novelnext Chapter 116 Facing an Irreversible Fate
Chapter 116 Facing an Irreversible Fate
Chapter 115 Facing an Irreversible Fate
The scene has changed again.
One after another.
again and again.
At the age of eight, he was driven out of an unknown small farm with a red-hot iron rod, leaving a long scar on his calf.
At the age of ten, she worked as a servant in a count's castle. Three months after her arrival, the castle was hit by a once-in-a-century thunderstorm, and half of the tower collapsed.
She was tied to a stake and displayed for a whole day before being thrown out of the city.
At twelve, she attempted to test her witch talent, but the crystal ball shattered the moment she placed her palm on it. By fourteen, she had stopped trying.
She learned to be silent, to live in anonymity, and to leave before others noticed her.
I've learned not to have any expectations.
Scene after scene flashed before her eyes like a revolving lantern.
She always wondered why she was so unlucky, yet always managed to survive in this terrible world.
Even her chosen suicide attempt failed due to bad luck.
Leila stood there, watching these memories flow past her.
There were no tears on her face, and her hands did not tremble.
"That's enough," she said, her voice soft but clear. "I've seen it all, I remember it all. What else do you want to show me?"
The surrounding fragments of memory abruptly ceased, like insects frozen in amber, suspended in mid-air.
Lyra stood in the center of these fragments, surrounded by her own past—every time she was banished, every time she was hurt, every time she failed.
A vast, flat, and genderless echo pressed down from the surrounding nothingness, carrying an indifference that could not be defied.
Are you sure?
Leila looked up.
Golden mist gathered above her head, forming a huge, blurry outline.
It wasn't humanoid; it was more like a golden clock—a clock exactly like the Clock Tower of Destiny, its hands slowly turning.
"Are you sure you're not afraid anymore?" the voice asked again.
Leila took a deep breath.
"I'm sure."
The hands on the clock face suddenly accelerated.
All the suspended mirror fragments shattered simultaneously, turning into dust that filled the sky.
The next second, the dust reformed, creating a completely new scene in front of Lyra.
This time, she wasn't seeing the past.
She saw Frostwolf City.
She saw the Tower of Babel.
She saw Lorraine, Anna, Victor, Olivia, Ohm, and everyone she cared about.
Then she saw them turn around one by one, their backs to her, and slowly leave.
"No—" Lyra's pupils contracted.
Lorraine's voice echoed through the scene, cold and unfamiliar, completely different from the person she knew. "You think you've changed? You haven't. You're still that jinx. Lyra, your misfortune is only temporarily suppressed; it's still in your bones, in your blood. Sooner or later, it will destroy us all."
Anna turned around, her eyes cold: "I told you long ago, we shouldn't have kept her."
Victor shook his head silently, then turned and walked away.
Olivia sighed and threw the tableware she had been saving for Lyra into the fireplace.
Leila stood there, watching as these people walked away from her one by one.
Her hands were clenched tightly inside her sleeves.
Golden mist swirled around Leila, like a constantly shrinking cage.
She stood in the center of that false Tower of Babel, watching everyone's backs recede into the distance.
Lorraine, Anna, Victor, Olivia, and Ohm walked into the golden mist, their outlines blurring and gradually disappearing from sight.
The bell was still ringing, slowly and steadily.
"This is your destiny."
The voice surged in again from all directions, cold and icy, without mockery or malice, only a pure...
A detached statement: "Wherever you go, misfortune follows. Those you care about will one day suffer because of your existence. And at that time, they will abandon you just like everyone else."
Leila gritted her teeth and remained silent.
She knew this was a test. She knew everything before her was fake—Lorraine wouldn't say those things, Anna wouldn't look at her like that, and Victor wouldn't walk away without looking back.
But knowing it's fake and not being swayed are two different things.
Because that voice wasn't lying.
She is indeed a jinx.
Her misfortune has indeed destroyed the lives of countless people.
Even after awakening as the Witch of Fate, have those things ingrained in her bones truly disappeared?
Even if she no longer brings misfortune to others, can her sins be forgiven?
You know the answer in your heart.
Zhong's voice seemed to read her thoughts, "You've been afraid, afraid that you'll really hurt them."
The first thing you do every morning when you wake up is to check if your companions are safe, if the city walls are intact, and if the crops in the fields have withered.
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Lyra's eyelashes trembled.
"You're not afraid anymore, Lyra. You're just hiding your fear."
The golden mist continued to shrink, and the scene began to distort.
The false Tower of Babel cracked open beneath her feet, revealing endless darkness below.
The ground beneath her feet crumbled piece by piece, and there was less and less room to stand.
