Chapter 1005 - Playing The Other
Princess Ceni and Ma Jiang talked for a few minutes before parting ways on good terms. Since neither of their interests overlapped there was no reason to be aggressive.
Ma Jiang simply wanted to help out of the goodness of her heart and Princess Ceni's motives were entirely selfish when it came to Hao Xuan.
For the next three days Princess Ceni tried her best to get to Hao Xuan but the grand priestess forbade anyone from meeting him. She knew exactly where Hao Xuan was being kept since their connection was stronger than ever but she also knew that there was no way to get to him without picking a fight with many of these people.
Only Henrik was allowed to visit him just once on Princess Ceni's incessant urging to see if he was okay.
With her newly awakened bloodline Princess Ceni could have easily fought her way through but chose to keep a low profile. It was better to 'act a fool' until such a time as her real strength was needed.
In the meantime, she made good use of the free time and got acquainted with all of the newly acquired powers, the scope and range of which far exceeded anything she had thought possible at her level.
She didn't "need" to eat at all and could directly absorb nutrients from the blood of most creatures. Drinking blood obviously wasn't a necessity but it further strengthened her powers and greatly increased her vitality and blood essence.
Her senses became many times sharper especially after feeding which brought a natural high. The purer and more ancient the bloodline the better it tasted. The sense of hearing, smell, and touch were extra sensitive to the point she could feel the change in another's body temperature from a dozen meters away, their heartbeats from even further and smell them from as far as 200 meters away.
She could permanently change certain aspects of her physique at will, especially controlling things like muscle mass and fat content in her own body.
She had a certain level of control over other living beings as well, especially if they bled. As for the blood itself, she could control it at will if need be, even if it was in someone else's body although that required her to use her own blood essence in exchange.
There were a lot of other abilities as well but none more welcome than the ability to hypnotize other people with just a look if they were weak-willed enough or had let their guard down.
Every now and then she would sneak out and test it on the demihuman guards and the refugees. Sometimes making them see things and other times digging into their deepest and darkest memories.
Many of the guards were already under her control to an extent which is how she knew the moment Jin Wang had returned from his incursion.
She had been keeping an eye on him throughout, carefully monitoring his every move through the eyes of the guardsmen. She saw him go to Ma Jiang before bringing her to where she was.
'He's a lot stronger than I thought. I can't even tell how deep his power goes so it's best if he thinks I'm just some foolish lovestruck girl. The more he underestimates me the better,' she thought inwardly.
The irony of her statement was lost on the princess herself but she still planned every single item down to her expressions.
She acted haughty and arrogant at the start and tried to use her powers on Jin Wang and when that obviously didn't work she threw all poise out of the window and almost begged him. (Ch 999 'Grovelling' continues from here now)
She would have gotten on her knees as well if that's what it took to sell the act but it didn't come to that.
Throughout Ma Jiang hid behind Jin Wang because she knew exactly what Princess Ceni was trying to do and couldn't bear to be a witness. She wasn't confident in her own abilities to not blow it for Ceni.
And as expected, Jin Wang didn't expect a single thing. In fact, they both thought that they were using the other person.
More than an hour had already gone by since the tear first opened in the ceiling of the world and the first wave of the corrupted spawn would be arriving within the hour.
The 'promised time' was near so the majority of the people were busy setting up defenses and getting ready for the fight which left the already deserted places even more vacant.
Jin Wang led the duo towards the stone stairs but stopped at the edge. He looked towards Princess Ceni first.
"You already know what to do so I won't bother you with the details but remember once you get in, time will slow down to a crawl.. You will be thrust into one world after another which might even cause you to lose sense of yourself and make you forget why you went in to begin with."