Rewrite That Witch
CH1358 · Rewrite
☕ Support

Chapter 1358: The Creator’s Proof

She had a long dream.

In it, countless figures in white robes and masks surrounded her, their faces intent and perspiring as they moved with the purposeful haste of people facing something nearly impossible. She could read their expressions even through the masks.

Of course. My body was nearly destroyed. Is this my mind consoling itself at the end?

She understood her own condition. Any experienced surgeon presented with what had been done to her body would have quietly turned to discuss funeral arrangements rather than waste effort on the attempt. Even if Roland was a Creator — and she believed he was — she had understood all along that Creators were not omnipotent. Otherwise there would be no need for Oracles.

She had held on until the promise was kept. She had left nothing undone. There was a clean conscience to that, at least.

The quality of existing inside a lucid dream was strange and specific: her whole body immersed in warm light, the pain gone as if it had been a description she’d read rather than something her nerve endings had recorded. The voices around her came from a pleasant distance, the images softened like a scene recalled rather than witnessed. She felt herself becoming drowsy, and let it happen.

The fragments of her memory assembled themselves.

The gray overhead became a vast whiteness, shadowless. The white robes filed out one by one, and she watched from some remove as a version of herself was lifted and carried to a man and woman who were crying and holding each other. They kissed her and their faces went wide with relief and happiness.

Then she grew, in the scattered, non-continuous way that dreams compress years. Difficulty of one kind and then another. Images arriving faster than thought.

She realized, with mild surprise, that these were the early memories she had never been able to access clearly — the ones she knew existed in some residual way but had never been able to actually see. Here they were, more vivid than anything she currently called a memory.

A childhood home. A backyard. Bedsheets on a line.

Family.

This was where I lived.

She lay in arms she recognized, closed her eyes, and felt the word safe with an accuracy that had never been available to her before.

As the drowsiness completed its work, a voice drifted down from above, warm and uncertain in the particular way that voices are when they know what the question means.

“Say — what should we name her?”

“How about… Fei Yuhan.”

She woke to a hospital ceiling.

She stared at it for a long time before the fact of her own continued existence became fully real.

Wait. I’m… alive?

She ran a cautious internal inventory. All four limbs responded to her. The connection between intention and movement was immediate and clear — no lag, no compensation for damage that should have been there. She remembered precisely what had been done to her right hand: ground to paste, the bones powdered. By any logic she understood, it should not exist.

She raised it anyway.

Bandaged from wrist to fingertip, but the outline beneath the wrapping was intact, and unambiguous.

A laugh escaped from somewhere in her chest.

He actually did it.

He had the nerve to stand there at that age with that face and say ‘Because I am a Creator’ — does he have any idea how absurd he looked?

“Mhh… Master…” A drowsy murmur came from beside the bed.

Zero was asleep in a chair pulled close to the mattress, both hands folded under her cheek as a pillow. From the creases on her face and the precise angle of her worry even in sleep, she had been there the whole time.

Fei Yuhan sat for a moment and looked at her.

She got out of bed quietly, tucked the blanket up around Zero’s shoulders, and left the ward.

The corridor resting area: Roland, Valkries, and several Martial Artists. Her emergence produced an immediate small commotion — questions, visible relief, people pressing in. She walked through them as if they weren’t there and reached Roland. She took hold of his arm. “Let’s go. We have business.”

He felt the eyes on him. ”…Business?”

“It isn’t convincing enough coming from you alone — but with the genius Martial Artist it might have a different effect. Isn’t that what you said?” She tilted her head at him. “You honored your promise. Now it’s my turn.”

“In this state?” He looked at her — the hospital gown, the bandaging from ankle to collarbone, her face the only uncovered part of her body. She looked like a dumpling someone had wrapped too carefully.

“That’s right.” She steered him toward the end of the corridor. “Isn’t it more convincing exactly like this?”

The higher-ups of Prism City filled the conference hall of the sanatorium in a circle, their expressions complicated. They listened to Fei Yuhan’s account with the concentrated attention of people receiving information they had not yet decided what to do with.

“The enemy was categorically different from the Fallen Evils — not only in the scale of its power, but in its apparent invulnerability. Even pressing my Force of Nature to its absolute limit, I could not inflict any lasting damage. According to its own account, only a World Creator or another Oracle has the means to destroy their cores. Events proved this: I struck its astrolabe multiple times with what should have been fatal force, and the enemy was unaffected throughout. Without Roland’s timely arrival, I believe the situation would have been irreversible. The enemy identified itself as Delta, an emissary of the Deities from the Erosion, and claimed to be responsible for the fall of Prism City. If that is accurate, we can infer that its companions have comparable power. I have no doubt that our world is in critical danger.”

The hall broke into noise immediately.

Fallen Evils did not respond to ordinary weapons; only Awakened individuals could kill them. But if this Oracle had been immune to the Force of Nature, then what remained of their capabilities at all? An unbeatable enemy in an already difficult war was not a thought anyone in the room was equipped to absorb without reaction.

Fei Yuhan’s credibility removed all possibility of dismissal. Nobody present could accuse her of embellishment.

Several of them had begun to visibly shake.

After a round of hushed conversation, Rock spoke for the group: “We are all relieved that you are with us, and grateful that Mr. Roland is standing on the Association’s side. From the evidence gathered at the scene, it is clear that the enemy possessed power beyond our current understanding, and that multiple Martial Artists were overcome by it. Pooling the various accounts, we have strong reason to believe that the one who defeated the Erosion enemies was Hunter Roland. Furthermore — his role in your recovery, from the state that everyone present who attended the bridge can confirm—” he paused deliberately, ”— clearly indicates means that are extraordinary by any measure. But to recognize him as a World Creator based on the words of an enemy… isn’t that somewhat thin?”

“I’d agree. The concept is too vague. If the world was created by these individuals, where were they before the world appeared?”

“This is absurd on its face — our world formed from the Big Bang!”

“Given that it’s Miss Fei Yuhan’s judgment, I am personally prepared to accept it. We all saw her condition. She recovered completely in under twenty-four hours. Short of a deity, who accomplishes that?”

“The enemies from the Erosion also call themselves deities. If both parties claim the title, how do we determine which is legitimate?”

The discussion grew fractious. Despite obvious efforts to keep voices low, every person in the room was a Martial Artist, and the argument was carrying clearly to all of them. Most of what reached the air was doubt.

“All of you have the premise inverted,” Fei Yuhan said.

The room quieted.

“I did not decide Roland was the World Creator because of the battle. I had held that suspicion before the battle. The battle produced information that confirmed it. As for the surgery — I understand that it sounds outlandish. But you seem to have overlooked the most straightforward path. The Creator is standing beside me. If he can produce concrete proof, we’ll have our answer.” She looked at Roland. “Can’t we?”

Roland suppressed the urge to rub his forehead. He had never intended to reveal this to the Association — he had understood it would be difficult. But they were already here, and Fei Yuhan had committed herself entirely on his behalf. There was no retreating from this without failing her.

He turned to Defender Rock. “Does the Association have any Fallen Evil Force of Nature cores?”

“The majority were seized when Prism City fell. The remainder are from recent hunts.” Rock nodded. “They’re currently in my custody.”

“Please hand one to me.” Roland kept his voice level. “It’s time for the confined magic power to return to the world.”

Discussion

Suggest a change