Witch’s Night: Chapter 49 Even If The End Is Unknown
Normally, as a Noah official, Xinya shouldn’t say such things.
But she couldn’t resist gossiping…
Someone who secretly shared Luo Yan’s photos on the forum was naturally someone who couldn’t keep secrets.
And since this Luo Yan tour group seemed completely uninterested in the Ten Cities Council, Xinya became a bit bolder in her words.
“Dragon City and Noah have always been rivals. As the respective overlords of the Eastern and Western continents, for a thousand years, there might not have been open warfare, but the secret struggle never ceased.”
Mentioning this gossip, Xinya immediately started chattering,
“There are many rumors that if Noah didn’t have the Noah Holy Church and the Twelve Saints, perhaps the Free Federation would be completely controlled by Dragon City, and Noah would completely lose its dominant position.”
“…Is it appropriate for you, a Noah citizen, to say such things?”
Luo Yan couldn’t help but ask. The people from Yan City and Lannister she had met were all proud of their own city-states.
Especially Norian. When introducing Lannister to her, Luo Yan saw an infectious light and color in his eyes.
Whether it was the nobles or the citizens of Lannister, they were all sources of pride for him.
But when Xinya mentioned the rivalry between Noah and Dragon City, she seemed like a mere spectator…
Xinya was taken aback by these words, and after a moment of silence, she said with a hint of bitterness,
“I am a Noah citizen, yes, but I don’t have much of a connection with Noah. Noah is the Noah of the Noah Church, not the Noah of its citizens.”
“That sounds so complicated, Cecilia doesn’t understand.” Cecilia hugged Luo Yan’s sleeve and whispered.
“Indeed a little difficult to understand.” Luo Yan also nodded.
“It seems… Miss Luo Yan is truly inexperienced in the ways of the world.” Xinya exhaled, masking the bitterness on her face, and continued, “Anyway, the City Lord of Dragon City personally coming to Noah at this time probably means something big is about to happen.”
“Could it be more serious than a Primordial Demon invasion?” Luo Yan casually interjected.
Xinya was once again choked by Luo Yan’s casual remark. After a moment, she said,
“…Miss Luo Yan, that kind of thing is a world-ending disaster, we don’t usually consider such a possibility.”
What in the world could be more serious than the appearance of the Malice of All Worlds… unless it was the Calamity Tide.
“Oh, then it seems alright.” Luo Yan nodded.
She was someone who had resolved a Witch’s disaster, after all, although she didn’t completely understand how she did it.
The Witch of Envy in the Void had inexplicably disappeared. Luo Yan only knew that she was dead, but the specifics were unclear.
People who had experienced major events naturally handled these minor disturbances with ease.
Xinya was now speechless and could only take out the map, trying to figure out where to go, intending to continue taking Luo Yan and Cecilia to the tourist attractions, and also to avoid talking about this kind of thing with Miss Luo Yan.
“The closest one should be the Fountain of Youth. Where should we go…”
Xinya scratched her head. The map in her hand wasn’t actually old, but Noah had recently developed many new tourist attractions, which caused some deviations in the roads, but the overall locations were correct.
“How about I use Void Traversal to get there? Just tell me the general location,” Luo Yan’s eyes lit up, and she patted her chest confidently. “Leave it to me, absolutely no problem, guaranteed convenient and fast!”
Seeing Luo Yan’s eager expression, Xinya almost agreed without thinking.
It wasn’t until she saw Cecilia winking and shaking her head vigorously that she realized something was wrong and immediately refused Luo Yan,
“Let’s not, Miss Luo Yan, we can just walk there… It’s not far.”
“Alright.”
Luo Yan’s expression darkened, her disappointed tone making it hard not to feel pity for her.
But even Cecilia didn’t dare to take Luo Yan’s Void express; this showed how suicidal that act was.
It was definitely much more stimulating than Miss Luo Yan’s cooking…
As for why Cecilia had this reaction, it was clearly because Luo Yan dragging Hamid into the Void some time ago had left a deep psychological scar on her young mind…
After stopping the slightly excited Luo Yan once again, they looked at the map and headed towards the tourist attraction.
