novelraw Chapter 18
Chapter 18
Chapter 18: The “Fate” That Could Not Be Escaped
What was going on?! Had she transmigrated back?
No… this feeling… it should have been a dream?
But why could she stay conscious inside a dream?
Lina quickly became alert. She took a step back and carefully observed the cat-eared girl in front of her, while the other girl also curiously looked her over.
It was the Witch of Wind, Sethriel Filin.
She looked exactly the same as in her memory.
“Star, why have you been staring at me the whole time? Is there something on my face, meow?” Sethriel blinked her amber cat eyes, and her ears twitched once.
“Do you still remember… what my name is?” Lina stared straight into the other girl’s eyes. “I mean my real name.”
“Uh… Lavinia Astra.” The cat-eared girl hesitated for a moment, then reached out and waved a hand in front of Lina’s eyes. “You’re fine, right… Don’t tell me you’re really so tired you’ve gone stupid, meow?”
“Is there anything strange about the clothes I’m wearing?” Lina took off the D-rank witch badge on her chest and showed it to the cat-eared girl. “Do you recognize this badge?”
“Uh…” Sethriel was a little dazed by Lina’s string of questions, but she still answered honestly, “No, nothing. It’s the same as what you wore yesterday, meow… Badge? What badge?”
Lina frowned and pinched the silver badge between her fingers, shaking it under the sunlight.
The badge had no shadow!
She abruptly turned to look behind herself, and her own shadow was different too!
The figure in the shadow had a tall build and a head of long wavy hair. That was “Lavinia’s” shadow!
In other words… to the “others” in this dream, she still looked like Lavinia?
Lina quickly realized a serious problem.
A normal dream would not have this kind of “observer bias.”
A dream was a subjective cognition, so once this kind of deviation caused by objective factors appeared, there was only one other possibility!
This dream did not belong to her alone!
She smiled at Sethriel. “It’s nothing, just a hidden spell I learned recently. I was only testing it on you. Go do your thing, we both have important business to attend to.”
“Uh… huh?” Sethriel clearly had not reacted yet, and stood there blankly, watching Lina’s departing back. After a while, she finally came back to her senses, twitched her ears, and muttered softly, “So mysterious, meow…” Then she turned into a gust of wind and left the hall.
After leaving the hall, Lina came to the garden in the front courtyard.
The wind, carrying the lingering traces of spring rain, brushed against her cheeks, slightly cool.
The fountain built from white marble sent a tall column of water into the air, refracting seven-colored rainbow light beneath the sun.
Everything here felt too real, so real that it hardly seemed like a dream.
Lina gently let out a breath.
“Open status panel.”
Lines of text surfaced in her mind.
Username: Lavinia Astra
Class: Witch (EX)
Magic Level: LV100
Magic Attributes: Metal, Wood, Water, Earth, Fire, Lightning, Wind, Light, Dark, Sun, Moon, Star
Money: 1 Gold Dragon
Armor: Dream of Stars (Head) Embrace of Night (Torso) Blessing of Moon (Feet)
【Set Effect Activated (3/3): Magic Defense +1000 In nighttime environments, magic damage taken reduced by 99.99%, magic damage ignores 90% defense, magic critical damage doubled. (Base enhancement affixes folded Special enhancement affix: All environments are treated as nighttime)】
Accessories:
(Ring) Heaven’s Blessing 【Max HP +1000 When receiving fatal damage, the wearer would not die, but would immediately revive and gain 5 seconds of invincibility, cooldown 30s. (Base enhancement affixes folded Special enhancement affix: Cooldown halved, invincibility duration doubled)】
(Cloak) Star-Moon Night【Magic Attack +1000 Attacks additionally deal true damage equal to 20% of attack power, and inflict a 0.5s time-stop effect. (Base enhancement affixes folded Special enhancement affix: True damage can crit, time-stop effect doubled)】
Main Weapon: (Staff) Genesis Star Spear【Magic Attack +99999 For every 100 attack held, magic damage cumulatively increases by 1%, ignores 99% magic resistance, mana consumption reduced by 99%, astral magic damage doubled. (Base enhancement affixes folded Special enhancement affix: This weapon’s cumulative effect becomes multiplicative, all damage is treated as magic damage)】
Secondary Weapon: (Staff) Entropy Cancer【Magic Attack +50000 On hit, inflicts the enemy with ‘Heat Death’, dispelling all defensive enhancement effects on the enemy, reducing all-attribute defense by 99%, all-attribute attack by 99%, and all-attribute resistance by 99% (Base enhancement affixes folded Special enhancement affix: While equipped as a standby weapon, this weapon skill can still be triggered when the main weapon lands a hit)】
Magic: Super-Tier Disintegration Reverse Singularity Annihilation of a Thousand Stars Violent Core Fusion… (folded)
Character Attributes:
Physical Attack: 1000 Magic Attack: 2147483647 Physical Defense: 1000 Magic Defense: 2147483647 HP: 5000
Overall Combat Power Rating: 2147483647
Title: 【Star Witch】 Divinity: 【Star】【Source of All Magic】
Sigh, it was gone, all of it was gone...
