Chapter 427: Welcome To Blessed Land, Aurelia [I / Bonus - ]

Chapter 427: Welcome To Blessed Land, Aurelia [I / Bonus Chapter]

She let out a dry ragged breath into the cold ether of the void, her trembling hand resting against the rough dirt of the grave beside her.

Those memories were so exhausting to live through.

Every time she allowed her mind to wander down the corridors of her past, she felt the phantom sting of the guillotine, the cold splatter of the rain, and the deafening cheers of a city that had bayed for her execution.

She lowered her blind milky-white gaze toward the dirt.

The old woman had spent her final centuries burning through her own divine lifeforce just to tend to Aurelia’s spiritual wounds and stabilize her shattered meridians.

The old Saintess had done so because of an unyielding belief...

She insisted that when the prophesied Savior finally pierced through the boundaries of the void, the extraction would only possess enough dimensional anchor to retrieve a single soul.

The old woman had willingly chosen to fade into dust so that Aurelia would be the one rescued.

Aurelia had asked her countless times how she knew of this "Savior."

The old woman had simply smiled, tapping her temple, and said she heard celestial whispers echoing through the cosmic currents whenever the great outer gates shifted.

Given that the old woman had been imprisoned in this dimensional wasteland for over five hundred years before Aurelia’s arrival, Aurelia had simply accepted it without argument.

’And yet... here I sit,’ Aurelia thought, her fingers digging lightly into the soil. ’Sitting on a rock with all these useless skills and an absurd level, completely in vain.’

Over the centuries, Aurelia and the old Saintess had fought tooth and nail to secure this floating marble island... the largest stable landmass in the local sector.

It had taken decades of agonizing bloody skirmishes using the Argent Flame to purge the void fiends, culminating in Aurelia single-handedly slaying an ancient high-tier ether monstrosity that had attempted to devour their sanctuary.

She had fought, she had leveled, and she had survived.

And for what?

Aurelia slowly slinked backward, letting her slender, scarred back rest against the cold stone of the grave mound. She stared up into the infinite starless dark.

"I don’t want to believe..." she whispered aloud to the empty void, her voice barely becoming a breath.

She didn’t want to believe in heroes... She didn’t want to believe in saviors either.

Aurelia didn’t want to open her heart to another golden promise only to be chained in another dark dungeon and butchered for someone else’s glory.

’...But at the same time...’

A small pathetic shudder ran through her chest.

’...I really don’t want to stay here anymore.’

She was so utterly tired.

In her entire mortal life and her centuries in the void, she had never known a single day of genuine peace.

She had never known what it felt like to sleep without fear, to eat without poison, or to be touched without someone trying to extract her power.

Why was her existence defined entirely by suffering? What had she done to the universe to deserve this perpetual damnation?

She closed her eyes, resigning herself to the fragile hope she had spent centuries trying to kill.

If this mysterious Savior truly existed... how much longer would it take for them to find this forgotten corner of the abyss?

If they ever arrived, Aurelia swore she would not be a foolish, naive girl again.

She would not blindly fall in love or offer unconditional devotion like she had with Cassian. She would be sharp, transactional, and calculating.

She would trade her abilities for safety, extracting every ounce of comfort and security she could possibly gain from thi—

PING!

A melodic chime resonated directly against the core of her soul and Aurelia completely froze.

Before her unseeing eyes, a glowing semi-transparent system interface flared to life within the dark void.

Aurelia could not see physical light, but her spiritual perception instantly mapped out the dense mana that formed the radiant golden letters.

[You have been summoned to serve as a Hero for a Lord.]

[ Y / N ]

A breathless silence gripped the floating marble island.

Aurelia sat motionless, her milky-white eyes trembling behind her closed eyelids as her mind struggled to process the reality of the golden glyphs.

’A Hero... for a Lord? Is this Lord... my Savior?’

Her slender, scarred finger trembled as she raised her hand through the cold ether. With a slow, deliberate motion, she tapped the glowing golden [ Y ].

HUMMMMM!

