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Chapter 629: The Executor

Roel had been analyzing one key problem before he embarked on his journey to save Alicia: How can I bring Alicia back?

Alicia was a tricky enemy to deal with. Not only was she tremendously powerful, but she also boasted incredible recovery prowess. Even if Roel was able to temporarily overpower and subdue her, she could recover within moments and counterattack.

One solution was to keep Alicia in a severely wounded state, but that wasn’t an option for Roel… even if it was possible to pull that off at all.

Alicia’s Divine Domain was overwhelmingly powerful. Just the Black Moon itself was enough to render him helpless and keep him at bay, and there were two sides to the moon. Ironically, that was also what gave him a chance at victory.

He had intentionally baited out Alicia’s strongest attack with Grandar’s overwhelming might, so that he could utilize the Witch Queen’s Divine Domain to return the attack. This would at least temporarily stall Alicia, thus opening a small window for him to act.

While the Black Moon and the silver moonlight were vying for supremacy in the sky, Roel took this opportunity to rush toward Alicia and hold her in his arms.

Not having expected such a move, Alicia’s body stiffened up, and her crimson eyes widened in shock. Before she could retaliate, Roel dished out the decisive move.

“Edavia!”

An orange-haired girl appeared behind him. She placed her hand on Alicia’s forehead and declared with a sinister smile, “It’s all over now.”

“!”

Alicia’s soul violently jolted, causing her to reflexively hug Roel back tightly before passing out.

As soon as she passed out, the powers of the silver moonlight and the Black Moon dwindled, and the ocean beneath quivered. Her Divine Domain shattered into fragments, and these fragments dissipated into iridescent lights that flowed back into her body.

Roel retracted his mana as well.

The long battle had finally come to an end.

…

Soul suppression.

That was the only way Roel could think of to bring Alicia back safely after lots of contemplation.

On the night of a full moon, it would only take mere seconds for Alicia to heal any superficial injuries, but the same couldn’t be said about her soul. Souls were the weakness of all beings, which was why Sia had to impose greater restrictions on the Spiriteers in the ancient era.

The body and the soul were so intricately linked that the condition of one could affect the other. Spiriteers were known for their ability to weaken others by disrupting their soul, and Edavia, the Spiriteer Sovereign, was so powerful that she could influence Origin Level 1 transcendents with just her touch.

Shaking up Alicia’s soul would significantly weaken her fighting prowess, though that was not Roel’s primary motive.

His true goal was to have Edavia shake up Alicia’s memories as a human.

He was confident that Alicia would return of her own accord as long as she regained her memories. Conversely, if she didn’t regain her memories, she would remain a ticking time bomb no matter how he tried to placate her.

Fortunately, this feat was not too difficult for the Spiriteer Sovereign to pull off.

“Memories are a key element to the soul; neither can be separated from the other.”

“So, are you able to do it?”

“Of course. It isn’t anything difficult.”

On the nighttime plains, Roel rested against a cliff face while holding an unconscious Alicia in his arms. Edavia floated over to Alicia’s side and placed her hand on her forehead. Specks of light flowed from her as she channeled her spell.

Moments later, a frown formed on Alicia’s forehead. She squirmed around uneasily as if she was having a nightmare.

“What’s wrong? Did you stumble upon some difficulties?”

“How should I put this? I encountered some resistance from her.”

“Resistance?”

“This child is averse to remembering her memories as a human,” Edavia analyzed as she patted Alicia’s head.

Is she afraid? Why? Roel was stunned.

He had known from Alicia’s letter that she had her frustrations over the years, but having lived together for so many years, he was confident that those memories shouldn’t be painful to her.

This was not to say that she didn’t have bad memories. There was a period of time that she was bullied by her peers, but that matter had been resolved, and she had overcome her weakness too. Besides, the culprits of the incident, the Elrics, were no longer around.

What is she afraid of? Roel found himself wondering.

“Can you tell the reason behind her fear?”

“The reason is straightforward, but it’s hard to explain.”

“Does she have bad memories about the Ascart House? Or… is it because of me?”

“It’s related to you, but it isn’t a bad thing. It’s the contrary, actually.” Edavia glanced at the unconscious Alicia as she struggled to find the words to express herself. “You can say that she’s unable to come to terms with reality. She can’t accept the fact that the two of you are now mortal enemies, and it fills her with fear. That’s why she’s subconsciously rejecting those memories.”

“…” Roel was stunned, as he finally understood how Alicia felt.

He had been enemies with the Mother Goddess prior to the most recent Witness State, as shown from how he had destroyed one of Her God’s Envoys, Flooding Death, and contributed to Rosa’s operation to vanquish the Saints Convocation in recent years.

Yet, Alicia had inherited the Mother Goddess’ powers and became the Six Calamities’ commander. This placed her in a position where she had no choice but to be antagonistic to Roel, which was difficult for her to bear.

