Novel Full Chapter 676: Dark Thoughts
Chapter 676: Dark Thoughts
Usually, he came to her within a year, five at most.
But five years had already come and gone. Then six. Then seven.
And now, eight.
Moraine sat quietly at her table, staring at the dull metal of the knife in her hand.
She had been preparing ingredients for the bakery she opened in this life.
But he never walked through the door.
Her thoughts spiraled.
“Did he get tired of me?”
Dark thoughts crawled into her mind, one after another.
“Did he leave me… because I never let him get close?”
“Did he find someone else?”
The air in her lungs turned cold.
Her chest tightened.
Her heart, one that had endured the loneliness of eight eons, felt like it was being crushed just after eight years without him.
Maybe… she had been too lenient.
She should have tethered his soul to hers, and ensured that he would feel nothing for anyone but her.
Or maybe she should have engraved a Rune in his body. One that made it so he could touch only her.
But she hadn’t done any of that.
She had told herself it was because she respected him.
Because love needed to be real, not forced.
Now she felt like a fool.
Every day without him was worse than the last.
The emptiness inside her continued to grow.
It gnawed at her like a parasite.
Yet even in that growing darkness, a faint hope burned within her mind.
“Maybe… maybe I reincarnated into the past.”
It was the only theory that made sense.
In every cycle until now, she had always gone forward.
One life after another, further into the future.
But maybe… maybe her luck had finally run out.
Maybe this time, fate had spun the other way.
Moraine looked down at the knife in her hands.
The blade reflected her tired, hollow eyes.
Her fingers tightened around the handle.
But she didn’t move.
“No, I can’t kill myself.”
She had always told him to value life.
She couldn’t betray those teachings.
Even if she ended her life, there was no guarantee she would reincarnate into the future.
Maybe she’d go further back.
So she waited.
Another two years passed.
Two long, excruciating years of wondering if he was still alive. If he still remembered her. If he had truly chosen to walk a different path.
Eventually, she couldn’t take it anymore.
She swallowed her pride and did the one thing she swore she never would.
She drew a Rune on the floor.
It was simple formation in nature, powered by ambient mana gathered from the air.
Someone like her—unawakened—couldn’t use complex Spells. But simple Spells like this were different.
They could be used through Runes.
She knelt in the center of the Rune, placed her hand on the final stroke, and activated it.
Her consciousness was pulled from her body.
When she opened her eyes, she stood in a place outside of time.
Around her was a swirling void of golden clocks and green threads.
Before her stood Vivienne, the Witch of Time.
“Youngest?” Vivienne blinked, surprised. “You actually used the spell I gave you?”
Moraine seemed ashamed of it.
That expression of her brought a twisted smile on Vivienne’s face.
Vivienne knew how prideful Moraine was.
Moraine hated the witches who looked down on her, but now Moraine was at her feet, begging for help.
And it pleased Vivienne, in a cruel way.
“What is it? Why did you come crawling to me?” Vivienne’s voice was soft, but laced with venom.
Moraine took a breath.
She explained everything to Vivienne.
Vivienne’s smile vanished the more she listened to her.
“What?”
“Please. I just need to find him.”
The shift in Vivienne’s aura was immediate. The calm amusement disappeared, replaced by a cold, heavy anger.
“You… want me to send you to a time where you can find this… man?”
“Yes, older sister.”
As the Witch of Time, Vivienne’s authority of time allowed her to control according to her wish.
She could send Moraine to the future or present according to her wish.
“Youngest, have you lost your mind!? How many times did I warn you!? How many times did all of us tell you not to fall in love with a person?! And now you’re here… begging me to help you do that?”
Moraine stood her ground, even as the weight of Vivienne’s presence began to press on her.
Her consciousness trembled under the pressure, threatening to shatter.
But she didn’t lower her gaze.
She stared Vivienne in the eye, as though ordering her to help.
“You’re still not backing down….? Do you love him enough that you would face me for him?”
“Yes.”
“You really think this man is worth it?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a fool,” Vivienne hissed. “Do you think he’ll look only at for you forever? Give it a few centuries, he’ll move on. He’ll find someone else.”
“He won’t.”
Moraine’s answers angered Vivienne.
“Even if he doesn’t leave you, he’ll die eventually!”
“He has Hades’ Blood. He’s immortal.”
Vivienne clenched her fists.
“You’re not thinking about our sisters. The ones who loved someone and lost them. Do you remember what happened to them? They went mad. They’ve been searching for something—anything—to fill the void. And some of them…”
Her gaze darkened.
“Some of them would steal your lover just to feel something again.”
Moraine’s breath caught in her throat.
“They will take him from you. One will do it out of spite. Another will do it out of loneliness. You know this. You’ve seen it before.”
“…I don’t care. I will face them, and protect him.”
Vivienne stared at her.
“You’re going to destroy yourself. It has happened every time! What makes you think you will be different from our sisters!”
“I would rather be destroyed than live without him.”
A long silence fell between them.
Finally, Moraine stepped forward, voice trembling.
“Sister, please. Let me—”
“No.”
The word cut like a knife.
Vivienne raised her hand and snapped her fingers.
“And don’t come to me again. I don’t want to see you broken like the rest.”
Moraine’s consciousness was forced back into her body.
When she woke up, she didn’t move.
Vivienne had refused to help her.
She couldn’t go meet him.
The days that followed were worse than anything she had ever endured.
More than once, she found herself staring at that same knife.
She wondered if ending her life would be sent to the future where he was.
That was the only method she could think of.
But she couldn’t kill herself.
She didn’t know how she could face him afterward.
How she could look into his eyes after discarding everything she once taught him about life and death.
And yet…
The dark thoughts never stopped.
What if this wasn’t the past?
What if she hadn’t gone back?
What if this moment—this lonely, empty life—was the future?
And the reason he hadn’t come…
Was because he had found someone else?
The weight of it crushed her.
Every day was harder than the last. Every morning, she woke up hoping this would be the day where he came to find her.
And every night, she went to sleep feeling hollow.
She wanted to meet him more than anything.
But at the same time…
She was terrified that if she did, she wouldn’t survive what she found.