Chapter 229: Rainbow-Eyed Victim (Patreon)

“Huh… what in the hells is a ‘fairy ring?’”

“From what Miss Gweneth managed to transmit, mistress, it's nothing good. She explained it's a natural phenomenon that occurs in the outside world, a gateway to the fae realm. Rare, but they do form on their own. Right now, that conduit beneath Varkaigrad is attempting to invoke a temporary gateway to that realm. It would be brief and unstable, but that instability is precisely the point.

“And that might be the entire reason for their attempt. Fairy rings carry properties of the fae realm, complex to explain but potent. They can nullify magic, transmute it, even twist its fundamental knowledge so thoroughly that casting within them becomes irreparably dangerous. The more you dwell upon it, the greater the chance the fae themselves take notice of your existence. Gwen didn't elaborate further, save to say that was the very last thing we wanted.”

For a second, I just stood frozen in disbelief. What the actual fuck was going on outside the colosseum?!? I'd come back here after sleeping, even though Lotte was the last person, well, dragon, I wanted to see, hoping Alice might have some clue on how to track down the water leviathan's body and gain the upper hand in this whole farce. And the first thing Alice told me after I arrived was that I'd die if I won this trial?!? What. The. Actual. Fuck.

When I pressed, she elaborated further.

It all made sense now, tracing back to the very moment I set foot in Varkaigrad. The missing alchemists. A conspiracy dating back to the very founding of this city. Of course it all made sense, why the hell wouldn't it? If anything, it lined up perfectly with what I'd been expecting all along.

My past self truly pissed off a lot of people. In a world where prophecies and divinators existed, there was no way they wouldn't have caught wind of what she was trying to do. If them planning a centuries-long conspiracy wasn't proof that they were onto my original identity, I didn't know what the hell was. Going this far just to kill me? That was screaming from a mountaintop: We know what you are, and we will make sure you die by our hands.

Alice basically confirmed it. Gwen had uncovered a prophecy that sounded genuinely concerning:

"The Vanished Solar Wind shall be reborn, piercing the firmament as a rain of gold; the sun of the realm shall set amidst a tide of vicious ruin."

I couldn't care less how they even knew, the answers could be many, and it changed nothing. I knew it was targeted. It had always been targeted at me.

The whole ritual had been this from the very start. Fae love their irony, so summoning a gate to their home realm was an act steeped in it. Architects becoming the demise of their own work. That was the key wording.

Beneath Varkaigrad, deeper than the sewers, lay those potent ley lines, molded into the shape of a singular summoning rune. A fairy ring. It was missing anchors. And now, in those anchor slots sat the alchemists, the very people the elves had kidnapped when this all began. They had woven a myriad of layers to lead everyone astray, but in the end, it all boiled down to this: living anchors, destined to burn from the raw magic of the ley lines once the ritual ignited.

And the scope didn't stop at the alchemists, it encompassed the citizens of Varkaigrad itself. Such a massive influx of energy would vaporize everything that was Varkaigrad. People would cease to exist before they even registered the heat. That was part of the design, after all, the condition demanded demise. Only after millions perished would the condition be fulfilled.

I simply could not wrap my head around the sheer scale of it all. And from the looks of it, the elders of Flameclaw— or any sect, for that matter— hadn't stirred a finger. Part of me understood their plight if they truly believed the Overlord was coming, had Lotte not intervened. But a far greater part of me was incandescent with fury that they would dare to incinerate an entire thriving city just to kill me, without so much as a single attempt at communication. Were they that utterly terrified? Cornered like the filthy cockroaches they were, so cowed by the mere echo of my existence that they would set their own house ablaze just to avoid looking at me.

I was spiraling now, and I knew it. I had barely stopped worrying about what I'd do in the trial before this bucket of ice-cold reality was dashed over my head.

"But… I don't understand it, mistress," Alice interjected. "It is quite obvious they are targeting you, but orchestrating all this based on a vague, directionless prophecy of destruction, one that certainly does not point squarely at you… I am having trouble wrapping my head around it."

Ah. I still hadn't explained the… developments that had transpired during this trial. That I was the big, scary boogeyman who had reincarnated here, the one who was supposedly destined to devour the entire continent for her ascension if things had gone according to plan.

I gave Alice a brief rundown, not the whole sordid tale, just enough for her to grasp that the prophecy held truth, and that it did point toward my past self bringing destruction upon this 'realm.' An elaborate way of saying this continent, though given its isolation from the outside world, perhaps "realm" fit in its own twisted way.

Alice took a moment to process it all.

Then, slowly, she turned her gaze toward the 'doppelganger me' who had been lounging beside us all along, her feet dangling off the edge of this small cliff. The sun was setting in the dreamscape, casting a deep reddish hue across the horizon, and the river below flowed with a faint, soothing rustle.

It was strangely blissful. I didn't think I'd had much chance to indulge in such bliss since forever, but my doppelganger certainly had no objections to doing so.

