woman.
In fact, for Lin Sanjiu, it was best if the queen was just fragile and weak. Considering that the woman probably had more Special Items and so-called "secret dark arts", Lin Sanjiu decided to just end that woman's life with a direct physical attack.
Before Queen Margaret finished giving instructions to her servant, Lin Sanjiu took action.
She had been hiding in the crowd and waiting for some time so she was fully prepared to launch this attack.
She wrapped her upper body with her [Defence Forcefield], then extended her skeletal wings menacingly, displaying her full intention to kill. With successive quick steps, she accelerated toward Queen Margaret at full speed. She moved so quickly that she was leaving afterimages behind her.
If this was a reconstruction of the past, logically speaking, the NPCs should not have any combat skills. Yet, just to be on the safe side, Lin Sanjiu opened her mouth to speak when she nearly reached Queen Margaret's dress.
Before she could ask "have you heard of route 300", Queen Margaret turned her head slightly. Lin Sanjiu was suddenly hit by a force which threw her backward. She didn't even know what had happened.
The moment Lin Sanjiu hit the ceiling, she finally noticed that there was a small vortex in front of Queen Margaret's body.
Even though she was in her hypersensory state, she didn't detect even the slightest sign that it was there. The air current surrounding the queen was still the same as before. However, it changed when Queen Margaret raised her hand. She grabbed the air current like soft clay and created a fast-moving air vortex.
The vortex was not large but it swallowed and dissipated the force from Lin Sanjiu's forward thrust. When the vortex unraveled, Lin Sanjiu felt the reflected force of her own strength combined with the added attack from the queen. That huge force hit her chest directly.
Even with her [Defence Forcefield], Lin Sanjiu could hear crisp cracking sounds in her ears as she felt her rib bones being shattered. In a split second, all her organs that had been damaged by that impact felt as though they were going to explode. Blood rushed to Lin Sanjiu's brain. Her face suddenly became blood red.
Lin Sanjiu lost all control of her body and fell heavily to the ground. She just couldn't imagine that she wasn't even able to endure a single blow from Queen Margaret as that woman raised her hand.
When Queen Margaret stood up from her seat and walked toward her, Lin Sanjiu could only struggle to prop herself up.
"Enough!"
King Henry roared angrily and stopped Queen Margaret in her tracks.
"Whatever the grudges you have against each other, is it necessary to create such an embarrassing scene?" King Henry's tone was filled with wrath. However, his anger was naturally directed to his own wife. He strode toward "Gabrielle" and suppressed his fury, "Come with me."
Apparently, in the story, the Queen and Gabrielle had only quarreled verbally.
Lin Sanjiu couldn't even stand up right now. When Lin Sanjiu heard the narrator's reminder that she had been away from her platform for 27 seconds, she held her abdomen and moved toward her metal board, almost crawling.
Once she sat on her platform, the metal board immediately moved along the tracks, trailing behind King Henry.
The blood from the corner of the mouth dripped through the holes in the metal board. It trickled down on the track leaving a long trail of blood behind her. Queen Margaret chased after them as if she was reluctant to back off. Finally, for some reason, the woman stopped and returned to the main ballroom.
"I think I'm safe now." Lin Sanjiu thought to herself as she was struck by bouts of dizziness. While her heart palpitated, she couldn't help letting out a sigh of relief.
"Thankfully, King Henry was willing to stand up for his lover… Queen Margaret is just too strong. " Lin Sanjiu thought.
The man walked very quickly so Lin Sanjiu only saw his back. He seemed very unhappy. The two people walked along a corridor of the side palace for quite a few minutes. Neither of them said a word.
Leaving the brightly lit ballroom, the side palace was unusually quiet. It was so quiet that the sound of chafing fabrics as the king moved was ever so prominent.
As Lin Sanjiu listened to the pulsing sound of her blood flowing through her body, she overheard two female maids speaking softly:
"Yes, I heard that on the day they got married, the king and the queen didn't even look once at each other. They simply looked straight ahead and completed the ceremony…"
"Yes. I even heard that King Charles had to press down her head for her to agree.."
Lin Sanjiu looked up, feeling confused.
"Huh?"
"If that was the case, Queen Margaret had no feelings for King Henry?"
Lin Sanjiu couldn't help remembering the baron called Joseph. "That's right. He is one of Queen Margaret's lovers…"
Initially, Lin Sanjiu thought that Queen Margaret was jealous of Gabrielle even though she had her own lovers. However, based on what the two maids said, Margaret definitely didn't have a reason to be against Gabrielle…
"Why would she—"
"I can't believe you subdued that artist," King Henry said softly as he turned around in the darkness, revealing half his face. A foreboding smile appeared on his face.
Lin Sanjiu waved her hand and converted her platform into a card. After storing the card in her body, Lin Sanjiu hugged the pillar tightly with both her arms. The muscles from her fingertips to her chest starting hurting as she tried her best to withstand the suction force. As the artist added brushstroke to his painting every now and then, the suction force from the painting grew stronger and stronger. It had only been five or six seconds but Lin Sanjiu could feel her body trembling as exhaustion set in.
