Release That Witch

Chapter 343: Hope to Restore Order

quot;My lord, the city wall has been breached. I’m afraid the Coalition can’t hold up any longer! Let’s get out of here!” Kaff said.

Hearing the sound of fighting outside, she walked out of her high tower and saw faint red lights shone through dark clouds, which looked as if they were soaked by sticky fresh blood.

“But my sister hasn’t come back yet.” finally she answered.

“She’s a warrior in the Defending Army and cannot leave her position without permission.” Kaff sounded more and more anxious. “If you die here, you’ll definitely let her down!”

Hesitated for a long while, she nodded and said, “I see.”

Refugees poured down to the streets. The guards there stretched themselves to preserve order. Mixed in the moving mass of refugees, she moved helplessly towards the South Gate, accompanied by Kaff who stayed by her side closely all the time, protecting her from the panic crowd with his tall and strong body.

It was an overwhelming defeat.

She was wondering, “Is this our end?” She looked back at the Tower of Babel which was both the highest building of the city and the center of the Union. Flying demons carried Mad Demons into the top of the tower and occasionally some of them would be shot down by lightning. However, the situation would hardly be improved as there were so many demons.

As the most thriving Holy City on Fertile Plains after hundreds of years of development, it would probably be destroyed today. The efforts of several generations were falling into ruins, like a kid’s sand castle, whose creation required a whole afternoon but its downfall could happen in the blink of an eye. After that, the greatness would once again sink into to chaos and disorder.

…

Passing through the South Gate, they found that demons had already come to besiege them. Those who could still fight voluntarily joined the guards in the combat with the demons.

With Mad Demons, Fearsome Demons and Lords of Hell, the enemies were much stronger than the people. After a round of spear thrower attack, dozens of people were lying in pools of blood. Some of them were impaled by spears in the stomach and their warm guts fell out of their body, onto the snow on the ground. Some got severely injured and held their wounds, crying and wailing.

“My lord, where are you going?” Kaff stopped her.

“I can fight.” She took a deep breath. “Let go of me.”

“No, you are much more important than them. You cannot …” Kaff insisted.

“Let go!” She used her magic power and an overflowing chilliness to break his grip, and then she strode off without taking a look back. Seeing the ferocious masks and bloody weapons of the enemies not far away, she felt her stomach knotted at the sight. Despite the horrible scene, she made up her mind to fight till death. She was fed up hiding in the crowds. As a witch of the Holy City, she believed fight was her destiny.

“Get away!”

Just at that moment. someone shouted from one side of the battlefield. The next thing they saw was a god-like figure descending from the sky.

She was there with her back to everyone, raising up a long sword in her hand. Her reddish-brown hair flew upward like a flame, and instantly kindled everybody’s hope.

“She’s a Blessed Warrior from the Union !”

“She’s… a Transcendent!”

High above the cheering crowd, a light from her sword’s blade quickly changed the whole sword into a beam of dazzling golden light, glaring like a rising sun. It lit up the earth and pierced through the clouds, circling the dark red clouds with golden tassels in the sky. When the light became as strong as it could be, she leapt forward and stroke the demons in front of her.

A profound silence prevailed over all.

At that moment, time seemed to stagnate. The shadow of the demons, like the last faint trace of darkness at dawn, was engulfed in an overwhelming light.

The demons, even powerful Mad Demons and Lords of Hell collapsed in the light.

When the witch of Holy City opened her eyes again, she only saw a scorched land and the demons facing them just now were all gone, as if they had never existed.

Seeing it, the other demons spontaneously withdrew. As more and more Blessed Warriors arrived to hunt the demons, the siege was lifted.

“Get out of here as fast as humanly possible!” said the witch carrying the sword. She seemed exhausted and was down on one knee, catching her breath. “Now, leave.”

“But… my lord, where can we go?” someone in the crowd asked.

“Good question, where can we go?” she was deep in thought, the last Holy City had fallen now and tens of thousands of human lives had been wiped out. The witches did all in their power trying to win, but still had to face their defeat.

“Never give up, we still have hope!” the red-haired witch said firmly, “Go over the mountains and cross the rivers to the wild lands.”

“But there are only some rural villagers.” someone said.

“We can restore the order there. As long as we can survive, we’ll see the day of our victory!” the Transcendent said.

…

“My lord, why don’t you go with them?” Kaff asked,

as the witch of Holy City rushed out of the crowd and headed for the west, followed by a team of people. Except Kaff and her family guards, the team was composed of servants from the tower, who couldn’t fight at all.

“I left some Magic Stones and documents in the Misty Forest. They’re of overriding importance for the witches to restore the order. I must bring them to the other side of the mountains.” she answered.

“The demons were catching up!” someone shouted.

“Thresh, you go to block them,” Kaff commanded.

“Yes!” Thresh answered.

Clenching her teeth, she forged ahead with her head down. She knew that mortals could only block the demons for a while and they could never beat the demons and that if she left them here, they had no chance to survive. However, she must leave for her destination as soon as possible.

Suddenly, some black and white spots appeared in the sky and blurred her sight.

…

Sturdy as Kaff was, he was exhausted after three days’ of long trek, puffing heavily and dragging his feet.

She looked back and saw only six people were still following her. She remembered that she left with a team of more than thirty. Some of them escaped on the way and some were too wounded to follow. She was wondering if the demons caught up…

“Don’t worry, my lord. I’m behind you.” -Kaff seemed to be able to read her thoughts and comforted her-“I will do my best to block those demons.”

“Why?” she asked.

He was a little surprised by her question.

“Why do you want to fight for me to the end? If you escape now, maybe you’ll survive,” she said. “Witches always feel superior to you ordinary people. I don’t understand why you’re willing to fight till death for a witch.”

“Yes, you’re a witch, but you’ve never treated us badly. I didn’t have any magic power, but I knew it was my duty to protect you.” Kaff answered.

Then they heard the demons’ sounds coming from behind and understood that was the horn calling them to their last battle.

“My lord, go! Never look back.” Kaff said.

There were more and more black and white spots before her eyes.

…

She stumbled into the basement to pack the documents and Magic Stones on the table.

