Cloud Thinking

But before one crisis is over, another one arises.

After Ariana shot this one, she didn't intend to stop there, but drew her bow and arrow again and aimed at another person who had wanted to shoot her.

He still aimed at the horse and shot it directly in the hind leg. He then quickly pulled out the arrow and shot it in the other hind leg, killing the horse directly.

The man on the horse was naturally not much better off. He rolled to the ground and fell to the ground with his horse.

The next one was shot in the horse's butt. The horse was frightened and ran away wildly. The person on the horse couldn't control it and was thrown off the horse. It was unknown whether he was alive or dead.

There was only one person left, and Ariana aimed her bow at him, but when the man saw the miserable plight of the others, he turned around and ran away, shouting for help.

In previous competitions in other groups, no one had ever dared to hurt others openly like she did. They always tried to trip others up secretly, but not too much.

Everyone is just trying to grab more points, no one is planning to risk their lives!

Ariana was an excellent shooter and she defeated three opponents in a very short time. Even the examiner beside her was unable to react.

But when the examiner and his men were about to come over to stop her, her arrow flew out again, brushing past the man's face, frightening him so much that he fainted and fell off his horse.

Faced with the aggressive examiner and guards, she simply chuckled twice, rode her horse away from them, and did not forget to shoot down the remaining bells in the air while running away.

Until the ten-minute countdown ended, the examiner was unable to catch up with her.

Because she had defeated her opponent, no one competed with her for the bells anymore, and she broke Ide's record of fifteen bells with her eighteen.

But among so many people present, almost no one acknowledged her victory.

The Ide ended with thunderous cheers, applause and applause.

But when it came to Ariana, there were only shouting, condemnation and booing.

Ansel frowned like Helia and commented, "Hmm... a little... strong..."

"Too rigid can easily lead to breakage..." Helia looked worriedly at Ariana being led off the field by the examiner and guards, unsure whether she needed to step down and intervene.

"We absolutely cannot have such a person."

Dorado didn't expect that this woman could be so cruel. She would do such a brutal thing in front of so many people without any hesitation.

He is simply asking for his own death.

"I'll go take a look first." Helia stood up and walked off the stage.

The other four people in the group were lucky enough to survive, but they either broke their legs or had a cracked head, so they could be said to be disabled.

The culprit was sitting quietly in a small dark room that was temporarily vacated, waiting for others to come and judge her crimes.

With the presence of the healing magician, these people would not have to live the rest of their lives in disability, but they were all furious as cows and said that they must make the bitch Ariana pay the price.

But if their positions and identities were reversed, if any one of them succeeded, I'm afraid they wouldn't feel any remorse or shame in their hearts.

It's just because he became a victim. He couldn't bear this loss, and he didn't want to admit that he was not even as good as a woman and was stepped on by a woman in front of so many people.

When Helia arrived, Carlisle was asking Ariana about the situation, but no matter what he asked her, she either replied "I did nothing wrong" or kept silent.

"Captain, let me do it. You go check on the wounded first and comfort them." Helia said.

Carlisle glanced at Ariana, whose expression had obviously changed because of Helia's arrival, then looked at Helia, who looked normal, then nodded, stood up and left.

"You guys go out too. I have something to ask her alone." Helia looked at the guards standing in the house and waved her hand to signal them to go out.

"Your Highness, your safety..." Someone disagreed.

"I'm a magician." Helia glanced at Ariana and said with a smile, "She can't hurt me."

The guards exchanged glances before slowly leaving the room as ordered.

Helia walked over to Ariana, untied the ropes around her wrists and ankles, and poured her a glass of water.

"You're not hurt, are you?"

She sat opposite Ariana, crossed her legs, and spoke in an intimate tone as if she was chatting with a good sister.

Ariana shook her head, "A bunch of trash, they can't hurt me."

Helia smiled and tapped her fingers on her knees. "I like your temper."

"But I like being useless. I may not be able to protect you."

Ariana shook her head again and explained, "I am not here to seek your protection."

"Then what you want is..." Helia narrowed her eyes slightly, and unexpectedly found that she could not see through the woman in front of her at all.

"Your strength, status, power, and momentum." Ariana said frankly, "These are what I need."

"What do you want to borrow me for?" Helia asked again.

"Do what you've always wanted to do," Ariana replied.

Helia frowned slightly, as if she had thought of something, "Are you a believer of Fengze?"

She shook her head for the third time. "I don't believe in God."

Helia stood up and walked over to her, holding her shoulder with one hand and inserting her magic power into her. After confirming that there was no strange aura or magic power on her, she felt relieved.

Never mind. I’ve been annoyed by Fengze recently. It feels like he’s everywhere.

"You have to know that they will send you to the guillotine for what you did today."

Helia returned to the point. She came here to resolve this matter.

"I'm not afraid of death." Ariana repeated it again word by word clearly with a calm look in her eyes, "I'm not afraid of death."

"I am only afraid that they cannot see me. I am only afraid that my death will be like a drop of water falling into the sea, meaningless and without a sound."

"Besides, I don't think I did anything wrong." Ariana said seriously.

"I'm just giving back an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth."

Helia understood Ariana's thoughts and feelings, but understanding did not mean approval or support.

If it were her, she would not choose to solve it on the court. She would wait until the court was empty and there was no one around. It didn't matter how she retaliated.

"You have to know that even if you didn't shoot anyone directly, they would still sentence you for murder." Helia stated the facts seriously.

"Do you think I shouldn't fight back?" Ariana asked back.

"They point their arrows at me time and time again. They regard my life as worthless. If it weren't for my great ability, I would be the one who suffers."

"Why is my revenge unreasonable and unacceptable, while their murder is understandable and permitted?"

