Chapter 50: Hidden Agendas? Who is the Traitor?

Alec glared fiercely at Miss Thief, causing her to shrink behind Hong Yan immediately.

Clearly, if they weren’t currently in an allied stance, he would have mercilessly thrust a fork into the mouth of that reckless someone.

“What nonsense are you talking about? Your Majesty loves Princess Nitira more than anything; how could she possibly, for what reason, do something like that? If you keep babbling rubbish, don’t blame me for being impolite!”

“Uh, but wasn’t that exactly what the tentacle monster uncle meant…?”

“King Willipol has gone insane! He is the one who truly wants to sacrifice the princess, are you an idiot?!”

Seeing that the queen, the very person involved, didn’t join the instinctive argument, Willipol slowly revealed a somewhat dangerous, unspoken smile.

“Hehe, Alec, this little girl isn’t stupid; she’s smarter and more perceptive than all of you. That’s why she can grasp the irrational contradictions more quickly and uncover the truth.”

“Think with that muscle-filled skull of yours. Even if the seas were chaotic at the time, how could Princess Nitira, who was heavily protected, possibly be kidnapped by a bunch of poachers whose origins are completely unclear?”

“First of all, Nitira is not a leader; in that kind of environment, why would Anies specifically send her, a princess lacking in strength and military experience, to lead the troops into battle?”

“When she went missing, the Great Whirlpool was at its peak activity. Excluding the locals, any outsiders should have already left the Emerald Sea under normal circumstances; why were there still poachers lurking around? With tens of thousands of islands in the Emerald Sea, why did those poachers happen to land on the same island Nitira was headed for?”

“Moreover, even if they succeeded, with the Great Whirlpool blocking the sea entrance, those poachers couldn’t escape immediately, so how would they evade the search by the various races at sea and hide until the activity of the Great Whirlpool decreased the following year?”

Seeing the young merman slightly stunned, attempting to counter but unsure of how to start, the irony on Willipol’s face, partly composed of tentacles, deepened.

“Time, location, personnel—none of these conditions were met for the event to occur, yet it still happened. Isn’t that extremely strange and unreasonable? And after that, what did your Majesty, that overly doting mother, Queen Anies, do?”

The former merman king slowly shook his head, each word striking like a hammer on everyone’s hearts.

“She ~ turned ~ a ~ blind ~ eye. She did absolutely nothing! Her own flesh and blood, her dearest daughter, was taken away as a slave, yet this queen didn’t search for her. Instead, she faked sadness and claimed that the affairs in the sea were too complicated to spare any effort. She merely issued a seemingly concerned rescue order while in reality allowing her to sink into the ocean, never to be heard from again.”

“It wasn’t until two or three years later that Nitira was saved unexpectedly during a large-scale hunt for poaching forces in the distant United Kingdom of Humans. The humans who rescued her contacted the merman tribe there, and the news quickly returned to East Sea Pearl, causing an uproar. Only then did you, under pressure from your clan, feign to retrieve her.”

“So, Your Majesty, this suspected culprit who let her own daughter drift away and nearly die, now gallivanting around pretending to rescue her—doesn’t that feel just a tad out of place?”

“……”

This time, the silence seemed to have shifted to Anies.

Indeed, Willipol’s accusations had no evidence; speculations and assumptions would be an understatement. But just as he said, upon closer examination, the circumstances surrounding Nitira’s kidnapping were indeed riddled with doubts, and precisely eliminating all impossible situations left the only possibility infinitely close to the truth.

This could be gleaned from the complex and even horrified gazes of the other mermen present.

Everyone was waiting for an answer, a clarifying rebuttal; after all, emotionally and rationally, they could only support their leader, Anies.

But the queen merely struck her staff, resembling a scepter, heavily on the ground, producing a crisp sound that dispelled distractions.

“Focus! Don’t forget where we are; he just wants to distract us!”

Alec and the others suddenly jolted, their previously unclear minds becoming sharp again, but Willipol’s words had indeed delivered a significant psychological blow. That subtle invasion of the environment had greatly weakened their vigilance and defensive instincts.

At that moment, Willipol shouted loudly.

“Good point, but it’s still too late! Attack!!”

“Watch your back!”

“Boom boom boom boom boom!!!”

Accompanied by his ambiguous signals and Hong Yan’s angry cries, the surging waves erupted around them like thunder!

The water, carrying immense strength, slammed into everyone as if a terrifyingly massive magical beast had crashed into them. Alec and several elite guards were caught off guard, unable to even scream before they sprayed blood and were catapulted away, tracing a tragic parabolic arc as they fell to the ground.

The vast amount of blood that gushed from them was quickly absorbed and drawn by a stream of water, rapidly flowing into the unseen barrier surrounding Nitira, causing it to radiate brightly!

This strike came shockingly suddenly, exploding in close proximity; even those merman guards who had reached the Sky level could hardly withstand such a massive loss of blood. Not even the strongest would have much life left after that.

Among them, only Queen Anies, Le Qiao Qiao, and Hong Yan, who had prepared in advance, managed to fend off the sudden attack from behind. However, even they, like legendary-level powerhouses, sustained some minor injuries and were pushed away from their original positions by the tremendous force.

Only one person remained in the vacant space…

*Cough cough… Fifth-level magic [Azure Sea Thunder], wow, you really put your back into it—remember, casting this spell shortens your lifespan, right?*

The water shield surrounding her shattered under the massive force, and Queen Anies coughed up a couple of mouthfuls of blood, merely squinting as she looked at the figure that had forced Rashid to raise his hands by pressing a dagger against his back, causing the [Book of Truth] to lose its glow and fall to the ground.

That was someone who had been active throughout the entire incident, yet didn’t attract as much attention as the queen or the princess, thus remaining overlooked by many.

In this matter, she wasn’t a key figure, but her sudden betrayal turned the already dire situation into a rapid descent into chaos.

She was one of the key members of the rescue mission, the first high-ranking merman encountered by Vilyric on Paluto Island.

“Silisa, you traitor.”

The priestess with long hair flowing like seawater smiled slightly. Her once-clear and mysterious eyes now seemed filled with unfathomable darkness and depth. While holding the helpless Rashid at knife-point, she shook her head.

“Your Majesty, I haven’t betrayed you; from start to finish, I and King Willipol have been on the same side. We both believe in the great truth, trusting it to bring redemption. If that’s the case, isn’t it obvious whom to help?”

“Hmph…”

On the other side, Le Qiao Qiao, who had not suffered much harm under the protection of Miss Swordsman, pulled her hand away from a bloodied fallen merman guard and shook her head with some difficulty.

“He’s already dead; maybe one or two are still clinging to life, but…”

“…Mm.”

Although her aversion to blood had improved somewhat after recent experiences, the brutal sight of Alec and the others suffering injuries and even dying from the sneak attack still caused Miss Thief to feel a wave of dizziness. The playful grin on her face finally carried a hint of clear rage and confusion.

“Miss Silisa, have you gone mad? They’re your kind!”

“Alright, Qiao Qiao, calm down. Don’t let your emotions waver; didn’t Miss Vilyric remind us earlier to be【careful behind us】?”

Swallowing several pills to alleviate the internal injuries sustained from blocking the [Azure Sea Thunder] at close range, Hong Yan patted her companion’s back and cast a cold gaze at the treacherous sea priestess.

“She was planted by Willipol as an insider in the East Sea Pearl from the beginning.”

   

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