Somehow, she was still puzzled by Kaff’s words.

A long-held view in the Holy City was that witches were the chosen ones of gods and ordinary people without magic power were ignorant and incompetent. Because of this, ordinary people, or the mortals, were just used to serve and support witches. However, the courage and resilience of Kaff, head of her family guards, made her believe that the ordinary ones were not that incompetent and useless after all. In fact, she even thought if witches and ordinary people could work together, the situation would be better. She could tell this from the successful experience in her own stone tower.

Such being the case, why were the people so badly defeated more than 400 years ago?

Roars of demons from the other side of the door interrupted her flow of thought.

“Damn it, they get here so fast.” she thought.

As her vision was blurred by numerous black and white spots, she could not see anything. Her strong desire to survive enabled her to fight, straining every nerve to bring her research achievements to the wild lands where the witches would restore the order.

She took out an Stone of Echo and gave it an injection of magic power, making it send out distress calls continuously.

Suddenly, she heard a loud band. The wooden door fell apart and the demons broke into the basement.

The moment she centralized magic power to fight, her magic chillness started to surge and a Mad Demon also lifted a spear with its swelling arm. In her heart, she prayed for someone to come to her rescue as she saw the spear flying to impale her.

She subconsciously closed her eyes and then black and white spots turned into utter darkness. She could not see or hear anything at all. She felt as if she was being wrapped with a warm and comfortable velvet, the same feeling one would get lying on the grass in the sunshine. She felt as if she was not in the dim basement anymore, no pain and no tension.

Am I dead?

After a while, she felt a growing light in the darkness and tried to open her eyes. A gray roof gradually came into her sight.

She heard someone said, “Your Highness, she is awake.”

. <br/>

Chapter 344: Bygones (Part I)

quot;‘Your Highness’? What a weird title! It seems like a name that’s only heard in ancient fables.”

She turned her eyes and looked behind her. A man with gray hair appeared, surrounded by several girls.

” How are you feeling?” he asked in a soft voice.

She didn’t reply but asked back, “Where am I?”

“Welcome to Border Town, in the Western Region of the Kingdom of Graycastle.”

Well, things were progressing in the direction she most did not want to see: She was in a strange place at an unknown time, and was facing a group of strangers. She even had no strength to lift herself from the bed. She tried to get off the bed, but realized that she did not even have an ounce of strength.

“I am the Fourth Prince of the Graycastle Kingdom and the lord of Border Town.… Roland Wimbledon.” he added. ” These women are members of the Witch Union. Have you… forgotten everything?”

“The Witch Union?” A deep frown formed on her face. “Were they really witches?” She knew nothing about this new organization. It must be a young organization, she thought, but at least these witches were of the same kind as her. “However, why do they appear to be the subordinates of this man?” “Wait, is he a… prince?”

She tried to search for some fragments from her memory, and was dumbfounded. “Wasn’t this one of the titles in the secular regime during the first Battle of Divine Will? Did she… return to the intact world before the war? Was it possible that God has given her another opportunity to get well prepared in order to rescue the Holy City and its citizens?”

“No, calm down,” she told herself, “This kind of ridiculous thing only exists in the gossip among customers in dingy taverns. Come on, what happened to me before I fell asleep?” When a group of Mad Demons rushed into the basement of the laboratory, she used all her magic power to erect the strongest ice wall to repel them. The Stone of Echo continually broadcasted signals for help, and she patiently waited for the day that her sisters returned to the Fertile Plains and found her.

“You saved my life, didn’t you?” Yes, now she had escaped from the ice cage, it most probably meant that the witches’ corps was back! “Did the demons retreat? Did we win the war? How is the Holy City…of Taquila?”

After she voiced these questions, she perceived changes in their facial expressions. They exchanged glances and revealed looks of delight and excitement.. ” Indeed, we found you in the basement of a stone tower,” said a witch who looked mature and had long reddish brown hair, “Do you really belong to the world 450 years ago?”

This witch reminded her of the Bliss Warrior, as the two of them had the same type of hair, which was like a flame that shone a light on one’s heart. Compared to the gray-haired man, she was more willing to answer this witch’s questions. Although she usually didn’t care about status or ranks of people, she felt vaguely offended to be interrogated while being stared at.

If she was a petulant master, the man would most likely be severely punished for his indignity.

“My name is Agatha, and I’m a witch of Taquila Quest Society.” She paused for a moment, “What do you mean by saying ‘450 years ago’? Have you been fighting with the demons for more than 400 years? I think it is impossible. ”

“You’ve been asleep for too long, and the matter is totally different from what you think,” the man who called himself Roland said. “If you feel well enough, we can tell you the whole story.”

“Fine, go on then.”

Agatha closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Although the prince was very rude, she had no time to care about that.

After hearing Roland’s presentation on Graycastle’s history and Four Kingdoms’ evolution, she started feeling some pinpricks of cold sweat emerging on her back. Agatha quickly recognized several landmarks in his narrative, for example the Mist Forest, the Impassable Mountain Range and so on, but after digging into her memory for these landmarks, she was shocked by the conclusion that she gathered.

If these names corresponded with the old ones, the so-called Four Kingdoms was previously the Barbarian Land. That was a slim region between the mountain and sea. In their ancestors’ eyes it was a barren place that had little development value. As for her hometown, the beautiful Fertile Plain, they called it the forbidden area in the wild land now. The Holy City of Taquila had become a place nobody knew about, and had been buried deeply under the Fertile Plain for a longtime.

How ridiculous it was!

But the following words were more absurd.

The status of witches was interred together with the Holy City of Taquila. People expelled and killed witches. In the Four Kingdoms the regime was controlled by mortals. They made themselves the kings and nobilities. In fact, these names were obsolete playthings from before the first Battle of Divine Will.

Yet, these deplorable, feeble and incorrigible persons became rulers, and humiliated the witches.

How could it be like that?

“Outrageous!” she couldn’t help breaking in. “How dare these mortals hunt and kill witches like animals? Who dares to do that? ”

Agatha couldn’t hold her rage. She raise her hands and wanted to teach this impudent man a lesson, but, unexpectedly, she was unable to summon her frost bolts per usual.

