Chapter 158: The Forsaken Saintess

The silence was finally broken by thousands of voices rising at once, crashing over one another until it became impossible to make out a single word. People rose on their toes and craned their necks to catch a glimpse of the girl standing before the crystal, while those near the front couldn’t take their eyes off the sigil still burning in its heart.

"An SSS-Rank talent...!"

"Both of them... from the same family?!"

"Ashwood... I’m going to remember that name."

"Didn’t someone say they came from a small village?"

"A small village? Are you certain?"

A middle-aged man standing among the commoners shook his head in disbelief. "Those two girls have changed their family’s future in a single morning."

The nobles at the front could no longer keep their composure either. A few of the older lords leaned towards one another and began talking in hushed voices, their eyes fixed on Anna, while some of the young heirs who had awakened earlier that morning sat in silence, the pride on their faces slowly fading. A few nobles were already urging their children to go and introduce themselves to the sisters once the ceremony was over.

Anna stood frozen in front of the crystal, staring at the crimson-gold sigil as though she didn’t dare believe it was real. Only when the official cleared his throat did she finally pull her hand away. She turned around... and the moment she saw her family waiting for her, the composure she had held until now completely cracked.

Unlike the nervous steps she had taken earlier, she ran back at full speed, and Sepharina rushed forward to meet her, throwing herself into her sister’s arms.

"I knew you could do it... I told you!" Sepharina said as joyful tears rolled down her cheeks.

There wasn’t even a trace of envy in her, even though her sister had awakened a better talent and core than her own. She had seen how hard Anna worked all these years. While she herself had been learning basic alchemy from their village chief and others, Anna had worked alongside their father to provide for the family and taken care of their mother. She had always wanted Anna to awaken. After everything her sister had done for their family, no one deserved it more.

Elene was already making her way through the crowd towards them, and this time, she didn’t cry. She simply held both of her daughters, pride shining in her eyes. It was William who broke instead. Never in his wildest dreams had he expected that both of his daughters would awaken such high-ranking talents and cores. He kept opening his mouth as though to say something, only to close it again, until he finally gave up, wrapped his arms around all three of them, and laughed through his tears.

After a long moment, Anna finally lifted her head from her mother’s shoulder. Her eyes were red and swollen, yet when they met Ethan’s, she gave him the brightest smile he had ever seen on her face.

"Thank you... Young Master, for everything," she whispered.

Ethan shook his head. "Don’t thank me. That talent was yours all along," he said, then added in a teasing tone, "You’ll both have to work hard from now on."

Anna only smiled even wider, while Sepharina turned to face Ethan.

"We will," she said confidently, which earned smiles from the whole family.

"Congratulations! Both of you were amazing!" Melissa chimed in just in time, smiling widely.

"Thank you! We hope you awaken too!"

"I didn’t have much hope for it... but after seeing you two, I feel like I’ll awaken something as well!" Melissa said, her eyes brimming with hope.

"Then you’d better awaken something good," Ethan said.

Melissa laughed, and for a brief moment, the nervousness she had been hiding all morning showed in her eyes before she quickly covered it up with a grin. "Just watch me."

It took a while for things to settle down, and once they did, the official called the next name.

The ceremony continued, yet the hall couldn’t quite return to the way it had been before. Every candidate who stepped forward now did so under the shadow of what the Ashwood sisters had awakened. A boy from a viscount’s family awakened an A-Rank Warrior Core and a talent of the same rank, yet his family’s polite smiles seemed strained in a way they wouldn’t have been an hour earlier. A girl from one of the frontier villages awakened a B-Rank Mage Core with a faint frost affinity, and her father lifted her up onto his shoulders right there in the middle of the hall, drawing smiles from everyone around them.

"An A-Rank core and talent... in any other year, that would have been the talk of the hall."

"Imagine being the one who has to step up after an SSS-Rank awakening. I’d be terrified."

A few of the candidates still waiting in line laughed nervously, though none of them looked any more relaxed.

Then came three candidates in a row whose formations remained completely dark. Some of them tried to hide their disappointment as they returned to their families, though few managed it. As the ceremony went on, most of those who hadn’t awakened quietly left the hall, unable to bear watching others receive what they had hoped for.

Then the official looked down at his ledger once more.

"Melissa."

Melissa drew a breath. For a moment, her smile wavered... then she straightened her shoulders, gave Ethan a light pat on the shoulder as though none of this frightened her at all, and stepped forward.

On her way, she glanced up towards the gallery, where Evelyn met her gaze and gave her a slight nod. Melissa’s shoulders loosened a little, and some of the tension drained out of her. Even if she disappointed everyone else, she didn’t want to disappoint Evelyn.

Melissa stopped in front of the crystal. Unlike the others, she didn’t hesitate for long. She muttered "Here goes..." under her breath and pressed her palm against its surface.

