Volume 5 Chapter 14
by Need_More_SleepVolume 5 + Chapter 14: The Shattered Pocket Watch
Xia Yi had already gone inside for quite some time, yet there had been no response so far. She was probably still carrying out the plan.
“Lord Rice Cake, are you done yet?!”
Standing at the entrance to the Dragon Treasury, Elly paced anxiously back and forth.
At first, she still had the patience to wait, but as time passed, her anxiety only grew, her heart filling with panic.
If possible, she hoped Xia Yi would come out immediately and announce that the plan had concluded perfectly.
That way, she would have secured her chance to be promoted to an official member of the Royal Maid Corps, Xia Yi would obediently go back to sleep, and everything would be wonderful.
But…
“What on earth does Lord Rice Cake want to see? It’s taking this long, if the treasury guards discover us, it’ll all be over! We agreed on ten minutes, and we’re almost out of time!”
Elly kept silently counting the seconds in her mind, the ten-minute limit was drawing dangerously close.
She peered into the treasury through the entrance, feeling torn, yet restrained by Xia Yi’s orders and afraid to act on her own.
Thud, thud, thud.
From below came the sound of military boots striking the floor.
Elly rushed to the railing and looked down, and her face instantly drained of color.
They were the Dragon Treasury guards, hurrying back.
“Something’s wrong!! I have to notify Lord Rice Cake immediately!”
She hurriedly took out the magic gadget in secret and pressed down on its center.
Xia Yi, inside the Dragon Treasury, should receive the signal and rush out at once.
“Lord Rice Cake, please come out quickly… please hurry… w-waaah…!”
Elly closed her eyes, clasped her hands together, and prayed nonstop, hoping that the moment she opened her eyes, Xia Yi would be standing right in front of her.
But…
When she opened her eyes, there was no one at the entrance.
“Lord Rice Cake, what are you even doing?! We’re about to be discovered! Did I miss the button just now, or is the communicator broken?!”
Elly took out the magic gadget again. Thinking she hadn’t sent the signal properly, she entered a frantic rapid-pressing mode.
“I’ll press, press, press, press, press, yaaah!!”
Perhaps because she was too nervous, she failed to control her strength and smashed the magic gadget to pieces.
Elly’s mind went completely blank. She collapsed to the ground, as if already seeing herself being discovered, charged with a grave crime, thrown into prison, and executed after the autumn judgment…
“It’s over. Everything’s over.”
Just as the little green dragon maid sank into despair, an unexpected figure appeared.
……
……
“Holy Sword, Gram!”
Inner Demon Xia Yi summoned the holy sword into her hand, then began wildly hacking at the Sky-Blue Wood, chopping the logs into pieces.
She released sword energy, shredding the fragments into heaps of fine wood shavings.
Looking at her handiwork, she was extremely satisfied.
“Good. Very good. This amount should be enough to let Xia Lulu take a nice bath in Sky-Blue Wood!”
She packed all the shavings into a large sack, slung it over her shoulder, and returned fully loaded.
“See that, Xia Yi? This is the kind of quantity you need to deal with Xia Lulu!”
“If someone comes to inspect the Dragon Treasury, it’ll be discovered,” Xia Yi warned.
“Hmph, I don’t care about those trivial details. What matters is defeating Xia Lulu! Anyway, it won’t be me who gets punished…”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, nothing, ahaha~”
Inner Demon Xia Yi had accidentally blurted out her true thoughts and quickly brushed it off.
“We need to get out of here fast. If the patrolling treasury guards discover us, once the plan is exposed, it’ll be useless against Xia Lulu!”
“Mm.”
“Xia Yi, this way, is it over here?” Inner Demon Xia Yi hurried toward the exit with the sack on her back.
“You’ve got it wrong, it’s this way!”
“Oh.”
Just as Inner Demon Xia Yi was about to change direction, she suddenly noticed something that caught her attention and stopped.
“……”
“Inner Demon, hurry up and leave,” Xia Yi said, puzzled by her behavior.
“Xia Yi, I think I… saw something.”
As if drawn by an unseen force, Inner Demon Xia Yi slowly walked over and stopped in front of a mysterious object.
When Xia Yi saw it, she froze too.
It was a floating pocket watch, existing in an utterly inconceivable state, completely motionless despite being shattered.
The broken glass hung suspended in midair, and the hands were frozen halfway through a tick, as if time itself had been entirely solidified around the watch.
Inner Demon Xia Yi raised her hand, trying to take the pocket watch down…
But it was useless. This space seemed to follow a unique set of laws, completely unaffected by the outside world.
“What on earth is going on with this pocket watch? Damn it, I refuse to believe this!”
Inner Demon Xia Yi grew irritated and drew the holy sword, slashing down.
Yet the blade stopped forcibly at the edge of the pocket watch. No matter how much strength she applied, the sword could not advance even a single step.
“T-This… how is that possible?!” Inner Demon Xia Yi cried out in shock.
“Let me try.”
“Xia Yi, do you know what this is?”
“I’ve seen it before,” Xia Yi said.
Fragments of past memories surfaced in her mind.
When she was still very young, Xia Lulu had once held her and played with her inside the Dragon Treasury.
Xia Lulu had told her that the treasury contained many mysterious items.
At the time, she had mentioned this pocket watch.
According to Xia Lulu, its origins were unknown. It was a legendary sacred artifact passed down among the Dragon Clan. Its function and effects were unclear, but one thing was certain, it possessed mysterious law-level power, something even the Dragon King’s strength could not shake.
Inner Demon Xia Yi said nothing more and returned control of the body to Xia Yi.
The little princess put away the holy sword and slowly raised her hand to touch the shattered pocket watch.
Faintly, she sensed a resonance coming from her bloodline, constantly calling out to her.
Perhaps that was why Inner Demon Xia Yi had been drawn to it.
“Time… begins to flow again,” Xia Yi whispered.
……
……
“Ugh?!”
Xia Yi clutched her forehead and nearly collapsed to the ground. Her vision blurred, her head throbbed with pain, as if an enormous amount of mental energy had been consumed.
She remembered saying something strange to the pocket watch, the frozen hands beginning to move, and then the surrounding space turning abnormal, as if she had been swallowed and plunged into darkness…
“Inner Demon, what happened to us?”
Xia Yi called out to her heart demon.
But there was no response. It was as if the heart demon no longer existed.
Only then did Xia Yi realize that something was seriously wrong.
She lifted her head and discovered that she was no longer in the Dragon Treasury, but instead in a land of extreme cold.
Not far ahead stood a throne of ice. Upon it sat a figure who, upon Xia Yi’s arrival, slowly opened her eyes, as though awakening from a long slumber.
It was another silver-haired, silver-eyed… silver dragon girl? And like Xia Yi, she was also short, a petite loli.
“So this time, it’s a Silver Dragon who came?” The mysterious silver dragon looked at Xia Yi with interest.
“Who are you?” Xia Yi asked.
“The founding ruler of the Dragon Realm, the first Dragon King, or you may also call me…”
The white-haired loli on the icy throne smiled faintly.
“The Primordial Dragon God.”
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