Millennium Witch

Book 3: Chapter 291: Destruction Magic

By the time their conversation ended, the sky had already gone from deep blue to pitch black. The City of Truth’s brilliant lights wound like rivers beneath the clouds, and overhead the Milky Way stretched across the heavens.After politely declining Tertia’s invitation to stay the night in the Sky Realm, Yvette turned into a gust of clear wind, skimmed lightly over the sea of clouds, and returned to the Scholar’s Haven apartment on Blossom Street.

At this moment, Lucia was sitting cross-legged on her bed in the bedroom, meditating. Yvette’s window entry gave her a fright. She jumped off the bed and reflexively started to trigger her defensive magic. Only when bright flame lit up the intruder’s face did she let out a soft “Eh—” and exclaim in surprise, “T–Teacher…?” She paused, a hint of dread flashing across her features. “Isn’t it not time for class yet?”

“I’m not here to teach you in your dreams. I’m back,” Yvette said, not entirely satisfied with her reaction, her fine brows knitting ever so slightly.

“Ah!” Only then did Lucia’s face break into a delighted smile. She threw herself into Yvette’s arms and gave her a huge hug. “Long time no see, Teacher!”

It actually hadn’t been that long. Does a year count as a long time? Hm, maybe it is a little long… Yvette thought, and then her whole cheek was buried in a warm, soft cushion. Breathing in the faint fragrance, she belatedly realized that the girl had grown quite a bit—height and otherwise—and was now thoroughly ahead of her in every respect.

Of course, she didn’t consider that something worth caring about. Her self-identity wasn’t female to begin with. It was just a reference point by which she could sense the traces of time passing.

Once Lucia let go, Yvette listened as she chattered on about everything that had happened recently. Although the two of them could contact each other anytime via the ring in its flesh-and-blood marker state, that was still “online,” and wasn’t the same as meeting face-to-face. Plus, in order not to disturb her teacher, Lucia had deliberately cut back on how often she reached out, leaving many things to now, when she could dump them all out in one breath.

Likewise, Yvette wasn’t constantly watching the surveillance feed—she wasn’t actually some old guy in the monitoring room, and people were allowed to have privacy, weren’t they?

So it was only when Lucia reported on the recent situation that she learned the church’s operating application in the City of Truth had been approved—fast-tracked, in fact—and was already in the construction phase. Before long, the Silver Witch Church would become the only church in the City of Truth officially licensed to operate by the authorities, which was no small thing.

It was worth mentioning that Anya and Palea had respectively become the Saintess-appointed trainee priestess and trainee pastor. They had resigned from their positions on the Disciplinary Committee and now spent every few days supervising the construction site, making sure the builders didn’t cut corners or slack off.

Later on, once the main body of the temple was completed, the great temple in Adelock would send a batch of experienced senior clergy north to support them, helping train new personnel and assisting the Silver Witch Temple here in the City of Truth to quickly get on track and establish a complete system for daily operations.

“Ezra hasn’t run into any trouble over there?” Yvette tilted her head slightly and asked.

She would occasionally take a glance and knew that things at the Adelock great temple were going very smoothly.

She just felt that, as local sects, the Sunflame Sect and Cloudpeak Sect might team up for a counterattack. At such a critical moment, dispatching a group of senior personnel to help elsewhere could affect Adelock’s development.

“Very smoothly, Teacher. Ezra said things are going extremely well on his side,” Lucia said with a vigorous nod. “The temples of Adelock’s three major True Gods’ churches withdrew all their permanent staff one after another last month. The Sunflame Sect and Cloudpeak Sect are also preparing to pull out, and even the city lord has converted…”

“All of them left?” Yvette said in surprise.

“It seems that way,” Lucia said worriedly. “Teacher, do you think this might be the calm before the storm?”

Yvette shook her head. Ever since that night when she and the Sun God had both descended, the Sunflame Sect and Cloudpeak Sect had never again used any shady methods to restrict the Silver Witch Church’s evangelism in Adelock. Combined with this complete withdrawal, it looked more like a voluntary strategic contraction—or even… a gesture of goodwill?

“You don’t need to worry,” Yvette thought for a moment, then reassured her. “The academy is our partner. The Sunflame Sect and Cloudpeak Sect won’t dare act rashly. And even if something does happen, I’ll handle it.”

Then she suddenly added, “Also, I want to introduce someone to you. She’s quite capable—enough to stand in for me and handle part of your teaching in elemental magic and practical combat.”

Lucia stared at her in surprise, thinking this sounded like a substitute teacher?

But who could possibly be qualified to take over her lessons? Could it be some senior brother or senior sister who had just gotten in touch with Teacher?

Very possible. After all, Teacher had spent a year in the Snow Country; that was probably related to this… Since it was a female pronoun, that made it a senior sister. She couldn’t help wondering what this senior sister would be like… But since she could earn a “quite capable” from Teacher, she had to be at least a high-tier mage…

She brainstormed in place for a while, then heard Yvette continue, “Her name is ‘Tertia.’ No surname.”

“Ter–tia…?” At the sound of that name, Lucia’s bright violet-aster eyes flew wide open, and she asked in a mix of shock and uncertainty, “Um… I didn’t quite catch that, Teacher. Could you repeat it?”

Yvette said, “It’s the Tertia you’re thinking of—your Grand Dean.”

“…” Lucia was so shocked she didn’t know what to say. Her rosy lips parted just a little, forming an adorable “O.”

So after not seeing Teacher for a year, her ability to casually drop bombshells had only gone up, she thought.

