Novel Full Chapter 935: Soul Realm
Chapter 935: Soul Realm
Ayame and Lucille glanced at each other, then at Rosie.
They spoke in perfect sync.
“…What are you talking about?”
But Rosie didn’t answer.
She just smiled.
A beaming, knowing Rosie smile—far too smug for someone her size, it was such a trademark smile of the Elysiar lineage that anyone who saw the girl would instantly know who her father was.
Then, her nose scrunched up adorably as she leaned forward…
…and pressed her forehead against Quinlan’s.
The effect was immediate.
Rosie’s form began to blur, as though light had trouble deciding where her edges ended. Her vibrant brown hair shimmered like a meadow under moonlight. Her dress, her fingers, even her limbs seemed to soften, their outlines becoming hazy, as if she were made of dreamstuff and magic rather than flesh and blood.
And then…
*Boom!*
Her forehead lit up as if an explosion had occurred inside.
The glow of it rushed between them, radiant and blinding, casting streaks of verdant and golden light across the courtyard. It wasn’t violent, but outright mesmerizingly beautiful. Resonant. Pure.
So bright, in fact, that all across the stronghold, every maid, every guard, every resident rushed out of their quarters and chambers, shielding their eyes and staring in stunned awe at the source of the light.
Rosie didn’t flinch despite the highly unnatural event going on with her in its center.
Still perched on Quinlan’s chest, her forehead glowing as if it wanted to become a star, she straightened her tiny back, posture proud. It seemed as if a great instinct had awakened inside her. She didn’t think actively about what had to be done. She simply knew it.
Her hands slowly parted at her sides.
And then it happened.
The glowing force began to shift, moving through her.
From her forehead to her neck.
From her chest to her core.
Then down to her arms, lighting her skin with crystal veins. The flow of power was graceful, instinctive, fluid like song, unburdened by logic or fear. She wasn’t casting something.
She was channeling.
When the radiant energy reached her palms, her expression changed.
That wide, innocent grin returned, gleaming with mischief and wonder. She turned toward her fairy-tale tree, which still pulsed with ancient magic, and gave a little giggle.
Then, in the softest, cutest voice imaginable, she shouted:
“Ai!”
She clapped her hands together. The moment she did, a beam of raw soul-light exploded forth from her palms. It wasn’t loud. It didn’t scream or crackle. But it was powerful, so damned powerful.
The beam connected with the tree.
And the tree—her tree—responded.
The bark shivered. The leaves exploded in radiant bloom, thousands unfurling at once, flowers blossoming in an instant from its highest boughs to its lowest roots.
Then, with a sound that was akin to a deep breath taken after centuries of silence…
A dimensional tear materialized on the tree’s surface.
Intricate, ancient glyphs pulsed around the edges of the wooden arch, vines twisting to form a frame of sigils. The trunk split down the middle without breaking, welcoming the path now open to those who dared walk it.
Rosie turned back to them, cheeks puffed up in pride, arms raised high like a child expecting applause.
“Ta-da~!”
Seeing the dumbfounded expressions still frozen on the faces of her beloved family, Rosie let out a dramatic sigh and shook her head in playful disapproval.
“Adults are so slow…” she muttered with exaggerated exasperation.
Then, without another word, the tiny dryad girl turned on her heel and darted toward the dimensional tear.
She passed through the tear without a hitch.
The other side greeted her with silence.
A stillness that was plain empty.
Rosie floated down gently, landing on the soil of Quinlan’s inner world. The sky above was a soft gray canvas, unmoving and calm, while the land stretched vast and unpainted with bare mountains and rivers that ran quiet and straight, without joy or wildness.
Her nose wrinkled immediately upon seeing this sorry sight.
“Boooooring…!” she declared, hands on her hips.
No flowers. No glowing mushrooms. No fluttering lights or singing leaves. No life.
Just an empty plane.
“Ei~!” she chirped again, bright and proud, as her hands clapped together.
The last of the energy she had absorbed from Quinlan, passed during their forehead touch, burst forth from her little form in shimmering rings of light.
Her fairy-tale tree, back in Thalorind, reacted immediately.
Its many branches twisted, stretched, and dug into the ground, reaching into the gardens, the groves, and the surrounding woods near the stronghold. It sought seedlings, saplings, spores, and fragments of magic flora, gathering them.
Then the tree reached through the dimensional tear with its smallest limbs coiling gently through. At their ends, cupped in knotty fingers of vine and root, were hundreds of tiny seeds.
Rosie squealed in joy as the tree offered them to her.
“Thank you!” she said with a curtsy, taking the seeds.
Then she took off flying.
Spinning, giggling, skipping across the soul realm’s untouched air, she began scattering seeds everywhere. She tossed them high into the windless sky, let them fall into rivers, tucked them lovingly into mountain cracks.
And all the while, she sang.
A soft, fluttery little melody that was a lullaby made of laughter and spring rain.
“♪ Bloom, bloom, bloom~
Fill the air with green perfume~
Roots go deep, petals wide,
Make this place Daddy’s pretty pride~ ♪”
She continued doing so unimpeded, with the branches of her tree supplying her with new ammunition each time the dryad ran out.
But then, from one moment to the next, she stopped.
The song cut off mid-hum.
Rosie’s gaze had caught on something… strange.
In a quiet clearing near one of the rivers, the ground sloped gently down, and there stood four figures. Or rather, three.
One of them wasn’t standing at all.
Rosie blinked. Once. Twice.
And then she slowly drifted closer.
Her seeds still clutched in one hand, her little legs dangling in the air, the glow in her eyes dimming as she stared at the figure sprawled in the grass. A woman with blue hair, silent, motionless, clearly dead.
Rosie didn’t speak.
She just hovered in the air, still and solemn for the first time, her bright song forgotten.
And then, she murmured:
“…Who are you?”