Chapter 120: The Plan: "Three Birds in Flight"
Burying her mories, the Eastern Witch watched as the birds flying from afar plumted into the lake. The dark waters swallowed them whole, refusing to let them float, dragging them inevitably to the lakebed.
Only a handful of birds managed to veer off just in ti, avoiding a watery death.
"Co out, Magician! Stop hiding!" the Eastern Witch bellowed.
To her surprise, at her call, one of the surviving birds—a brilliantly colored one—actually broke away from the flock, flew to the front, and spoke in a clear, youthful voice:
"Alright, here I am."
The voice was unmistakably that of a young boy.
That easy?
He actually showed himself!
The Eastern Witch was startled.
"No wonder I couldn’t sense where you were hiding. Turns out, you turned into a bird yourself." She chuckled.
"A clever combination—controlling birds with magic and shapeshifting. If you hadn’t co out on your own, I might’ve had to take so ti to find you... or not. I’d just kill all the birds to make sure."
The dazzling bird with rainbow-like plumage perched on a branch and continued speaking in human language:
"I stepped forward willingly because I want to negotiate."
Dozens of other birds still circled warily around the Eastern Witch, ready to serve as their master’s shield against any attack.
"You must be Sage Rhine," the Eastern Witch said. "Do you really think you can defeat and save the Queen?"
Sage Rhine...
The Queen vaguely recognized the na.
"The magician from the northern Rose Kingdom? The one who was involved in the alliance between the Western Asia Kingdom and the Sea Kingdom? It must be him."
"But Rhine is the Sage of the Rose Kingdom and an ally of the Western Asia Kingdom. He has no connection to the White Kingdom, so why is he trying to save ?"
The Queen was utterly confused.
"What do you want to negotiate?" The Eastern Witch’s expression twisted into sothing terrifying as she slowly lifted off the ground, hovering in midair.
"I will kill the Queen today and extract her soul. But if you cooperate, I might consider sparing your life!"
Damn... The Eastern Witch really hates the Queen. If she knew that the 'Queen' she chased away was actually Aurora and in disguise, her expression would be priceless. Rhine smirked inwardly.
The rainbow-feathered bird lifted its proud neck.
"I want to make a trade. Hand over the magical silver shoes, and leave imdiately. In return, I’ll offer sothing of equal value."
"How ridiculous," the Eastern Witch sneered, her grotesque face stretching into a grin. "And what exactly do you have to offer?"
"My paynt is..." The colorful bird paused deliberately, waiting a few seconds before finishing:
"Not killing you."
The Eastern Witch burst into laughter.
A deep, mocking laugh—like she had just heard the funniest joke in the world.
The next instant, her gaze sharpened, filled with murderous intent and rage.
"You’re just a magician with a little fa in a couple of minor kingdoms. You’re not worthy!"
Her wand pointed at the colorful bird on the branch, and violet energy gathered at its tip.
Just as she was about to cast her spell, every bird around her shot forward like arrows, charging at her to protect their master.
The Eastern Witch ignored the incoming birds completely.
She knew her own power—there was no way these birds could harm her!
Besides, it was too late...
Whoosh!
A beam of dark purple energy shot from the tip of the Eastern Witch’s wand, striking the rainbow-colored bird with perfect accuracy.
Snap.
The bird fell lifelessly from the branch, crashing to the ground in a burst of dust and turning to ash.
It was dead.
"That’s it?"
The Eastern Witch was slightly surprised.
Then, her eyes narrowed.
"No... sothing’s wrong!"
"That beautiful, rainbow-feathered bird wasn’t the magician’s real body—it was a decoy!"
A sudden sense of danger triggered within her.
She wasn’t an expert in prophecy or divination, but she had dabbled in many magical fields. In life-threatening situations or monts of severe loss, she would instinctively get a warning. 𝖗Á𝐍ꝋᛒÈș
"The real Magician Rhine is—"
She realized the trick and tried to react.
Too late.
The birds weren’t attacking her—they were flying past her.
One of them, the most ordinary-looking of the flock, indistinguishable from the others, flew beneath the floating Eastern Witch. As it passed, it lightly brushed its feathers against her silver shoes.
At the mont of foreboding, the Eastern Witch instinctively lifted her feet, trying to avoid the bird’s touch.
—Her intuition scread that this would bring disaster!
However, distracted by the decoy, she was a second too slow.
Her left foot avoided the touch, but her right foot wasn’t so lucky—a single feather barely grazed it.
But that was all.
"Strange… My silver shoes still have their magic. Nothing happened."
She examined her shoes and found them completely unaffected.
The bird circled once in the sky before landing in a clearing in the forest. A mist of white fog enveloped it, and in the next mont, it transford back into a silver-haired boy.
"What a sha… I only managed to touch one shoe."
Rhine flipped his right hand, and in an instant, the silver shoe from the Eastern Witch’s right foot appeared in his grasp.
The Eastern Witch looked down—her silver shoes were now incomplete.
What had just happened—from the flock of birds creating a distraction to the talking rainbow-colored decoy—was all part of Rhine’s ticulously crafted plan against her.
For a core mber of the Witches’ Coven, Rhine knew that truly killing her would be incredibly difficult—far harder than dealing with that old witch from Enderland.
This Eastern Witch had gathered knowledge from countless magical schools. She undoubtedly possessed ans of self-preservation that made her nearly unkillable.
So from the very beginning, Rhine’s goal in this battle wasn’t to defeat her.
It was to steal her silver shoes—so she could no longer travel freely across the continent!
"I see… You can take anything you’ve touched," the Eastern Witch muttered.
"And your real body was the most ordinary bird, blending into the flock—not the one with rainbow feathers speaking human words. That was just a decoy to mislead ."
She narrowed her eyes at Rhine.
The silver-haired boy stood against the wind, his white robes fluttering.
From this young magician, she could sense deep trouble.
"Exactly," Rhine shrugged. "I can’t actually speak while transford, but I can enchant birds to talk."
He tossed the silver shoe in his hand, then glanced at the Eastern Witch’s remaining left shoe.
"A sha… My plan was to take both at once. I’m quite disappointed."
He smiled.
But his expression showed no disappointnt at all.
As expected of a core mber of the Witches’ Coven—she wasn’t easy to deal with.
Rhine sighed inwardly.
The Eastern Witch of this world, having combined the knowledge of countless magical disciplines, was on a completely different level compared to the original version—the one crushed by a house.
To counter such a formidable opponent, Rhine and Aurora had ticulously devised a multi-layered strategy.
A plan known as—
"Three Birds in Flight."
anwhile…
The Queen, having slipped away from the battlefield, was running through the erald forest.
To avoid detection by the Eastern Witch, she didn’t dare use a flying broomstick and could only flee on foot.
As she ran, she replayed everything in her mind, growing more and more confused.
"I’ve seen that silver-haired boy before—he was there when I tried to kill Aurora."
"So… He’s the famous Magician Rhine?"
"What the hell is going on? I tried to harm his companion, yet he’s saving ?"
"Wait… Since my poisoned apple didn’t work, he probably doesn’t know I tried to kill his friend."
"Whatever. I’ll figure it out later. I need to return to the kingdom first."
The Queen pushed through the trees.
Ahead, the forest suddenly opened up, revealing a breathtaking sight.
At the foot of the mountain lay her familiar royal city.
"My palace, my city, my kingdom…
Your Queen has returned!"
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