If this continues, Lin Sanjiu knew she would be dragged into the painting.
She forced her pounding heart to calm down. At that very moment, she couldn't think of any way out of this predicament. She ran through all the Special Items and abilities she had in her mind and realized that she couldn't think of anything that could help her right now. While she gradually grew more and more anxious about the situation, she turned to look behind her once more and realized that the artist was standing beside another pillar.
The guests and other artists had already moved aside to avoid getting in the way of the two people. Though they were visibly startled, their reactions were still very unusual. It was as though they were just watching two people squabbling. Lin Sanjiu wondered how this situation actually played out in the story. Lin Sanjiu narrowed her eyes and took another glance at her target through the strong gale that the suction force created. Clenching her teeth, she pulled her wings out from the pillar she was holding and released her grip.
A fraction of a second later, her body along with her skeletal wings flew toward the painting without any resistance, as if a piece of dried leaf in the wind. Lin Sanjiu's body was almost reaching the canvas. A glint of delight finally flashed across the artist's eyes.
The next second, however, his elation was cut short. Lin Sanjiu's body stopped moving.
When Lin Sanjiu was just a few millimeters away from the painting, her wings created a sharp grating sound as they scratched the pillar. Sparks flew due to the friction. Lin Sanjiu barely managed, but she got a grip on the pillar with her wings. After that, she quickly thrust her skeletal wings deep into the pillar. Even though her body was still floating weightlessly in the air, Lin Sanjiu felt that a sense of relief washed over her as her pair of strong wings held her in place. Her body was covered in cold sweat and she felt as though her heart was almost bursting out from her chest.
"It's my turn now," she said softly as she aimed a kick at the easel.
She avoided the canvas. Just as the tip of her feet was about to touch the easel, she pulled her feet upward such that it tipped the easel forward. Before the canvas could touch her legs, she quickly withdrew them. She curled her body and reached forward, stretching her arms. She tapped the easel with her hand.
However, nothing happened.
Her [Planar World] was not activated. Nothing was changed into a card. Just as the easel was about to touch the ground, the artist quickly grabbed the easel with his hand. The suction force suddenly started again.
Lin Sanjiu was flabbergasted.
The item weight limit that her [Planar World] had already reached one and a half ton after the last level up. Lin Sanjiu also knew that she could not convert any living thing into a card. However, that easel should not be affected by both limitations. She didn't know why her ability failed.
When Lin Sanjiu noticed that the artist was about to pull his easel backward, she became hasty. She disregarded her uncertainty and launched a kick toward the artist. With her current height, she could easily reach the artist with her leg and kick him to the ground. However, when the tip of her feet nearly touched the artist's head, the muscles on her leg contracted. As if she had a sudden cramp, her leg tensed up and she drew her leg back sliding past the artist without touching him.
Lin Sanjiu exhaled and narrowed her eyes. She even pulled her wings out of the pillar. She shot her body toward the artist. A mere second before she nearly got suck into the painting, Lin Sanjiu raised her hand and struck the artist's chest with a slap.
With a quick rush of air, the artist and the painting disappeared. Lin Sanjiu fell from mid-air hitting the ground with a thud. By then, she had a new card in her hand: [An Unfinished Oil Painting].
If she didn't sense that the artist was not emitting any heat through her hypersensory state, she would really have mistaken the artist for a real human. From the beginning, that Special Item wasn't that painting but it was the artist.
She finally understood why Hei Zeji said she was blind.
After she stood up from the ground, the narrator's voice rang out again:
"Gabrielle and Joseph's quarrel drew many of the guests' attention. As one of Queen Margaret's lovers, Joseph was always willing to stick up for the queen…"
With the clue from the narration, Lin Sanjiu found the baron called Joseph. "He seemed to the person who had brought the artists to the ball. He is one of the queen's lackeys. "
Sitting far from Lin Sanjiu, separated by groups of guests, Queen Margaret's face became icy cold once more. However, that did not diminish the woman's beauty. Lin Sanjiu stared directly at the woman's cold azure eyes for a few seconds and made a decision.
The only requirement to complete "Time Travel" was that the player had to survive until the end of the round. There weren't any rules stating that she couldn't kill others.
Even though Lin Sanjiu had avoided being killed by that attack, there was no telling what would happen next. Lin Sanjiu did not know when she would be attacked again and whether she would be able to overcome it next time. Rather than waiting passively for other people to attack her, she preferred taking a proactive role to strike first.
Lin Sanjiu took out her platform again and placed it back on the track. She stood on it once more before that one minute limit.
Her action seemed to signal to the others that she had her guard down. Queen Margaret looked at her once and turned her head away. This wasn't strange because the track she was on was quite a distance from the throne. If "Gabrielle" remained on her platform, there was no way she could get close to Queen Margaret.
But, of course, Lin Sanjiu didn't plan to play by the rules.
While she was still in the set of an ongoing scene, she could not leave the place but she could move around with her board within a limited area. As she observed Queen Margaret's every move, Lin Sanjiu pretended as if she had slid her platform accidentally to the part of the track that was closest to the throne.
Even though that was the closest spot, she was still a few hundred meters from the throne.
