Chapter 666: The Impertinence of Baozhe

Only after the body finally stopped moving did her mother lift her gaze and glance outside the temple.

Enemy reinforcements were already arriving in growing numbers, their figures moving closer through the smoke and the bodies, and their voices carrying across the courtyard.

She turned back to Zanya.

Her lower jaw dangled, swaying slightly with every shallow, labored breath she took. But her eyes were still the same eyes that had watched Zanya eat ripe fruit and laughed at her small jokes.

Without speaking a single word she gathered the little girl into her arms again and ran deeper into the temple, away from the open fighting, away from the bodies, away from the life that had ended in the courtyard behind them.

There, inside a quieter inner chamber, she set Zanya carefully down on the stone floor and began to work.

Using the blood that still flowed from her own body she drew characters and symbols across the ground, forming them into a careful triangle set inside a larger circle.

Her fingers moved with the refinement of long practice even as the rest of her fell apart.

Her body already looked like that of a walking corpse—drained of blood and of nearly all remaining strength—yet she forced every movement, every careful stroke of her fingers against the cold stone, refusing to stop.

She simply worked, and the symbols spread across the floor in dark, wet lines.

Zanya remained completely petrified. She could not force a single word from her throat. She only cried in silence and shook without control while she watched her mother continue the painful work of drawing the ritual marks.

The tears ran down her blood-streaked face and left clean tracks behind them.

Soon the mother closed her eyes. She began a silent, wordless incantation, her damaged lips barely moving as the final lines of blood dried on the floor around them.

[Ek kalla á tik, fjarl?gr faeir, frá fj?llum tínum ok frá fr?gearheimum — heyr tú raust mína, tótt heimar skilji ok leieir langar liggi milli. Minnstu mín, sem mjúkum hug tókst í faemi fornum, tví nú stend ek ein í naueum ok nyt ek eigi krafta minna; kom tú, vísi, á v?ngjum vindanna, ok minnstu tess, er tú kenndir mér — tví barn titt kallar, ok barn titt bier].

Benjamin’s thoughts cut through the memory like a sudden voice speaking inside a quiet room:

[Huh? Hold up a moment. I can hear her thoughts clearly through Zanya’s mind? And didn’t this entire event happen centuries ago? This is supposed to be nothing more than a flashback we’re watching. So why am I hearing what she was thinking?]

Sys answered at once, her tone remaining calm and precise as always, as though she had been waiting for the question and had already prepared the answer.

{Affirmative. The thought itself was also recorded and stored inside Zanya’s mind at the time. We are currently navigating that memory through magical means. The fact that the younger Zanya was never able to hear her mother’s thoughts only means that the information held no purpose or use for her in that moment. Master, however, does have direct business with that same information.}

Benjamin continued watching the blood-drawn symbols on the floor, his thoughts pressing further into the strange connection.

[Oh... So that means we’re not simply scraping Zanya’s personal memories straight out of her brain—not exactly in the way I first assumed. Instead we’re magically pulling memories or stored data that are somehow related to her existence? Things she experienced but never consciously registered?]

{Affirmative.}

[Then that also means we can push even farther than the limits of what Zanya herself is able to remember, as long as she continues to act as a living anchor that ties us to those events?]

{That is correct. However, that particular approach will burn through both time and magic at a rapid pace, if we attempt to reach things Zanya only shared distant connections with but never witnessed. If it remains Master’s wish, we can still choose to proceed along that path.}

[No need. Renard and the amazons will have my head for dawdling any longer than necessary.]

The exchange ended there, and the memory around them continued to unfold like a page turning on its own.

After the silent, wordless incantation finally reached its end, the bloody symbols and carefully drawn characters that covered the stone floor began to shift.

A deep golden light rose from every line, soft at first and then steadily brighter, until the entire diagram glowed as though the blood itself had turned to living fire.

The ground beneath their feet started to rumble. The vibration traveled upward through the soles of Zanya’s small footwear and into her legs, a low, continuous tremor that made the air itself feel thick and heavy.

She scrambled sideways at once, pressing her body tightly against her mother’s legs and burying her face in the blood-soaked fabric of her mother’s clothes.

The rumbling continued for several long seconds before it stopped as abruptly as it had begun, leaving only the soft golden radiance and a heavy, expectant silence inside the chamber.

A slightly croaky voice then sounded within the temple. It was calm and unhurried, with no urgency despite the blood still drying across the floor and the distant sounds of fighting outside.

"Goodness me, Baozhe. You know fully well that summoning me in this manner will cost you your very life. Why did you not simply send a messenger in the ordinary way?"

A second voice followed at once. It was deep as well, yet unmistakably feminine, and it had a sharper edge of irritation beneath the surface. Where the first voice was patient, this one was not.

"She has grown impertinent, Master Euclid. Let us punish her properly as an example so that others will remem—" then she paused, and gave a slight tilt of the head. "She’s already dead, it seems."

In the exact center of the magic diagram, two figures now stood where no one had been a moment earlier.