Book 3: Chapter 305: Miracle

Within the abyss, all was silent and desolate.

As an aberration hunter with a thousand years of experience, Yvette had never felt such an intense sense of danger from any aberration before. Not even when she had first encountered Shadow King Vermeis on the Silvermirror Continent all those years ago had it reached this level.

Did this mean this was an aberration ranked above the Nine Monarchs of the Land of Finality?

What was its relationship with the Witch of Finality?

What was its relationship with the Demon Gods?

And why was it here in the abyss?

Remaining on high alert, she looked toward that enormous shadow and saw it continuously rising, swimming toward some place above. The overgrown organs covering its surface swayed like sea anemones. Seen from afar, it resembled a massive living warship.

Even with a great distance between them, Yvette soon noticed a change in the giant aberration’s trajectory. It curved through an arc to adjust direction, and the countless eyeballs covering its body turned and locked onto her.

Alarm bells instantly rang in Yvette’s mind. Much as she wanted to harvest the aberration factor inside that monster, the environment here was far too bizarre. She had also lost her ability to cast spells, and perhaps Demon Gods were lurking in the dark as well.

So, without much hesitation, she immediately threw a flesh-and-blood marker downward. Then, just as the giant aberration closed in, she swapped positions with it, leaving behind only a tiny severed tentacle that dissolved into nothingness in the void.

Such a mysterious disappearance clearly caught the giant aberration off guard. Confused, it lingered in the stretch of void where Yvette had originally been for more than ten minutes. Only after confirming that there truly was nothing there did it lift its head again and resume flying upward.

…

After evading the mysterious giant aberration, Yvette continued falling and personally touched those cloudlike clumps of mist drifting through the dark expanse.

But unlike what she had expected, nothing happened. That suggested these mists were not necessarily the same thing as dream mist, and even if they were, she did not have permission to enter dreams.

Then again, the surface of dream mist had never carried those flowing historical images like projected scenes, so perhaps they truly were two different things… she thought silently. Soon she saw more and more mist below her, until it gradually formed what looked like an ocean made of gray fog, waiting beneath her for her fall.

And within this sea of mist, what was waiting?

Yvette began staring downward with full concentration. But just as she entered that mist-sea made of countless images, almost like some high-dimensional space, she felt an overwhelming sense of danger coming from behind her.

It had come too suddenly. Combined with the severe suppression of both her spellcasting and perception, by the time Yvette realized the ambush was upon her, it was already too late to react. A power beyond the divine realm descended from behind and struck her across the back like a crushing punch, blasting her straight outward. As she tumbled downward, her body was nearly folded in half, torn and twisted, and the shockwave spread through the mist-sea, carving out an empty spherical space dozens of kilometers wide.

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After landing the first ambush, the attacker did not stop there. The other party seemed capable of flying freely through this void, and immediately gave chase, preparing to deliver a second blow to the rapidly falling Yvette.

The instant the attacker drew close, Yvette, her waist torn open, drenched in blood, and in a miserable state, suddenly turned around. Countless shadowy tentacles shot out from her hair and from beneath the hem of her skirt, sweeping toward the assailant.

At the same time, under the influence of aberration power, her damaged body began to repair itself. Even the blood that had splattered away, and even fragments of torn fabric, were drawn back by an invisible force and returned to her body.

Yes, she really had failed to dodge that sneak attack, but that did not stop her from using her own weakened state as bait to lure the enemy close!

Yet once again, the result was beyond her expectations. The moment Shadowtouch neared its target, the other party vanished from the spot out of thin air.

Teleportation?

Yvette was momentarily stunned. In that fleeting instant, what entered her sight was a black-robed girl with delicate features, a faint look of surprise and mockery on her face. As for her race… she seemed to be human.

Before Yvette could dwell on it, a new sense of danger surged up from below. This time, however, her reaction was much faster. Before the old Shadowtouch had even withdrawn, a new one erupted and lashed downward.

Then, accompanied by a thin cry of pain, Yvette saw the mysterious girl sent flying at once. Beneath the torn black robe, several clear bloody marks were visible across her fair skin. She had obviously been badly hurt as well.

“You’ve got a death wish!” an angry voice rang out, and it was actually in the common tongue of the Mortal Realm. Yvette was just about to speak when she saw the other party disappear again.

So for the time that followed, Yvette could only defend passively and look for a chance to catch her. She did not even need to interrogate this black-robed girl. Once she seized and devoured her, the girl’s memory construct would give Yvette everything she wanted.

And after observing for a while, she realized the black-robed girl was not disappearing out of nowhere. She first used some kind of ability to create a spatial rift and escape through it. The process was simply so fast that it looked like teleportation. In theory, then, as long as Yvette caught her just once, even if she slipped into a spatial rift, Yvette could still drag her back out with Shadowtouch.

However, after realizing that Yvette’s Shadowtouch far surpassed her in both offense and defense, the black-robed girl grew much more cautious. Sometimes she would refrain from attacking for a long stretch, creating the illusion that she had already left, only to launch a sudden sneak attack the instant Yvette relaxed.

