Chapter 369 The Illusion is Shattered
The flames of battle continued to burn within the Tower.
Meanwhile, outside the Tower, the waiting witches were bored out of their minds!
It had only been four hours since the Tower of Fate's activation and the closing of its gates. There hadn't been any commotion since.
That said, the sky wasn't all that peaceful either.
Every once in a while, a brilliant beam of light cut through the sky and sank into the walls of the Tower.
This phenomenon had caught Greem's attention as well.
He had performed a few subtle experiments of his own earlier. Neither Spirit nor elementium spells could pass through that mysterious force enveloping the Tower of Fate. Even the Infernal Tyrant that had his soul aura branded in its core had been completely disconnected from him. Contacting Alice was going to be impossible.
Greem had also secretly passed one of the Black Qiraji Resonating Crystals to Alice. He had wanted to rely on this to maintain communications. Sadly, even the Resonating Crystals that claimed to be able to overcome planar barriers wouldn't work!
Despite all these defenses, those colorful lights in the sky still managed to enter the Tower. Of course, Greem was shocked and surprised!
"Those fools. Still dreaming of resisting their fates when they have already turned into the mediums of fate itself. Did they think they could avoid the Battle of Fate by hiding as far away as possible? Kehkehkeh. In the end, they lost their only opportunity to survive! Hmph! Fools." An old witch with a hooked nose and sunken eyes looked up at the bright lights above her head and mocked.
Greem heard what she said, and his body trembled. He had a whole different feeling when he once again looked at these rainbow lights.
These weren't spells, but the lives of candidates!
There had only been one hundred and fifty candidates that entered the Tower of Fate when the Battle of Fate started. Were there so few people who had awakened to their talent for fate across the entire Continent?
Of course not!
Greem had talked with the Death Witches before this, and he knew that at least three or four hundred candidates would appear every time a lost witch legacy surfaced. That meant that only a third of the total candidates had reached the Tower of Fate.
Were the ones that went into hiding able to ensure their survival?
Greem fell silent as he looked at the rainbow lights streaking through the sky.
It didn't matter where you were or how powerful you were. Once the Tower of Fate closed, all absent candidates received the backlash from the planar laws. The talent of fate that had brought them unlimited glory was now a lethal poison that stole their lives.
At this moment, across many hidden locations on the Continent, countless fate candidates were wailing and crying in agony. They prayed and begged.
But it was useless.
An unknown fire of the laws ignited in the depths of their souls. Their bodies, flesh, bones, organs; everything they had burned to ashes. The essence of all their body and soul was concentrated and refined into a mysterious substance and attached to a trace of the power of fate. Then the material, along with the sliver of fate, was sent all the way to the Tower.
This scene repeated all over the world. No one could stop it, and no one dared to.
These individuals that had given up on the Battle of Fate forfeited their last chance to fight for survival. The moment the gates of the Tower of Fate closed, all the candidates that remained outside were doomed to suffer the backlash from the laws of fate. They were transformed into the most concentrated and purest nutrition, waiting within the core of the Tower for the birth of the new Witch of Fate.
Why was it that every Witch of Fate that came to power was so suddenly able to gain influence and authority? Why was the new Witch of Fate so important as to be noticed by every single witch branch?
This event was the reason!
With the nutrition to empower them, any newborn Witch of Fate was able to climb to the ranks of Second Grade, and even Third Grade, powerhouses within a short period. Of course, whether they could reach the levels of the Fourth Grade witch leaders depended on the talent of the individual.
Still, would a person that managed to become the Witch of Fate lack in talent?
What a joke of a question!
That was why the new Witch of Fate was destined to become a Fourth Grade powerhouse. The only question was how long it would take for her to reach that level. Naturally, the Witch Council would have to provide this future Fourth Grade witch with the necessary respect and authority.
It meant that if Alice won the Battle of Fate, she was very likely to rapidly rise to a level where Greem could only look up towards. At that time, the dynamics of their relationship were likely to reverse.
It wouldn't be Alice needing Greem's power anymore. Instead, it would be Greem who would have to rely upon Alice!
Greem possessed a rather sharp eye.
Ever since he had heard about the Battle of Fate from Endor, he had been searching through ancient records and learning all he could about the Battle of Fate and the Witches of Fate. It was at that moment that he came up with this plan to hasten the development of his powers and his future influence.
A one-time investment for a return that would last him his whole life!