That might have led her to subconsciously forget about her memories as a human in order to cope with her internal turmoil.

Roel nodded understandingly as he hugged Alicia even tighter.

Some time later, Edavia finally finished her work.

“Is it over now?”

“It is, but she suffered a heavy blow too. It’ll take time for her to process those memories.”

“I see.”

Roel nodded before abruptly falling onto the ground with Alicia still in his arms. Bit by bit, his consciousness began to fade.

While he was the final victor, it had been an arduous fight. He had to push both his body and his soul to their limits, greatly exhausting himself in the process. On top of that, he had to bear the side effects of the serums and the Crown’s Stones, and he had sustained considerable injuries too.

He was only glad that there was no white fog nor aurora in the sky.

Those two Calamities had temporarily left the area to avoid affecting Alicia’s Divine Domain, and that gave him some room to take a breather.

Lying on the grass, admiring the starry sky while feeling Alicia’s warmth, Roel’s tense mental state finally loosened a little. It had taken two days, but he had managed to find Alicia and fulfill her wish before the worst could happen.

This was no guarantee that she would return to his side, but this was all he could do. It was up to her to decide what she wanted to do after regaining her memories.

“I might have been thinking too much about the final plan,” Roel murmured.

This moment of peace after the conclusion of the bitter battle put his mind at ease. It was hard to remain vigilant when his mind and his body were at their limit. His eyelids grew increasingly heavy, as his brain gradually stalled to a halt.

As soon as a spell was cast on him to temporarily alleviate his pain, he went into deep sleep.

…

In a distant fortress, a white-haired old man was feeling awfully nervous.

Antonio tightly clutched his staff as he looked at the everchanging bundle of iridescent light inside the barrier before him. Behind him, Carter looked at the light bundle with a respectful demeanor.

Inside the light bundle was Astrid Arde, the Twilight Sages Assembly’s ‘Academic’ and an ancestor of the Ascarts from a thousand years ago.

Even though Astrid wasn’t from the main lineage, she was a hero who had played a vital role in humankind’s peace and stability for centuries by controlling the Chaos Dream, ensuring that the Savior remained in hibernation.

It was also for that reason that the Fallens saw her as a thorn in their back.

Four hundred years ago, Magician King Priestley Maxwell fell for the Fallens’ temptation of eternal life and confronted Astrid, hoping to steal the Chaos Dream from her. To protect the Chaos Dream, Astrid fused it into her dream world and ended up falling into a deep sleep.

It was only recently that Antonio, with Roel’s help, managed to separate the two entities from each other. Since then, Astrid had been showing increasing signs of awakening, slowly building up to this moment.

Earlier in the evening, just as Carter finished his dinner, Antonio suddenly dropped by and informed him that Astrid would awaken tonight. As the Ascart House’s patriarch, he regarded this matter with great importance. To express his sincerity, he quickly followed Antonio to this place and patiently waited.

Hours later, the Chaos Dream finally began to react.

“Lord Antonio, what’s happening?”

“Lord Astrid is tearing away from the Chaos Dream! If nothing goes wrong, she should be able to fully awaken by the end of today!” Antonio exclaimed excitedly like a child.

“That’s great.”

Carter was taken aback by Antonio’s excitement, but he understood where Antonio was coming from, especially since Roel had previously told him about their relationship.

Time ticked by.

The bundle of iridescent light began to expand and contract as if it was breathing, spilling out a huge amount of mana with each breath. This caused the dream barrier to waver unstably.

Before anything could happen to the dream barrier, dream spirits resembling specks of light suddenly appeared in huge droves to stabilize the dream barrier. At the same time, a blurred, flickering silhouette pushed through the walls of the dream barrier to enter the real world.

The moment the silhouette tore away from the Chaos Dream, a blinding light flooded out of the dream barrier. Under the embrace of the dream spirits, the hero who had protected humankind for many years finally opened her iridescent eyes.

Antonio hurriedly changed his appearance into how he looked centuries ago, before Astrid had gone into hibernation, before hesitantly calling out, “Teacher.”

“You are… Antonio,” Astrid muttered as she looked at the familiar face with dazed eyes.

“Y-yes, it’s me.” Antonio could hardly stop his voice from quivering.

Instead of a touching reunion, Astrid suddenly widened her iridescent eyes as if she had remembered something, and she anxiously grabbed her disciple’s shoulder and exclaimed, “Antonio, you have to bring Roel back right away!”

“Roel?”

Antonio and Carter were taken aback. They hadn’t thought that Astrid, who had been in slumber all this while, would know about Roel.

Astrid noticed their confusion and hurriedly explained, “I dreamed about his journey in his Witness State, but that’s not important now! You have to bring the kid back right away! The final plan has been invoked! The executor isn’t the Ackermanns, but Carolyn Ascart!”

“!”

Antonio and Carter were horrified.

On the moonlit plains, Roel, despite being fast asleep, suddenly woke up and looked toward the distant darkness.