Chapter 1330
Angel City sits at the border between the desert and tundra of the Stoneland Kingdom—a place so harsh, it’s considered the most unforgiving environment in the realm. Vast plains stretch endlessly around, offering no shelter at all. Storms ravage Angel City dozens of times each year.
In the beginning, there was no city here at all—just a battlefield between two great peoples of the Stoneland Kingdom. When the wars ended, the land became a dumping ground for criminals, and it was those first exiles who built Angel City.
At first, it was called Sin City, and everyone inside was an irredeemable criminal—exiled mages, homicidal maniacs, deranged alchemists...
But as more and more people were banished here, the talent pool grew. Those mad alchemists and wicked mages—utterly devoid of morals—were, in terms of sheer power, often stronger than their peers elsewhere.
With so many gathering here, fighting was constant, and death was daily. Eventually, the first City Lord of Angel City emerged, uniting the lunatics and laying down the rules. Only then did Angel City begin to develop.
Soon, this place became a haven for all the unwanted—murderers, those who’d offended the wrong people, anyone who’d committed unspeakable crimes. All roads for the damned led to Angel City.
Here, nobody cares what you’ve done. As long as you follow the rules of Angel City, you’re left alone.
Anything you can’t buy on the open market is for sale here. Even a princess from some royal family might be sold off as a pet in Angel City.
It’s not that nobody wants to wipe Angel City off the map—it’s just impossible. This is the Stoneland Kingdom’s cesspool, but it’s entangled with enormous interests. If you want something from here, you pay the price. Try to take it by force, and you’ll break the city’s only rule—and that’s the fastest way to die.
Once, the daughter of a prince from the Odin Kingdom—a bona fide princess—was trafficked here and auctioned off. That prince tried to storm Angel City with his own forces, even bringing Sky Rank warriors to destroy the city.
But after countless years of careful management, the city’s defenses were terrifyingly strong. Angel City sealed itself off and sank underground, vanishing for a month.
For that month, every faction with interests tied to Angel City suffered, especially those involved in cross-border deals, secret negotiations, or intelligence exchanges—all of which happened here.
When the city resurfaced, a swarm of powerful interests had crushed the prince’s retaliation. Even Odin’s royal family personally intervened, and only then did Angel City rise again. The prince, in the end, had to fork over a mountain of purple gold coins to buy his daughter back.
Leon stood on the deck of the floating airship, a faint smile on his lips as he gazed down at Angel City.
Even in the future, Angel City remains legendary. Its influence spreads to every lawless frontier, and ten thousand years from now, its main city will be a chaotic plane—a place anyone can visit if they know the coordinates. There, you can buy anything: materials, alchemical goods, creatures, even technology, as long as you can pay.
Ironically, this is the easiest place to get things done. As long as you have enough power to back you up, Angel City is the safest, most ideal place to open a shop.
Pay your taxes, own your shop, and anyone who comes looking for trouble—you kill them at the door. The city guards will just mop up the blood. Sometimes you don’t even have to lift a finger; the guards will handle the troublemakers themselves. As for robbing a shop inside Angel City—that’s just suicide.
After landing outside Angel City, Dick personally led Leon to the busiest street in town. There was one eight-meter-wide storefront—the only one on the street still vacant.
The shop had three floors. Once the alchemical defense array was activated, the interior was just eight meters deep. Compared to the Gilded Rose’s other shops, this was the tiniest—smaller than even the smallest branch. But in Angel City, it was considered quite spacious.
The interior was fully renovated—designed as a potion shop. The upper two floors: one was a warehouse, the other livable. Everything was ready to go.
“Lord Merlin, this is the best location and largest shop we could get. If you’re not satisfied, we can keep looking…”
Dick hadn’t finished speaking before Leon waved him off.
“No need. This is perfect. I’m very satisfied.”
Leon knew just how rare a shop in Angel City was. Buying one here was nearly impossible—even offering ten times the price wouldn’t guarantee a sale. Some owners would rather leave their shops empty and pay huge taxes every month than sell.
Renting is lucky, let alone buying—especially on the busiest street, the best spot at the very bottom of Angel City.
