Chapter 626: Battle of Fate (I)
Was everything… a dream?
Roland walked to the rooftop fence and looked down at the school spread below him in the last light of evening. The playground was empty. The goalposts cast long shadows across the field. Beyond them, the library and dormitory caught the sunset in their windows, gold and perfectly still.
Seven years he had studied here. He knew every angle of it.
He knew he was standing on the roof of the teaching building. He knew this was where he came when he had time to spare.
Except—this campus was never empty at six in the evening. The field below should have been crossed by a dozen figures, the windows should have carried the sounds of dormitory life. The silence was wrong in a way that was precise and deliberate, like a painting that had captured everything visible and nothing alive.
He raised his hands. They were a prince’s hands—pale and narrow, not the ones he had spent his university years with. He touched the gray hair where it fell across his shoulder. The shape and height were wrong for who he was.
What happened?
The last image he had was Nightingale’s face—panic stripped bare, her expression so open it was almost unbearable—and then a flash of white, and then nothing.
“Who are you?”
The voice came from nowhere, unhurried and clear.
He spun. A woman was walking toward him from the direction of the stairwell door. White hair, long enough to move with her steps. Eyes the color of dark rubies. Her robe—red and white, threaded with gold at the hem—was nothing this era had ever produced, and the golden crown at her temples answered the question before he could ask it.
“You’re a pure witch. Church of Hermes.”
“Yes.” She paused a few steps away. “And the Fifteenth Pope of the Holy City. My name is Zero.” A tilt of the head. “You are not Roland Wimbledon.”
Roland frowned. “Did you create this place?”
Everything assembled itself: the flash must have been Zero’s ability. The school rooftop must be an illusion—some constructed interior space, a soul battlefield, whatever the church called it. The moment he had opened his eyes and seen the familiar campus, he had believed for one instant that he was home. That the past years had been the dream.
He noticed something else: the church had turned witches into God’s Punishment Warriors, and the woman responsible was herself a witch. The hypocrisy sat in him like a splinter.
“No.” Zero walked forward steadily. “You created it. It lives in your memory—a place you return to constantly, in thought if not in body. I’m curious where it is. Prince Roland of Graycastle never lived anywhere like this.”
“Why would I tell you?” Roland moved along the fence, keeping the distance.
What breaks an illusion? He had been in nightmares before. Jumping from a height was supposed to work—the shock of falling, the body’s reflex, the sudden waking. He looked over the fence at the ground below.
“You don’t have to tell me.” Zero’s tone was pleasant. “I’ll spend a little time and work it out—who you are, where you came from, why you’re wearing this prince’s face.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
Zero stopped. Her expression shifted slightly—not quite surprise, but its near neighbor. “You know, I explain the rules to everyone I trap in this place. The effects, the limits, what it will cost them.” She paused. “Everyone except you.”
“What?”
He felt her presence at his side before he saw her move.
The pain arrived with no preamble. He looked down and found a blade in his chest—the handle flush against his sternum, the point somewhere behind his heart. He opened his mouth and air did not come. The thoracic cavity opened and closed uselessly. The agony was not sharp; it was total, occupying every nerve simultaneously like a current run through standing water.
He would have traded anything for it to stop.
“Because I don’t like confusion.”
Zero stood at the other end of the knife, her robe splashed dark. His vision contracted. Hypoxia and the brain’s last merciful reflex descended together.
Then Roland was standing beside the fence again, his chest intact, his heart slamming against his ribs.
He looked down at his hands. There was a phantom of blood on the ground—the shape of it, the impression of what had been.
That was real. The wound still ached, a residual ghost of sensation. He pressed his palm to his chest, feeling it rise and fall.
Across the rooftop, Zero stood exactly where she had stood before.
She was holding a knife. There had been nothing in her hand a moment ago.
She can make things. He registered it as a tactical fact and turned to run.
One step.
The knife opened him at the abdomen. This death took longer than the first—he was on the ground, breathing the smell of his own blood, listening to himself make sounds he had never imagined he was capable of making.
His second resurrection brought clarity.
This is not a nightmare that fear breaks. This is a cyclical arena. He looked at Zero calmly while his hands were still shaking. What are the exit conditions? Can I win?
He reached for something. A blue shimmer answered—a transparent riot shield materialized in his hands. When Zero moved again, he raised it. The impact flung him six meters across the roof, and the shield bore a deep scar but held.
She could be stopped. Slowed.
He dropped the shield, concentrated harder, and pulled an assault rifle into existence. He raised it.
Zero was gone.
“I’m right here.”
Her voice arrived an instant before the white light.
His arms lay on the ground beside him, and so did the rifle.
Chapter 626: Battle of Fate (I)
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
Was everything… a dream?
Roland blinked his eyes as he walked step-by-step to the fence in order to look down at the school’s panorama against the sunset.
No one was in the spacious playground. Under the orange sunset, the goal looked lonely and its very long shadow was reflected on the ground. Far away were the familiar library and dormitory and the sunset painted the luminous windows with a ray of gold.
Roland had studied here for almost seven years so that he had been familiar with everything. He knew that he was standing on the rooftop of a teaching building and that this was his favorite place to spend his spare time.
Roland had many memories here.
Such as that iron gate behind him that was driven by the warm wind to open and close constantly.
