Helen clutched the letter, her knuckles turning white. She called out in a voice both mournful and hollow.
“Ed… Ed…”
She called his name again and again.
Looking out at the dark street where the streetlights were few and far between, she suddenly dropped the letter and chased after him like she had lost her mind.
She tripped as she left the house, scraping her knees. Ignoring the pain, she scrambled up and continued to run with a limp. Her shoes fell off, but she didn’t care; she ran out of town barefoot.
“Ed!”
“Where are you?”
“I can’t see you…”
“I’m so scared…”
“Don’t leave me… all alone.”
“I don’t want to be alone.”
“Did Helen do something wrong? I’m sorry…”
“Helen is a bad girl. She’ll change, I promise. Please, just forgive her…”
Tears fell, pitter-patter, onto the ground.
Surrounded by a curtain of darkness, ghostly shadows began to crawl. Before Helen even noticed, she had reached the wilderness. Beneath her feet lay a millennium’s worth of accumulated decay. A cold wind blew through the woods, carrying the stench of rot.
Above, thick clouds blotted out the moon, and the night sky felt like it was pressing down on her. Whispers drifted into her ears—half-temptation, half-threat. They tugged at her nerves, denying her any peace.
The shadows seemed like living things, creeping across the ground and climbing up to entwine her small body. Her skin prickled with a needle-like sting as if a cold, skeletal hand had seized her.
Sensing approaching danger, Helen spun around, but she could no longer see the lights of the town. The eerie fog hissed like steam. A massive silhouette parted the turbid mist, surging toward her.
Helen looked up blankly. As the figure broke through the fog, revealing a horrific, calamitous face, an unspeakable terror gripped her heart!
She fell back onto the ground, her pupils shrinking rapidly.
As the mist swirled, the first thing to emerge was a smooth, white mask. Seven or eight irregular eyeballs were embedded in its surface. Behind it was a soft, bizarre, gelatinous body.
It stood over three meters tall. Countless tiny skeletal limbs sprouted from its chest, and in the center was a deep, hollow cavity resembling a ribcage. Dark mist poured out from the hole like a cascading waterfall.
Trailing behind were a grotesque back and tail, covered in polished black lumps that looked like a cross between tree roots and dripping candle wax. It was bloated and swollen, covered in fine bristles that stretched out behind it.
A wide trail had been dragged through the dirt from afar; the creature had evidently crawled here from a great distance.
“Help…”
Helen opened her mouth, but no sound came out.
The monster’s eyeballs rolled. Its scattered gaze focused into a single point, locking onto her. Its skeletal limbs suddenly elongated, their sharp, tiny finger joints twitching as they reached for her.
The lilac color of her eyes was stained with the grey of despair.
At the final moment!
A figure descended from the sky, crashing into the ground with a thunderous boom that sent a shockwave of air rolling outward!
Ed-Bear swung his upper body, whipping up a gale. His arm twisted into a lethally sharp, spiraling lance. In a flash of shadows, he lunged at the monster!
Crack!
The bone mask shattered, bursting with black gelatinous fluid and white neural tissue. The spiral lance drove straight through, and the tightened tentacles exploded outward, completely shredding the creature’s insides!
Squelch…
Ed-Bear calmly withdrew his arm, the sound like pulling a boot out of thick mud.
Splash!
As if a hole had been punctured in a wine barrel, thick plasma gushed out. It stretched into crimson threads, pooling on the ground like a bloody mirror. The skeletal limbs on the monster’s chest slowly stopped twitching, and it died in the silence.
A spark of joy lit up Helen’s eyes.
“Ed!”
She scrambled to her feet and ran over, hugging his leg.
“Don’t leave me… I have nothing left… I only have you…” She began to sob.
Through his clothes, Ed-Bear could feel the little girl’s warmth. She was soft and warm, always seemingly full of an excessive amount of water that constantly leaked from her eyes.
Ed-Bear felt troubled. It seemed he couldn’t shake this little thing off.
“Who told you to leave the town? You almost died. Fortunately, I was worried and followed you for a bit,” he scolded.
“I’m sorry…”
“Come back with me.”
“Then… then will you never leave me again?”
The little girl clutched Ed-Bear’s hem, anxiously waiting for a promise, even though he had already lied to her once.
“Didn’t you read my letter carefully? It is precisely because I cannot make a promise that I have to leave… Promise me, if that day truly comes… do not be sad, and do not grieve. Just like a dandelion must eventually scatter, its silver seeds will fly into the sky.”