The visit from Dragon City might be novel to other Noah citizens, but neither Luo Yan nor Xinya cared much about it.
Just as they were leaving, Luo Yan glanced back at the crowd, and a fleeting, strange resonance arose in her heart.
But there wasn’t anything unusual in the moving crowd, so Luo Yan just increased the distortion of “Envy” and continued to explore this oldest human mega-city, following Xinya’s pace.
……
“I didn’t see her, but… it’s almost the same as seeing her.”
Wen Hua looked away, a faint smile on his lips as usual.
Indeed, he couldn’t break through Luo Yan’s cognitive distortion barrier, even with “Destruction” level strength, unless he was also a mental ability user.
Even Granny Zoya, a straggler at “Destruction” level, had a chance of breaking through “Life Hacks.”
But Wen Hua, as a follower of the Sovereign of Madness, his mutation-type power was completely different from mental abilities. He couldn’t see Luo Yan.
However… this didn’t mean that he couldn’t sense her.
The fluctuations emitted when using demonic power were quite unique, but very few people could detect them.
Luo Yan was one of these few, and so was Wen Hua.
This kind of fluctuation couldn’t be masked by cognitive distortion. Wen Hua easily captured the approximate location of the fluctuation, thus “seeing” Luo Yan.
“A tempting fruit, truly makes one want to pluck it.” Wen Hua narrowed his eyes slightly, sensing the fluctuation gradually moving away,
“It’s a pity that the time isn’t right yet, but this chance encounter is a kind of fate. We are destined to have an interesting story… I am very patient.”
Although he had already decided to forcibly bring Luo Yan back to the Church of the End Gods, Wen Hua wasn’t here for her today; encountering her was just a coincidence.
Wen Hua liked making plans, and he tried his best to make everything proceed step by step according to his plans. Changing them midway would make him irritable.
So, even though he encountered Luo Yan in advance, Wen Hua only “looked” at her a few more times and didn’t pay further attention.
The reason Wen Hua came to Wright Temple today was obvious.
It was because of “Dragon City,” his hometown.
“How nostalgic, it’s been a long, long time since I’ve seen anyone from Dragon City.”
Wen Hua looked at the members of the Dragon City delegation emerging from the motorcade. These Eastern faces involuntarily brought back memories.
However, there wasn’t anything particularly pitiful about his past.
Unlike the other two idealistic Bishops, Wen Hua was closer to the public perception of a cultist, an absolutely pure villain.
He reveled in destruction, immersed in the madness brought by the Sovereign of Madness, yet still maintained a terrifying rationality and a clear will.
The higher-ups of Dragon City discovered Wen Hua’s pure evil and expelled him without hesitation.
His older brother, the current City Lord of Dragon City, Wen Su, even ruthlessly exiled him to the depths of the Endless Wasteland, leaving him to die in that desolate and corrupted land.
If it weren’t for a high-ranking follower of the Church of the End Gods happening to pass by and performing the Church’s ritual on Wen Hua as he was dying, allowing him to glimpse the truth of the starry sky and awaken the power of the Sovereign of Madness, Wen Hua would have been long dead.
After gaining power, Wen Hua constantly thought about taking revenge on Dragon City, doing everything in his power to destroy it.
But Wen Hua also knew that he, no, the current Church of the End Gods, simply didn’t have the power to destroy Dragon City.
Dragon City wasn’t Lannister. It had three “Destruction” level ability users, more than ten Ice Coffin Weapons, and six Slumberers resting in the “Cenotaph.”
Even if Hamid and Marytis were included, and all the followers of the Church of the End Gods attacked Dragon City regardless of the cost, the end result would probably just be inflicting heavy losses on Dragon City.
It wouldn’t even be crippling, let alone destroying it.
As for contaminating the Ember Formation first, just like in Lannister, that was also a fantasy.
Because Dragon City’s Ember Formation was located within the “Cenotaph,” also known as the Little Sanctuary, similar to how Noah’s Ember Formation was located in the “Sanctuary.”
Contaminating it? Absolutely impossible!
If even a tiny bit of demonic power was released inside, it would guarantee that the person who released it, along with the power itself, would be turned to ashes, not even a trace remaining.
