At this moment, the Lamia Queen or Autarch suddenly closed the projection as a ripple of static cut across her mind; it was one of her puppet guards!
For an instant, the queen’s eyes, like twin polished emeralds, brightened with a ruthless light. Her lips tightened; she icily commanded, "Don’t do anything!"
No sooner had the command vanished than the air around the palace convulsed. A pressure of raw soul-energy fell like winter over the throne room. Autarch has easily seen through the Legendary King’s soul-senses!
At that moment, a voice, low and edged with an emotion the forest had not heard in generations, carried through the halls.
It was both command and accusation, the tone of a thing that had waited and hunted until patience snapped, "Lamia Queen...come out."
The Lamia Queen’s pupils narrowed. For the briefest heartbeat, a flicker of calculation passed across her features, then she vanished from the throne as if unstitched from the world!
Above the palace, hovering like an impossible eclipse, a ring of presence answered the call as Lamia Queen, Autarch had appeared, and in front of her were a few legendary kings releasing powerful soul pressures.
Furthermore, there were three Tier-3 Legendary Kings among these legendary kings; they were the terrors of the Abyss Forest—the apex rulers of tribes that had once held entire reaches of the Serpent Abyss.
Their silhouettes were enormous against the canopy, each a living nightmare made manifest as coils like ruinous columns, plated scales like iron doors, and eyes that burned with a hunted, venomous fury.
They did not look like statues. They did not look like constructs. They looked like grief had given teeth.
Autarch’s knowledge of them was precise—the air about him hummed with recognition. The identities were not guessed; their presences shouted their names in the raw signature of bloodlines and battle scars.
Here were the Naga Warlord, whose hooded crown still carried the echoes of tidal myths; the Viper Matriarch, thin-limbed and coiled in lethal elegance; the Giant Serpent Chief, scales like broken obsidian and a voice like avalanches.
Furthermore, these legendary kings were actually the last surviving remnants of tribes dispersed by the Lamias’ purge, and some of them were those who joined forces to save themselves from the same fate.
Among them, the face of Giant Serpent Chief was carved in hatred as he had the posture of a predator who had watched his young devoured, dens razed, and banners burned.
After the Giant Serpent Tribe was the first to experience the Lamia Queen’s tyranny as the second-strongest tribe after the Lamia Race!
Every one of them had reasons a sane world would call monstrous as slaughtered kin, nests emptied, heritage garbage-swept into the Lamia’s maw.
In front of them, Autarch stood alone without any hint of remorse or emotions, and with the Lamia Queen’s untouched beauty, there was no softness in it, as if she smiled only with the geometry of a blade.
Furthermore, below them, thousands of Lamia troops remained motionless as always, Autarch’s puppetry precise and absolute—but above, the air tasted of war.
At this moment, Autarch spoke emotionlessly, "I thought you guys had fled like cowards. Yet you came directly to my doorsteps, well, it’s saved me the trouble of finding you all one by one!"
Under the Lamia Queen’s indifferent speech, the legendary kings almost went mad, as some of them still couldn’t believe it was the same Lamia Queen who had never meddled in affairs outside her kingdom.
At that moment, the Giant Serpent Chief stepped forward until his enormous head loomed over the palace garden. He was the largest of them, massive and knotted with old wounds; the memory of the Lamias’ cruelty was carved across his flesh like a map of loss.
When he spoke, his voice rolled like a landslide — slow, saturated with a sorrow that had curdled into rage.
"You took our nests and didn’t even spare our young." He did not shout; he delivered each word as if counting the beads of an unpayable debt. "Your daughters slayed my sons and then raised their bones as trophies beneath your moonlit feasts. My people—my son—threw himself between me and your blades. He bled out while your serpents danced. I watched him become bait, so your brood could thrive."
The chief’s coils tightened; a ragged snarl creased the corners of his jagged maw. Around him, the Legendary Kings flexed like tightening ropes—hatred made muscle.
"You started extinguishing us without reason," He spat. "Not war. Not vote. You chose slaughter while wearing the mask of sovereignty. You declared we were fringe, expendable—then burned our villages for sport. We fled, we bled, we begged allies, and we were ignored...until now!"
His many-forked tongue flicked as if tasting the air. He lifted his head, eyes burning with the fever of an old plan reborn, "We could not stand alone. So, I struck pacts in the hidden places...Naga, Viper, and others. We called the scattered kings: every hidden king in the forest.
"It’s all thanks to you, as I was able to gather them by blood oath, by hunger, by the taste of your terror. If we strike together, we tear you down, Lamia Queen. If we fall, we fall as kings. But if you survive this, you will inherit a world of corpses."
The Giant Serpent Chief did not wait for applause; there was none. He did not need cheers. His statement hung in the air like a blade.
Around him, the Naga’s hood rustled in cold amusement, the Viper Matriarch coiled a dangerous balance, but all shared the same naked resolve.
Their faces, contorted with decades of grief and madness, made a collective promise: The Lamia Queen’s crown would be paid for with blood.
However, Autarch’s expression did not flicker as she listened with the serene contempt of someone who had watched lesser beings bargain for mercy.
At that moment, Autarch suddenly looked towards the Naga and said, "Naga Warlord, I guess you were too busy mingling with these poltroons that you have no idea about the decimation of Nāgas. Well, after you, I guess there won’t be anyone who will remember them anymore."
The Naga Warlord’s cold demeanor instantly crumbled while the other Legendary Kings, including the Giant Serpent Chief, were astounded by this sudden news.
Although they might be secretly allying and planning to bring down the tyrannical Lamia Queen, they were still paying attention to their nests and knew that the Lamia Queen had been moving all this time.
Without the Lamia Queen, it was nigh impossible to bring down the Naga Tribe, yet something unthinkable had happened.
It wasn’t their fault in the first place because it wasn’t the Lamia Queen in front of them, but a legendary fantastic insect, and all the Lamias were turned into its puppets.
They had no idea that as time passed, Autarch had familiarized himself with his prowess, and as Autarch stayed away from Jacob all this time, it turned out to be a blessing. Now, Autarch knew more about his abilities than he ever had a chance under Jacob’s protection.
Furthermore, Autarch was only a step away from becoming a Legendary King, and all these Legendary Kings unknowingly delivered themselves to Autarch as its breakthrough materials!