"Is there still reason and justice in this world?"

Helia sighed and replied, "I don't think there's anything wrong with your counterattack. I think there's nothing wrong with your idea of ​​counterattack and your motivation for counterattack."

"I just think that the time and place are inappropriate."

"You can deal with him privately as you like, even if it means killing him."

"But you caused them to break their legs in front of so many people. The victims are always somewhat right, and you won't get any benefits."

"If I let you go, it would be a challenge to the law and the empire's greatest justice."

"And I, as a princess of the empire, cannot break the law or defy royal authority for your sake."

“That’s where I am now.”

"So, even so, you still want to borrow my status and power?"

Helia's implication was that if Ariana came to her for the purpose of liberating women and restoring women's freedom and equality, then she couldn't help.

Even though she was a princess, she was subject to constraints and restrictions that they could never imagine.

She's not that free.

"You obviously have such a high status and such great power that I don't have, but you did nothing. Don't you feel guilty?" Ariana asked.

Helia just smiled and said, "First of all, I have to make one thing clear. I am a greedy and selfish person."

"In all my plans, my life comes first and cannot be shaken by anything else."

"I want to live, I want freedom, and then I want equality."

"So, don't use the pursuit of dreams to morally blackmail me. It's useless."

"I'm not that great."

Ariana retorted: "But you clearly killed the fire dragon regardless of the sacrifice."

Helia replied, "There is no other choice."

"Even if I don't kill it and let the war spread and expand, I won't live long."

"Every choice I made from the beginning to the end was just to save my life."

Ariana just stared at Helia without saying anything, as if she didn't know what to say, and as if she didn't know whether she could say the words in her mouth.

After a while, she continued: "I have worked so hard to get to this point. I don't want to stop here. I think I can do more."

"Besides, I was very restrained. I didn't aim at their heads. I was showing mercy."

"You are too confident, too arrogant, and you underestimate them too much," Helia commented.

"Why do you think that with just your meager power, you can pry open the patriarchal society that has been maintained for thousands of years and dig out the deep-rooted ideas in people's minds?"

"Who do you think you are? How dare you say you want to change the world? Can you think about your own worth?"

"You can't even avoid the next death, so what big thing are you still thinking about doing? Huh?"

Ariana remained calm despite being mocked by Helia.

"I know that my abilities are limited, so I want to borrow the power of your identity to do something that I can't do alone."

"But why should I help you?" Helia asked back, "What good will this do me?"

"You are Helia, the princess of the empire, and the most noble woman in the entire empire." Ariana said, "Only you can help me."

After hearing this reason, Helia couldn't help laughing, "You are even more selfish than me."

"And your so-called liberation, your so-called helping them break free from bondage, is nothing more than your wishful thinking."

"Have you asked their opinions? Are they willing? Do they agree with your ideas?"

"You are simply an arrogant idealist. You stubbornly move forward based on your self-proclaimed great goals and dreams, and don't listen to other people's opinions at all."

"I thought I was pursuing fairness and justice, I thought I was helping them, I thought I was doing the right thing."

"But these are just your own wishful thinking, your own wild fantasies, like colorful flags flying into the sky, never landing on the ground."

"People like you will eventually die from hitting your head against a boulder and bleeding profusely."

Ariana's expression finally changed drastically at this moment.

She stood up angrily and slammed her fist on the table beside her, causing the water in the cup to splash out and spread all over the place.

"I don't think my idea is wrong! We have been ignored, oppressed, and insulted. These are facts! These are existing problems!"

"So now I want to solve the problem, am I wrong?! I'm not!"

"And you are a traitor!"

Helia just watched indifferently as Ariana got angry, angrily accusing her of betrayal and blaming her for inaction.

She did not respond to the other party's questions, but went back to the selection assessment.

"If I hadn't come today, do you know what would have happened to you?"

"you will die."

"And he did not die from a fair verdict, but from his rebellious struggle against authority."

"Even if I save you today, what will happen?"

"I can't keep an eye on you all the time, and you have no power. If they want to do something, you can't get away. You can't escape."

"What you are doing now is like trying to shake a tree with an ant. You are overestimating your own abilities and risking your life to set off a fireworks display to provide them with after-dinner talk."

It wasn't that Helia wanted to attack Ariana on purpose, but there were some truths she had to make clear.

She never thought that she had the ability to shake the current order, nor did she think that she had the ability to achieve something that thousands of years of civilization could not achieve.

Moreover, she is also very clear that some of the modern concepts she brought with her, which she considers to be good things, may be arsenic to people of this era.

Ariana is young, impulsive and brave. She must have suffered a lot and seen a lot of injustice, which is why she tried every possible way to climb up on this road without a path and open up a path.

But she is so easy to suffer losses and be blown down by the wind.

Helia saw a glimmer of hope in the other person, so she didn't want to extinguish it so quickly.

Because it is very likely that there won’t be someone as brave as her for a long, long time.

But people have to learn to bow to reality.

People cannot always look up at the starry sky, obsessed with the sea of ​​stars, while ignoring the road under their feet and their own situation.

"But should we just do nothing?" Ariana asked, "If we assume that we can't do anything and don't try, we will never succeed."

Ariana's words instantly brought Helia back to three years ago. She seemed to have said similar words to Elroy, asking him to help save the abducted girls.

Haha, the boomerang I threw out finally flew back...

"Of course there are things we can do, but it's definitely not like you did it." Helia said.

She stood up and didn't want to argue with Ariana about these issues anymore, it was completely meaningless.

"I'll only help you this time. What happens next depends entirely on your ability."

After that, she left the room, leaving Ariana alone to think about it all.