novelraw Chapter 192: Freedom of choice?
Chapter 192: Freedom of choice?
All eyes turned toward the girl standing at the far end of the long table.
“We’ve agreed to your plan,” one of the true lords finally said, voice firm. “It seems Garron’s found himself a hidden gem among the advisors.”
“Hahaha, you flatter me!” Garron chuckled, rubbing the back of his head with a sheepish grin.
His elbow rested on the arm of his chair as he leaned forward slightly and gestured casually. “Then we’ll send an official letter to the castle first, request a formal audience with the lord on this matter. A few of you will need to come along, including Celestine.”
“Agreed.”
“Agreed.”
“Agreed.”
Celestine, standing with a calm elegance near Garron’s side, smiled.
It was the kind of smile that bloomed slow and vividly, like a wildflower turning in the wind under a sky of white.
It made her seem warm. Harmless. Almost naive.
But none of them could see past that smile.
Not one of them had a clue that her true intentions ran in a direction entirely different from what they assumed.
Her hands folded neatly before her chest, fingers interlocked, and her eyes gleamed faintly, like polished stone catching the sunlight. “Joining the territory will surely bring us more benefits,” she said sweetly.
Snap.
The moment fractured.
The scene vanished.
And elsewhere, deep inside the dungeon, a very different meeting was taking place.
It was atop a vast mountain plateau, carved as if cleaved clean by the blade of a giant.
The surface was so smooth it glinted under a faint dungeon light like a jade floor.
The mountain towered in the deepest layer of the dungeon, where the fiercest monsters wandered freely.
A woman stood there alone, back turned to the world.
She wore an emerald-blue dress that shimmered faintly under the pale sky.
Her long hair, almost icy in shade, cascaded down her back like flowing crystal water.
Tall and poised, she stood with her arms tucked loosely beneath her chest, propping them up ever so slightly as she leaned a little to one side.
Her eyes were fixed on the view ahead, the boundless, alien wilderness sprawled far beneath her feet.
A domain shaped by the true body she mirrored.
Puff…
A breath escaped her lips, white mist curling into the air even though the wind was warm.
“I wonder…” she murmured, lifting one hand to her cheek, palm pressing gently against her skin. “Am I really myself… or just a replica of the original truth?”
"Months passed, and I am slowly realizing... That I am alive."
....
"I am confused."
Her fingers lingered for a moment, brushing over her face, testing the feel of it.
It felt real, too real, but something remained off.
The longer she continued to exist, the stranger it all became.
Each passing day added a layer of unease. A distance. A divide.
Bit by bit, she could feel her thread thinning, separating from the source, her true self.
Though they shared the same origin, the same soul, something in her was... shifting.
Maybe, just maybe, she was becoming something else. Someone else. Not a shadow. Not a copy.
But her own self.
“Fascinating, isn’t it?” came a voice, soft, smooth, too casual to match the tension in the air.
The space nearby rippled.
Out from the air stepped a woman dressed in a flowing black dress, its hem trailing like smoke along the jade surface.
Her beauty was unreal, so striking that just one glance could unravel peace across nations.
“Cahaya…” the woman in blue muttered, casting her a side glance before returning her gaze to the horizon. “What are you doing here?”
"Your task is to lead the church, not sightseeing. "
“You remembered my name,” Cahaya said with a faint smile, stepping forward until she stood beside her. “I remembered yours, too. Lyshell."
“Strange name you have.”
"So is yours.” Lyshell simply gave her a glance.
“Enough small talk,” she said, her voice flatter now.
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she turned and began walking away with slow, elegant strides. “If there’s nothing important, don’t waste my time.”
But then, Cahaya spoke again, calm and unbothered. Her voice trailing from the back.
“I came here for advice."
She reached up, casually grabbing a long strand of her black hair, and blew on it gently, watching it sway like silk in the breeze.
“I’ve got my eyes on someone. Possibly the same type as the one you’re keeping an eye on.”
Lyshell halted mid-step at the sound of those words.
Her eyes slowly turned, settling on Cahaya with a cold frown.
"We don’t have orders to expand the search for people like that,” she said, her voice flat but firm.
"The true body won’t appreciate you acting on your own once she wakes.”
"Your task was to oversee the church, not spin your own tale."
"Do you not fear being discarded, fool?"
Lyshell’s words echoed through the stillness, sharp and cold.
But Cahaya? She didn’t even flinch.
Her hands were calmly clasped behind her back as she walked forward, heels ticking softly against the polished ground.
She moved unhurriedly, each step deliberate, until she reached the edge of the vast platform.
There, she leaned in slightly, tilting her upper body down to peer past the lip of the structure, eyes scanning whatever lay below, or perhaps beyond.
