novelraw Chapter 6
Chapter 6
Chapter 6: Did She Become a Pair of Star-Crossed Lovers with a Bitter Fate?
Lina immediately pulled out the protective magic stone from her bosom, while urgently saying to Annie, “Annie, take out your magic stone! Something’s wrong, we need to teleport out immediately!”
Annie did not dare delay and hurriedly took out her own magic stone as well. The two of them tried to pour magic power into them at the same time, yet the magic stones, which should originally have emitted a blue glow and quickly activated the teleportation, were now completely unresponsive like ordinary stones!
“The teleportation failed?!” Annie’s voice took on a sob as she looked at Lina in despair.
Lina viciously smashed the magic stone onto the ground. A crack split across the surface of the hard crystal, exposing the damaged rune structure inside.
“It didn’t fail, it was broken from the start! It was already broken when it was handed to us!” Lina said through gritted teeth,
“Th-Then what do we do?” Annie’s voice trembled a little. “W-We won’t die here, right...”
“What are you panicking for!” Lina barked in a low voice, forcing herself to calm down. She took a deep breath and quickly analyzed the situation. “In the simulated secret realm constructed by the Association, to prevent accidents, aside from the protective magic stone each person gets, there is usually also a fixed exit teleportation gate set up at the final destination—that is, where the Moonlight Moss grows—as the final safeguard. That operates independently, so it probably hasn’t been tampered with.”
She grabbed Annie’s hand. “Our only way to survive now is to keep moving forward and reach the Moonlight Moss’s location as fast as possible, then leave through the teleportation gate there!”
The two of them stopped delaying. Lina once again carried the cloth sack full of materials on her back, gripped the black bread stick tightly, and led Annie to speed up along the cave passage. Along the way, Lina pushed her perception to the limit and used divination frequently, avoiding any other dangers that might exist.
“These damned cult bastards!” Lina cursed through gritted teeth while running.
“Cult bastards?” Annie shrank her neck.
“Remember the iron ring on that big dog’s foot?” Lina slowed her pace slightly. Her current body could not sustain such intense exercise for so long. “That was their handiwork. It can control low-level magical beasts and make them obey to a certain extent... They call themselves Returners.”
“Returners?” Annie was a little unfamiliar with the term.
“These lunatics think reality is a dream, a chaotic dream belonging to a being called the ‘God of Folly.’ In their theory, the whole world should return to the deepest part of that dream,” Lina explained. “In their description, at the deepest part of that dream there is no boundary between life and death, no pain and no hope, only an endless expanse of dense fog.”
“No boundary between life and death?” Annie could not help asking, “Does a place like that really exist?”
“Absolutely impossible!” Lina said decisively. “The only place in this world that can blur life and death is the Underworld, and that is absolutely not the place those cultists are talking about.”
What a joke. Back then, how many times had she gone back and forth along the road to the Underworld? The River Styx was practically her foot-washing water. How could she not know what that place was like?
Those believers simply had never died and wanted to go take a look. If they were really sent to stroll around the Underworld once, they would probably cry and beg the Queen of the Underworld to send them back!
“That did sound a little... absurd.” Annie blinked. “It seemed like this ‘Returners’ wasn’t in the school’s ‘Catalogue of Common Heresies’ either.”
“Because more than fifty years ago, they were already... well, completely wiped out by the authorities. Their cult leader was blown to ashes on the spot, and all the organization’s upper ranks were captured. The ones with blood on their hands lined up for the gallows, while those whose circumstances were less serious were all sent to prison for reform through labor. If I remembered correctly, there was even one who got named a model labor reform inmate... Their church was also turned into a public toilet, so this cult was removed from the catalogue as well,” Lina replied.
Don’t ask her why she knew so clearly, because she had personally wiped out this cult back then during a side mission, and she had also overseen the compilation of that ‘Catalogue of Common Heresies’.
“By the way, didn’t your ‘Catalogue of Common Heresies’ mention this case at all?” Lina asked casually, pretending it was offhand. “Who was the chief editor? How irresponsible.”
“The chief editor was Lady Fantasia, the Witch of Fate, ranked third among the Ten Great Witches.” Anna said cautiously, “You’d better not speak ill of her... I heard this witch knew all things, and as long as what you said mentioned her, she would know about it...”
“Oh, that little girl. She really was a bit petty,” Lina waved her hand. “Don’t be fooled by how she usually didn’t make a sound, but she actually had more little schemes than anyone else. Quietly nasty, that one.”