When Lin Sanjiu took a closer look at Queen Margaret, she realized that the woman, as elegant as a swan, looked even more graceful and dainty than she expected. The woman had a svelte figure and her golden hair was in an intricate updo. When Lin Sanjiu stopped, the queen was saying something to her servant. As she did that, the pearls on her neck shimmered in the light. It was as though that woman had been beautifully carved from diamonds.
Even though her opponent was very beautiful, Lin Sanjiu didn't have even a hint of sympathy for that woman.
In fact, for Lin Sanjiu, it was best if the queen was just fragile and weak. Considering that the woman probably had more Special Items and so-called "secret dark arts", Lin Sanjiu decided to just end that woman's life with a direct physical attack.
Before Queen Margaret finished giving instructions to her servant, Lin Sanjiu took action.
She had been hiding in the crowd and waiting for some time so she was fully prepared to launch this attack.
She wrapped her upper body with her [Defence Forcefield], then extended her skeletal wings menacingly, displaying her full intention to kill. With successive quick steps, she accelerated toward Queen Margaret at full speed. She moved so quickly that she was leaving afterimages behind her.
If this was a reconstruction of the past, logically speaking, the NPCs should not have any combat skills. Yet, just to be on the safe side, Lin Sanjiu opened her mouth to speak when she nearly reached Queen Margaret's dress.
Before she could ask "have you heard of route 300", Queen Margaret turned her head slightly. Lin Sanjiu was suddenly hit by a force which threw her backward. She didn't even know what had happened.
The moment Lin Sanjiu hit the ceiling, she finally noticed that there was a small vortex in front of Queen Margaret's body.
Even though she was in her hypersensory state, she didn't detect even the slightest sign that it was there. The air current surrounding the queen was still the same as before. However, it changed when Queen Margaret raised her hand. She grabbed the air current like soft clay and created a fast-moving air vortex.
The vortex was not large but it swallowed and dissipated the force from Lin Sanjiu's forward thrust. When the vortex unraveled, Lin Sanjiu felt the reflected force of her own strength combined with the added attack from the queen. That huge force hit her chest directly.
Even with her [Defence Forcefield], Lin Sanjiu could hear crisp cracking sounds in her ears as she felt her rib bones being shattered. In a split second, all her organs that had been damaged by that impact felt as though they were going to explode. Blood rushed to Lin Sanjiu's brain. Her face suddenly became blood red.
Lin Sanjiu lost all control of her body and fell heavily to the ground. She just couldn't imagine that she wasn't even able to endure a single blow from Queen Margaret as that woman raised her hand.
When Queen Margaret stood up from her seat and walked toward her, Lin Sanjiu could only struggle to prop herself up.
"Enough!"
King Henry roared angrily and stopped Queen Margaret in her tracks.
"Whatever the grudges you have against each other, is it necessary to create such an embarrassing scene?" King Henry's tone was filled with wrath. However, his anger was naturally directed to his own wife. He strode toward "Gabrielle" and suppressed his fury, "Come with me."
Apparently, in the story, the Queen and Gabrielle had only quarreled verbally.
Lin Sanjiu couldn't even stand up right now. When Lin Sanjiu heard the narrator's reminder that she had been away from her platform for 27 seconds, she held her abdomen and moved toward her metal board, almost crawling.
Once she sat on her platform, the metal board immediately moved along the tracks, trailing behind King Henry.
The blood from the corner of the mouth dripped through the holes in the metal board. It trickled down on the track leaving a long trail of blood behind her. Queen Margaret chased after them as if she was reluctant to back off. Finally, for some reason, the woman stopped and returned to the main ballroom.
"I think I'm safe now." Lin Sanjiu thought to herself as she was struck by bouts of dizziness. While her heart palpitated, she couldn't help letting out a sigh of relief.
"Thankfully, King Henry was willing to stand up for his lover… Queen Margaret is just too strong. " Lin Sanjiu thought.
The man walked very quickly so Lin Sanjiu only saw his back. He seemed very unhappy. The two people walked along a corridor of the side palace for quite a few minutes. Neither of them said a word.
Leaving the brightly lit ballroom, the side palace was unusually quiet. It was so quiet that the sound of chafing fabrics as the king moved was ever so prominent.
As Lin Sanjiu listened to the pulsing sound of her blood flowing through her body, she overheard two female maids speaking softly:
"Yes, I heard that on the day they got married, the king and the queen didn't even look once at each other. They simply looked straight ahead and completed the ceremony…"
"Yes. I even heard that King Charles had to press down her head for her to agree.."
Lin Sanjiu looked up, feeling confused.
"Huh?"
"If that was the case, Queen Margaret had no feelings for King Henry?"
Lin Sanjiu couldn't help remembering the baron called Joseph. "That's right. He is one of Queen Margaret's lovers…"
Initially, Lin Sanjiu thought that Queen Margaret was jealous of Gabrielle even though she had her own lovers. However, based on what the two maids said, Margaret definitely didn't have a reason to be against Gabrielle…
"Why would she—"
"I can't believe you subdued that artist," King Henry said softly as he turned around in the darkness, revealing half his face. A foreboding smile appeared on his face.