A secondary prompt flashed across her consciousness.

[Your level will be forcefully reset from Level 999 —> Level 1. You will lose some of your Priority Skills; however, you will retain the remaining foundation of your Mythic Skill Tree.]

Aurelia stared at the warning with a hollow smirk.

’Level reset...?’ she thought. ’I would gladly give up every single level and every single skill if it meant being freed from the horrific curse of this Argent Flame.’

Yet, a sharp resolve hardened within her chest.

’No...’ she corrected herself. ’It is precisely because I possess the power of the Argent Flame that I can negotiate a better life with this new Lord. I will use this flame to secure my safety.’

Aurelia raised her chin, her voice ringing out with conviction into the empty void:

"Yes. Please... get me out of here."

CRACK!

The immutable laws of reality shattered around the marble island.

A massive blinding pillar of golden light descended from the heavens, tearing through the fabric of the Great Void.

Space folded, the ether dissolved, and Aurelia’s physical form disintegrated into a brilliant swirl of starlight, vanishing entirely from the dimensional purgatory.

In the center of the Blessed Land’s grand courtyard, the towering pillar of light erupting from the Archway reached its apex.

The ground vibrated with a deep soothing hum of pure mana, sending gentle ripples across the surface of the central aqueduct.

The falling snowflakes were instantly vaporized by the radiant golden warmth radiating from the dais.

Silas took a half-step backward, raising his forearm to shield his eyes from the blinding glare as the spatial vortex between the twin white pillars began to slow its furious spin.

Beside him, Eluned’s emerald eyes narrowed with razor-sharp scrutiny, her hand resting against the pulsing Tear of the Slumbering World at her chest.

On his other side, Morwenna casually leaned her weight onto her back foot, her leather-clad hand resting firmly on Tidebringer’s hilt, her stormy gray eyes scanning the swirling mist with dangerous focus.

WHOOSH!

The golden light gradually subsided, condensing into soft, drifting particles that scattered across the marble steps.

Standing in the center of the invocation circle was a woman.

She was completely naked.

Her long, magnificent hair was a cascade of pure, shimmering platinum-blonde that tumbled over her pale shoulders, barely veiling the soft curves of her breasts and slender waist.

Her facial features were sculpted with breathtaking ethereal perfection which made her look delicate and undeniably gorgeous.

Yet, as Silas’s blue eyes swept over her, a heavy lump formed in his throat.

Her fair, porcelain skin was marred from head to toe.

Thin, pale, silver-white scars crisscrossed her forearms, her collarbones, her ribs, and her thighs... these were etched reminders of thousands of brutal lacerations and fatal wounds that had long since healed.

Her eyes, staring blankly ahead into the night sky, were completely milky-white and hollow.

She was blind.

Before Silas could speak or summon a blanket from his inventory, the platinum-haired woman slowly sank to her knees upon the cold marble of the dais.

She clasped her slender, scarred hands together against her bare chest, bowing her head so low her platinum hair brushed the stone.

"I thank you... for delivering me from the dark, my Lord," Aurelia spoke, her voice carrying a soft tone that trembled with a delicate mixture of fragile hope and deeply guarded calculation.

She slowly tilted her blind face upward, her unseeing milky-white eyes pointing in the general direction of Silas’s aura.

"I possess the power of the Argent Flame," Aurelia continued, her voice steadying into a solemn formal proposal. "I can grant you absolute immortality, my Lord... Even though enduring your deaths will tear my flesh and bring me unimaginable agony, I am willing to bear it all for you."

Aurelia paused, her chapped lips pressing together before she delivered her terms.

"However... if you wish for me to grant you this power... I would like to strike a deal."

The heavy, oppressive silence that followed her words hung over the marble dais like an iron shroud.

Kneeling on the cold stone, her forehead nearly brushing the ground and her trembling hands clasped tightly against her bare chest, Aurelia waited.

Every second that ticked past in suffocating quiet felt like an eternity stretched across the blade of a guillotine.