But was this for real?

There’s no way this is actually real, right?

…

Although she knew Teacher never lied, Lucia was still massively shaken when, the next afternoon, she actually met Grand Dean Tertia in person.

Because Lady Tertia had taken the initiative to come in person to Blossom Street, to room 606 of the Scholar’s Haven apartment—to pay a visit—rather than what Lucia had imagined, with Teacher taking her to the mage tower to pay her respects.

Could it be that, as someone under the Silver Throne, Teacher’s status was actually higher than the dean’s? But rumor had it that the dean, too, was someone who could stand on equal footing with deities…

And very soon after, through her interactions with Tertia, Lucia discovered in astonishment that the dean’s demeanor was nothing like the rumors—cold, imposing, with a hint of overbearing dominance. On the contrary, her tone was very gentle. Not only did she allow Lucia to address her simply as “Senior” without any honorifics, she even affectionately called Lucia “Little Lucy,” coming across as incredibly kind and approachable.

Rumors really couldn’t be trusted.

So, after tossing Lucia to Tertia’s care, Yvette’s days settled back into calm.

She didn’t go to the College of General Studies. Instead, she stayed home all day, working on opening the link between the Academy of Truth and the Central Divine Realm while studying the technical details revealed inside the antigravity engine.

It had to be said, the antigravity engine was indeed a precious treasure.

Aside from the dizzyingly complex and exquisite rune algorithms and control logic, what Yvette cared about most was actually the “anti-element” itself.

This strange element, whose special properties caused violent annihilation whenever it came into contact with conventional elements, had never seen effective large-scale application in the era of the Origin Civilization. The fundamental reason was that it was extremely difficult to obtain and incredibly inefficient to produce. Even superpowers like the New Eden United States or the Future Consortium had to muster their entire nations’ strength to build super production centers, and even then they could only produce a tiny trickle of it at terrible efficiency, just enough for frontier theoretical research.

Now, though, Yvette could leverage Aberrant Mana’s mimicry ability to directly convert Aberrant Mana into anti-elements, at the same cost as conventional elements, with minimal loss and outstanding cost-effectiveness.

In other words, she could fully use this as the foundation to explore an entirely new branch of magic that belonged to her alone.

A magic that completely expressed the essence of anti-element.

A magic that could destroy everything, annihilate everything.

A magic that could be used to become a True God.

If, in the future, she never got the chance to enter a True God’s divine realm, or if Shadowtouch proved unqualified to devour and deconstruct a True God’s divine realm, then with this new magic called “Destruction,” she might still be able to attain True Godhood through proper, orthodox means.

…

Time flew.

As she explored the prototype of “Destruction Magic” with anti-element at its core, and at the same time kept building new anchor points in key locations linking to the “Central Divine Realm,” the view outside the window shifted, without her noticing, from the open clarity of autumn to winter’s bleakness. Snow once more fell thick and swirling over the City of Truth, and the atmosphere of year’s end quietly settled in.

During this period, under Ezra and Leilani’s steady, methodical work, yet another new city-state was brought into the Silver Witch Church’s sphere of influence from the Adelock great temple. Once again, there was almost no resistance. The Sunflame Sect and Cloudpeak Sect put up no fight at all and simply walked away, as if they’d voluntarily gifted that whole diocese to the Silver Witch Church.

Just when Ezra and Leilani were completely baffled by their behavior, things at the Academy of Truth took an unexpected turn even before the Silver Witch great temple was finished—a messenger arrived, surprising everyone.

He was an emissary from Evergreen Revelation, a pure-blooded elf with pointed ears, golden hair, and green eyes. His manner was elegant, carrying the solemn air unique to ancient churches.

He brought a letter personally penned by the Pope. In it, the Pope of Evergreen Revelation, in a tone of equal negotiation, asked whether the Silver Throne of the Silver Witch Church would be willing to accept the entire “Free Alliance” as the church’s primary diocese.

The subtext was, naturally, that if they took the whole Free Alliance, they wouldn’t go after other regions. It could even be understood as Evergreen Revelation already treating the Silver Witch Church as a fourth True God church.

Yvette did not accept the terms directly. Instead, she sent a letter in reply—not to the Pope, but to the Prime God.

She had only one demand in that letter: have the Ancestral Holy Spirit release the Evil Dragon King Dugrabi. Everything else was off the table.

Although the Prime God was not the Ancestral Holy Spirit, the three True Gods’ churches had existed for so long that there had to be some nepotistic strings between them. She didn’t believe the Prime God wouldn’t pass the message along to the Ancestral Holy Spirit.

But…

For such a simple condition, Yvette waited all the way until the following year’s early spring in March, and Evergreen Revelation’s side remained completely silent, as if her letter had sunk into the sea. She had no idea whether they’d forgotten to reply, or the negotiations had fallen through and they just couldn’t be bothered to.

She didn’t mind either way, as long as they hadn’t officially gone to war.

After that, once all the anchor points between the Academy of Truth and Adelock were fully connected, Yvette called in Ice Rain and Shuanghua and introduced them, in their identities as the Mechanical Saint and the Snow Saint, to Lucia and to Lightning Apostle Ezra, so they could help lead the church’s development.

In the same year’s April, after dragging her feet at home for another month or so, she finally used the Snow Country’s anchor point to arrive at the great, bustling “Pan-human United Front Joint Fortress” on the northern border—a hub connecting the Eastern and Western Continents—and thus began her journey to the Western Continent.