Villain in a Fantasy World; I Level Up by Conquering Villainesses-Chapter 63: Ambush! [1]
Seated in the balcony of his Demon Castle that was in a state of stealth and floating above the Central Bank, Julian had first-row view of the bank building as a foreign burst of green qi erupted and engulfed the Central Bank of Falaniondor.
It happened suddenly.
Domain Expansion: Altar of False Proximity!
BZZZZZ!
Instinctively, Julian activated Qi Sight and then he saw it.
From the explanation that Puck gave him a few days ago, Julian learned that the base version of a Domain Expansion was only supposed to encompass 50 meters, and this range can scale as Awakened climb to higher levels.
The range of a Domain Expansion also depends on the Class and Specialization of an A Rank Awakened.
But even if the range scales, from his own personal calculations and Puck’s explanation, Julian expected the range of a Domain Expansion to still be constrained to hundreds of meters but what he was currently seeing with Qi Sight exceeded his imagination.
Unlike Greg’s Domain Expansion that covered his large living room and dining room or even Pandora’s bigger and illusory Domain Expansion that he saw with Qi Sight, this exceeded everything that he already saw since awakening in this world.
With Qi Sight, Julian saw a surreal, cosmic landscape of blues and blacks suddenly unfold upon the city with the Central Bank of Falaniondor as its center.
Yes, this domain covered the entirety of Falaniondor!
The moon in the night sky disappeared, replaced by countless dots of illusory stars in the sky that seemed both close and far at the same time.
A massive dark celestial sphere appeared in the sky, hanging low in the star-filled sky, glowing faintly with electric blue light.
The electric blue light curved beyond Dreadmoor, not detecting the Demon Castle.
This surreal, cosmic landscape overlapped with the entirety of the mountainous city of Centaurs and yet, it seemed endless.
From the vantage point of Dreadmoor and with his enhanced perception and sight that could see across dozens of kilometers, even when Julian looked far past beyond Falaniondor, all he saw was the surreal, cosmic landscape of the Domain as the jade river was deleted from the picture.
This domain seemed endless and finite at the same time.
The distant landscape was stark and alien with sharp, rocky silhouettes framing a winding, reflective river that replaced the jade river. This river looked like liquid starlight, mirroring the sky above.
The water glimmered with countless points of light as if the stars themselves have spilled onto the ground.
In the sky, clouds swirled around the seemingly infinite domain range, adding motion and depth whole the entire scene felt quiet, immense, and otherworldly.
Overall, staring at this domain evoked a sense of cosmic awe, dread, and mystery in Julian.
He felt like he was looking at the meeting point between a distant universe and an unknown world, suspended in a moment of profound stillness.
In the center of the domain which was the Central Bank of Falaniondor, a narrow beam of brilliant white-blue qi descended straight down from the endless cosmic depths, piercing the star-filled heavens and striking a jagged blue altar that suddenly appeared inside the main hall of the Central Bank.
Thick pillars of white-blue qi swirled around the altar.
Drawn into this domain, Julian felt disoriented as he felt like he was here and there at the same time. He felt like he was still seated in Dreadmoor’s balcony, and somehow felt like he was millions of miles away from this world.
’What is this?’ He felt dread.
He felt like he was sinking into the very concept of distance and infinity.
Still hidden in the sky, despite the hundreds of meters of distance separating Dreadmoor from the Central Bank, Julian felt a palpable sense of oppression and fear erupt from within him from simply witnessing this Domain.
BADUMP!
His heart skipped a beat, constricting in dread but instantly, his Dragon bloodline instincts kicked back in as his pride reared its head even in his dread and even in the face of this all-encompassing domain.
Julian froze yet his face twisted in resistance as Sir Alfred took a step forward to block him with a solemn look on his face. "This is the Domain of an S Rank Sovereign". The middle-aged Demon muttered in a deep and serious voice.
’What? S Rank?!’ Julian blinked and was alarmed. ’How???’
’There’s no S Rank in Falaniondor!’
’Where did I plan wrong?’ Julian was alarmed.
Instantly, memories that were hidden at the very depths of his mind triggered as Zaratul’s PTSD resurfaced.
Julian felt raw fear and trauma erupt from the deepest depths and forgotten instincts of his body as he remembered the Great Battle of Year 1895.
