Chapter 37: Don’t Look Into the Abyss If You Don’t Want to See What’s Hidden Deep Within

Magna quickly chewed what was in his mouth and swallowed it. "Ah, sorry, I didn’t notice you there."

He looked at the big piece of meat in his hand, wanting to take a bite out of it. But when he thought about the state he was in, he slowly turned and put it back on the plate it belonged to.

He finally came to his senses when he looked at the mess he had made on the table. Even he felt a slight disgust with himself.

’How did I lose myself this much just for food?’

"Are you done?" Azelith asked, still not hiding the disgusted look on her face.

"Yeah, I think I’ve had enough. "Magna replied, even though he wasn’t full at all.

He bowed his head. "Then excuse me, I need to use the bathroom." With that, he turned around and ran off with big steps.

"Stop."

He couldn’t even manage to take his third step before his body suddenly stopped moving.

’’Huh?’’ Magna tried to force his body to move, but he realized he couldn’t even feel it anymore.

It looked like the Witch had cast a chantless spell on him.

Azelith began walking slowly, her heels tapping against the wooden floor. "Do you know what this world lacks most?"

’Reason?’ Magna desperately wanted to voice the word, yet he couldn’t move a single muscle.

First Titus, now her.

He thought he only had one lunatic to worry about. But this random Witch had appeared out of nowhere and paralyzed him on the spot. It made him wonder if no one in this world knew the meaning of the word "reason" at all.

Azelith stopped right before him. Tilting her head down, she locked her gaze directly into his.

For a second, Magna felt his mind grow dizzy, as if he were getting lost in the deep black of her eyes.

"Consequence." Her voice was like sweet music in his ears, but it was also painful enough to make his head start to ache.

"As long as you are powerful enough, there is no consequence you will ever have to face."

A slow, chilling smile parted her lips, stretching upward as she gently rested her hand upon his head.

"And as you can see, I am the one holding that power right now." With that, she began to chant a spell.

This time the chanting words were completely different from what Faye and the goblin mother had chanted so far. They were honored names for a different Matriarch.

"O Needle of the Woven Sky, Thread that has bound since before the First Breath, Unfeeling Mother of Luck and Destiny."

But after the honorific names, the words that followed showed the spell’s true nature. Those were the words that filled Magna with unease and fear.

"...unravel the mind’s threads and reveal its true name."

Magna’s mind, already numb, sank deeper into darkness.

As it faded, only one thought could form.

’Fuck.’

He realized his biggest secret, the secret of his reincarnation, was about to be uncovered.

—

After she cast the spell, the whites of Azelith’s eyes turned completely black.

She suddenly found herself in spirit form, floating in an endless void.

She stood there in the emptiness, looking at the massive planet resting beneath her feet.

’Let’s see where you actually come from,’ a thrilling smile graced her lips as her inner sight scanned every inch of the world below.

It was her strongest spell, the very one that had earned her the 12th trial and the right to join the ranks of renowned Witches.

It was so powerful that she could even trace the lingering threads of fate in inanimate things, reading the history bound to a mere stone or a stagnant puddle.

But this time, after a while, her face frowned. Something was wrong.

’Why can’t I see any trace?’

Usually, when she used this spell, she would see glowing points scattered across the world, each one linked to a pivotal moment in the target’s past.

Where they came from, what paths they had walked, who they had come into contact with, countless details like these should have shown up as glowing points on the planet she was looking at now.

Yet for some reason, she could not see a single glowing point.

’Is he protected by some powerful spell?’ She started biting her nail, clearly troubled.

Before sending her to the Winterborne mansion, Seraphina had given her a short briefing about the boy whose origin and past she wanted her to look into.

She had said she guessed the boy might come from a great, or even an ancient family.

So if that was true, there was a good chance that family had placed a spell on the boy before abandoning him, a spell that erased his whole past, and maybe even his future.

If that was the case, someone like Azelith, who had only just completed her 12th trial, would have no way to remove a spell that powerful.

Just as she was about to give up and deactivate the spell, her eyes finally caught a glimmer.

This, however, did not bring relief or happiness to her face. Instead, shock appeared.

’How can that be possible?’

The glimmer she had been looking for was not actually on the planet. It was something far away, deep in the endless darkness that stretched out behind the planet.

It was not just one glimmer either. There were two of them, standing side by side in a strange way.

It was the first time she had ever seen anything like this. She wanted to see more. She wanted to know where the glimmer was really coming from.

She opened her eyes wide, trying to see those two small glimmers inside the endless abyss.

That was the moment she realized she had crossed a line she should have never dared to touch.

The two small lights began to grow right before her eyes.

They grew and grew. After a while, they became so massive that they even dwarfed the size of the planet beneath her.

Azelith’s pupils dilated, trembling in terror. Her entire spiritual form froze solid as a wave of paralyzing dread overwhelmed her.

What she was looking at now stood there like two giant suns, unbelievably bright, bright enough to burn her sight away.

Soon, though, she understood they were not suns at all.

The glimmers began to move, opening like two eyelids, revealing what was hidden behind them.

’’O Unfeeling Mother... please have mercy.’’

A trembling prayer slipped from Azelith’s lips as the deep black of her wide pupils slowly lost their color, turning a dead, faded gray.

The last thing her eyes pictured in her memory before she went blind was the massive planet, painted in countless colors, and behind it, two even more massive eyes staring straight at her.