Thea was unaware of the discussion taking place behind her back. She originally thought she would teleport directly into the enemy's lair, but an unusual fluctuation caused her teleportation anchor to shift at the last moment, displacing her arrival point by over a hundred meters.
This was an extremely small space, completely shrouded in white mist. The mist resembled a layer of blurred glass—looking outward from within, one could see the sun, moon, stars, and the mountains and rivers of the material world. At the center of the space were traces of artificial magical excavation. It was clear that opening up this pocket space had required a great deal of time. As far as the eye could see, there was only a suspended slab of dark-gray rock, upon which stood a structure resembling a small two-story building.
In Sargon's memories, this place had been mentioned. It was originally discovered in the early twelfth century by a mage named Miriam. Her strength was mediocre and her talent unremarkable. Only her luck could be described as heaven-defying. She had stumbled upon this small area, previously opened by unknown predecessors, hidden within the cracks between space and time.
When it became clear that she would never reach the level of a Grand Mage in her lifetime, Miriam followed the example of ancient mages and attempted to construct a Mage Tower, hoping to break through to a higher realm. Unfortunately, luck did not protect her forever. During a high-intensity confrontation between mages, she died like an ant, crushed by the residual shockwaves of the battle.
This region remained dormant for several hundred years, until Felix Faust discovered it—along with a Mage Tower that was less than one-fifth complete. Even in the twelfth century, the material requirements for constructing a Mage Tower were prohibitively extreme; in the modern era, completing one was utterly impossible.
Faust lacked the power to defy heaven. He could only make minor alterations to the existing structure, eventually transforming the original ruins into the two-story building now before Thea.
Thea had no words for this man's aesthetic sense. Since it was called an observatory, wouldn't it have been better to make it look more ethereal? Instead, in an effort to appear grandiose, he had coated the exterior in gold.
A short, two-story building glittering with gold—those in the know would recognize it as an observatory rebuilt from a Mage Tower. Those who didn't would probably mistake it for some sort of countryside inn.
Tacky. Outdated. Shabby. Those were the heiress's evaluations.
Still, its functionality was not bad. The fact that it had displaced her teleportation coordinates showed that the structure possessed considerable defensive capabilities.
The Cult of the Cold Flame would normally send someone to knock first, but that was unnecessary here. She had come to cause trouble in the first place. Thea raised her hand and released a sphere of ball lightning.
Crackling arcs of electricity exploded outward as the lightning slammed into the observatory's main gate.
"Who dares cause trouble here?!" The gold-plated gate absorbed the attack with ease, and a shrill voice rang out.
The man who emerged was middle-aged, dressed in an ancient robe decorated with stars and moons. He wore a broken-bridge mustache, a golden circlet on his head, and stood atop a flying stone inscribed with a hexagram. He drifted forward slowly, looking like a reclusive hermit, though his expression carried a trace of hostility.
"You're Felix Faust?" Thea flew up to his level and asked calmly.
The gloomy middle-aged man scrutinized her carefully. A young woman—and she hadn't chanted any spells, nor used any magical implements, yet she was flying freely. How was that possible? Without the stone integrated with the observatory beneath his feet, he himself wouldn't be able to fly.
"Woman, are you from the Cult of the Cold Flame?" Faust was not famous without reason. He recognized that her method of breaching dimensional barriers was identical to Sargon's, and immediately drew his conclusion.
The Cult of the Cold Flame was infamous. He was alone, while the other side had four people. Within this small space, drawing upon the observatory's accumulated mana, he wasn't afraid of them—but once outside, he would be no match.
A mage's mobility was too strong. If even one of them pinned him down, the next moment would be four against one, with no chance of victory.
He intended to reveal her origins and persuade her to retreat. The observatory's mana had been accumulated over eight hundred years within this alternate space—every bit spent was permanently lost. The Cult was a band of lunatics; strike one, and ten more would follow. Wasting precious mana on battle like this simply wasn't worth it. In his mind, calmly explaining the situation and persuading her to withdraw was already an act of generosity.
Unfortunately, the heiress had come specifically to pick a fight. She had no intention of wasting words and directly took out the Dead King's Scepter.
The golden staff was perfectly in line with Faust's aesthetic tastes. He instantly felt that this item was fated to belong to him. Let her leave—or keep her here? The two choices wavered in his mind.
"Leave that staff behind, and I'll let you go," he said at last, greed winning out.
Thea nearly threw up. Someone actually dared to spout such brainless villain dialogue. This bastard was revolting.
Talking to him any further would be a waste of time. She poured surging magical power into the scepter, and a vast torrent of seawater burst forth from the void. Using an attack of this scale in the material world would inevitably cause collateral damage—but here, it didn't matter. The massive flood, carrying overwhelming kinetic force, crashed down toward the observatory from above.
"So strong!" Faust was stunned. He couldn't tell whether this power came from the scepter or from Thea herself. Without time to think, he pulled out a thick tome and flipped to a specific page. Purple light flashed as dark-brown patterns spread across the surface of the observatory, anchoring it in place like a reef resisting the onrushing sea.
So that book was the original control core of the Mage Tower? Thea glanced at it once and then ignored it. A Mage Tower could indeed offer great support—but that Golden Age was long past. The scarcity of materials alone was enough to drive anyone mad.
This was the result of bowing to reality: a pitiful two-story structure barely clinging to existence. What was the point of letting it continue? Better to flatten it outright. If a tower spirit truly existed, it would probably thank her.
Suspended in midair, Thea swung the scepter repeatedly. A massive phantom sea beast was summoned out of thin air. It had no facial features, its body nearly transparent. Where its mouth should have been were three layers of dense, razor-sharp teeth. Dozens of suction-cupped tentacles extended from beneath its body, and behind it trailed a dark-green hard shell, like that of a hermit crab.
This was a biological sample Faora had retrieved from a distant planet at Thea's request. The real creature had been dead for countless years, but its genetic material had been preserved. According to the scholars of that world, the creature possessed limitless growth potential. In ancient times, it had devoured more than half the planet's life. It wasn't slain by a hero—it starved to death, and the planet's civilization regressed by a thousand years as a result.
Using Kryptonian genetic technology, Thea had reactivated certain cellular fragments and used artificial intelligence to simulate a growth environment. She terminated the experiment halfway through and destroyed all samples. Once fully grown, this thing was far too terrifying. Doomsday at least had a kryptonite weakness—this creature, aside from eating excessively and being unable to fly, had almost no flaws.
The phantom before her was the image of the sea beast's thirty-year juvenile form, reconstructed using an enormous amount of magic.
Though Faust didn't know the creature's origins, he still felt a deep chill. With its vicious maw and cruel appearance, it clearly had nothing to do with justice. This only reinforced his certainty—
This woman was absolutely a member of the Cult of the Cold Flame.