This iron gate was billed as a unique view of the teaching building’s rooftop, and its cover looked as ancient as a cultural relic excavated by archaeologists. When he had come to this school, the gate had already been torn and tattered. As long as it was pushed lightly, it would make noise continuously as if it were out of breath. Yet it was extremely quiet after it was opened and then closed. As far as Roland was concerned, the gate would fall apart soon, but still, at the time of his graduation, it stood still on the rooftop.
“But since this was a dream, why did I look the same as Prince Roland?” thought Roland.
Roland lowered his head to see his slender hands, and then touched his gray hair on his shoulders. Apparently, the height and shape were different from what they were when he indulged himself in his studies.
“So… What had happened?” thought Roland.
Roland frowned, after a while he remembered that the last scene he had seen was that Nightingale had pushed him away, and then after a flash, he had only seen her panicking and despairing face.
“Who on earth… are you?”
A tactful and intangible female voice suddenly appeared beside him.
Roland was scared and abruptly turned around only to find that a lady with long white hair was walking toward him. She had a pair of ruby-like eyes and her red and white robe dropped down to the ground with a golden pattern embroidered on its bottom, which obviously did not belong to this era. Besides, the golden throne of her head showed her identity.
“You’re a pure witch of the church?”
“Yes. But I’m also the 15th Pope of Holy City of Hermes.” She paused and continued to say, “I’m Zero, while you’re definitely not Roland Wimbledon.”
Well, Roland frowned and said, “So did you create this place?”
Everything made sense. The flash should be Zero’s ability that Nightingale had wanted to help him to escape from. And the scenery before him should be an illusion or a virtual space, something like that. The moment he opened his eyes, Roland thought that he had come back to the modern world again.
Even though Roland knew that perhaps the church was originally the Union, it never occurred to him that the pope was a pure witch. Therefore, it was so incredible to see that these witches boldly turned other witches into inhumane monsters.
“No, you created this place.” Zero walked toward him step-by-step and said in an exciting tone, “The place is hidden deeply in your memories and
appears frequently in most of your daily life. But I’m curious as to where this is. We both know that Prince Roland of the Graycastle would have never lived in such a place.”
“Why should I tell you?” Roland moved to the other side of the fence and kept a distance from her.
What could he do to shake off the illusion? Roland thought of many ideas in his mind. Maybe he could jump off here? Based on his experiences of nightmares, he would instantly wake up from a nightmare if he jumped off of a high place.
Zero smiled and said in a sweet tone, “It’s okay that you won’t tell me. I’ll spend a little of time finally figuring out that who you’re, where you’re from and why you’ve become Prince Roland.”
Would she finally find out? “You mean to tell me that you’ll read my memories?” Roland asked in a very cold tone, “Don’t flatter yourself.”
Zero suddenly stopped and said, “You know what? I would explain to each one trapped in the illusion the effects, rules, and the impact of my ability. Everyone except for you.”
“What?”
The moment Roland asked, he found that Zero had appeared in front of him. And a sudden pain made him lose his hearing.
Roland trembled and lowered his head to only find that a knife was inserted into his chest. Roland wanted to shout, but he could not make any sound. His chest was destroyed completely and the opening and closing of his thoracic cavity could not squeeze even a little air into his throat.
Just like an electrical current, the strong pain spread over his body. Roland would rather die immediately than suffer one more second.
“Because I don’t like anything that’s confusing.”
At the other end of the knife was Zero’s calm face. Half of her body was splashed and wet by Roland’s gushing blood. Due to hypoxia and the selfprotective syncope of his brain, he quickly became unconscious.
But the next second, Roland stood still beside the fence, his body intact. In addition, Zero also stood far away from him, like she had never left that spot.
“What had happened?” Roland took deep breathes. “Was it just an illusion?” He covered his chest that was moving up and down fiercely, and the wound still hurt. Looking down, he saw the shape of a pool of blood.
“Damn, what had happened just now was true,” thought Roland.
Staring at the knife held by Zero, Roland was quite surprised in his heart because there had been nothing in her hand before.
“Could she create something out of nothing?”
Just at the moment, Zero rushed toward him again. She was so quick that Roland could not see her clearly.
Roland instantly turned around to escape, but just after a step, he felt a pain in his abdomen.
Then, Roland experienced death again. Zero wielded her long knife to cut him into two halves. The pain this time lasted longer than last time and he fell down into his own blood and outflowing guts. The lasting pain made him shout so miserably that even he was frightened by his own voice.
After his second resurrection, Roland had realized something.
This is a nightmare that can’t be broken by jumping off of a high place or from feeling fierce pain. It’s like a cyclical arena.
Damn it. What’re conditions of escaping from this? What about defeating the white-haired witch in front me?
“Zero can create weapons out of nothing, but what about me?” Roland gritted his teeth and started to concentrate his spirit. “If I had had a shield, I would
be able to fight against her.”
A blue light flashed.
A transparent anti-explosive shield appeared in Roland’s hand. He had stopped her attack, but there was a deep scar left on the shield. What was worse, Roland was blown away by the huge clash.
“Well, this was what had happened,” Roland said a dirty word in his heart.
When rolling over, Roland dropped the shield and manifested an automatic rifle.
When Roland raised the rifle to shoot, Zero disappeared.
“What was going on?” thought Roland.
“I’m right here.”
Her voice emerged next to his ears.
After a white light flashed, his arms dropped to the ground, so did the rifle.