Dick produced all the contracts, and he and Leon signed the transfer. The shop was now Leon’s, and inside its walls, no one could interfere.
Angel City is full of evil necromancers experimenting on human bodies in their shops, but as long as it doesn’t spill outside, nobody cares.
Once the deal was done, Dick hurried off with ten thousand Universal Cores, while Leon opened his demi-plane and summoned Hubert, Reina, and the rest of his shop crew.
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Once the shelves were stocked, the shop’s name was changed to a magical sign: Gilded Rose Potion Shop.
The shop opened quietly, without any ceremony. Leon tossed a word to Hubert and vanished.
“Hubert, Reina, keep an eye on things for now. If anyone comes to cause trouble, kill them—don’t hold back.”
Leon slipped out of Angel City and headed straight for the area he’d calculated—the location of the Plane Path. It wasn’t far from Angel City, just over fifty kilometers. That entire distance was still considered within Angel City’s territory, a place where battles never truly ceased.
Those fleeing to Angel City are often pursued right up to its gates. Until you’re inside, nowhere is safe. Only within the city’s walls does true safety begin, and everyone follows the city’s rules.
Leon’s concealed form drifted through the air, using a pre-made magical detector to trace the Plane Path’s aura.
If you don’t know what kind of plane it is, using a magic device to find the Plane Path is nearly impossible. Only by knowing its type can you set the parameters and search. Once you know the general area, the device becomes useful.
But the process isn’t easy. The magic device only reacts when you’re very close to the Plane Path, so Leon figured he’d be drifting here for at least ten days.
It’s a process that’s easy to get noticed—without a reason to wander around Angel City’s outskirts, you might attract trouble.
Now, even if he was spotted, as a shop owner in Angel City, he could do whatever he wanted—even if he spent his days counting sand and freezing in the wind, nobody would care.
As dusk fell, the scorching daytime heat dropped rapidly. By night, Angel City looked like a mud-brick town in the desert, but soon, snow began to fall. Within dozens of kilometers, everything turned white, and the city was blanketed in snow and ice.
At night, the temperature plunged until water froze solid, but inside the city, things only got livelier. The heat of activity soared, and the snowflakes falling above the city evaporated before they hit the ground.
Nighttime is when Angel City truly comes alive. All the shops open up after dark—brothels, casinos, black markets—their main business hours are at night.
Hubert sat at the shop’s doorway, happily munching on fresh food he’d bought outside. There wasn’t much business; that’s normal for a new shop, even one selling potions.
But in Angel City, a lack of customers has little to do with whether the shop is new…
Soon enough, trouble arrived—a Sword Saint led the group, a cold, mocking smile on his face.
“A new shop, huh? Gilded Rose? Never heard of it. Pay your tax first…”
Two Sword Saints, both radiating evil, flanked by several Greatsword Masters, stepped into the Gilded Rose. Before they could finish their sentence, Hubert paused, looked up at the thugs blocking the door, and grinned.
He casually grabbed Slaughter, and his body vanished instantly.
A thunderclap erupted—a Sword Saint was sent flying. Three meters out, he exploded into a cloud of blood and mist…
Hubert snarled, swinging Slaughter. Like cracking eggs, afterimages flashed—two Sword Saints and five Greatsword Masters were smashed into clouds of blood…
From the moment they stepped through the Gilded Rose’s door to the moment they were all blood mist—less than three seconds.
Hubert spat outside the door, tossed Slaughter aside, and went back to chomping on his mystery beast steak.
“Idiots. Paid a whole year’s tax this morning, and now someone tries to fake a tax collection at night. Do they really think Hubert is an easy mark?”
Outside the Gilded Rose, the bustling crowd fell silent, staring in terror at Hubert, who sat at the door eating roast meat.
Everyone knew what those men were after. The Gilded Rose was open, but nobody dared buy anything. New shops—especially ones nobody’s heard of—are easy prey for the city’s thugs.
These shops are seen as fat sheep by the city’s goons—paying protection money is inevitable…
You can’t count on the city guards; nobody dares rob you, but these crooks have plenty of ways to ruin your business.