That tactic really did work. It left this avatar of Yvette badly wounded several times. But Shadowtouch was far deadlier, and Yvette could clearly sense that the black-robed girl’s recovery ability was significantly inferior to her own.

“You are not my opponent.” In the spherical space created by the aftershocks of their battle, Yvette looked at the gray mist wall in the distance and spoke calmly. “You can’t kill me. If this drags on, your defeat is inevitable.”

“Hah! My defeat?!” The black-robed girl did not show herself. Only her voice, furious yet disdainful, echoed through the void. “You’re the prey here! The so-called Silver Witch is nothing but a pathetic creature I’ve trapped here, never to get out!”

“I can leave this place whenever I want. Do you believe me?” Yvette said expressionlessly.

Silence fell over the air. A moment later, the black-robed girl’s voice sounded again, filled with disgust. “Those disgusting tentacles, are they your divine art?”

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Of course not, Yvette thought. Aberrant Mana had its own core, entirely separate from a mana core.

But here she still nodded vaguely and asked, “Are you a Demon God?”

The other party seemed able to make use of the abyss’s rules. Her teleportation-like movement originated from that. If she were a Demon God in person, that would make sense.

Though that would lower Yvette’s expectations of what level of combat power a True God should possess.

“Ignorant.” The black-robed girl sneered. “If a True God had acted, do you think you’d still be alive?”

“Then why hasn’t It acted?” Yvette shot back.

The black-robed girl did not answer. Instead, she launched a new offensive. And unlike before, when she had relied purely on brute force, she now began using more and more magic attacks. That also confirmed Yvette’s suspicion: the ban on spellcasting was indeed an effect targeted at her alone, and behind it likely lay the underlying rules of this space.

Yvette blocked every one of those attacks. Shadowtouch gathered into a black fan, sweeping through the incoming spells from every direction like a windshield wiper and detonating them all. The elemental impact spread outward in every direction across a span of dozens of kilometers. If even one of those aftershocks had landed in the Mortal Realm, it would have been enough to level an entire city.

After many rounds of deadlock, Yvette’s brows gradually furrowed and a headache began to throb behind her eyes.

Within this abyssal space, her away-field disadvantage was simply too great, while the other party’s home-field advantage was overwhelming. Between the two, even she found herself at a loss. Yet she could not easily have this avatar withdraw, because she still had not found a suitable chance to leave behind a marker. If she went out now, she would have no way to come back in.

But neither did she want to play the sort of trick where she feigned weakness to lure the enemy into overconfidence. First, the window for that had already passed. Second, the black-robed girl had not yet shown her true strength either. Even now, she still had not displayed her divine art.

She needed to wait for the right opening.

So this war of attrition continued on and off for several hours. Yvette failed to draw any new information from the girl’s mouth, and the black-robed girl likewise never saw even the slightest sign that Yvette was running out of steam.

Until, at a certain moment, the world before her dimmed. All the gray mist transformed into the starry sky above, and when Yvette lowered her head, she saw an unknown continent shrouded in night rapidly enlarging beneath her feet.

So this was the bottom of the abyss, below the sea of gray mist…?

Yvette stared at everything in astonishment. Her gaze swept across mountains and rivers and the far line where sea met sky, before finally settling on the city below, where magical light flowed through the streets.

She noticed that, unlike the cities of the Origin Civilization, the city here was enclosed by towering metal walls. Above it, a translucent defensive force field rippled faintly, as though guarding against something unknown.

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Its level of civilization was highly advanced, but it was definitely not the Origin Civilization. One glance was enough to tell that the style of the city was completely different…

Was this the Ultra-ancient Civilization?

The instant that thought flashed through her mind, the black-robed girl, who had not attacked for some time, flickered into being behind her again and drove down a punch with a cold smile. Distracted by the sudden environmental change, Yvette reacted half a beat too slowly. Her silver hair flew wildly as she crashed through the defensive force field of the city below like a falling star, plummeting toward its brilliantly lit center.

…

This was the central plaza of the mobile city-state Anbis.

Dusk had fallen. Standing in a corner of the plaza, a young human nun named Marian, dressed in a black habit, was leading a group of children here to take part in today’s prayer service.

This was the second day after the completion of the statue of the God of Rebirth, and all of Anbis was bathed in an atmosphere of solemnity and devotion.

People had no choice but to be devout, because everyone here had been taught since childhood that the world was already shrouded in apocalypse. Outside the city walls were acid rain, toxic mists, elemental storms, monsters, and, most terrifying of all, aberrant creatures. Praying to the God of Rebirth was their faith, and also the city’s only hope of surviving the end of days.

As for whether the God of Rebirth truly existed, Marian had never doubted it. On one hand, she was a sufficiently devout nun. On the other, Anbis was a city-state where church and state were one. The Rebirth Order, which believed in the God of Rebirth, was itself the ruling party of the city. Unless one intended to flee to another city-state and change one’s faith, questioning the deity was both the most pointless and the most dangerous thing possible.