Julian recalled the Great Battle in a raw and visceral manner, invoking a feeling of dread, despair, and rage in him.
’Is this another ambush?’
’How did they know???’
And then right at the center of the domain where there was an altar, a woman with pointy long ears stepped out of the void.
Swirls of brilliant white-blue starlight revolved around her graceful body.
Sir Alfred’s face turned solemn. "Queen Mirabel..."
...
A few days earlier... 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶
WHOOSH!
A certain Centaur hunter returned from the wilderness with a panicked expression on his face.
As he passed inspection at the city front, few Centaurs among the guards recognized the hunter as they called his name.
"Patrick!" They called and waved.
And yet Patrick didn’t even hear them.
Patrick was a happy, energetic, and easygoing Centaur who loved making people smile. He had friends everywhere but today, he didn’t even care about the greeting of his friends as once he passed inspection at the city front, he galloped at top speed all the way to the grand square where bounties were hanged on the bounty board.
There, he pushed his way through the crowd in the grand square and then he stared at the bounty board.
His eyes instantly snapped up towards the highest bounty, the only Diamond-grade bounty in the entire world.
[Diamond Bounty!]
[Name: Zaratul]
[Nickname: Enemy of the entire World]
[Power Level: Level 100 S Rank Conceptual Sovereign (Potentially injured and in a weak state).]
[Capture Status: Dead or Alive]
[Bounty Clue: For any accurate clue given for Zaratul’s whereabouts, a bounty clue value of 17,000,000 Falaniondor gold coins will be paid.]
[Bounty: 1,000,000,000,000 gold bars or 8,700,000,000,000 Falaniondor gold coins.]
[Bounty Difficulty: Extremely Dangerous]
[Image=]
Patrick skipped all the complicated details as his eyes instantly focused on the image, and then his legs turned jelly as he shuddered.
"It’s him!" He muttered before quickly grabbing his mouth in terror.
’I-it’s him...!’ He thought, horrified.
’It’s really him!’
Patrick no longer hesitated, he felt like any second more he waited would attract a great disaster on the entire world.
Without hesitation, he turned around and started galloping towards the High Crown Citadel with a look of horror, fear, and excitement on his face.
"STOP!"
When the guards stopped him, he simply shouted. "Diamond Bounty! Diamond Bounty! I have clues!"
They let him in.
That evening, the Kingdom of Falaniondor learned about Zaratul’s return from the weak C Rank Centaur hunter as they had means to verify if Patrick was lying or not and the verification said he was saying the truth!
That evening, the higher-ups of the Kingdom of Falaniondor entered a state of panic.
That night, the 3 Councilors of Falaniondor had an emergency meeting.
At the end of the meeting, after arguing and discussing different approaches to the situation, the 3 Councilors analyzed, plotted, and realized that if any other villain would forgive, Zaratul won’t.
Zaratul’s return either meant the end of the Kingdom of Falaniondor or the lifetime enslavement of the Kingdom.
In the face of the King of Villains, the Enemy of the World, the 3 Councilors felt despair and instinctively wanted to give up but then they realized that they had leverage in the simple fact of Zaratul’s nickname.
He was the enemy of the entire world!
That night, the 3 Councilors sent 3 different envoys out, 1 to the Shereya Dynasty in the East, 1 to the Valor Dynasty in the North, and the last to the Infernal Empire in the West, the 3 Empires and the strongest powers of the world.
Zaratul was extremely powerful, he was known as the King of Villains for a reason and even while the report said he was weak, the 3 Councilors were scared.
But even as strong as Zaratul was, one thing he had against him was the fact that he had even more powerful enemies.
And this was what the 3 Councilors of Falaniondor banked on.
They didn’t stop at sending envoys to the 3 Empires though. They didn’t know how long their envoys would take to arrive, and they had no idea if they would be given an audience by the 3 Empires.
This was the reason why they sought a contingency plan.
Their contingency plan was their neighbor, they decided to seek help from the nearby Evergreen Kingdom in South Central.
They sought help from the Elves.
They would have preferred seeking help from the Varad Kingdom too, but wisely judging from the fact that the Orcs and the Elves were always at war with each other, they focused on the more diplomatic Kingdom.
The Kingdom of Falaniondor was prepared for Zaratul’s attack!