Lina could not help but let out a long sigh in her heart.
Now one fact could be confirmed: there was another “observer” in this dream.
Right, what was I about to do just now… oh! Find the Witch of Fate.
Lina focused her mind and activated teleportation magic. After a burst of intertwining light and shadow, the iconic starry dome of the courtyard of The Astrania Grand Library suddenly appeared before her eyes.
What followed was a burst of arguing voices.
“Blazing Flame, what did you do to my sapling!” an angry female voice came from behind Lina.
Lina turned around and saw a petite elf girl with long golden hair and a lovely face charging into the courtyard aggressively.
On the other side of the courtyard stood a tall woman with long fiery-red hair, a heroic bearing, and wheat-colored skin.
“Uh… I thought it looked a little wilted, and then… and then I watered it a little…” The red-haired woman turned her head aside, one hand scratching her cheek, looking somewhat embarrassed.
“And then you poured boiling water into it!?” The elf girl rushed in front of the red-haired woman, extremely agitated. “Do you know?! This was the last remaining tree species left from the Kaniat Dynasty!”
“…Sorry…” The red-haired woman lowered her head, trying hard to make her apologetic attitude look a little more sincere.
Unfortunately, with her height of 1.9 meters, it was difficult for her to appear sufficiently sincere in front of the 1.6-meter-tall elf girl.
The air was full of awkwardness, and Lina simply took a step back and played the role of an onlooker enjoying the spectacle.
Just then, pale blue fluorescent butterflies from all over the courtyard gathered in one place like a whirlwind. When they scattered again, a dreamlike blue-haired girl revealed herself.
“Even without Blazing Flame’s ‘care,’ that sapling would not have survived, Life.” The blue-haired girl said calmly, “This era no longer has the air and soil suitable for it. Even your authority could only shorten the process of its death to a limited extent.”
“But… but…” The elf girl lowered her head and clenched her fists tightly. “That was already Kaniat’s last ‘life’...”
“Yes, but time abandoned Kaniat.” The blue-haired girl raised her arm, and a fluorescent butterfly quietly landed on her slender fingertip. “Everything from that era had already turned to the dust of history. Capturing such a trace of an afterimage was meaningless.”
“But… it still remained until today...” The elf girl’s eyes were slightly red, as though she were trying to convince herself. “It’s all because I’m still not strong enough… If I could get soil and air samples from Kaniat...”
“You need to calm down, Life.” The blue-haired girl turned toward Lina, who was watching the commotion. “You’ve come, Star.”
“Ah? Mm, I’m here, you all… continue?” Lina blinked.
“Star, do you still remember my last divination from half a month ago?” The blue-haired girl ignored the other two people in the courtyard and walked straight toward Lina.
Lina had just been about to say she did not remember, when a stream of information suddenly flooded into her mind, and she answered instinctively, “I remember. At the end of time, there was no future, only a gray-white mist.”