With enough strength, this really is the best place to do business. Without it, you’ll bleed before you make a sale.
Clearly, these guys thought the Gilded Rose was just another alchemy shop branch—an easy target…
Seconds later, the crowd resumed its business as usual—nobody cared about those idiots’ gruesome deaths. But the way people looked at Hubert, and at the Gilded Rose, had changed. Such ruthless, fearless types were rare even in Angel City.
The Gilded Rose, which had barely any customers before, soon saw plenty of people coming in. No one cared about the chunks of flesh at the door.
Half a minute later, the city guards showed up. The shop manager simply explained that these men had impersonated city guards to collect taxes at the Gilded Rose. The guards immediately left, cleaning up the mess at the door on their way out.
Minutes later, someone came to sell information—details about those men Hubert had killed. The branch manager cheerfully paid a thousand purple gold coins for the intel and handed it to Reina.
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At dawn, Leon appeared on the third floor of the shop from outside the city. He’d heard about the daytime incident, but didn’t care.
“If any of them step outside Angel City, kill them all. A bunch of crooks and fugitives dared to extort us.”
Leon ignored the matter and kept searching for the Plane Path outside the city. Business at the Gilded Rose started smoothly—Hubert’s show of force made customers feel safer, especially with the quality of the potions, some of which couldn’t be found anywhere else in Angel City.
Three days later, the gang of thugs was wiped out while on an escort job outside the city—less than a hundred meters from Angel City, they were all frozen into statues of ice. Even the blazing sun couldn’t melt them…
Everyone was frozen solid, faces locked in shock, without a chance to resist.
After three days, the ice statues exploded into a shower of crystals and vanished…
After flexing its muscle, the Gilded Rose had truly established itself in Angel City. Here, as long as you have enough strength, it’s the best place to do business.
Not a single troublemaker came to the Gilded Rose. Cash for goods, and the transactions were far smoother than anywhere else.
Meanwhile, Leon visited the shop less and less, spending more time outside searching for the Plane Path.
After more than ten days of searching, Leon found no useful clues. Then, after five sleepless days, just as the sun was about to rise, the magical compass finally reacted.
A faint aura of death appeared on the compass’s surface, then flowed to its edge, pointing in a direction.
At last, Leon’s eyes lit up. He followed the compass’s guidance and, in seconds, reached the spot. The death aura on the compass began to swirl at its center.
Seeing this, Leon understood immediately.
The Plane Path was underground—no wonder it took thousands of years for anyone to discover it in such a chaotic place.
By then, Angel City had moved to an independent plane, and the Lincoln Trading Guild had taken over. Only then did they find the Plane Path…
The sand underfoot, mixed with nighttime snow, was frozen solid. It would take until noon for the desert to reappear.
Leon spat out a Law Sigil, and the frozen ground split open. His body sank into the earth like quicksand, vanishing swiftly.
He tunneled down a hundred meters before finally finding the hidden Plane Path. Surrounded by solid rock, there was a crack just over a meter wide. At the center, a half-meter-long spatial fissure flickered, seemingly about to vanish.
Inside the crack, only a trace of death aura remained, along with shattered skeletons crushed by the fissure. As the spatial rift weakened, the stone crack seemed to be closing toward the center.
No wonder no undead had appeared for so long. This spatial rift barely qualified as a Plane Path—at most, it marked a fixed coordinate.
Such a tiny crack could only let through undead creatures below level ten, and the rift appeared only briefly at dawn and dusk. Any longer, and it would disappear, with the stone crack closing under immense pressure.
Under this pressure, any undead below level thirty—even ghosts—would be crushed. Unless something changed, and the terrain shifted, this rift might go undiscovered for tens of thousands of years.
Leon released several Law Sigils into the rift, propping it open and expanding the stone crack into a small chamber. Then he began constructing the Plane Path.
With only a tiny spatial fissure, the Plane Path couldn’t support travel. But with the coordinate confirmed, Leon used an Alchemical Array to build the Plane Path.
In less than half an hour, the Plane Path was complete. Leon crossed over, arriving in a dim, shadowy world.