Chapter 1935: Capture, Return to the Main Plane

Evereska, inside the High Teleportation Hall of the Cloudtop Tower.

Elder Modi was there with a group of subordinates to welcome the arrival of the Elf Court Special Envoy, but recently, besides the Special Envoy, there was another matter that made him, and indeed the entire Council of Elders, feel agitated.

That was the suspected resurgence of the Original Permission, which should have completely vanished in the long river of history; almost all the Elders knew what this meant, but it was difficult to speak of it aloud.

The reason was simply that the current Council of Elders only controlled less than one-third of the Original Permission, with the vast majority lost during the inheritance from the first to the second generation.

Although this did not affect their rule, they could only perform some updates and maintenance work on the current Mythallar; wanting to adjust or modify the main functions was a delusion, and acting rashly would only trigger a counterattack from the Mythallar, or even cause it to collapse faster.

Unless the Mythallar was dismantled and rebuilt, but for over a thousand years, the forces within the city of Evereska had long been deeply intertwined; aside from the founders, how many would dare to tear down the foundation of their own rule and start over?

As for the Arcanist system, while it did originate in Evereska, this also brought more criticism and pressure on Evereska from the outside world.

What the Council of Elders hoped for now was for this matter to pass as quickly as possible, keeping Evereska away from the public eye.

……

While lost in thought, Elder Modi noticed the Portal showing a stress reaction; the resulting vibration of the Magic Net even interfered with the air of the real world, emitting a humming sound difficult for the naked ear to hear, making the subordinates behind him feel uneasy.

"Pull yourselves together, don't let the Envoy find fault! That is a member of a Long-lived Family; even I have to be careful in dealing with them!"

Modi lowered his voice to reprimand them, and by this time the Portal had opened completely; first to step through were two sword-wielding guards with shimmering auras, and after confirming there were no issues on this side, one of them signaled to the other side of the Portal.

Only then did the Envoy himself appear, a Gold Elf Mage wearing golden armor and holding a Scepter, and behind him, a team of ten sword-wielding guards similar to the two who had entered first filed out.

Seeing this, Elder Modi stepped forward to salute, but halfway through the gesture, a look of surprise and terror appeared in Modi's eyes; just as he was about to speak a warning, the Portal behind the Envoy's team suddenly turned a pure black that could almost swallow all light.

Immediately following, the blackness spread rapidly outward; the warning words Elder Modi had just started to speak were cut off as he felt an incomparable force of Forbidden Restriction bind him to the spot, even stripping away his ability to perform Spellcasting.

At this moment, an unprecedented fear surged into Modi's heart; his lips twitched twice, but he could no longer make any sound.

By the time he regained his senses, the sword-wielding guards, who had been bright and polished just moments ago, had already collapsed all over the floor, and that most important Elf Court Special Envoy from a Long-lived Family had vanished without a trace.

"Disaster!"

Modi felt a sense of foreboding in his heart; for the moment, he could not spare the effort to appease the remaining attendants of the Envoy, nor could he care about the subordinates he had brought to bolster his presence; he teleported away directly, while simultaneously beginning to summon the other Elders to prepare to discuss follow-up countermeasures.

……

And on the other side.

In the mountains north of Evereska, Xia Duo, who had just abducted the Elf Court Envoy, had actually not gone very far; he knew very well that he could not hide for long, whether from the Evereska side or the Demon Descendant Elves.

The disappearance of a High Mage and the disappearance of a senior Mage were two completely different concepts; the former would cause the relevant interested parties to invest their greatest strength and begin searching, rescuing, and even retaliating at the fastest speed.

Xia Duo had to seize the time, so he simply did not take any detours and came directly here after leaving Evereska.

"Consciousness Cage, good stuff!"

A High Mage who has lost the ability to perform Spellcasting is not much stronger than a Goblin; to Xia Duo, they were simply meat on the chopping block, to be kneaded as he pleased.

Soon, he produced a Consciousness Copy; fortunately, he had manifested a Consciousness Cage before leaving the Projection Plane, otherwise, he really would have had no good way to interrogate a High Mage now.

Killing them was easy, of course, but trying to extract secrets from the other party's mouth, even if the other party had lost the ability to perform Spellcasting, was almost impossible.

Thinking of the Demon Descendant Elf Gulite who had been captured before, Xia Duo held no hope for the results of such direct interrogation; the only chance was to create a Consciousness Copy while the target was unable to resist.

If there were only one Consciousness Copy, it might not necessarily be possible to fully analyze all of their consciousness information, but Xia Duo only had this one Consciousness Cage on hand; combined with his previous experience in analyzing Gulite's consciousness, he was confident that he could analyze most of the information before this one Consciousness Copy was exhausted.

If that really didn't work, he could find a way to capture a few more members of Long-lived Families; with them now openly active in the Northland, even if he couldn't catch another High Mage, capturing more ordinary Mages would not be difficult.

"I hope everything goes smoothly!"

Xia Duo prayed silently in his heart, then turned and left, embarking on his path of flight.

In the end, he did not kill the Elf Court Special Envoy he had abducted using a surprise attack via the Evereska Mythallar; killing and toying with someone were two completely different concepts.

The latter, while he remained in hiding, would easily make Evereska a scapegoat; while the former would cause the Long-lived Families, and indeed the entire Northland under their control, to pursue him relentlessly.

Even though he was now facing pursuit, the intensity of the pursuit would absolutely not be on the same level as if he had killed that Special Envoy.

……

After leaving the mountains north of Evereska, Xia Duo moved away from the Elf World while analyzing the Consciousness Copy; he fled like this for three or four days, until even he himself did not know where he was.

And the analysis work on the Elf Court Special Envoy's Consciousness Copy had also reached its end; that Consciousness Copy eventually dissipated after repeated re-projections, but Xia Duo's gains were not insignificant.

Some of the information was even unheard of, causing him to have huge doubts about reality; with that information as a foundation, he felt he no longer needed to capture other members of Long-lived Families.

So then—

"Time to go home! I am too tired!"

As the thought arose, Xia Duo's consciousness quickly withdrew from his body; without the containment of a healthy physical form, the exhaustion he could feel at this moment surged like a tide, making it almost impossible for him to maintain control.

Returning from the Projection Plane to the Main Plane should have been completed in a very short time, but Xia Duo felt as if he had spent ten thousand years.

Just after returning to the Tower of Time, he could not even wait for the Tower Spirit to teleport him to his bedroom, and he collapsed directly onto the floor of the Projection Hall, falling into a deep sleep.

As for the bit of time consumed by the two Projection Plane trips, for Xia Duo, who had already obtained natural Longevity through his bloodline, it was not worth mentioning at all.

Not to mention that there were still Life Extension Spells that hadn't been used!