It was only at this time that she felt a metal ring locked around one of her ankles. She lifted the quilt and found that the stone embedded in the ring was the God’s Stone of Retaliation.

“Are you all crazy?” she glared at the witches unbelievably. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you siding with a mortal against me? And how dare you violate the Union’s ban and use the God’s Stone of Retaliation without permission!

The Union only authorized the enforcement team to use these stones. Apart from them, anyone who carried, sold, modified and destroyed these stones would face severe punishment, and possibly death.

“That’s what I’m worried about,” the prince sighed heavily.

“Take it easy, Your Highness, I’ll tell her the whole story,” the witch with reddish brown hair sat down beside her and covered the quilt on her body again. “My name is Wendy. His Highness is telling the truth and he always has mercy on witches… I have no idea what happened about the Holy City where you lived 450 years ago. But now Taquila doesn’t exist anymore. And we hear nothing about the Union. We were preyed and hunted by the Church until we met His Highness.

“He gave us a safe place to live and encouraged us to use our abilities and find ways to use them to change the world for the better. Here, we have the freedom like all the ordinary people. We do not have to hide from the persecution from the Church or the human beings who hate us. You know, in this world there’re a lot of God’s Stones of Retaliation. A witch is as vulnerable as an ordinary person when she loses her ability. ”

Hearing these words, Agatha fell into a deep silence.

The Union was a large organization established by several witches’ kingdoms, in which there were a lot of Seniors and Extraordinaries. In order to win the Battle of Divine Will, the Union established a formidable military, and then controlled all the holy cities. They took charge of training and dispatching witches, meditating arguments, maintaining the stability and building more order cities. Only the Union had the power to arrest and sentence witches… but, such a divine organization finally ended up with interment under the debris…

Where were the survivors who wanted to rebuild the new order? Where were they now?

Chapter 345: Bygones (Part II)

gatha was perplexed by the immense changes. She told herself not to believe them, but their stories sounded so real that she thought no witch could have made it up out of blue.

Putting herself in their shoes, she could never imagine she was slaved, hunted or even slaughtered.

Even ordinary people with the lowest status in the Holy City were treated by witches as human beings instead of animals.

She started to feel extremely exhausted. Wendy sensed it and brought her a cup of hot milk and tried to console her, “Oh, dear, drink this milk, and you’ll feel better.”

Though the lady with reddish brown hair didn’t have the godlike power and strength, she affected Agatha with her good temperament and manner…. Agatha drank the milk in one gulp. A warm and sweet current flew into her gut, which helped her recover a little. Agatha rested for a long period before she continued their conversation.

Although she couldn’t understand why these witches were wary of her, she knew that she must win their trust first, or they wouldn’t help take the fetters off.

As for the credibility of what the prince and Wendy said, she had to find out by her own eyes.

She wouldn’t believe the words that the holy Union had vanished before she saw the cramped and underdeveloped Barbarian Land with her own eyes.

“As I said, my name is Agatha, and I was a member of Taquila Quest Society. In the 30th year of the Battle of Divine Will, Taquila, the last Holy City, fell down in the war. Most people went into exile, while I went to the Misty Forest to fetch things we left there. ”

“Wait. Were you fighting against the demons?” asked the Prince.

“Who else could be fighting against them other than us?” Agatha frowned. “Should we rely on vulnerable humans like you?”

“Were you a witch raised by the Church?”

“I never heard of anything about the Church. What’s it?” she said impatiently. “Taquila… no, all the Holy Cities which hosted tens of thousands of people were created by witches. Apart from witches, most of the citizens were ordinary people… like you. They were responsible for reproducing and raising children until their magic power was awakened. And then these young witches would be handed over to another special department to receive education and training. Of course, the witches who were good at fighting would join the Union and participate in battles with demons.”

The prince pondered for a moment, and then took out a book and asked, “Can you read it?”

Agatha skimmed several lines and was attracted by the content at once. “This is a diary from a witch.”

“Did you also write in this way?” a witch with light gray hair asked.

“This writing system was created by the Union and exclusive to witches. In this way, the ordinary human beings would be prevented from participating in important affairs at upper level. But in my opinion, I didn’t think this sort of exclusion was a good idea.”

“How could you prevent ordinary people?” she asked with a great curiosity. “Even if witches created another language system, ordinary people could also grasp it through learning, right?”

“It takes magic power to read it,” explained Agatha. “It isn’t very difficult. I can teach you since you’re a witch.”

“Language is a tool for communication.” The prince commented. “The more popular it is the better. So what the Union did was very stupid. The exclusion of ordinary people would only limit the resources available to you. In fact, after training and education, ordinary people are capable of many jobs. Except that they cannot use magic power, they are as good as witches.”

Although Agatha agreed with him, yet she could hardly accept that an ordinary person criticized the Union. She would collaborate with them when necessary, but she couldn’t tolerate their finger pointing.

She began to miss Kaff, her chief guard.

Even though he was only a subordinate to her family, she thought he was more gentle than the so-called prince.

“My name is Scroll, Miss Agatha,” another witch who looked pretty mature, suddenly asked, “Have you ever heard of the name of Alice?”

“How come you know this name?” Else suffered a jolt. “Wasn’t it said that all the records about 450 years ago had been lost?”

“I found an ancient book in the ruins located in the forest on East Border of King City in Graycastle,” said Scroll. “It’s the one on your hand. Her name is on the last page written in ordinary people’s language.”

Agatha quickly turned to the last page. After reading the illegible diary, she deeply sighed and fell into silence. A female statue started emerging in Agatha’s mind. The lady raised her long sword, with light radiating from her body shinning and dazzling all the people’s eyes. But finally her figure was fading away, step by step, little by little. In the end it totally dissolved in the darkness.

After a long while, she said slowly, “Right, Alice was the Queen of the Meteor City as well as one of the three chiefs in the Union.She was an Extraordinary, or a Transcendent. Even among amounts of Blessed Ones in the Union, she was also the strongest.”

“A Transcendent!” The crowd murmured.

