"..."
In that moment, Bernadette had to admit — Vincent's theory was, infuriatingly, entirely reasonable.
In truth, with her own intellect, she could easily have reasoned her way to the same conclusion herself — she'd simply never let herself go anywhere near that particular thought.
For a moment, Bernadette's mind spun. Everything she'd spent all these years studying in the occult felt trivial compared to what she'd just learned.
"You know."
Vincent suddenly laughed. "You're probably one of the last people who needs to be this shocked. Don't forget — Emperor Roselle is a true god too. Aren't you also a god's daughter?"
"We both know gods are ascended from ordinary people, from Beyonders. You're the child Emperor Roselle had before he became a god. Maybe that woman is exactly the same — a daughter the Goddess of the Evernight had, before her own ascension."
Hearing this from Vincent, Bernadette suddenly felt herself calm down.
It made sense, really. Her own shock had mostly come from the sheer weight of the divine authority the Goddess of the Evernight had built up over thousands of years. If her own father, after becoming Black Emperor, had also built a church and grown it across thousands of years —
people learning that the "Black Emperor" had a daughter would probably react with the exact same shock.
After a long moment, she said, her voice slightly strained, "So what do you plan to do next?"
What was he going to do?
The question caught Vincent completely off guard.
He'd just spent all this effort reasoning his way to the conclusion that he'd apparently... "had something going" with the Goddess of the Evernight — no wait, had a daughter with her. So now what?
Post it on social media? Announce it to the world?
"Yes, we have a daughter."
What if he'd guessed wrong, though?
And besides, even if he was right, that was still "future him" doing things in "the past" — would the current Goddess of the Evernight even acknowledge any of it?
And the single most important thing of all —
that Goddess of the Evernight was not a nice person, by any measure.
She was absolutely not the kind of being who could be swayed by "personal feelings." To her, self-interest came before everything else — nothing else mattered.
Maybe the best version of "Vincent" was a dead one.
Maybe, somewhere in that starry realm full of moonflowers and night lavender, she'd occasionally look back fondly on some "beautiful memory" from before her ascension — but if the person from that memory actually showed back up, in the flesh, that memory would stop being beautiful real fast.
Huh?
Wait.
Wait!
A cold jolt of realization hit Vincent: if everything he'd just reasoned out was true, then where was his future self, right now?
Was he actually hiding out at the bottom of Silver City's Round Tower like Amon, or somewhere else entirely?
Was he — was I — even still alive?
...
Out on the ocean, a thousand miles from Backlund, the waves churned violently, molten rock spewed upward, and the entire sea region trembled with a force that felt almost apocalyptic.
This was the result of a battle between a Sequence 2 witch and a Sequence 2 Hunter.
At those two pathways' highest reaches, they embodied disaster and destruction — and with two Angels fighting all-out, holding nothing back, the result was nothing short of the end of the world for anyone caught in the middle.
Suddenly, a mirror formed of rippling water materialized above the ocean's surface, and a tall woman in a black robe, draped in a fur cloak, emerged from within it. She raised a hand toward the witch, now in her Mythical Creature Form, and a blood-red spear condensed at once in her palm.
Unmistakably, a Mystery Reenactment — the Spear of Longinus. (Roselle's mirror-self should have been born before he ascended to Black Emperor — the version used here draws on the "Knowledge Emperor.")
But the spear wasn't aimed at the witch at all — it was aimed at the mirror world behind her.
At the same moment, the "Hunter," now a towering giant of fire, lunged at the witch's serpent-haired gorgon form — and the instant the witch caught sight of the "mirror person," her expression shifted. She knew perfectly well that two-against-one, especially with one of them being a mirror person, put her at a serious disadvantage — mirror persons, in a certain sense, directly countered a witch's "undying" nature.
But she wasn't willing to give up — the "Conqueror" Beyonder Characteristic she'd been sent to retrieve had already been seized by the "Hunter," which was exactly why she was stuck fighting him at all.
"No good."
Reluctant as she was, she made her decision fast: flee!
But she failed.
