Chapter 562 – Shrine Maiden’s Lie

Just looking at the descriptions in that manual made the Hex seem utterly terrifying. I don’t doubt that my Chaos power and Xuan Yu’s Order power will be able to keep them in check and defeat them easily, but the sheer fact that they were robots who cared about nothing but their own programming scared me. After all, no matter how many of them fell, they would just keep coming. So long as whoever was commanding them continued the order of “steal the Chaos from me”, the Hex would continue invading, over and over again.

With a sigh, I closed up the manual and stored it into my Space Locket. Things were going to be pretty damn bad if destroying the obelisks didn’t manage to stop the Hex’s invasion.

Heading over to the lever, I placed my hand on it, and hesitated for a moment.

What does that shrine maiden mean by erasing all of her burdens…?

That’s what I was questioning. What was pulling this lever going to do, exactly?

But oh well. That was not any of my concern anyway. This is what she wanted in exchange for information on the location of the obelisk, so this is what I’ll do for her. An equal trade. As for what happens after I pull this thing… only she knows, and only she should care.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, and mustered all of my strength into pulling the lever. It was tight—even with my vampiric and angelic powers, it was difficult to pull. Still, though, I managed to activate it in the end, and immediately, the girls and I heard the sound of gears spinning all around us. Mechanisms, if you will. A deep rumbling thundered through the walls as the ground shook a little, and debris began falling onto our heads from the ceiling.

“Uhhhhh, was this supposed to happen?” Feng Mian asked, and I shook my head.

“Hell if I know! Let’s go!”

The girls and I dashed out of the tower as fast as we could, right before the ceiling caved in and collapsed. But that was not the end of it—as we emerged on the outside, Qing Yue pointed to the top of the tower, where the snake sigil was.

“Look, look!”

We all watched in stunned silence as rays of light raced up the edges of the tower, converging and writhing together at the top to form a beautiful glowing yellow outline on the snake carving. It grew brighter and brighter, whiter and whiter, until we could no longer look at it and could only cover our eyes as everything around us was absorbed by the light.

Several seconds later, we reopened our eyes, and found that everything was back to the way it was—only, the tower that had been in front of us… was no longer there. I’m not talking about it being destroyed—I’m talking like it wasn’t even there in the first place, with no sign of it ever being there at all. An explosion or something couldn’t have been that clean in the tower’s removal… so what happened?

“This is… really weird,” Feng Mian said at last, voicing all of our thoughts, and I nodded.

“Yeah… it sure is. But regardless, that shrine maiden probably has answers,” I said. “Standing around here isn’t going to solve any of our problems, so let’s head back.”

The girls nodded in agreement, and together, we headed back to the location we came here from, where the shrine maiden was.

*****

… Or rather, should’ve been.

When we arrived back at the half-broken temple, we found that the shrine maiden was no longer there. In fact, the temple itself was no longer there either. Instead, it was now replaced by a simple rock wall that seemed to be part of the nature surrounding it, with no oddities out of the ordinary.

On the way back here, we noticed that all the riversnakes’ infrastructures and buildings were gone as well. The libraries, the pools, the arcades, everything. It was as if the civilization never existed in the first place, and what we’d seen up until now was a mere illusion. A dream.

But I knew. It was not as simple as just a dream.

After all… the shrine maiden left us one final clue: a note, scribbled in messy but legible handwriting. It read as follows:

Thank you, traveler.

I apologize for not telling you the full story. I could not bring myself to. After all, you would never have agreed to the deal if I told you this is what I meant, would you? I’m sorry. But this is all I can do.

No matter who you are, there is no way to run from your past. There is no method to truly relieve oneself of their burdens, no matter how hard they try. That’s why… I will be selfish, just this once. I will transfer my burdens onto you, then rest easy knowing the story of my people will not be forgotten—at least, not for another generation. I have done my duty, if that is the case.

Forgive me for my selfishness and weakness, traveler. You can forget about us if you so wish. But so long as you remembered even for a moment, that is all that matters.

Every story has an end. This… is mine.

P.S. I did not forget about the deal we made. Look on the back of this note.

“…” I held the sheet of paper in my hand, unsure of what to make of it. The girls, who read it in their minds already, were similarly silent.

I mean, what was I supposed to say to this? What even was I supposed to feel? Mad? Sad? Neither of those emotions quite seemed to fit. I didn’t know this person well enough to feel sad, and it wasn’t really good to be getting mad at a dead person.

In the end, all four of us decided to just remain silent about the letter, and focus on the task ahead of us. I flipped the note around and saw what looked like a map, with the obelisk’s location along with ours marked. Following this, it should be easy to make it there.

Still, though… the death of the shrine maiden hung in the atmosphere, making it tense and somewhat awkward.