“Since these records have been lost, it’s natural for you all knowing nothing about it,” Agatha said in a serious voice. “The abilities of withes will be enhanced continuously since they awoke and become stable since the Day of Adulthood. But it isn’t the ceiling of their ability growth. Some lucky dogs can step forward and get unbelievable achievements… We often call it the High Awakening. In fact, there’s no limit for their awakenings, or growth rate. But obvious changes could be observed on the performance of their magic power.”

“Hum, is this ability evolution?” The prince touched the back of his head and muttered. “In total, four witches have evolved in the Witch Union.”

“Four?” Agatha was almost choked by that. She asked surprisingly, “How many witches are there in your Witch Union exactly?”

The prince counted with the help of fingers and said, “More than ten.”

” Stop talking nonsense!” Agatha obviously seemed to be enraged by his rash words. “Do you mean four out of ten have undergone the High Awakening? You have no idea what evolution means for witches.It’s totally different from the consolidation or derivative skills on the Day of Adulthood. Only the luckiest ones can be promoted, which takes both perspiration and inspiration!”

The prince looked rather innocent and gestured to Anna.

“What a pretty and elegant girl!” Agatha said to herself as she watched the girl walk towards her bed. She was extraordinarily good-looking even among all the witches. Her beautiful blue eyes seemed like a lucid lake, where Agatha could see her own reflections. But she was too young and maybe just had her adulthood. It was impossible for her to accumulate enough experience in training, meditation and enlightening. Agatha evolved at 26 years old. At that time, she was treated as the most promising genius in the Union for her achievement. She knew how difficult the evolution was since she went through that.

“They probably take derivative skills a young witch developed on her Day of Adulthood as a High Awakening,” Agatha said to herself .

A ball of orange fire appeared in Anna’s palm.

“It’s the ability to control the flame, a common type of the summoning capabilities, which can be ranked by the maximum temperature and the heating rate,” she gave her comments quickly. “The one who can eject the flame are regarded as a combat witch.”

Just after Agatha’s words, the blaze dimmed away, and then turned into a tongue of fluorescent green flame. It began to change its color, from dark green to light green. It seemed that the green flame tried to absorb all the lights around so that it could become stronger and stronger.

“This is the consolidated skill she mastered on the Day of Adulthood, and you’ll see her most important skill soon,” the prince explained.

“Is it? No, it can’t be a consolidated skill! If it were, the flame should be hotter and the heart of the flame should be bigger and brighter.” Agatha was astonished with her mouth wide open. “Besides, what’s her most important skill?”

Soon something incredible happened. The green flame suddenly disappeared, and a black solid cube emerged in Anna’s palm, which looked like a piece of rigid metal with smooth facets and angular sides.

Chapter 346: Bygones (Part III)

quot;Well … does this count as High Awakening?” asked the prince.

Agatha didn’t know what to say for a moment. What was left in her brain was – how could this be?

The Holy City had been forgotten, and the Union had been destroyed. There was nowhere for the witches to receive training and guidance, so it was only logical that the witches’ abilities declined. But what did she just see? A newly matured witch had received two promotions. This couldn’t be explained by luck. After all, even in the Union, the home of geniuses, a witch like this was still very rare.

Furthermore, if she heard correctly (serve her right is only for memory, not for eyes or ears), there were three more of them who were equally talented as Anna?

Agatha stared at the man with gray hair motionlessly. It was some time before she could recover, “This… should count as High Awakening, but I don’t have the Stone of Measuring, so I can’t measure her change in skill.” She paused, her throat feeling dry. “I want to ask, if I may, what did Anna experience during her awakening? She seemed to have come of age not long ago. Could these two awakenings have happened in only the past one or two years?”

It was not until she finished talking that she realized she had used honorifics. The status of a witch couldn’t be inherited. Even if a great number of common people were put together, there was no guarantee a capable witch would come out of them. Thus, a witch’s level was usually decided based on capability instead of origin. According to Anna’s ability, she was already qualified to be a high-level member of the Union. Compared to herself, Agatha felt that Anna was at least her equal, if not her superior.

Any awakened senior was worthy of respect.

“My first awakening happened after I exhausted my magic power while fighting against demonic beasts. As to the second awakening, I think it was caused by my learning of knowledge.”

“Knowledge …” she was startled, “what kind of knowledge?”

“Ahem, this can be discussed later,” the Prince cleared his throat. “Now let’s get back to the topic we were discussing earlier. What do Alice and Experiment of God’s Punishment Army exactly mean?”

“Indeed, if he wasn’t lying to me, this knowledge must contain something extraordinary in itself. That was why Anna could awaken a new ability through epiphany. So it’s understandable that he didn’t want to elaborate on it before he could trust me.” Agatha could not help but feel excited. Enhancing the chance of evolution had extraordinary significance toward witches. If she could figure out its mechanism, reviving the Union wouldn’t be impossible.

Then again, where did he acquire this knowledge from? This place is but a barbarian land. How could a bunch of peasants like him understand the secrets of magic power?” She was full of confusion. What had the world become in these 400 years?

Agatha put those intractable problems aside for the time being. “Alice was very powerful. With the help of God’s Stone of Retaliation, she wouldn’t be defeated even faced with several Lords of Hell. However, there were too few Transcendents. Put differently… the lack of diversity in our ability led to our defeat.”

“Diversity?”

“That’s right. A witch wouldn’t know what kind of ability she would have before awakening. But according to the Union’s calculation, only ten percent of all the witches were fit for combat – the same ratio could be applied to Extraordinary Witches. As to what the ratio was of combat witches that were actually promoted, no one knew. There was a period of time when not a single witch was promoted within 50 years. Thus, actually the fighting ability of the Union was very unstable.”

“So mortals may necessarily awaken, the awakened may not be good at combat, and combat experience doesn’t necessarily lead to capability. Is this what you mean?” the prince said with one hand fumbling his chin.