This entire stretch of ocean, this entire space, had already been "hidden" away by some outside force — even her own abilities, her own strength, were being affected under that "concealment."
There was a third person present. An Angel of the Dark Pathway.
And it was right then that she felt her own "mirror person," hidden away in the mirror world, rapidly beginning to disappear.
The reason witches became so hard to kill once they reached Sequence 3 was that as long as even one "mirror person" of theirs remained alive, they could resurrect endlessly. To kill a witch above Sequence 3, you either had to chase her relentlessly until every last mirror person was dead, or eliminate all of them first, before ever going after her directly.
"NO!!!"
An overwhelming terror surged through her, and the Disaster Witch spiraled into panic — but before she could even fight back with everything she had, her consciousness simply vanished, her body collapsing into shattered mirror fragments, falling from midair. Dead, for good.
The woman in the black dress, dotted with starlight, stepped out of her "concealment," catching the "Conqueror" Beyonder Characteristic tossed to her by the Hunter, now back in human form. She gave a small nod. "Pleasure doing business. You'll get what you came for."
With that, her figure was wiped away, erased entirely, vanishing without a trace.
When she reappeared, she was back in the starry realm — that divine kingdom thick with moonflowers and night lavender, where the Goddess of the Evernight sat lazily on the ground, an ancient sword in her hands, idly wiping it clean.
Mother and daughter regarded each other silently for a few seconds.
"Is Chike dead?"
"You overestimate me a little."
The Goddess of the Evernight gave a faint smile. "If she'd really committed to a fight to the death with me, she'd have ended up dead, and I'd have ended up badly hurt. But she's not a fool — she was looking to run from the very start."
"But killing her was never actually my goal. I was just clearing out a few unstable variables ahead of time."
She set the ancient sword down. "The First One in the Mirror won't have a chance to be born again — not anytime soon, at least."
"That's enough."
The woman in black asked, "Are you hurt?"
"I'm fine."
She turned to look at her daughter. "What about you? After all that running around, did you get anything out of it?"
"Is Lord of Chaos him?"
"I don't know."
The Goddess of the Evernight shook her head. "I've never met Lord of Chaos myself. I don't hold some all-knowing, all-seeing authority. Between holding up the barrier, absorbing the Death Pathway, and using Chike's own bones and blood to forge a sealed item to get one over on her — that's already stretched me to my limit. I don't have the energy to spare to go verify something like that."
"You already have his honorific, don't you? Go ask him yourself."
The woman in black was silent for a moment. "Amon said you've been keeping a lot from me."
"You'd rather trust a 'con artist' than your own mother?"
"When it comes to finding Dad, Amon's interests and mine happen to align." She paused, then added quietly, "Yours don't."
The smile faded from the Goddess of the Evernight's lips. "Why would you think that?"
"Because you've never once looked for him."
"How would you know I haven't?"
Before she could react, the Goddess of the Evernight added at once, "Though, you're right, I really haven't. Like I just said — with the apocalypse coming, I've got far too much on my plate."
"..."
"I understand."
She turned, meaning to leave.
The Goddess of the Evernight suddenly called out: "Luna."
"?"
She turned back.
"Be careful."
Watching her daughter's figure fade away as if erased, the Goddess of the Evernight let out a long, quiet sigh, tilting her head back to gaze at the sky above her, painted like an oil canvas:
As a daughter, all Luna has to think about is finding her father, recovering her memories.
I have to think about so much more. Holding up the barrier. Dealing with the Primordial Witch as an unstable variable. Finding a way to bring down the War God and seize his Authority. And preparing for the apocalypse, on top of all of it.
Too much for one person to handle.
Ugh.
After a long while, she sighed again, lowering her gaze, and old memories began surfacing in her mind — distant enough now, worn down by time, that they'd grown hazy, indistinct, almost unreal.
That day, she'd finished up at the office as usual, and driven home.
To be continued…
Guys, do support me on Patreon; It helps me a lot!
Advance 100 Chapters are up on my Patreon!
pat reon.com/AlphaSenatus