Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
A cold wind was whirling. On the entire island of the White Royal Palace, save for the forever unchanging meteorite flow surrounding it, it was just a wide and empty wasteland.
The Void Crystal with a dark golden hue had already become a part of the island’s scenery.
“I seemed to have miscalculated the outcome of this battle,” The White King’s voice sounded from outside the crystal.
Garen looked at the figure that suddenly appeared outside blurrily through the crystal. Without a care for his image, the White King sat down on the floor cross-legged.
He had already stopped talking since dozens of years ago, even the time for outside activities was starting to get limited. It seemed like the confinement essence had already started to affect his Dream Weaving ability. Most of the time, he was stuck in the crystal, silently trying to get a deeper grasp of the confinement essence. However, his progression was getting increasingly slower, and bearing fewer and fewer results. Most of the time, the results were so minuscule that he started feeling that he was not improving at all.
In this time, whenever the White King felt bored, he would come over to chat with him. At first, he could still barely force out a few sentences, but now, as the Confinement Power was getting stronger and stronger, he was no longer able to say a word.
However, even if he could not reply, the White King would still come to chat. It seemed as though he was rambling to himself, but all he wanted was an audience to vent to, so he did not mind if there were not any replies.
“The Red King has finally awakened,” The White King calmly said. “I heard that he entered Level Eight. That’s fast. Although he’s an outlier from the general trend, this kind of speed is still considered astonishingly fast…”
“There’s also your younger sister, she’s already Level Nine. She’s now even able to escape from the clutches of a Holy Lord unscathed. It’s truly amazing… Just using that bit of information and conditions, they managed to grow to such an extent within just a couple hundred of years,” The White King’s voice seemed to reveal a hint of emptiness.
“Wasn’t this part of the original script you intended?” Garen wanted to reply with that. Unfortunately, his voice was completely sealed by the crystal.
“I know, you’re trying to ask me that ‘wasn’t this the script that I planned myself?’” The White King gazed at the orbiting meteorites from afar indifferently. “It is… Didn’t I start off by pursuing unification and peace? The Red King can bring this generation an even longer-lasting peace, end all wars, and allow the two races to cohabitate in harmony…”
He paused briefly, taking out some sort of snack from his hands. Putting one of them into his mouth, he started to lightly chew on it.
“To be able to promise this type of complete equality, it’s not something I can offer.”
“So you waited for the Red King to grow up, waiting to pass on the baton to him once he was ready?” Even though Garen knew his voice could not be heard, he still asked.
Surely enough, the White King could not hear anything. He had stopped talking. As he started eating the snacks slowly piece by piece, his gaze felt empty.
In reality, the two knew deep inside, every time Garen weaved out, the Confinement Power would get jolted with some stimuli and strengthen its confinement against Dream Weaving. This inadvertently caused the difficulty of weaving out each time to become progressively harder.
Perhaps, after weaving out a few more times, he would no longer even be able to return anymore…
“Is this considered a ‘you reap what you sow’ moment?” Garen was helpless. The strongest confinement had far exceeded his expectations. Not only did it manage to successfully block out the White King, soon it could be possible that he himself would be blocked in. He might even be sealed in here forever.
He believed that the White King had already predicted this as well, that was why the White King decided to use Garen as an audience for his venting. He started coming over to vent with no restraint or any intention of hiding anything.
“Maybe, I can go out two more times,” Garen carefully calculated and arrived at this conclusion. Two more times, with less than a month of a grace period in between. Otherwise, since the Confinement Power continually increases, he might not be able to return anymore. Then, his consciousness and physical body would be separated, making him no different from a Fallen… Oh, it might be slightly different. Once a person had fallen, their consciousness could only remain at a place or in a location, they could not freely move. He might still be able to move by his will…
Once a Regent Level had fallen, this was the result. Even after their death, they still existed as a highly concentrated bundle of consciousness, allowing them to exist for a very long time. It was similar to the types at Ancient Endor, having their soul seeds remain even after their deaths.
That was the case for Goddess Dowager and Red Moon. Just that one was sealed in a palace, while the other was sealed in his own mech’s core parts.
“For the final time I’m weaving out, I have to find a concrete method of escaping this…” Garen did not want to be forever sealed in this void crystal. Living like this without any notion of time or space would eventually drive him insane.
He had a hunch that the opportunity to leave this world was soon arriving…
“It looks like you reap what you sow,” The White King looked at Garen who was in the well and said. “To block me, you ended up sealing yourself inside the crystal with no way of coming out.”
He brought out a jug of alcohol and started to drink without a care in the world, directly drinking it straight out of the jug.
“Laughable… Who would have known, the human’s Tenth Regent Level, the Crystal King, the King of Liars, is now a crystal statue that had almost fallen?”
Garen could see that he was somewhat irritated. Perhaps, he had started feeling conflicted with the pathway he had planned out in the very beginning. Maybe it was a conflict between his ideals and the reality. From what it looked like, the White King seemed to not want to die.
He started having conflicting feelings towards his plan which he had set out to achieve back then.
