Chapter 676: The Pursuit
Sometimes, when she had no appetite for training, she walked the deeper passages of the maze to stand before the magic core — Taquila’s highest hope, suspended in its cold light.
“The Instrument of Divine Retribution, fully repaired.” She studied the great spindle floating at the chamber’s center, the white rib-brackets feeding power into it from all sides. “Are you certain it’s functional?”
“Certain? I’ve spent three hundred and eighty-five years on it!” Celine descended from above, settling on her tentacles with palpable excitement. “The more I study it, the more I believe it was made by a god. Everything the Quest Society ever produced — the Sigil of Magic Stones, all of it — was refuse by comparison. Not even close to the true nature of magic power. Had we found this ruin four hundred years ago, there would never have been a second Battle of Divine Will.”
She patted Celine’s rough exterior. “Have you tested the other cores?”
“Of course. Pasha even used the phantom instrument to work a miracle for a kingdom of common people, very far away — you were still sleeping then. You missed it.”
“That far?”
“Much farther than any natural ability can reach. Even the Infinite Sigil can’t compare.” Celine trembled with it. “This is what the magic core does. It allows witches to exceed every limit they have. That common person who fell to their knees in shock — that was proof. The core should always have been our goal. Not the God’s Punishment Army.” She drew herself upright. “Long live Lady Natalia!”
“Without the God’s Punishment Army scheme, none of us would have survived long enough to find it.”
“Eh… Long live Lady Alice, too,” Celine said, with visible reluctance.
“I heard Pasha say the Chosen One is also required — that the instrument can’t activate without her. Is that true?”
Celine seized her hand with a tentacle. “The Chosen One — yes! This core is too vast, too complex. Without the Chosen One it’s inert. A dead thing, unable to become a new deity.” The grip tightened. “This is why everything depends on you. You must find her.”
“If she exists.”
The sarcoma went quiet. When Pasha spoke again her voice was heavier. “Yes. If she exists.” A pause. “Why can’t I be the Chosen One?”
“Starfall City has fallen! Defeated — by common people!”
The news reached the underground chambers like a tremor felt before it’s heard. Lava roiled. Every Sleeping One and every Waking One responded at once — tentacles lashing, bodies swaying, the only expression of great feeling available to them.
Not everyone celebrated.
“How is this possible?” Alethea’s agitation conveyed shock and fury in equal measure. “Beaten by common people?”
“Is the source reliable?” someone asked.
“I’ll have the Chamber of Commerce of Dawn investigate.” Pasha swept a tentacle through the air to quiet the chamber. “Behave yourselves — you’ll shake the walls down.”
She watched them and thought how remarkable it was, that she could still distinguish each one. The same massive forms, the same rough exteriors, the same slow language of tentacles — and yet she could read every one of them, by breathing frequency, by the particular quality of their movements, by everything accumulated in years of shared dark. They were as legible to her as faces.
Pasha submerged into the lava. “For Taquila.”
One by one the others followed. Voices, ragged with feeling: “For Taquila.”
The lava stilled.
“Once the news is confirmed,” Elena said, “I suggest we immediately retrieve the divine relic. Starfall City no longer deserves to hold it.”
“A confrontation with the God’s Punishment Army would be unavoidable,” Alethea said, “and they won’t be unprepared. Even if they lost to common people, that doesn’t make Hermes vulnerable. For all we know, those common people killed a few hundred soldiers and called it a decisive victory.”
Several voices expressed their agreement.
“Our other contacts will help clarify what actually happened,” Pasha said. “For now, the most important task remains the Chosen One. Banach Lothar has built the stage. It is time for the actors.” She paused. “If she can find the Chosen One on this journey — the demons will fall, and the witches will reach heights no one alive today can imagine.”
She walked to the ruin’s exit and stopped.
A great palace, half consumed by the earth. At its center: a shaft cut through stone all the way to the surface — a patio open to the sky, letting a column of white light fall ten meters down to the floor. It found her feet in its quiet pool of brightness.
Across from the shaft stood two tombstones.
Everything around them was worn, dusty, crumbling — but the tombstones were clean. No trace of grime, after all these years. Someone had swept them every day. Someone had planted beside each one a small, plain, white flower.
She knelt on one knee.
Whatever disagreements they’d carried in life — however fierce the debates between them, however bitterly contested the choices — it had all been in service of the same end: the survival of the witches. They had been placed together in death because they had never truly been separate in purpose.
Two of the Union’s Three Chiefs.
Alice, the unstoppable Queen of Starfall City.
Natalia, the dazzling Queen of Sunchaser.
“May the deities be with you.”
She rose and looked up at the column of light. “I’m ready. Send me up.”
A tentacle emerged from the dark and wound gently around her waist, lifting her upward. The shaft of sky widened as she rose — light expanding, brightening, until there was nothing left but white. She blinked against it, opened her eyes, and the world unfolded.
“I can only bring you this far.” Pasha’s voice drifted up from below. “This body can’t bear direct sun.”
“I know.” She bent and wrapped her arms around the tentacle — the closest thing to an embrace. “Wait for my good news.”
“One more thing. You can’t use your old name anymore. The Chamber of Commerce has prepared a new identity. They’ve already chosen a name.”
“What is it?”
“No. 76.”
She turned it over. Smiled.
“I like it.” She faced the open horizon. “I’ll be going, then. Take care.”
“You too.”
So, in pursuit of that last remaining hope, a new journey began.
Chapter 676: The Pursuit
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
…
Sometimes, when she didn’t want to train anymore, she would also enter the deepest area of the maze to see the magic core that the survivors of Taquila had so many high hopes for.
“This is the completely repaired instrument of Divine retribution? Are you sure it’s useful?”