“That’s about right,” Agatha sighed. “We formed a guard platoon composed of mortals to compensate for the witches’ number shortage, but … mortals could not defeat demons.” Even equipped with God’s Stones of Retaliation, they were still far from being able to fight against the mighty Mad Demon. Under this unfavorable situation, Alice ordered the Quest Society to research warriors that could break through the limits of the human body. Judging from this scrawled note, it seemed that she had succeeded …”

“Seemed?” the prince said in curiosity. “Didn’t you say that you were a member of the Quest Society?”

“Indeed. But ever since the order was issued, I left the Taquila Quest Society and began to build my own lab in the Misty Forest.” She bit her lips and hesitated for a moment before proceeding. “They quickly found the solution, which was to unite witches and mortals by force with the help of God’s Stone of Retaliation, but… this process required them to consume the witches’ lives. I couldn’t accept this approach. I believed that the Quest Society should focus on exploring the use of God’s Stone of Retaliation, rather than using witches as consumable resources. What’s written on the note is right. This behavior would only bring destruction to witches.”

The prince looked a bit shocked, “Using witches as consumable resources?”

“Alice did this out of helplessness. At that time Taquila was on the verge of destruction,” Agatha felt the prince somehow looked a bit pleasing to the eye when she saw that he showed an expression of sympathy. “But now the Union has vanished into thin air, it proves that this approach wasn’t able to proceed, and probably won’t ever appear again.”

After she finished talking, she bowed her head and fumbled the book with her hands, ‘climb over the mountains, wade through the waters…’ how familiar the slogans were. “Yet where are you now? How could I possibly revive the order all by myself?”

“But God’s Punishment Army is still there.”

Upon hearing this, Agatha’s fumbling fingers suddenly froze. She looked at the prince with disbelief, “What… did you just say?”

“I am not sure whether this is a mere coincidence,” the other said very slowly, as if he was looking for the appropriate wording. “The Church… the organization you’ve never heard of, established two cities at the grand opening in the middle of the Impassable Mountain Range. Those cities were named Holy Cities. The hunting of witches was also initiated by them. What’s more, they also searched for orphans and street urchins, and brought them back to the monastery of the Holy City. Wendy was one of them who had escaped.”

“The church had its own army and territory. Its most powerful warriors were from the God’s Punishment Army. Those monsters who had lost their sanity had infinite strength and were almost as mighty as Extraordinary Witches. And their numbers were absolutely not few. Apart from that, they might even have owned a number of powerful witches, which is why I temporarily sealed your ability with the God’s Locket of Retribution.” The prince laid out his hands, “Prior to what you told us… we had always thought that it was the church who established the Holy City of Taquila, fought against the demons, and left the ruins.”

Agatha opened her mouth but was unable to utter a word. How could it be that an organization composed of mortals took away the most important secrets of the Union, hunted witches in return, and built God’s Punishment Army to consolidate its rule? She suddenly had a splitting headache. So God’s Punishment Army didn’t vanish, but fell into the hands of an organization that hates witches! What on earth did the members of the Union do?

Wendy must have sensed her exhaustion and discomfort, because she gently pushed Agatha down onto the bed, and said in a low voice, “Let’s call it a day. Have a good night’s sleep. Rest assured that we will find out the reason.”

Then, she felt something loosened from her ankle-the God’s Locket of Retribution was taken off by Anna. The crowd left the room one by one, and the gray-haired prince was the last.

As the door being closed behind him, Agatha heard some calm steady words.

“You are wrong about one thing—mortals can defeat demons.”

Chapter 347: Confusions

..

“How is she?” Roland asked. Roland put down the pen, looking up at Nightingale who had just quietly appeared in his office.

“She’s fallen asleep. Before that, she had a bowl of oatmeal. It seems that she had a good appetite.” Nightingale went to the table and sat back in her old place. “Now it’s Silvio’s turn to guard her.”

“Well, that’s not bad.”

“Do you believe what she said?” Nightingale asked.

“With the God’s Stone of Retaliation being removed, you can easily judge if she is lying when you question her tomorrow, but…” Roland paused for a moment, “I think most of what she said is true.”

“Why do you think so?” she asked curiously.

“Have you noticed that as a person from 400 years ago, she’s using the same diction and language as us?” the prince said with his hands propping up his chin. “Theoretically, such a situation would be almost impossible for two territories separated by the Impassable Mountain Range, unless these two territories were of the same origin and had frequent contact.”

“But she called the Four Kingdoms the Barbarian Land.”

“That’s the point … I don’t know what the scene was like 400 years ago. Perhaps all this used to be was just a few scattered villages and some criminals exiled by the world of witches. The Kingdom’s history book also records that the age of the major cities was generally between 200 and 300 years, and astrologers also came into existence during that era,” he said with great interest. “It had always bewildered me that the astrologers, who generally had no achievements nor research findings, were also called ‘sages’, the same as alchemists. Now I think I’ve got my answer—the Union fled to this borderland, and brought with them the survivors, their language and civilization. These people mingled with the locals, and helped the latter build the regime, fortress and city.”

“You speak as if you’d seen it happening.” Nightingale shook her head, smiling.

“This is the only way we can explain why we’re using the same language as her,” Roland said earnestly, “because we’re of the same origin. And during these 400 years, civilization was constantly in the process of rebuilding without the slightest opportunity of advancing past where it used to be. “Alright,” she said with her hands laid out, “anyway, you’ll know the answer by tomorrow, and if your guess is wrong… then you’ll have to give me a ‘luxury lunch’.”

The so-called luxury lunch was composed of corn soup, roast chicken drumstick and ice cream bread and was usually only served once a week.

“What if you’re wrong?”

“Whatever you want,” said Nightingale, tilting her head and squinting. The perfect curve formed by her cheek and smooth neck was exceptionally beautiful. “Regardless of what kind of movement an attractive person makes, it will always look seductive.” Roland finally believed this saying.

“I will bear that in mind,” he said with two coughs, turning his attention back to his notebook.

Since Agatha had only recently awakened after four decades of sleep, Roland didn’t want to press her to give accurate and detailed answers to all his questions. For the most part, his questions followed her train of thought, and the information he gained was quite disordered as a result. What he was doing at the moment was to rearrange the information he gleaned from Agatha, and to find out the key points he had to know next.