’Did I say something wrong...?’ she thought, panic coiling tightly within her throat. ’Did I insult him? Was my tone too insolent for a newly summoned servant?’

Her mind raced through the fractured corridors of her memories, desperately trying to calculate what this new master could possibly want from her.

All she possessed in this universe was the Argent Flame of Transmutation.

All she had to offer to any ruler, kingdom, or deity was the terrifying gift of stolen immortality... an eternity of victory purchased through the continuous butcher’s bill carved into her own flesh.

If this Lord did not want her flame, then what else could he possibly desire?

’...Is he after my body?’

A hollow self-deprecating thought flickered through her consciousness.

In the mortal realm of Meolion, she had often overheard the noblewomen and high-born priestesses complaining bitterly in the cathedral gardens, weeping that men were shallow creatures who viewed them as nothing more than decorative flesh and vessels for their desires.

Yet, throughout her entire six years of torture in the dark crypts, not a single man had ever looked upon Aurelia with lust.

No guard had ever laid a hand on her with desire; they had only dragged her by the neck like livestock.

’Perhaps... because I am not beautiful,’ Aurelia mused bitterly, remembering the horrific mosaic of raised jagged scars and missing patches of skin crisscrossing her emaciated ribs, thighs, and collarbones. ’A broken, scarred monster covered in burns and dead tissue could never entice a person. If he wants my flesh to use and discard, I would not mind... I would endure it willingly if it meant I would not be cast back into the void.’

FLUTTER!

A soft cold prickle touched the bare skin of her shoulder. Then another touched her collarbone, melting into tiny beads of moisture.

Aurelia’s unseeing eyes widened behind her closed eyelids. She did not recognize this sensation.

In the dry, sun-baked plains of the Meolion Kingdom, it had never snowed.

In the suffocating pitch-black cells beneath the capital, there had only been damp rot and stagnant humidity.

And in the Great Void, the ambient ether was an arid breathless vacuum. She had never felt frost fall from the heavens.

Before the chill could seep into her meridians—

SWOOSH!

Something thick and immensely warm descended over her shoulders.

It was a broad finely woven mantle lined with soft insulated fur. The garment settled gently over her frame, shielding her bare chest, covering her scarred waist, and wrapping her shivering body in a protective cocoon of dry soothing heat.

"As of right now..." a calm and impossibly gentle male voice echoed from above her. "...you don’t need to give me anything."

Aurelia’s breath seized in her chest. Her throat went completely dry, parched as if she had swallowed desert sand.

’...What?’

She felt the rustle of the heavy fabric as the man reached down, his hands careful and deliberate as he pulled the edges of the cloak together over her trembling collarbones, fastening the clasp beneath her chin without letting his fingers linger or grasp.

Overwhelmed by instinct, Aurelia expanded her internal spiritual sense, channeling a microscopic pulse of mana through the air to map out the physical reality of the man standing before her.

The image that coalesced within her mind stole whatever breath remained in her lungs.

He was tall, broad-shouldered, and carried himself with an effortless presence that felt like an anchored mountain.

His features were sculpted with striking masculine perfection... a strong defined jawline, dark hair that moved gently with the evening wind, and eyes that held the deep crystalline clarity of an endless blue sky.

’He is... breathtaking,’ Aurelia thought, her heart giving a violent, uncoordinated thud against her ribs.

Compared to this man, the memory of Cassian... the silver-haired "Hero" whose handsome face she had once idolized under the stars looked like nothing more than a vulgar hollow riffraff scraped from an alleyway gutter.

There was no arrogance in this Lord’s posture after all... and yet, despite seeing her power, he had rejected the offer of the Argent Flame.

’Why...?’

Fear flared up within her chest and she took a frantic half-step backward on her knees, the heavy cloak swirling around her bare legs as the lingering golden light of the Archway dissipated completely into the night.

"I know you want my power..." Aurelia rasped, her voice trembling with defensive desperation as she tilted her blind face upward. "Every Lord, every King, every summoner seeks the Argent Flame. They desire victory without consequence... So why are you saying all this? Why play these games with me?!"