“Just yesterday, I found the source of that mist.” Fantasia looked straight into Lina’s eyes. “That mist came from a god who had already vanished from history. The God of Dreams, Oneiros.”
“You mean that… the last god of the Kaniat Dynasty?!” The elf girl’s eyes widened instantly. “But… didn’t He fall in that great catastrophe?”
“Yes.” Fantasia said calmly, “The history of the Kaniat Dynasty remains buried beneath that temple to this day. Just like that seed, it has already been completely ‘abandoned’ by time. No one knows the truth. That is why we can only find Him ‘in person’ if we want the truth.”
“Uh… well, I didn’t quite get it,” the Witch of Blazing Flame at the side scratched her head. “So why don’t we just dig through beneath the temple directly and take out all that information?”
“Because everything that belonged to that era would become distorted the moment we observed it. That temple is both isolation and a form of protection.”
“What about the vampires? Aren’t they Kaniat’s surviving people?” Lina suddenly asked. “Why not ask them?”
“The vampires’ state... cannot even be regarded as a form of life. They also long ago forgot their own past. They only remember that Kaniat also had a holy city.” The elf girl answered her question in place of the Witch of Fate. “That seed was given to me by a vampire noble... She also hoped to use that seed to find a way for them to truly possess ‘life.’”
“So we must find that god. Only from Him would we have a chance to learn what exactly happened at the end of time.” After pausing for a second, Fantasia said to Lina, “Star, I am going to use all of my magic power to open a Scar of Time. Through that rift, you can return to the Kaniat Dynasty two thousand years ago.”
“Ah?” This time it was Lina’s turn to be stunned. She quickly recalled the experiences of her “previous life,” and abruptly realized that she really did seem to have had such a journey through time and space!
But the contents of that journey seemed to be covered by a layer of fog, impossible to recall no matter what.
Since this was a dream… that meant the “other observer” also wanted to witness this journey!
Who exactly was it? And what was their purpose?
The blue-haired girl at her fingertips turned her back to Lina, and one blue ribbon of light after another, covered in intricate runes, slowly rose from beneath her feet and revolved at a measured pace.
A point of golden light suddenly lit up at the top of the pitch-black sky. In the next second, a pale golden beam shone down from it, falling straight before Fantasia.
Crack──
A sudden crisp sound burst into everyone’s ears, as though something had been torn apart.
The golden light gradually dimmed, and a pitch-black, profound rift appeared in the middle of the courtyard.
“Go, Star.” The blue-haired girl’s voice was somewhat weak. “This is predetermined fate. You will definitely leave your mark within that stretch of history.”
Lina raised an eyebrow, and a bold idea welled up in her mind.
Clearly, that observer wanted her to step into this journey through time just as she had before… but if she refused, what would happen?
“I still think this is a bit inappropriate.” Lina shook her head. “What if I do something earth-shattering, or accidentally cause a butterfly effect in history? Wouldn’t the world of the present become a complete mess then?”
“It won’t,” the blue-haired girl said with complete certainty. “Kaniat’s time and fate form a closed loop. No matter what you do, it will not affect the modern era.”
“…No, I still…” Lina waved her hand. Today, she really did want to resist this predetermined “fate” for once.
“Star, give me a hand. I’ve exhausted a bit too much magic power…” Fantasia’s body swayed, and it looked as though she was about to fall.
Without even thinking, Lina rushed forward and grabbed the loli who was about to collapse.
Then, she felt a huge force come from the girl’s arm. Her body instantly lost balance and flew toward the temporal rift!
In the final second before the rift swallowed her, she saw the expressionless blue-haired loli hurling her out with an over-the-shoulder throw.
“Fate cannot be escaped… and I am responsible for correcting fate.”
“Correct your—! You flat-chested shorty, I’ll —”
Lina’s cursing vanished into the closing spacetime rift.
……
“Fantasia, you flat little dwarf! When I get out, I’ll you first, then ! And finally !”
Lina jolted awake and sprang up from the bed.
Huh? Had the dream ended?
Wait, why was it so dark outside?
“Rumble!”