Of course, plenty of people had fled because they were dissatisfied with certain harsh policies of the Rebirth Order, but that had nothing to do with Marian. She also could not understand why anyone would want to run. How dangerous was it to live in the wilderness?

Rather than become a free but precarious secular “wanderer,” never sure of the next meal or even the next day, she would much rather remain within the city-state, diligently study the Scripture of Rebirth, and improve her theological attainments.

Oh, and a very small number fled in order to join the Salvation Order.

But those were anti-human lunatics who worshiped the Witch of Finality. Marian could not understand them, and did not want to.

Recently, those lunatics had even given the Witch of Finality a new honorific, calling her the Silver Witch. All the city-states that knew of this had reached the same conclusion: cheap. After all, the Witch of Finality was the great Demon God who had destroyed Eden’s Garden and ushered in the apocalypse. Her infamy was beyond measure. Who could they possibly fool just by changing her name?

…

“Sister, my knot came loose again,” said a little boy, pointing at the cuff of his clerical robe.

The boy’s hair was dark purple, and his skin a pale violet. Faintly visible natural runes could be seen on him. This was the mark of a “pure strain.”

In the human city-states of today, demons and elves were considered the races most favored by the gods, the highest-tier “pure strains.” Children with such bloodlines could skip the selection process entirely and become clerics directly, and their future promotions would also come quickly. Marian, however, was human. Her strain rank was “common strain.” She had spent ten years studying theology just to become a low-ranking nun. If she could one day rise to Mother Superior, her career would already have reached its limit.

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With both envy and resignation, Marian sighed and fixed the sleeve of the boy’s clerical robe. By the time the white-robed priests in the distance climbed onto the high platform and made their preparations beneath the statue, Marian lifted her head along with everyone else and gazed upward at the statue of the God of Rebirth, more than a hundred meters tall, like a giant holding up heaven and earth. Clad in black robes and holding a scythe, its face was hidden within the shadow of a hood, symbolizing death and reincarnation.

“In today’s prayer, we beseech the God of Rebirth for protection. We pray that His scythe stays far from our homes. We pray that His wings shield us from being swallowed by elemental storms…” The High Priest’s voice echoed through every corner of Anbis by way of the loudspeakers set throughout the streets.

Marian clasped her hands together.

At that moment, besides her, whether it was the soldiers atop the city walls, the ordinary believers in the residential district who held no clerical office, or even the mechanics in the underground systems, all of them made the same gesture.

And with that gesture, in a hazy, half-trancelike moment, the enormous statue behind the High Priest seemed to come alive. It raised its scythe and cast a gentle white radiance over the city.

Marian did not know how this was accomplished, but she did not think too deeply about it either. Like the overwhelming majority of believers and clerics who witnessed the scene, she dropped to her knees and worshiped the miracle.

Yet this sacred and miraculous scene lasted no more than a few seconds before it was shattered by a sudden disturbance.

First, the defensive force field in the sky rippled violently and a section of it split open. Then, to the stunned gaze of all, a figure descended from the heavens, smashed straight through the enormous statue of the God of Rebirth, and struck the ground with a tremendous crash that shook the earth, blasting out a deep crater.

No… that was not a human…

Marian stared dumbfounded at the scene before her. She had excellent eyesight, and she was relatively close. Faintly, she could make out some swaying black tendrils on that figure, which from a distance looked like hair or a black trailing wake…

Was this also part of the miracle?

But what exactly was that thing?

The area erupted into chaos. Large numbers of armed clerics were rushing this way, and one could vaguely hear the footsteps of the city-state’s gigantic heavy titans drawing nearer and nearer. Not far ahead, the High Priest took the lead in coming over to investigate. Then, along with Marian, he saw a girl in a black dress with silver hair cascading like a waterfall step out of the crater. Her face was exquisitely beautiful, but strange shadowy tentacles extended from beneath her skirt, instantly staining that beauty with an eerie, wicked allure.

“Y-You… are… are you… a divine emissary…?” The High Priest’s voice trembled uncontrollably. After all, when a girl descended in the midst of a miracle, it was hard not to make the connection, even though, in principle, the miracle itself had also been arranged by the Order.

But the mysterious, eerily alluring tentacled girl paid no attention at all to the High Priest, nor to anyone else’s attempts at communication. She glanced around, blinked, and then immediately lifted her head, as though looking at something above.

Marian, along with the tens of thousands in the plaza, followed the silver-haired girl’s gaze and looked up at the night sky in unison.

They saw that in the night sky lit by city lights and holy radiance, a black-robed girl with delicate features stood motionless in the void without relying on any magitech equipment. She looked down at the silver-haired girl on the ground with a mocking expression, not sparing even the slightest glance for anyone else present, as if they were ants by the roadside, utterly beneath her notice.