Chapter 346: Bygones (Part III)
Translator: Meh/TransN Editor: - -
"Well ... does this count as High Awakening?" asked the prince.
Elsa didn't know what to say for a moment. What was left in her brain was - how could this be?
The Holy City had been forgotten, and the Union had been destroyed. There was nowhere for the witches to receive training and guidance, so it was only logical that the witches' abilities declined. But what did she just see? A newly matured witch had received two promotions. This couldn’t be explained by luck. After all, even in the Union, the home of geniuses, a witch like this was still very rare.
Furthermore, if she heard correctly (serve her right is only for memory, not for eyes or ears), there were three more of them who were equally talented as Anna?
Elsa stared at the man with gray hair motionlessly. It was some time before she could recover, "This... should count as High Awakening, but I don't have the Stone of Measuring, so I can't measure her change in skill." She paused, her throat feeling dry. "I want to ask, if I may, what did Anna experience during her awakening? She seemed to have come of age not long ago. Could these two awakenings have happened in only the past one or two years?"
It was not until she finished talking that she realized she had used honorifics. The status of a witch couldn’t be inherited. Even if a great number of common people were put together, there was no guarantee a capable witch would come out of them. Thus, a witch’s level was usually decided based on capability instead of origin. According to Anna's ability, she was already qualified to be a high-level member of the Union. Compared to herself, Elsa felt that Anna was at least her equal, if not her superior.
Any awakened senior was worthy of respect.
"My first awakening happened after I exhausted my magic power while fighting against demonic beasts. As to the second awakening, I think it was caused by my learning of knowledge."
"Knowledge ..." she was startled, "what kind of knowledge?"
"Ahem, this can be discussed later," the Prince cleared his throat. "Now let's get back to the topic we were discussing earlier. What do Alice and Experiment of God's Punishment Army exactly mean?"
"Indeed, if he wasn't lying to me, this knowledge must contain something extraordinary in itself. That was why Anna could awaken a new ability through epiphany. So it's understandable that he didn't want to elaborate on it before he could trust me." Elsa could not help but feel excited. Enhancing the chance of evolution had extraordinary significance toward witches. If she could figure out its mechanism, reviving the Union wouldn't be impossible.
Then again, where did he acquire this knowledge from? This place is but a barbarian land. How could a bunch of peasants like him understand the secrets of magic power?" She was full of confusion. What had the world become in these 400 years?
Elsa put those intractable problems aside for the time being. "Alice was very powerful. With the help of God’s Stone of Retaliation, she wouldn't be defeated even faced with several Lords of Hell. However, there were too few Transcendents. Put differently... the lack of diversity in our ability led to our defeat."
"Diversity?"
"That’s right. A witch wouldn't know what kind of ability she would have before awakening. But according to the Union's calculation, only ten percent of all the witches were fit for combat - the same ratio could be applied to Extraordinary Witches. As to what the ratio was of combat witches that were actually promoted, no one knew. There was a period of time when not a single witch was promoted within 50 years. Thus, actually the fighting ability of the Union was very unstable."
"So mortals may necessarily awaken, the awakened may not be good at combat, and combat experience doesn't necessarily lead to capability. Is this what you mean?" the prince said with one hand fumbling his chin.
"That's about right," Elsa sighed. "We formed a guard platoon composed of mortals to compensate for the witches’ number shortage, but ... mortals could not defeat demons." Even equipped with God’s Stones of Retaliation, they were still far from being able to fight against the mighty Mad Demon. Under this unfavorable situation, Alice ordered the Quest Society to research warriors that could break through the limits of the human body. Judging from this scrawled note, it seemed that she had succeeded ..."
"Seemed?" the prince said in curiosity. "Didn't you say that you were a member of the Quest Society?"
"Indeed. But ever since the order was issued, I left the Taquila Quest Society and began to build my own lab in the Misty Forest." She bit her lips and hesitated for a moment before proceeding. "They quickly found the solution, which was to unite witches and mortals by force with the help of God’s Stone of Retaliation, but... this process required them to consume the witches' lives. I couldn't accept this approach. I believed that the Quest Society should focus on exploring the use of God's Stone of Retaliation, rather than using witches as consumable resources. What's written on the note is right. This behavior would only bring destruction to witches."
The prince looked a bit shocked, "Using witches as consumable resources?"
"Alice did this out of helplessness. At that time Taquila was on the verge of destruction," Elsa felt the prince somehow looked a bit pleasing to the eye when she saw that he showed an expression of sympathy. "But now the Union has vanished into thin air, it proves that this approach wasn’t able to proceed, and probably won't ever appear again."
After she finished talking, she bowed her head and fumbled the book with her hands, 'climb over the mountains, wade through the waters...' how familiar the slogans were. "Yet where are you now? How could I possibly revive the order all by myself?"
"But God's Punishment Army is still there."
Upon hearing this, Elsa's fumbling fingers suddenly froze. She looked at the prince with disbelief, "What... did you just say?"
"I am not sure whether this is a mere coincidence," the other said very slowly, as if he was looking for the appropriate wording. "The Church... the organization you've never heard of, established two cities at the grand opening in the middle of the Impassable Mountain Range. Those cities were named Holy Cities. The hunting of witches was also initiated by them. What's more, they also searched for orphans and street urchins, and brought them back to the monastery of the Holy City. Wendy was one of them who had escaped."
"The church had its own army and territory. Its most powerful warriors were from the God's Punishment Army. Those monsters who had lost their sanity had infinite strength and were almost as mighty as Extraordinary Witches. And their numbers were absolutely not few. Apart from that, they might even have owned a number of powerful witches, which is why I temporarily sealed your ability with the God’s Locket of Retribution." The prince laid out his hands, "Prior to what you told us... we had always thought that it was the church who established the Holy City of Taquila, fought against the demons, and left the ruins."
Elsa opened her mouth but was unable to utter a word. How could it be that an organization composed of mortals took away the most important secrets of the Union, hunted witches in return, and built God's Punishment Army to consolidate its rule? She suddenly had a splitting headache. So God's Punishment Army didn't vanish, but fell into the hands of an organization that hates witches! What on earth did the members of the Union do?
Wendy must have sensed her exhaustion and discomfort, because she gently pushed Elsa down onto the bed, and said in a low voice, "Let's call it a day. Have a good night’s sleep. Rest assured that we will find out the reason."
Then, she felt something loosened from her ankle-the God’s Locket of Retribution was taken off by Anna. The crowd left the room one by one, and the gray-haired prince was the last.
As the door being closed behind him, Elsa heard some calm steady words.