“Ah...?” Anna widened her eyes. “You’ve met... Lady Fantasia? And what did ‘didn’t make a sound’ mean?”
“Uh... just hearsay, that’s all. Gossip, gossip...” Lina cleared her throat, and suddenly realized something strange—
This little girl actually knew the Witch of Fate’s name!
One had to know that within the Witch Association, witches generally did not reveal their real names to each other, and usually used titles instead.
Although ‘Fantasia’ was not the Witch of Fate’s full name, anyone who knew this name was definitely not someone simple!
“Annie, how did you know the Witch of Fate’s name? ...... Which other witches among the Ten Great Witches’ names did you know?”
“I only knew the five more famous ones.” Annie answered honestly. “The Witch of Wind, Filin, ranked tenth; the Witch of Blazing Flame, Herakanis, ranked eighth; the Witch of Life, Sifla, ranked seventh; the Witch of the Moon, Fennis, ranked fifth; and the Witch of Fate, Fantasia, ranked third.”
All old acquaintances. Aside from Fennis, the rest were all her “good sisters” who had stabbed her in the back back then.
“Where did you learn these from?” Lina frowned. “How come I never saw them in the textbooks?”
“Uh...” Annie’s voice suddenly grew smaller, and she stammered, “It was... it was from an... extracurricular book. Although, although it was a fictional novel... a very impressive scholar-teacher told me that while the story in the book was all fake... the names were all real.”
“The story’s all fake, but the names are all real?” Lina raised an eyebrow, instantly interested. “What was that book called? I’ll read it too when I have time!”
“It was called... called...” Annie’s voice was almost inaudible. Under Lina’s pressing, she still blushed and said the title: “‘The Star Witch’s Ninety-Nine Sleepless Nights’..... The protagonist, the ‘Star Witch,’ had no name. It seemed she was the only fictional character... th-the others all were...”
“What was the book about?” Lina asked with a frown.
“Uh.... th-that, it was just some... um, nighttime... happy things... the Star Witch together with everyone... wu....” Annie’s face was so red she could not continue, and Lina did not let her continue either.
Lina almost failed to catch her breath.
What the hell was that? What the hell had she just heard?
Her empire was gone, and after death she still had to be written into fanfiction spending ninety-nine sleepless nights with the people who assassinated her?
Lina already did not dare imagine what was in it.
She was afraid she had probably already been paired up into ninety-nine tragic love matches with people.
After calming down, Lina fell into thought.
That book really was rather strange. Setting aside the plot itself, this should have been the first time since her rebirth that she had heard the term ‘Star Witch’!
According to Annie’s description, that book had practically doxxed the entire upper echelon of the Witch Association, yet it had still not been banned. Was it being tacitly permitted by someone, or was there some other reason?
That ‘scholar-teacher’ Annie mentioned was also a bit interesting. How did she know the real names of the Witch Association’s upper ranks?
That really was an unexpected gain.
“Move it, don’t fall behind!” Lina forcibly suppressed the doubts in her heart, and her steps grew faster and faster. “We need to get to the Moonlight Moss. Only that fixed teleportation gate is safe. Those lunatics from the ‘Returners’ are still active, this news had to be sent out!”
As they continued deeper in, a cool ripple of magical power began to spread through the air ahead of them. That was the unique aura of Moonlight Moss. But accompanying it was an increasingly obvious premonition of danger in her divination vision.
Suddenly, a noisy wave of sound shattered the dead silence of the cave.
The clash of metal, the boom of exploding magic power, and panicked screams echoed and amplified through the narrow passage, sounding especially shrill.
“There’s fighting ahead!”
Lina reacted extremely quickly. With a backhand motion, she seized Annie by the wrist, her figure swaying as she pressed into the shadow of a hollow in the rock wall, while making a gesture for silence.
She tilted her head and listened carefully.
Amid the chaos, one woman’s slightly hoarse voice, still forcing itself to remain calm, stood out especially sharply, as if directing the defensive line:
“Left side! That spider can spit venom, block it!”
“Don’t run around! Healers, check the seriously wounded first!”
“Hold the formation! Stay where you are! We—”
Lina slightly narrowed those pale golden eyes, and a trace of surprise flashed through her gaze.
Now this was interesting.
She was not unfamiliar with this voice, and in fact had heard it not long ago—
It was none other than that noble young lady who had tried to “recruit” her, Sibyl.