The Saint’s might wasn’t just for show. Even though she had been dead for a long time, the things she left behind weren’t something even a Devil’s Apostle could touch.
Without the Saint, the Church of the End Gods in the early days of the New Era could have easily destroyed all of human civilization.
Although Wen Hua had a remarkable record, destroying five mega-cities in a row sounded quite impressive, the problem was that the scale of these mega-cities might even be smaller than Yan City…
Wen Hua wanting to take revenge on his older brother seemed like a distant delusion.
But now it was different. Wen Su had left Dragon City and lost its protection.
Although he had come to the equally powerful Noah, this wasn’t Dragon City after all, and it couldn’t provide Wen Su with the same level of protection as Dragon City could.
This was Wen Hua’s once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Perhaps he couldn’t destroy Dragon City, but he could kill his older brother, making Wen Su pay for the exile and humiliation he had suffered.
Among the excited citizens discussing this grand event, Wen Hua smiled gently, his eyes warm and jade-like, his refined and scholarly appearance hiding an extremely mad and twisted soul.
……
The news of the City Lord of Dragon City personally visiting Noah caused a sensation throughout the human world. The importance attached to the Ten Cities Council by the overlords of East and West finally made all mega-cities and human forces put aside their hesitation and truly begin preparing for the council.
Although some conflicts of interest and power struggles were still unavoidable, even during the most critical moments of the War of the Witch of Absolute Death, Dragon City had used personal grudges to send rivals as cannon fodder, so it could only be said that such things could be minimized, but not eliminated.
“Dawn,” the most powerful human force besides the Free Federation, naturally also received an invitation.
Although all the Misters had passed away, the Cadres still upheld the Misters’ will and decided to attend, even though they were still hostile towards the Free Federation.
And the old Sword Saint, like his father before him, quietly left his settlement and headed for Noah, fulfilling the Sword Saint Sect’s promise with his life.
Human forces of all sizes, after the Sword Saint Sect and Dawn decided to respond to Noah’s call, also sent their own envoys.
Regardless of their true intentions, these actions at least represented a stance.
As for the Church of the End Gods… After the Lannister incident, this long-silent ancient cult was once again brought before all human forces.
The lesson of Lannister was alarming, and all mega-cities began purges, uncovering many members of the cult.
But the Church of the End Gods wasn’t affected by this; a dark shadow hovered over Noah.
Humanity’s power wasn’t enough to completely eradicate the deeply rooted Church of the End Gods. They would only hide deeper, continuing to brew their next plan.
Within the silent Sanctuary, the white temple remained as quiet as ever, ten Saints still doing their best to suppress the darkness deep within the temple.
Illusion and Shadow, the only two who could move freely, could only be confined to the Sanctuary, in case something happened to the seal in the white temple.
The War of the Witch of Absolute Death was the most terrifying disaster humanity had faced since the “Calamity Tide,” and also the only “Calamity Tide” level disaster, shattering humanity’s illusions about the New Era.
Humanity finally realized that the silent Primordial Demons would still awaken, would return, and how insignificant and laughable human civilization was in the face of Their power.
Illusion, the Fourth Saint, walked through the empty study in the temple, where all the history of the New Era and some remaining written records from the Old Era were stored.
She walked to a certain spot and pulled out a file recorded on old parchment.
Just like the countless times she had opened this file before, Illusion first cast a memory-erasing spell on herself.
Her memories of the next half hour would be completely erased, leaving no trace in her mind.
The file was very old, the handwriting faded, the text was ancient script from the Old Era, fully embodying the vicissitudes of time.
The ancient script wrote several words that seemed chilling from today’s perspective.
—”Artificial Witch Project – Record of The Witch of Absolute Death.”
Opening the first page, there were a few lines written by the Saint herself.
“She is the past I abandoned, forever imprisoned in ‘malice.’ I let Her descend upon the world again, for the sliver of hope left by Luo Yan.”
“The false starry sky cannot conceal all truths. One day, we, and this world, will all fall into the same despair as the ‘Progenitor’ (true name).”
“I… just want to find a different ending.”
“Even if the ending is unknown.”