Undoubtedly, the most pressing problem was about the demons.

What was the cause of the war with the demons, and why did the demons cease fighting? This information was essential to Border Town. No war could have been started without a reason, but the demons’ behavior didn’t seem like an attack motivated by resources or expansion. They didn’t occupy the Barbarian Land, nor did they pillage mankind. What they did seemed like an act purely for the joy of slaughter.

Roland also noticed that Agatha mentioned the term Battle of Divine Will. Could it be that the two sides waged the dreadful war under the will of God? But at that time, the Church hadn’t come into being, so there wasn’t the one and only God that the Church declared. Without this explained, his mind remained unsettled.

Meanwhile, he needed to figure out the basic necessities of life in the Holy City’s civilization as soon as possible, or in other words, assess its degree of economic and civil development. He needed this information to measure the level of this civilization and deduce the demons’ capabilities.

As for the Union, Roland wasn’t too concerned about it. Its witches were scarce and their abilities were unstable. This organization’s capability for organized combat wouldn’t be very high. Historical experience had repeatedly stressed that before the formation of a generation gap, a comprehensive war was all about attrition. A few sophisticated weapons wouldn’t reverse the overall disadvantage.

The second question was about the Magic Stone.

Considering what Tilly said, the magical nature of such stones could greatly compensate for the witches’ unstable ability, enabling the witches to exert powers that didn’t belong to them. In this way, even auxiliary witches could be sent to war. However, in Roland’s point of view, that was like putting the cart before the horse. He’d rather turn all the combat witches into auxiliary witches and put them all to work in production roles.

Oddly enough, the Union, which had large numbers of witches, didn’t make use of Magic Stones to fight against the demons. Instead, it chose to produce God’s Punishment Army, which in Roland’s view was beyond comprehension. Maybe the Magic Stone had some unknown shortcomings, or its production was extremely difficult?

Fortunately, Agatha was a member of the Quest Society, an organization similar to the current Alchemy Workshop, which gathered a group of highly talented witches specializing in the research of Magic Stones and magic power. Roland faintly felt that there must be a wealth of potential information to be exploited.

The last question was about the Church.

He drew a circle on this column. Obviously, he couldn’t count on getting details from Agatha about the organization’s foundation and development. What he could infer from the scattered information at hand was that the Church was founded after the witches’ defeat. After obtaining the Union’s secret, the Church concealed everything about the witches and declared them as incarnations of demons. If the people of the Four Kingdoms were seen as descendants of aborigines, the Church would be a veritable outsider. Since the aborigines didn’t have their own civilization, they could be easily fooled by fabricated history and prophecies.

“Was it only because the witches used to suppress ordinary people that the refugees took the witches as their enemy and went on to hunt the witches on this continent?” Roland frowned. “All these deductions did sound reasonable, yet… he felt that there was something wrong.”

The Union had a great number of Bliss Warriors, Extraordinary Witches, and even Transcendents. Even if the Church managed to get a hold of God’s Stones of Retaliation, was it possible for them to defeat an opponent like the Union?

To wipe out a much stronger force, you couldn’t purely rely on hatred. Clearly there was some key information missing.

“That witch seems to dislike you,” Nightingale suddenly said.

“After all, she used to live in a world where the witches were considered superior to the human being.” Roland laughed. “I’m afraid I’m just no different from the roadside weeds in her eyes.”

“Don’t you hate her?”

“Why would I? She is nothing but a poor woman abandoned by her own time.” He shook his head. “She’d been sleeping in the frozen coffin for 400 years, and woke up to find the world had completely changed. The strangeness brought by the new world would bring her fear, so it was no surprise that she would build a defensive wall in her heart. After she accepts all this, she will probably gradually change her point of view.”

“What a typical response of yours,” said Nightingale with a smile. “But rest assured, I won’t allow her to offend you in any way.”

Chapter 348: Mortals and Extraordinaries

hen Agatha woke up again, she was alone in the room. The thick curtains were tightly closed, making the room extremely quiet.

Probably considering the fact that she wasn’t familiar with the environment, someone put a candle beside the front of the bed, which was quietly burning with orange flames.

Agatha turned her head and watched it for a long time, only to find that there wasn’t a single drop of wax overflowing. The candle seemed to be burning forever without any change in the length.

“It may be caused by magic,” she thought.

The quilt was so soft that it was probably made of high-quality cotton and filled with light and warm fluff. The treatment was as good as that in the Holy City of Taquila, which made it hard for Agatha to believe that there could be such comfortable beds and bedrooms in Barbarian Land.

She moved her fingers and found that she had recovered most of her physical strength. Agatha rolled out of bed. She drove her power, and chill overflowed from her fingers immediately— “It seems that the prince didn’t play any tricks. He had God’s Stone of Retaliation removed to give me a certain degree of freedom.” She went to the window and opened a bit of the curtains. It was totally dark outside. Stars couldn’t been seen, so did the moon. The whole earth seemed to be swallowed by darkness with only a few hazy flare shaking so far away. She could hear the wind roaring outside next to the window, and could occasionally see some snow falling on the glass.

It seemed to be winter now which was a good season for the awakening of witches. In Taquila, this kind of evening didn’t even exist since the whole city would celebrate every day of winter.Bonfires burned throughout the night on the street. When she overlooked the city on the tower, it seemed to be lit by flares shining like stars, which symbolized hope and a promising future. People prayed around the campfires, eager to gather magic power and surmount the mortal world. Whenever a witch awakened, the fate of her family changed as well. They don’t need to worry about food or clothing anymore.

Agatha pulled up the bolt and opened the window. The cold wind suddenly swept into the room and blew the curtains away. The candles in the house were snuffed out as well. The room suddenly was plunged into darkness. When her eyes became adapted to the changes of light, she could see the faint white light reflected by the accumulated snow on the roof of the town. “Judging from the silhouette of the buildings, this place isn’t very big indeed, and is identical with the ‘Border Town’ mentioned by the prince.”

Ordinary people would be frozen after a few hours if they stayed outside in such cold weather. But Agatha wasn’t afraid of the cold since her body would automatically expel the slightest chill that made her uncomfortable. The last time she felt cold was before her awakening. But now, she had almost forgotten the feeling.