Lyra took a step back, her heel landing on the edge of the rubble, which clattered and fell into the darkness.
"Admit it," Zhong's voice was eerily calm. "You're destined to be hated by everyone. Your fate was written from the beginning—a jinx, a scourge, a banished person. You can't change that."
"This is your destiny."
Leila looked down at the increasingly narrow space beneath her feet.
Her mind was in turmoil.
The memories flooded back like a tidal wave—the dull pain of a stone hitting her back, the burning sensation of a branding iron on her calf, the way everyone looked at her when the crystal ball exploded in her hand—
Fear, disgust, hatred.
She knew it all too well.
"You think Lorraine took you in because she cares about you?"
Zhong's voice finally took on a slight inflection, as if coaxing, "He's just using your abilities. Once you're no longer of value, once your misfortune begins to backfire, he will too."
"Shut up."
Lyra growled softly, like a wounded animal.
The sound wasn't loud, but it caused the golden mist to tremble violently.
Lyra raised her head and looked directly at the golden mist again.
At this moment, there were no tears or fear in her eyes, only a profound calm that comes from experiencing too much suffering.
"you're right."
She spoke, her voice steady, "I do check every morning. I check if my companions are alright, if there are any cracks in the city walls, and if the crops have withered."
She paused for a moment.
"but----"
"So what?"
The hands on the clock stopped.
"I admit I'm afraid fate will destroy my life again."
Lyra took a step forward, crushing a patch of ground under her foot, but she didn't stop. "I've been afraid since the day I was born. Afraid of bringing disaster to others, afraid of being abandoned, afraid that even magic won't want me. I've been afraid for so many years."
She took another step. The ground beneath her feet cracked into pieces, and she stepped on the fragments, which floated precariously in the darkness.
"But fear doesn't mean we can't move forward."
"Fear doesn't mean I'll succumb to fate!"
The golden mist churned violently. The outline of the enormous clock appeared and disappeared in the mist, and its hands began to tremble violently, as if some force was tearing it apart from the inside.
"What right do you have?" Zhong's voice cracked for the first time. "You're a jinx—"
'
"So be it, a jinx."
"So what if I'm a jinx?!"
Lyra stood in the center of the shattered ground, looking up at the enormous Bell of Destiny hidden behind the mist.
Golden light shone on her face, illuminating her heterochromatic eyes—eyes that had been seen as a sign of calamity by everyone since birth.
"I am a jinx, I was born with bad luck. Every place I go suffers, and everyone who takes me in will be unlucky. These are all facts."
Her voice was clear and distinct, each word as distinct as if carved into stone.
"But now I won't hide away because of these things, nor will I die because of them."
The last intact piece of ground beneath our feet shattered.
Lyra's body plummeted for a moment, but she quickly lifted her foot and stepped on a floating piece of debris, regaining her balance.
"I used to feel unworthy. Unworthy of being accepted, unworthy of being cared for, unworthy of living among people. Every time someone was kind to me, my first reaction was to run away, because I was afraid that my bad luck would harm them."
"But Lord Lorraine didn't let me run. Sister Anna didn't let me run. Victor, Sister Olivia, Ohm—none of them did."
Her lips curved upwards slightly, a very faint but genuine smile.
"So I'm not running anymore."
"Even if one day in the future my misfortune does harm them, that's a future matter. I won't give up everything I already have for a disaster that hasn't even happened yet."
"You can hate me because of my fate."
She tilted her head back, staring directly at the clock of fate, her voice growing louder and louder, "The whole world can hate me. But I won't stop just because I'm hated."
"No matter how irresistible fate may be, I still have the right to give fate the middle finger until fate's irreversibility is realized!"
The golden mist exploded as she uttered her last word.
Golden dust billowed from her body, colliding, merging, and resonating with the external mist.
The outline of the Clock of Destiny began to crack amidst the violent tremors, and dazzling golden light shone through the cracks.
The hands on the clock spun wildly a few times, then suddenly stopped—stopped in a completely new position.
The voice rang out again from behind the fog.
But this time, it was no longer indifferent.
"—Fate confirmed."
"The second-tier Fate Witch, Lyra, faced the origin of her destiny, acknowledged the existence of fear, and chose to move forward despite that fear."
"She did not hypocritically deny the existence of fear, but rather acknowledged it and transcended it."
"After facing the future and the past, she chose to be at peace with it."
"Therefore—the qualification is proven!"
The enormous Bell of Destiny shattered suddenly before Lyra, turning into countless golden specks of light.
These points of light flew toward Lyra like fireflies, gradually sinking into her skin, merging into her blood, and penetrating deep into the core of her magic.
Lyra's body floated up.