If he bet correctly, he would have a high-grade witch covering his back. His life would be a breeze afterward!
Even if he did lose the bet, all he would suffer was the loss of some materials and objects that didn't impact his own body. He was a registered adept of the Sarubo Clan within the Zhentarim area. The Northern Witches were unreasonable, but they still lacked sufficient reason to kill him. As long as he didn't resist, nothing would happen to him. The worst was that being caught by the Witch Council meant being shut in jail for a couple of years.
After all, he had only killed the adept due to the enemies' provocation. He hadn't initiated the fight. Not to mention, the adept wasn't part of the Northern Witches. Looking beyond the Witches of Deceit's malicious intent, the Witch Council had absolutely no reason to put him to death over this!
Moreover, Greem already had a plan.
Even if he did fail and was captured, he would use his last spacestone to negotiate for his freedom. If Alice died here, there would be a massive hole in his plan to invade another plane. That wasn't something that he could easily account for. Thus, there would not be much meaning in keeping the spacestone any longer.
It was due to his plans that Greem had never ordered Alice around as a 'master' would. Instead, he had always thought about things for Alice's benefit and treated her as an equal. All this because he didn't want to ruin their relationship!
Their fragile master-slave contract would probably vanish the moment Alice succeeded to the Witch of Fate title!
After all, how could the powerful Witch of Fate ever be subordinate to a First Grade male adept? Keeping such thoughts to oneself was fine. But if Greem ever tried to make it a reality, the entirety of the Witch Council would tear him apart.
Greem had always treated Alice as a friend in all of their previous interactions. Such a relationship might have seemed fake and insincere, but it was a deception that carried with it a trace of honesty and sincerity.
Would Alice become a Second Grade or Third Grade Witch of Fate? The first thing she did when she met him wouldn't be to turn him into meat paste, would it? How much of his previous emotional investment would remain after she became the Witch of Fate?
All sorts of factors that were out of his control ran through Greem's mind. The wait became even more arduous and intolerable.
…………
Crash. The spider golem knocked down the walls of the mystical hall and charged into an odd place filled with strange runes.
The sea of radiance suddenly disappeared. All of the runes on the walls, ceilings, and the floorboard exploded, one after another. The destruction finally allowed the witches who were still trapped in that illusory world to break free.
Nearly half of the apprentices, and two of the witches, collapsed to the ground when the illusion vanished. They had lost their lives. The remaining people, on the other hand, started screaming and crying out loud in pain. They frantically threw spells and attacks in every direction. It was apparent that the side-effects from the illusion were not going to be undone so easily.
An ordinary-looking girl knelt beside a young witch. She closed the witch's mouth and used an extremely plain dagger to slit the throat of the witch slowly.
Oddly enough, the young witch's body surged with elementium aura while the mysterious girl was utterly harmless. Still, the young witch appeared to have entirely given up on resisting. She just lied there and allowed the girl to kill her.
The other witches had just broken free from the illusion. The impacts and tremors to their Spirits hadn't calmed down yet. The looked on as this unexpected occurrence happened before them, but they were still confused as to what was happening.
"That's her! Kill her!" Alice's sharp voice rang out from within the spider golem.
The next moment, the gigantic machine lunged at the girl in the crowd with unstoppable momentum.
The spider golem raised the front of its body while the compound eyes shot out energy beams of various colors. It stabbed forward at the girl with its massive claws.
Sofia and Snowlotus passed through the hole in the wall at this time. Their eyes also immediately fell upon the mysterious girl.
The girl was an invisible existence to those with less than ten points of the power of fate. Even if their eyes saw her, their minds automatically ignored her due to fate obscuring the fact.
However, for anyone with ten points and above, the girl was like a brilliant moon in the night. They couldn't ignore her even if they wanted to. The three favored ones completely disregarded everything else once they entered the hall. Their attention was drawn towards the strange and mysterious girl.
"Kill her!" The mysterious girl lifted her head. A brilliant light of intelligence glowed in the depths of her pitch-black eyes. She pointed at the spider golem and shouted, "She's the one behind the illusion. Let's work together and kill her first!"
Strangely enough, her voice was dull and emotionless. Even though there were no strange powers in her words, they still managed to affect all the witches around her.
The eight confused witches that had just broken out of the illusion immediately raised their staffs and wands. A torrent of spells blasted towards the spider golem.