All I heard from Alice was a short, flat, "Ah." before she went back to processing it in silence. I sat down beside the doppelganger, cradling Belle in my arms. She had finally fallen into a blissful sleep. Alice had told me she hadn't rested a wink ever since I entered the trial. She didn't fully understand what was going on, lacking the world frame to grasp it, but she knew I was in grave danger. After an earful of her worried badger chirps, I managed to calm her down, and somewhere amidst my conversation with Alice, she'd succumbed to exhaustion in my arms. I made sure not to disturb her as I settled down. She was warm. A simple, precious warmth that I adored.

Like so many things. I hadn't been in Varkaigrad for long, but even during that brief stay, I had come to appreciate this behemoth of a city in all its flawed glory. Its crowds, its infrastructure, its people. The bustling markets, the popular sights, the rowdy lower district, the tranquil middle district, the refined upper district. All kinds of beast kin I had met so far, acquainted with, conversed with, maybe even beaten up, been a spectacular pain in the arse for, and saved.

…Saved. I supposed that was the emotion driving my fury further than anything else. Whenever I saved someone, they became… mine. I didn’t understand how it worked but it was definitely not in a possessive, chains-and-collars sort of way, but in a way that carved them into this… hoard of living souls. The moment I pulled someone from the fire, they became a part of my territory. My… claim. So when some scheming bastards decided they wanted to erase my mark and snuff out a life I had wrenched back from death, it felt like a direct violation of that sentiment. Like striking a flag planted in soil I had bled for. The dragon ego in my chest roared at the thought. It seemed to be an unforgivable sin against the very instincts that defined me.

"You look like you want to explode someone with your mind," my doppelganger's voice cut through my spiral, bringing me back to the present.

I just glared at her. "These are your fucking sins that I'm paying for, you know that, right?"

She simply laughed at that. "Well, I myself am quite baffled at their creativity. I erased most knowledge on subjects such as this and provided the most isolated, controlled environment for my rebirth, and they still found it out. Part of me wants to respect that— but a much bigger part wants to put those insects back in their place once more. Also, for you— it's not as though I'm not offering a solution."

I just shrugged. "Answer's still no. And I don't think Lotte would allow this to happen anyway. Unless you happen to know how I could possibly survive that fairy ring. I know it's meant for me. The moment I step out, I'll be trapped in the midst of it. Could divinity help me out a little here? Surely it should resist whatever contorting effect the fae realm has over magic, right?"

"Yes… and no. There's just one thing to do when you get anywhere near anything relating to the fae: get the fuck away from there. There's no right answer for anything. It's the definition of everything going haywire and chaotic. Even divinity won't be much help, because while it might resist the contortion of magic itself, it won't resist the fundamental laws of the fae realm. For all we know, you might explode yourself trying to channel it."

"And seeing how it works, evolving within would be out of the question as well."

"Yes. Protection from the System might still trigger, but who knows what it would become after the fae realm twists it beyond recognition."

"So, in every scenario, I just go up there and die. That is… just great." I laughed bitterly. Well and truly cornered now, it seemed. Every path led to my own doom.

"Not truly. You know yourself what you have to do."

I just cradled Belle in my arms, watching her blissful sleeping face. What I had to do, huh. Which, once again, amounted to absolutely nothing.

It would all be solved if I did nothing. After all, the way things were going, I wouldn't win the trial, but a certain leviathan would. It was as if even here, the future had been carved in stone for me, and I was merely a witness to it all unfolding before my eyes.

Makes you wonder, doesn't it?

Who could be the grand architect of its design.

A trial destined to end in my demise through a centuries-long conspiracy, yet ever so conveniently, a factor within the trial had gained enlightenment of its own situation. Something that was merely supposed to be a cog in the machine had decided it wanted to escape its fate, growing so much as to even outsmart the true inheritor of this trial.

I had always questioned how this anomaly regarding the water leviathan might have stemmed. And now, I seemed to finally have my answer.

There was someone, once again, deciding how they wanted my life to go, charting a predestined pathway where I… should survive.

“Or am I wrong, Lotte?”

The giant dragon was still lounging in her usual spot, her enormous head blotting out the setting sun that now settled behind her like a divine halo. She merely chuckled in that velvety voice of hers at the prospect.

"At last, you begin to perceive the depths of your former selves' compulsion for control,"

"It's that heavenly bitch, isn't it?"

Lotte just shrugged. "I shall neither confirm nor deny such accusations. My lips are sealed on the matter."

She paused, then turned her gaze toward the empty sky, her claw extending lazily into the fabric of space. "However, I am amenable to overlooking protocol should you wish to pose the query to the 'bitch' in question yourself."

Her gigantic talons tore into the fabric of space, and before I could blink, she pulled out a white-haired, rainbow-eyed woman wearing an apron who looked like she'd just been working in a kitchen.

"What the—" were the only words she managed with a genuinely surprised expression plastered across her face as she plummeted from what must have been a few hundred meters up.