“Forget it, you’re already at your death’s door, what am I doing here still talking to you?” The White King stood up and tossed away his alcohol jug as he turned and slowly walked off.
Looking at his silhouette slowly disappearing from his sight, Garen had a complicated, indescribable feeling in his heart.
“For the final time I’m weaving out, I’ll need to start considering my future plans…” He made a decision in his heart.
Celine, and Chinande, these were the two matters that he still had to resolve to get the peace of mind.
Did Celine actually lie to him, or did someone kill her and disguised themselves with her appearance? Or maybe there was not a person called Celine from the very start? What if she was a pawn from one of the White King’s subordinates from the very beginning, hiding amongst the masses solely to learn about the Red Moon Star Emperor’s movements?
Even up till now, Garen still had not found a clear answer to this. The last time Garen went out, he did discover some clues. This time, he had to clear up everything.
“It’s time to resolve everything…” Garen started to concentrate his consciousness within the crystal.
******
Five days later…
Some Star Region of Mankind – Central Black Bottom Star.
In a small town located on the high grounds next to a snowy mountain, a tall man covered in a black cloak was walking on a somewhat narrow street. He was wearing a black mask, only revealing two deep blue eyes. His entire body was completely covered by the cloak.
There were a couple of kids running around the town, occasionally stopping to look at this weird and unknown visitor.
This town was situated somewhere rural, it was also the most barren place in the whole of Black Bottom Star. Usually, there would barely even be one visitor every half a month. Thus, every time an outsider comes to visit, these children would be the first to run out to witness their arrival.
At the houses on his two sides, an auntie carrying a steel basin out to water the plants looked over at the man just as she was heading back to her house.
“Auntie, may I ask you a question?” The man’s voice rang out from within the cloak. “Is there a female mech pilot named Celine living around these parts? She has short green hair, was quite stalky and looked decently pretty. I think she moved here about more than thirty years ago.”
The auntie stopped in her tracks.
“Celine? Thirty plus years ago… You mean Big Sis Celine?”
“Big Sis?”
The cloaked man was slightly shocked.
“Yeah, she’s even older than me. What else would I call her other than ‘Big Sis’?” The auntie answered matter-of-factly. “But, what are you looking for her for?”
“I’m her friend, I haven’t seen her in ages so I decided to visit. Since it was en route, I decided to come over to explore the area a bit,” The man answered. However, judging from his voice, this man’s age was still quite young.
The auntie instantly started to feel suspicious. However, as she thought about it more, a lot of mech pilots also had anti-aging capabilities, so she gave out Celine’s house address after a brief hesitation.
“To get to her house, you’ll just need to follow this road. It’s the third green building up ahead. However…”
“However what?”
The auntie looked around the street and softly whispered.
“However, Big Sis Celine had passed away almost ten years ago… You…”
What she said after that, the man had obviously stopped listening. He was completely in a state of shock. Lightly removing his mask, it revealed a fierce but cold face.
“Died?”
The man’s brow slowly lit up in a white V-shape, displaying his current emotional fluctuations. The white light will brighten or dim accordingly to his feelings.
Whoosh!
Just as the auntie and the children screamed due to the sudden breeze, the man had instantly disappeared into thin air, leaving no traces behind, as if he was never here to begin with.
He leaped a few hundred meters in an instance.
When Garen once again appeared, he was already standing in front of a green building on the other side of town.
The building was slightly dilapidated. One side of the metal gate in front of the door was open. A young girl with green hair and a backpack was closing the gate with her back facing him.
The girl was in a black student’s short skirt, black thigh-high socks, and small leather boots. Her body was thin and shapely, almost a carbon copy of Celine back in the day.
Click! Right after the metal gate got locked, the girl turned around. Looking at the black-cloaked man who appeared silently behind her out of nowhere, she was obviously frightened. She leaped back slightly, her hands putting on a familiar pose.
Garen looked at the young girl in front of him that looked almost identical to Celine from back in the day and the Twelve Flying Dragon Fist stance that she was in. It caused him to reminisce about the days of him teaching her back in the Blackboard Region.
“Who are you?” The girls asked, alerted. “Why did you come to my house?”
Garen started laughing. His face which originally looked fierce, suddenly turned even more frightening as he started laughing while his facial expressions remained emotionless. He was originally already a character that could easily make a young child cry just from his looks. Now, his potential and aura seemed to have increased, giving off an even more terrifying feeling. This sight caused the girl to suddenly tense up.
“Me? I’m here to find Celine. Who are you to her?”
The girl once again stepped back, maintaining the best distance for her to strike.
“I’m her daughter. My mother had already passed away ten years ago.”
Garen did not know what to say. Regarding the problem with Celine, up till now, he still had to legitimate answer. However, it was certain now that she was not a familiar or clone of Chinande, but instead an actual living human. But daughter?
“Who is your father?” Garen stopped laughing.
“Father?” The girl frowned. “Why should I tell you? Who even are you?!”
The atmosphere seemed stiff.
Garen suddenly raised his right hand, his palm was covered in a thin colorless film. He lightly grabbed onto the young girl in front of him.