The earlier conversation was lingering in Agatha’s mind as long as she closed her eyes.

The Union died and the witch became the devil’s minions. Hence mortals were recklessly hunting witches with the help of God’s Stones of Retaliation… According to the diary, Alice and Natalia successfully fled from the Fertile Plains. But if they failed to stop everything, the Union was doomed.

What on earth happened at that time? Why were the two Transcendents defeated by mortals?

She was reluctant to think about that anymore.

“Aren’t you cold?” someone behind her suddenly asked .

Agatha was shocked. She turned back and saw a girl sitting by the bed in the dark. Her face was completely hidden in the night. She was like a ghost that appeared quietly. The door was closed at that time, but Agatha didn’t hear any footsteps before she came in.

“If you can close the window, I don’t mind re-lighting the candle,” she said again.

There was no doubt that the girl was a witch.

But it’s late in the midnight. What’s she up to?

Agatha nodded without any word. She closed the window and secretly let the thin yet hard ice cover her skin. The girl didn’t do anything dangerous; instead, she opened the first drawer of the night table from which she took out a flint to light the candle. In the candlelight, Agatha saw the her. She had beautiful golden curls and slender eyebrows which made her eyes look very sharp. Agatha hadn’t see her before.

“Nice to meet you… Oops. It’s the second time that we meet,” she raised her lips and said, “My name is Nightingale.”

Did she mean that… she also hid in the crowd before? “Is this your ability?” Agatha frowned and asked, “Are you also the High Awakened?”

Even if she was one of the honorable High Awakened, it was still impolite of her to break in without knocking at the door.

“Ah, you are talking about evolution…” Nightingale shook her head. “I’m not that smart like Anna. She finished the book called ‘The Theory of Natural Balabala’ in a short time. My head is going to explode once I see those formulas and theorems. Maybe I don’t have the luck to evolve in this life.”

Agatha was absent-minded for a short period because she couldn’t understand half of what the girl said. Honestly, she didn’t expect that “an Original Witch” could say something like that. Besides, according to her facial expressions, the girl didn’t seem to deliberately tease herself. “Is that what the prince called… knowledge?

“As for the book you mentioned, can I read it?”

“Of course. You may read it as long as you join the Witch Union and be loyal to His Highness.” She shrugged her shoulders.

“To serve a mortal?” Agatha stared at her and said in a low voice after a while, “I thought I was weird enough, but you are crazier than me.”

“Weird? Crazy?” Nightingale tilted her head and asked, “Why would you say that?”

“In the Holy City of Taquila, most of the Awakened Witches only treat ordinary people who couldn’t gather magic as humble servants, inferior people, or … fertility tools.” She said slowly, “but I didn’t think so. Even though they were stupid, they weren’t hopeless. Those people were no different from witches in many aspects as long as they were taught to learn and think. Because of that, many people thought that I was so weird that I had allocated part of the business in the tower to mortals. However, I didn’t expect that you are crazier than me since you are loyal to a mortal and take orders from him.”

“His Highness Roland didn’t consider us as servants,” Nightingale twitched her mouth and said, “I don’t know what kind of strange idea you have on the word of loyalty, but the fact is that he took in the witches oppressed by the Church, gave us new power, and let us live together with his subjects in Western Region. We are united to fight against the Church and demonic beasts, as well as against the demons in the future

“But this model was proved to be a failure!” Agatha couldn’t help raising her voice. “400 years ago… for you, it might be 800 or 900 years ago, the world was ruled by both mortals and witches. At that time, human beings lived almost throughout the entire Dawn Region. However, when demons attacked, we suffered such a big defeat that we only managed to keep the Fertile Plains.”

“Oh?” She raised her eyebrows. “Was that true?”

“You said the history had been buried for 400 or 500 years,” Agatha continued, “According to the Union’s records, the third Battle of Divine Will is about to break out very soon, yet you have no idea of demons! The east of Barbarian Land is Swirling Sea. So where else can you retreat? Only by rebuilding the Union, uniting witches and improving the probability of High Awakening with knowledge can we seize the final chance to stop demons’ attack!”

“Why do you have to say that?”

“What do you mean?”

“400 years have passed, right?” A lot of things could be changed in such a long time. But why are you still restrained by those old ideas? ” Nightingale sighed. “His Highness said that mortals could defeat demons when he left. You heard that as well. He is also uniting all the people, including witches. He wants to unite every ordinary person on the continent, because he told me that people across the land are the most powerful group. ”

“Wasteland—” Agatha was about to refute this nonsense when she suddenly paused. “The girl is so certain that she seems to know the result in advance. Could 400 years really change everything? Does that prince with gray hair really have such incredible ability to let mortals have the same power as witches?”

“You seem to have realized that,” Nightingale smiled and said, “We still have a lot of time, so why not open your heart and to see with your own eyes?’

This time, Agatha was silent for a long time. “… I can see that you don’t like me.”

Nightingale didn’t retort.

“The witches of the Quest Association used to see me like that as well— after they knew that I had appointed a group of mortals as experimental assistants in the tower,” she said. “Obviously, you don’t like me, but why do you tell me these?”

“I don’t hate you as long as you stop being so arrogant and treat His Highness normally. As for your question… ” she paused and continued, “because the prince said he didn’t want to see you abandoned by the times.”

.

Chapter 349: Passing On (Part I)

tanding on the top floor of the Tower of Babel, Mayne peered through the window towards the snow-covered city of Hermes.

Since the last attack by a large group of demonic beasts on New Holy City, peace temporarily returned to the icy plains, and the fall of snow weakened. The citizens of Hermes were able to enjoy an unlikely, but timely respite.

Even though this was supposed to be a time of happiness and celebration, Mayne continued to feel nothing but emptiness in his heart. During the attack, in order to kill the terrifyingly-large, hybrid, demonic beasts, a platoon of warriors from God’s Punishment Army dashed out from the side entrance of the city wall and fought them head-on. In total, 19 warriors were wounded and two were killed. As for the two beasts, they laid on the ground, growling for a long time after the warriors hacked off their limbs. Eventually, the city wall’s guards killed them with spears. Rather than the loss of the warriors, it was the timing of the demonic beasts’ attack that terrified Mayne.