The biggest core looked like a simple spindle apparatus, nearing the size of a Senior Witch’s experiment tower. Dozens of white brackets like visceral ribs were releasing magic power into it. Its uniqueness was obvious as it was floating mid-air of the maze without any hangings or support. Due to the cold light that the core emitted, the floor was no longer plain red.
“Of course, I’ve been studying it for 385 years!” A piece of sarcoma appeared from above and landed next to her using its tentacles. “The more I study it, the more I feel like it’s a creation of God. Comparing with it, the things that had been researched by the Quest Society like the Sigil of Magic Stones were literally trash. Well… they were not even close to the essence of the magic power. If we had found this ruin 400 years ago, there would be probably no second Battle of Divine Will.”
Celine would always become extremely excited whenever talking about the magic core, so she could only pat her rough exterior. “Have you verified the other cores?”
“Of course, Pasha even used the phantom instrument to display a miracle at the extremely far kingdom of common people. Oh, you were probably still asleep at that time, so you didn’t see it.”
“That far?” she asked surprisingly.
“Correct, much farther than any ability can reach, even the Infinite Sigil can’t be compared with it,” Celine replied while shaking her tentacles, “This is the power of the magic core. It allows the witches to possess power beyond their limits. That common person who kneeled down in shock because of the miracle is the best proof. The magic core should have been our aim, not the damn God’s Punishment Army! Long live Lady Natalia!”
“But without the God’s Punishment Army scheme, we wouldn’t be able to survive until now.” She pointed out.
“Eh…. well, long live Lady Alice too,” Celine murmured reluctantly.
“But I heard Pasha saying that in order to activate the instrument of Divine retribution, the Chosen One is also required, is that right?”
“Correct, the Chosen One! This magic core is too immense and complicated. Without the Chosen One, it would be just a dead object unable to become a new deity!” Celine used her tentacles to grab her hand. “This is why all of our hopes rest with you. You must find her.”
“If she does exist.”
Hearing that, the voice of the sarcoma became heavier. “Yeah… if she does exist. Why can’t I become the Chosen One?”
…
“I heard that Starfall City has been defeated! They’ve been defeated by the common people!”
After receiving the news, the magma underground started boiling, and all the Sleeping Ones and the Waking Ones started shaking their tentacles excitingly, which was the only way they could express their emotions.
But not everyone was excited by the news.
“How can this be possible?” For instance, Alethea’s dancing expressed shock and anger. “How can they be defeated by common people?”
“Are the news credible?” someone asked.
“I’ll ask the Chamber of Commerce of Dawn to investigate this.” Pasha moved her tentacles to quiet them down. “Behave yourselves, don’t shake the whole burrow!”
Surprisingly, even though they all looked alike, huge sarcomas with several tentacles on their epidermis, she could still recognize each of them easily.
It was probably due to the fact that they had been living here for so many years that she could distinctly remember everything from their breath frequency to their tentacle movements.
Pasha bent her huge figure and immersed in the lava. “For Taquila.”
All the sarcomas that could still move dropped down and many voices sounded. “For Taquila.”
The turbulent lava soon calmed down.
“Once the news has been confirmed, I suggest we immediately retrieve the divine relic,” Elena said, “Starfall City no longer fits to possess it.”
“But in that case, a fight with the God’s Punishment Army will be unavoidable and I don’t believe that they’ll be unprepared. Even though they lost to the common people, it doesn’t mean that Hermes would also be vulnerable,” Alethea said in doubt, “Who knows how the common people won? Maybe they just killed a few hundreds of God’s Punishment Soldiers and then believed to have claimed an important victory.”
“This is also possible.”
“I also think so.”
Many expressed their approval.
“The other common people will help us understand,” Pasha said, “and right now, the most important thing is to find the Chosen One. Banach Lothar has already set up the stage. Now, it was time for the actors to perform.”
“If she can succeed in finding the Chosen One in this trip, the demons will definitely perish and the witches will eventually reach new heights!”
…
She walked to the exit of the ruin and stopped.
There was a huge palace, half of it being covered by dirt. At the center of the palace, there was a patio that reached the ten-meter-high surface.
Bright white light shed down the patio, forming a gentle beam of light which lit up a piece of land at her feet.
Opposite from the patio, there were two tombstones.
In contrast with their shabby and dirty surroundings, there was no trace of dust on the tombstones.
Obviously, for hundreds of years, someone who had been sweeping this area clean, had also planted a small plain white flower for the person in the tomb.
She bent over, with one knee in front of the tomb.
This was where the greatest witches were buried. No matter what kind of disagreements they had before, or how intense their disputes were, it was ultimately for the survival of the witches. Thus, even after death, they were put together, never to be separated.
Two of the Union’s Three Chiefs.
Alice, the unstoppable Queen of Starfall City.
Natalia, the dazzling Queen of Sunchaser.
“May the deities be with you.”
After praying, she stood up and nodded to the top. “I’m ready, and please send me away.”
A tentacle appeared from the dark, rolled up around her waist and rose towards the patio. The sky looked bigger and bigger until there was nothing but the sky anymore.
She blinked her eyes trying to get used to the bright light, then slowly opened her eyes and saw the long-awaited world unfolding before her eyes.
“I can only come this far.” Pasha’s tentacle waved from the hole’s exit. “This body can’t be exposed to the sun.”
“I know.” She bent over and hugged the tentacle for goodbye. “Wait for my good news.”
“Oh right, you can’t use your previous name anymore. The Chamber of Commerce of the common people will arrange a new identity for you, as well as a new more appropriate name—No. 76.”
“Sounds nice.” She smiled. “I ‘ll be going then. Take care.”
“You too.”
So, in order to pursue that faint hope, a new journey had begun.