The formation beneath her began to glow... not crimson, nor deep blue, but a soft gold-white radiance that spread slowly across the carved runes, as gentle as morning light.

A Spirit Core.

A wave of whispers rippled through the hall. Most of the candidates that day had awakened Warrior or Mage Cores, and the sight of that gold-white glow, far rarer than either, drew every eye in the hall back to the formation.

This time, the light didn’t climb at all. It shot up the pillar in a single breath, the colours blurring together so quickly that no one could even count the runes it passed. When it finally stopped, the pillar was glowing crimson-gold... the same colour that had blazed within Anna’s sigil only a short while ago.

An SSS-Rank Spirit Core.

"Another SSS...?!"

"On the same day?!"

Then the light came.

It didn’t gather like the flames that had surrounded the Ashwood sisters, nor did it stir like the wind around the baron’s son. It poured out of the formation in waves, a pure, radiant brilliance that flooded outward until it filled the entire centre of the hall. It was warm... warmer than any sunlight. Those standing closest to the formation felt their breath catch in their chests, and an old woman near the front pressed both hands together and bowed her head as if by instinct. Several others did the same.

"Grandmother... why are you bowing?" a little boy whispered, tugging at her sleeve.

She didn’t answer. Her eyes remained closed, her lips moving silently in prayer. It felt as though something ancient and immeasurably vast had turned its gaze towards the hall, if only for a moment.

Holy light.

Melissa stood at the heart of it, her eyes wide, unable to move. She could feel it wrapping around her, seeping into every part of her body... gentle and familiar, like an embrace she had somehow forgotten.

Then the light within the pillar sank into the heart of the crystal and began to take shape. Yet it didn’t settle into a single colour. Shifting bands of light rippled through the sigil, green melting into violet, violet into pale blue, flowing like the lights that sometimes danced across the northern sky on the coldest nights of winter.

A Legendary talent.

For a moment, most of the people in the hall didn’t even understand what they were looking at. Those who recognised it had gone pale.

Up on the gallery, no one rose this time. Evelyn could only stare at Melissa beneath the pillar, the clerk she had been supporting all this time, her lips pressed tightly together. Marcus slowly turned towards her, but she didn’t look back at him. Further along, Aisha had gripped Elena’s sleeve tightly, unable to look away from the crystal.

The official was already leaning towards the formation when the script began to appear before her... and then he stopped.

The runes that had appeared were unlike anything he had ever encountered. They weren’t the script that had formed for the hundreds of candidates before her, nor any language he had studied in all his years of presiding over the ceremony. Their shapes twisted and curved in ways that seemed almost alive, and the longer he stared at them, the more his eyes ached, as though they were refusing to be read at all.

The official slowly looked up towards the gallery.

Evelyn had already extended her perception towards the formation. Her brows drew together. She could see every stroke of the runes... yet she couldn’t understand a single one of them. Beside her, Marcus narrowed his eyes, staring at the formation in silence.

Melissa didn’t understand it either.

Just as it should have, a name rose from somewhere deep within her.

Saintess of the F#@g%t&$... G?#d...

The last word came to her broken and distorted. She could feel it there, right at the edge of her mind, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t hear it, as though the name itself refused to be heard. All that remained was a vague sensation of something old. Something so far away that she couldn’t even begin to grasp it... and yet, somehow, something that knew her.

What is this...?

Then, before her happiness could even take root, the warmth around her began to fade.

The radiance suddenly stopped spreading. For a heartbeat, it simply hung in the air, perfectly still... then a faint shadow crept into the light at the edges of the formation, like ink dropped into clear water. Then it spread. The shadow deepened, darkening with every passing heartbeat, and the holy light that had filled the hall only moments ago began to turn black.

The warmth vanished. A cold, suffocating weight took its place, so heavy that the people nearest the formation stumbled backwards. The old woman who had bowed her head looked up, and the colour drained from her face.

"W-What’s happening...?"

"The light... why is it turning black?!"

"That isn’t holy light anymore..." an old man muttered, his face pale.

Screams broke out near the front of the hall. Parents pulled their children back, and the crowd surged away from the formation as the black light continued to spread, swallowing what remained of the radiance around Melissa.

Ethan’s eyes widened as something stirred within his clouded memory.

Is she... the Forsaken Saintess?

At the centre of it all, Melissa gasped. A burning pain seared through her left wrist, so sharp that her legs nearly gave way beneath her. She pulled her hand away from the crystal and stared down at it. Dark lines were spreading across the inside of her wrist, as though something were being carved into her skin from within, twisting and curling as they spread.

Then her body suddenly lurched. She clutched her chest as a sharp, suffocating pain tore through her lungs.

"Ah—!"

Blood spilled from her lips before she could even finish the cry, splattering across the glowing runes beneath her feet.