Ethereal Ascendance: A Journey of Transformation

"......"

How could Nicola easily answer this question! Should she honestly tell him she wasn't from this world, and that they had big problems before because he stole her love?

Nicola felt she shouldn't have carelessly said so much earlier. Actually, even if she didn't want to let Adrian off now, she really couldn't do anything to him anymore.

Sadly, her trump cards were almost used up. She vaguely realized she was in a really bad situation! And this world's Adrian seemed even harder to deal with than she imagined - he totally knew she couldn't do anything to him because of her injuries! He didn't take her so-called threats seriously at all.

"Your Majesty, are we safe now?"

At this time, a New Parristol soldier couldn't help walking forward to ask Adrian.

Though everyone had safely escaped into the underground tunnel, the Ancient God Religion outside hadn't stopped attacking. But now their target was the underground entrance door, trying to break through it by force!

After some time, you could see the dark door starting to bulge a bit - who knew how much longer it could hold.

"Don't worry. Though this door can only hold for a while, we have New Parristol's automatic weapon defense system. The real show is still coming! Let's continue to the safe area first!"

At this critical moment, as king he definitely needed to give his people enough confidence. Moreover, Adrian really seemed to believe in what he said, comforting everyone while leading them deeper into the underground tunnel.

The path ahead was a very narrow and straight long corridor that could just fit one person to pass through.

"What exactly is this automatic defense system you mentioned?"

This was already the second time Nicola asked this question. Adrian's reply was just pointing at the walls around them.

To put it simply - the defense devices were hidden inside these walls!

At first, Nicola thought maybe it was some kind of trap arrows, but she looked everywhere and couldn't find any holes for arrows to shoot from.

She only saw that the whole tunnel walls were very smooth and clear, like they were covered with glass panels. A mysterious soft light shone through from inside the walls from all directions, lighting up the whole tunnel. It didn't seem much different from other lighting in Lantine Oasis buildings.

But after looking more carefully, she surprisingly found that the wall material used here was unusually strong!

When she hit it with an iron tool, it didn't even leave a tiny mark. Nicola had to admit that ancient civilization's buildings were really different!

"So don't tell me later these walls will automatically split open and bring out dozens of gatling guns to shoot enemies?"

The narrow tunnel was definitely perfect for setting up all kinds of traps. Since the whole city had a very sci-fi style, Nicola made some careless random guesses.

"Gatling? What's that thing? Is it better than my exploding arrows?"

Adrian didn't understand when he heard this. It wasn't that he didn't want to tell what kind of defense devices they were. According to him, there were many types of traps, almost every area had different attack modes. Moreover, most weapon effects were beyond his knowledge - he didn't know how to describe them!

Soon everyone finished walking this path and stood in a relatively spacious room. Several identical corridor entrances gathered around this place, making it look like a meeting point of a huge underground maze network.

However, in the center of the room was something that looked like a terminal control. Adrian walked over and pressed some buttons, opening several virtual projection screens in the air, all showing surveillance of the surrounding tunnels.

Though most of the entrances looked similar, only one direction led to another underground road that was wider.

"Following this big road and turning a few corners should take us to the underground shelter!"

Adrian and some of his subordinates clearly weren't planning to continue forward. He immediately showed the remaining path to the other New Parristol civilians. But after a while he noticed Nicola still standing there, so he turned and asked:

"Why are you still standing here? The entrance door is probably about to break now. All non-combat personnel need to go to the underground shelter! Do you still have questions?"

"You want to chase me away? Since when can you control where I stand?"

Nicola first got stubborn out of habit, but after hearing Adrian's words, two subordinates immediately came to pull her out.

"This is now a military restricted area! You're an unrelated person - why are you hanging around here!"

This really made Nicola angry, but she had too little strength left to resist. However, they had a point - with her identity she really had no reason to stay here.

"How am I unrelated! I have lots of experience fighting the Ancient God Religion. You probably don't understand how scary they are as well as I do!"

To be honest, this argument didn't have much power given Nicola's performance on the ground earlier. Unfortunately, curiosity got the better of her - she didn't want to miss this chance to see what defense system Adrian mentioned. After thinking hard, she could only lower herself and remind them loudly:

"Don't forget my original purpose coming here was to join forces with you against the Ancient God Religion. These people aren't simple!"

"Fine then, let her watch from the side!"

Hearing this, Adrian hesitated for a moment but finally decided to let her stay.

According to the following explanation, several similar terminal control rooms existed around the underground shelter. They had similar functions, monitoring the entrances to the surface.

Of course, Lantine Oasis's underground space was huge - Adrian alone couldn't possibly handle all the surveillance of every area. So he still had to let other subordinates split up to different control rooms to share this task.

"Your Majesty, we detect enemy advance forces entering Tunnel 2..."

No need to detail all the arrangements made during this time - after a while everyone was in position. All control terminals could communicate and report situations to each other. Obviously they must have practiced this before.

"Everyone must stay alert, especially don't easily enter defense zones, to avoid friendly fire!"

After hearing his subordinate's report, Adrian activated the underground automatic defense system, with his crown being the master control switch for the whole system.

"This is..."

Nicola stood right next to Adrian, very "luckily" witnessing the tragic fate of those church guards who broke in.

One tunnel surveillance screen showed that when a line of people went deep into a corridor they just passed through, the surrounding walls suddenly blazed with bright light!

A blindingly white "light net" suddenly appeared in front of these people out of nowhere, then passed through the invaders at very high speed. Everywhere it passed, everyone's movements stopped, then they were cut into countless pieces of meat and blood scattered on the ground.

The whole process was very smooth and brief, but also extremely bloody! The church guards at the back of the line didn't even understand what accident happened in front before silently losing their lives.

"Isn't that a laser?"

Seeing all this, Nicola felt quite unbelievable. This was countless times more advanced than gatling guns! After all, some Earth movies had similar, but she didn't expect to personally witness it all in reality in another magic world.

"Oh? You actually know what this thing is? So it's called 'laser'!"

Though Adrian was the operator of the whole defense system, he didn't know what exactly that terribly scary white light was. With his knowledge, he at most felt these bright white lights were very similar to many light magic effects. So when an angel called out this weapon's name, it didn't seem too strange.

Of course it wasn't over yet - that was just what happened in one tunnel. The Lumina Sanctum guards clearly forced their way through more than one underground entrance. Images showed that when another group of enemies flooded into Defense Tunnel 6 in another area, the tunnel gates in front and behind them suddenly closed, creating a sealed space.

Soon after, the gates automatically opened again, and all the soldiers in that space fell down one by one grabbing their necks, never getting up again. This batch was clearly killed by having the air sucked out and suffocating!

In just two defense system activations, in less than five minutes, several dozen lives were taken! The Lumina Sanctum guards instantly lost over half their numbers. After this, even if the remaining guards still dared to go in, they clearly became more careful, and fewer and fewer people dared to explore further.