Her golden eye shone with an unprecedented light, and the lines of destiny spread from the corner of her eye, along her cheek, neck, and arms, all the way to her toes.
The entire Clock Tower of Fate was shaking.
Outside the clock tower, Lorraine looked up.
He sensed it—the power of destiny was fluctuating violently inside the clock tower, its intensity far exceeding that of the second-tier level.
Golden light streamed from every crevice of the clock tower, dyeing the surrounding night sky a pale gold.
Anna, standing nearby, was startled by the commotion and took two steps back: "Is this... normal?"
Lorraine didn't answer, but somehow a smile appeared on his face. On the spire of the Clock Tower of Destiny, the clock chimed on its own.
With a clang.
The dull tolling of bells echoed over Frostwolf City, passing through the city walls and across the snowfields, carrying far and wide.
Victor, who was on night duty on the city wall, looked up at the golden light shining from the top of the Clock Tower of Destiny. His tower-like body stiffened for a moment, then he chuckled softly.
The second clang.
Olivia woke up with a start, put on her coat, opened the window, and saw the sky filled with golden light.
She paused for two seconds, then murmured, "This girl—did she succeed?"
The third clang.
The bell tolled until it faded.
Inside the clock tower, the golden light gradually faded, and Leila's body slowly fell back to the ground.
She lowered her head and looked at her hands.
She could feel a completely new power flowing through her body, different from the misfortunes of the past, and also different from the second-tier power of destiny.
This force is more proactive.
Previously, her ability was passive; misfortune would come knocking on her door, and fate would give her prophecies. She was merely a vessel, a conduit for the power of destiny.
But now it's different.
She closed her eyes, sensing the newfound power within her.
She could see it, she could touch it—
She saw the threads of fate, countless fine lines as thin as spider silk, extending from every person and every thing, weaving into a vast, unfathomable net.
And her hands could touch these threads.
You can move them.
Yes, you can cut them.
Leila opened her eyes and exhaled.
The clock tower doors slowly opened before her. Lorraine and Anna stood outside, the night wind blowing in and making her cloak flutter.
Lorraine looked at her, his gaze lingering on her for a moment.
"How is it?"
Leila stepped out of the clock tower and stopped in front of him.
She tilted her head back, her black and gold eyes shining brightly in the moonlight.
She grinned, revealing her signature little tiger tooth.
"Third tier. Witch of Fate."
She paused, clenched her fist, and the golden patterns on her fingertips glowed slightly for a moment as she moved.
"I can see the threads of fate, my lord. I can see every single one of them."
She opened her palm, golden threads shimmering between her fingers. "And, most importantly, I can cut it."
Anna stared wide-eyed at the scene.
Lorraine's expression didn't change much, but his fingers clenched and unclenched slightly inside his sleeve.
"Severing the threads of fate." Lorraine repeated the name of the ability softly.
To be able to cut the threads of fate—what does that mean?
This means that she can cut off a person's destined misfortune, and she can also cut off a person's destined good fortune.
It means she can pull someone off their predetermined fate, whether that fate is good or bad.
It can even directly and completely erase the remaining fate of enemies of lower rank.
In other words, it has the effect of instant death.
As expected of the most unique Fate Witch, she directly touched upon one of the most fundamental rules of this world at only the third rank.
"Okay." Lorraine patted Lyra on the shoulder. "You've worked hard."
Seeing Lorraine's feigned nonchalance, Lyra suddenly felt her eyes sting with tears.
She blinked quickly, suppressing the slight moisture in her eyes, and said in a deliberately relaxed tone, "It wasn't tiring. I just watched a... pretty long revolving lantern show."
Anna came up, holding a piece of bread wrapped in cloth, which was still steaming.
"Lyra, here you go." Anna shoved a loaf of bread into Lyra's hand. "You must have had a lot of trouble in the Clock Tower of Fate, so I saved some for you beforehand. It's all wrapped in an insulated bag."
Leila lowered her head.
Through the fabric, the warmth of the freshly baked buttered bread soothed her palms, and the warmth gradually spread from her skin throughout her body.
She took a big bite without any hesitation.
The outer layer is crispy, the inside is soft, and it has a rich milky aroma and a hint of coarse sugar sweetness.
"It's delicious," she mumbled.
The clock tower of destiny stands silently overhead, its hands pointing to a brand new mark.
The night wind blew from the north, carrying the scent of ice and snow, blowing over the city walls, over the Witch's Tower, and over this city that was growing stronger little by little.
Leila stood beneath the clock tower, chewing on bread, her cloak billowing in the wind.
She didn't hunch her shoulders, lower her head, or hide.
The wind is cold.
But she stood very steadily.
Just as steadfast in the face of fate.