After remaining silent for some time, he let out a long sigh and returned to his seat beside the table. He wanted to flip open the Canon and read through it carefully one more time.

“Even if you flip the book until it breaks, the result isn’t going to change.” Tayfun said as he walked into the circular room holding two hot drinks, and placed one in front of Mayne. “His Holiness O’Brien hasn’t agreed to meet you?”

“I’ve sent my request to the Pivotal Secret Area three times already, but there’s still no reply.” Mayne said anxiously. “And I have no idea what His Holiness is up to at such an important time…”

“Don’t worry,” Tayfun interjected, “as you’ve said yourself, the Canon was written by the first Pope, and hence there are bound to be mistakes. After more than four hundred years, who can guarantee that everything in the book is accurate?”

“But this time it’s different.” The Archbishop shook his head. “If the time is miscalculated, it’ll be a serious catastrophe for us! We’re investing a lot of strength and energy in unifying the kingdom to gather all the power of the mainland against the demons. But, if the time is shortened by half, we have no way to build up God’s Punishment Army sufficiently after the war!”

“Quiet, Lord Mayne.” The old bishop laughed and slowly sipped on his hot drink. “What’s done cannot be undone. We can’t change the fact that Fang of Hell appeared before us. But there might be two reasons for this.”

“What reasons?”

“Drink first and I’ll speak,” Tayfun said, stroking his beard.

Mayne picked up his cup. It looked like goat milk at first, but when he brought it closer, a spicy smell rushed into his nose. “What did you put in it?”

“Coltsfoot.” Tayfun tilted his mouth. “Although you aren’t able to directly drink Dreamland Water, drinking a bit of this will be beneficial for you. It’ll help you to release your tensions, soothe your nerves, and sleep easier.”

With one gulp, Mayne emptied the cup and soon felt a fierce burning sensation in his throat. Although the savory taste of the goat milk was supposed to dilute the coltsfoot juice, it was still extremely uncomfortable for someone who did not consume such drinks often. He coughed twice, wiped his mouth, and said, “Even a cup of Dreamland Water wouldn’t make me fall asleep. Can you speak now?”

“One possibility is that the Pope made a mistake in writing. Old men get dizzy spells and moments of amnesia very often, as I know very well.” Tayfun shrugged.

“That’s unlikely.” Mayne frowned. “This concerns the layout and arrangement of the Church, and more importantly, determines the destiny of Man. I’m sure he took great care in writing this down. What’s the second reason?”

“The second possibility is that there are circumstances we don’t know about that have changed everything.”

The Archbishop waited for a moment, and upon realizing that the old bishop had no intention to continue speaking, he questioned, “That’s it?”

“Well, that’s it.” Tayfun repeated.

“Is this… a joke? Everything changed? For this simple reason, all of our efforts will go down the drain! How can you be so cursory…”

“Lord Mayne!” Tayfun raised his voice a few notches. “What exactly do you insist on getting? Is it a sure-fire way to defeat the demons? Or do you think that you’re the only person who wants to defend Hermes and prevent the demons from entering the icy plains?”

“…” Mayne froze.

“In any battle, everyone wants to win. But so far, we can’t even assure victory in every battle against the Four Kingdoms, not to mention the demons from hell.” Speaking in a louder voice, he said, “Have you forgotten the Supreme Pontiff’s teachings? The consequences of over-insistence and fear aren’t too different. What you should do is accept reality and take things step by step till the end – the eventual result isn’t for us to control.

Fear of… the result. Mayne’s heart palpitated. “He’s right, I’m indeed afraid. Afraid that after becoming the Pope, I’ll be unable to fend off the demons, and watch the death of Mankind under my charge.”

“I used to be like you,” Tayfun suddenly lowered his voice, “but Heather’s death made me understand that the result is often unpredictable. The Months of Demons came earlier than usual without warning, yet we were still able to capture Wolfheart City before the big snowfall, as planned… but Heather died and the nature of the war changed. Even so, we still have to carry on.” He stood up and let out a long sigh, then patted Mayne on the shoulder and walked out of the room. “So… whether for five or ten years, you must be unrelenting in your mission, not for the path of certain victory, but to fulfil your duty even if the result turns out to be not what you desired.”

After hearing the door closing, Mayne gazed at the empty cup in front of him and remained silent.

He had to admit that Tayfun’s words were reasonable, but now that he was about to shoulder this heavy responsibility, how could he not feel afraid?

Suddenly, a Presiding Judge walked into the room. “Lord Mayne, the Supreme Pontiff wishes to see you.”

Finally!

He stood up immediately, and said eagerly, “Take me quickly to the Pivotal Secret Area.”

…

Hidden deep beneath a plateau, the Pivotal Secret Area was a cold and quiet place.

Walking into the hall of the Pivotal Secret Temple, Mayne seemed slightly dazed. Although there was no incarnation ceremony arranged for the day, all of the candles in the hall were lit up and the resultant candlelight sketched out an orange-yellow silhouette for the hall. The overhead chandelier seemed like a gathering of stars in the Kingdom of God.

His Holiness O’Brien was sat on the throne, silently gazing at Mayne.

Mayne felt something was not right, but suppressed his suspicions, and walked up to the throne. He knelt prostrate with his forehead touching the floor.

“Rise, child.” The Pope’s voice was very delicate, and without paying attention it would be difficult to hear what he was saying.

Mayne straightened his body, and saw that the Pope’s face was ridden with age and fatigue, as if he had not had a rest for a long time. “Your Holiness, please take care of your body.”

“No need.” He laughed, and deep wrinkle lines covered his face at once. “I’m going to die soon.”

“Your Holiness, you aren’t…”

“No, listen to me, child.” O’Brien labored to interrupt the Bishop. “I understand the condition of my own body, and without question, my time is soon up.” He paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “The purpose of calling you here today… is to pass on the Pope’s position to you.”

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