After Priest Dean left, Lena led Rocky to the bed and helped him sit down. While she was talking to him, a girl dressed like a servant walked into the room.
This girl bowed respectfully to Lena and said, "Your Royal Highness, His Majesty wants to meet you in the main hall. He wishes to speak about the grand ceremony to be held tomorrow."
"All right! I will go later. You may leave now." Lena nodded as she waved the servant away. She turned to Rocky and said, "Basil, just stay here and have rest! Don't run away! Remember that? I'll come back soon."
"Okay!" Rocky answered.
After Lena left the room, Rocky sat on the bed for a while. He was lost in his thoughts. There was too much new information for him to process. Although he had confirmed that he now was a prince, he still found it hard to believe! He could not help but rub his temples to soothe a raging headache. He was also wondering about the so-called spiritual method which Priest Dean and Lena mentioned in their previous conversation. What did it entail? Rocky sighed, stood up and walked out of the room.
There was a long corridor outside, at the end of which a ray of dazzling light was sparkling.
Rocky walked to the source of light slowly. As he got closer, the light gradually grew brighter. When he reached the corridor's end, he was greeted with a warm breeze and the sight of sunshine filling acres of land. What he saw next totally stunned him.
Every building he saw around him was towering and sumptuous. He was in a majestic imperial palace, and he now stood in the dome of a grand mansion. Next to him was a helix stairway, stretching down to the darkness.
As his eyes followed it downwards, he was greeted with a scenic picture. A wide moat encircled the palace, glistening under the sun. Across the moat, numerous houses were scattered as far as he could see. From a distance, he could see the houses lined and stretched like a fan. There were thousands of figures as small as black dots walking on the passages between those houses and milling about.
All of a sudden, the sunlight over Rocky was gone. He looked up in confusion and exclaimed in shock, "Holy moly! What the hell is that monster?"
A colossal creature was flying over his head. A pair of large wings, dozens of meters wide, swooped in perfect arcs over the sky. Its giant body cast a vast shadow over the dome. The shape of its head looked like a crocodile, with two sharp and long teeth sticking out of its mouth. Smoke kept spurting out of its huge nostrils.
"Is that a dinosaur?" What popped into Rocky's mind first was the image of a creature living in prehistoric times. It shared many characteristics.
Rocky almost jumped out of his skin as he noticed that a human was sitting on the creature, who was riding it like an experienced pilot. Under the rider's direction, the flying monster brought a perfect and breathtaking performance of aerial-acrobatics.
Before Rocky could recover from the shock, the flying monster took a sudden turn and rushed towards him.
Rocky turned pale and widened his eyes as he saw the monster flying towards him. The four sharp claws of the monster seemed be able to tear apart anything easily, frightening Rocky to the core. He stepped back instinctively but tripped and fell to the floor. There was nothing he could do but watch the scary monster reaching out its sharp claws to him.
'Oh! Come on! Am I going to meet my death again? I just came back to life!' Rocky thought to himself.
When its sharp nails were only an inch close to his face, Rocky's head went blank. But the monster flew past him right away, a strong wind blowing by his face. Lying on the floor, Rocky was gasping fo
r air to calm himself down.
"Fuck! Are you just fooling me around!? Fuck you! You damn..." Rocky cursed loudly after he collected himself. He then stood up and turned to look at the flying monster, which had landed on the platform behind him. The rider jumped off spritely.
Rocky was not a wuss, who would never stand such a humiliation. He walked to the platform angrily, but he froze for a while when he saw the rider's delicate features. What a pretty face! But from the way that person dressed, it seemed he was a boy! He was only around seventeen but stood quite tall and had an imperial air. Rocky felt that it was a shame that someone with such a comely and attractive face was a boy instead of a girl.
"Oh! It's Prince Basil! I heard that you nearly died because of high fever. What a shame for the imperial family! A piece of shit like you is still alive!" the rider's androgynous voice rang out as he looked at Rocky with disgust.
"Hey! You damn lady-boy! Watch your mouth!" Rocky yelled, glowering. But his lean and fragile figure couldn't make his words threatening at all.
"Lady-boy? What's that?" the comely person questioned, shooting Rocky a disdainful glare.
"You can find the answer when you look at your mirror," Rocky answered airily, with his arm folded in front of his chest.
"You! How dare you!" Rage sparked in his eyes upon understanding that Rocky was calling him names.
"Well? Do you have any problem with that? Show some respect, little asshole! Don't stir up a hornet's nest!" Rocky smirked.
"What are you talking about? Is your illness that serious? Listen to yourself! How ridiculous you are with what you're saying! You should die of illness already! You're no better than a dog in the imperial family. Why do the gods allow a useless man like you to survive in the world?" the rider said, looking at Rocky with scorn.
"Ha-ha! I'm a prince! That means you were just humiliating a royal member, and the whole imperial family! You really have some nerve!" Rocky sneered.
"You! You..." The rider's eyes narrowed in rage. He was even trembling in anger as he glowered at Rocky.
All of a sudden, a ray of bright light surged up from his right arm. The sleeve of his garment was somehow torn apart into pieces and burnt into ashes by a strange but powerful force. Then his arm appeared, white and slender like a girl's. Sparkling streaks appeared around his arm one by one, which formed a delicate and unique mark.
Rocky's jaw almost dropped on the floor as he witnessed the bizarre scene. He could not even believe what his eyes saw. 'Is this some magic?" But he soon knew that he was wrong. As that person waved his right arm, Rocky was raised up by a strange force. Then, after a brief moment of being stuck in mid-air, he was hurled away. Rocky let out a scream before he was smashed against a hard stone wall. He fell to the ground and groaned in pain.
Rocky held on to the wall to support him and finally stood up after a while. He then yelled at that person angrily, "You damn boy-lady! How could you do this to me? Are you out of your mind?"
"So what? You useless piece of shit! If you have a problem with that, you can just avenge yourself through the spiritual method like I used! Oh, I almost forget that you can't do that! Because you're inutile! Ha-ha!" he yelled back, a smirk creeping over the corner of his lips. But it seemed that he wasn't satisfied just yet. He raised his right arm and started spinning it. In a matter of seconds, a vortex appeared around his arm. Then the vortex sprang out, rushing towards Rocky. Looking at vortex spinning as quickly as a drill, Rocky gulped in fear. This person really wanted to kill him!