Helen felt an inexplicable sadness.
When the wind rises, water gathers into clouds. When the wind stops, the clouds fall as rain. She didn’t know how to change such an irreversible outcome, so she only cried harder.
***
In the library.
White Fish: Blah blah blah.
Wang Yue held a page and said softly, “Shut up.”
“Eh? Is that any way to speak to the deity you believe in? Shouldn’t you use a respectful title? Ah~ I really want to hear you call me ‘Lady White Fish’ in a pampered voice. I’m so excited!” White Fish rolled around in the air.
“Please keep quiet in the library.”
Wang Yue rubbed her brow, finding this chatterbox of a deity a bit much to handle. She couldn’t focus on her reading at all. It was frustrating to sift through so much nonsense just to find a tiny bit of useful information.
She closed her book, put it back in its place, and prepared to leave. Before she walked away, she suddenly remembered something and turned to White Fish.
“Do you know what is beneath the Academy?”
Contrary to her usual behavior, White Fish didn’t rush to answer. Instead, she froze, remaining silent for a long while.
“Is it inconvenient to say?” Wang Yue asked again.
“I’m curious, why do you care about that?” White Fish’s smile vanished, replaced by a serious tone.
“Because I’m curious.”
“Curiosity killed the cat, and it will kill the witch too.”
“So, there really is something underground?”
The previously lighthearted atmosphere turned rigid. The air felt as though it had frozen into ice, with frost seemingly gnawing its way along the floor and walls.
White Fish floated in the air, hesitating.
“Don’t be nervous. I was just asking. If you don’t want to answer, forget it,” Wang Yue said with a smile, trying to ease the tension.
White Fish let out a long sigh, clearly not intending to answer. After a moment, she asked, “How did you find out?”
“I just guessed.”
Wang Yue couldn’t exactly say she had preconceived notions. However, seeing various individuals with hidden agendas—herself included—poking their noses around this small Academy, it was obvious they were looking for something.
The buildings above ground were open, with no restricted areas. In the two weeks since school started, she had measured the place with her own feet and found nothing suspicious. By process of elimination, it had to be underground.
“Actually, it’s not a secret,” White Fish said in a low, soft voice. “But it’s the one thing the students must never know. Once it’s made public, the entire system of witches will collapse. If the Taboo Names traced it back to me, they would definitely strangle me. It’s not that I don’t trust you to keep your mouth shut, it’s just… I’m a little afraid.”
Since she put it that way, Wang Yue couldn’t press further.
White Fish was actually quite pitiful. As a deity, she had to worry about her own life, and her only believer was a Faithless one.
Wang Yue was now certain that the thing the Church and Audara Ias were interested in was hidden beneath the Academy. She would be lying if she said she wasn’t curious. What kind of secret could cause the entire witchcraft system to collapse if revealed?
However, judging by White Fish’s tone, it didn’t seem like some world-shattering mystery, just something inconvenient to announce.
Friday arrived, and the Academy issued a sudden notice: tomorrow, all students would be sent to Crowsnest Town in groups.
The younger witches gossiped incessantly, but the older students showed no reaction. They were already accustomed to such collective activities.
Saturday.
Following the school’s requirements, Wang Yue woke up an hour early. She washed away her drowsiness with cold water in the washroom, changed into her school uniform, and lined up downstairs.
In the faint light of dawn, the young witches boarded carriages in batches, giving the air a feeling of an autumn field trip.
Inside the carriage, Dorothy clenched her fists excitedly. “I’m going to eat so much in Crowsnest Town!”
Matcha rubbed her eyes, sounding drained. “Why do we have to go to Crowsnest Town? It’s so far… and we have to stay for two days… we won’t be back until Monday…”
“Maybe they’re doing a deep clean. When we get back, the school will be brand new,” Dina guessed.
Wang Yue’s expression was solemn. Her eyes remained fixed on the direction of the Quicksand Lowlands outside the window.
When she spotted a tall figure wearing a wrap-around coat, she let out a sigh of relief. She clasped her fingers together, rested her chin on them, and slowly closed her eyes.
The school’s decision to organize a trip to Crowsnest Town was quite unexpected. She wasn’t ready to come into contact with the Church’s people at this point in time.
Things were becoming uncontrollable. To her, this was no different from a battle.