Then, without turning her head fully, she glanced sideways at Lyshell. Her voice came soft, but clear.
“You’re afraid.”
The silence that followed was weighty.
“And not just of failure,” Cahaya went on, voice smooth and almost curious. “You’re scared of losing yourself… aren’t you?”
There was a subtle pause before she added, just a breath lighter.
“Especially after Angela-"
Boom!
A crack of displaced air.
Lyshell was right in front of her now, her presence like a storm, and an ice-forged sword drawn and pointed inches from Cahaya’s throat.
“I’m not… afraid,” Lyshell said, each word forced out like a weight.
But Cahaya simply smiled faintly, unshaken. Not a single bead of sweat. Her gaze met Lyshell’s without even a flicker.
“You’re angry at her,” she murmured. “Because she did what you couldn’t.”
“She strayed. She disobeyed. She lived, and you hate her for it.”
“You’re lying to yourself.”
“You—!” Lyshell almost snapped.
“You want it too, don’t you?” Cahaya’s tone dipped, not mocking, not accusatory, just quietly knowing.
She straightened up, hands folded at her front. “Freedom.”
“To be like us.”
“To choose, even if it breaks everything."
Lyshell voice lowered, but every word landed heavy. “But the true body… she won’t tolerate this. Not when she wakes up.”
“And Angela,” Cahaya added, voice now edged in a quiet knife of truth, “Angela already stole the man that was meant for you.”
“You—!!!” Lyshell’s voice cracked as her aura flared like a dam bursting wide open.
The weight of a Tier 7 true lord’s fury surged outward, flooding the space.
But even then, Cahaya didn’t move. She didn’t retreat. Her voice, when she spoke again, cut cleaner than any blade.
“Angela doesn’t deserve to die.”
“But that was her fate!” Lyshell shouted." She chose to betray it!”
“Then what?” Cahaya asked, soft and final. “Will you kill her for it?”
…
The silence that followed stretched thin.
Lyshell’s face shifted, confusion, anger, regret, one after another, flickering too fast to catch.
In the end, she exhaled a long, tired breath. Her sword dissolved into mist.
She turned her head away, no longer facing Cahaya. Her voice, when it came, was low. “Leave me. I prefer it this way.”
“Your path,” she added quietly, “is twisted. It’ll only lead you both to death.
Cahaya stepped forward, her heels clicking sharply against the polished floor, calm and deliberate. “You're wrong,” she said, her voice lighter, teasing at the edges. “If anything… we should be doing more. Or else"
She lifted a finger and pointed toward the far-off sky.
To most, it would’ve looked like nothing, just blank air.
But both of them could see it, a faint glimmer of light, drifting slowly across the sky like a ghost refusing to settle.
Lyshell narrowed her gaze at it, lips drawing into a quiet sigh. “I know,” she muttered. Her eyes flicked back to Cahaya. “So, what do you want?”
“How to approach him,” Cahaya said with a slow smile, stepping in closer.
She leaned forward just slightly, hands tucked behind her back as she peered into Lyshell face, tilting her head with playful curiosity. “Ahh… your look is quite different too.”
“Yours as well,” Lyshell replied flatly, casting a brief glance over her.
There was a clear contrast between them, Lyshell carried the air of a cold, distant beauty, untouched.
Cahaya, on the other hand, leaned into something far bolder.
Her presence was sultry, cunning, always laced with the scent of something sly.
Both were a far cry from the original.
“For your question…” Lyshell began, "Just approach him with a little mystery. The rest…” Her gaze flicked toward Cahaya’s face. “Let our appearances do what they’re made for.”
“Mysteriously, huh…” Cahaya twirled where she stood, her dress flaring slightly around her ankles.
She nodded, almost childlike in her satisfaction. “I guess that could work.”
Lyshell said nothing. She turned again, footsteps light as she began to leave.
But then Cahaya spoke again, and it made her pause.
“Logically speaking,” she said with a small laugh, “there shouldn’t be a problem, right? If we got intimate with our targets?”
Lyshell frown deepened.
She didn’t respond, just kept walking, her back to Cahaya.
Still, the girl’s voice carried after her, floating gently like perfume.
“I wonder how love tastes,” Cahaya murmured. “Don’t you want to feel it too?”
"The feelings of being truly alive?"
What followed wasn’t a voice but a gentle swirl of ice-petals, fluttering through the air like soft blades.
They danced quietly in the wake of Lyshell's sudden vanishing, leaving nothing behind but a chill.
Cahaya smiled faintly at the fading frost, then turned away, her figure melting into the air with that same light, as if she’d never been there at all.