As the sun tilted westward, spilling golden light over Saint Creti Monastery, the entire world seemed bathed in tranquil peace.
The monastery's walls, windows, and towers took on a faint red glow beneath the sunset.
After a long chat with Violet, Lanqi and Sigrid left the big gray cat in her ward. Then, departing the grand garden of the Elsaya Sanctuary Healing Center, they set out toward the spot Violet had suggested where the Star of Oblivion might be found.
"Based on my understanding of the Ancient Cyros script, the Star of Oblivion signifies that experiencing the past one more time might leave no regrets, allowing one to let go of what came before and step toward the future. But for someone unable to let go, using it might only make them more obsessed. And for someone who has already moved on, whether they use it or not doesn't really matter."
Lanqi and Sigrid rounded the cloister on the monastery's east side and descended a flight of stone steps, the view before them opening up wide.
He continued chatting with Sigrid as they walked along the eastern grounds of the monastery.
Although the Star of Oblivion's possible burial site was merely Violet's deduction based on Hyacinthus's past explorations of Saint Creti Monastery long ago, they trusted that Violet's guess wouldn't be far off. After all, Violet was the monastery's headmistress and high priestess; having grown up here, she knew this vast monastery better than anyone.
An endless lake lay quietly cradled within the ancient architecture.
"This seems to be the monastery's Perennial Snow Lake."
Though Lanqi had been at the monastery for quite some time, he had only ever passed by in the distance and had never truly stood at the water's edge.
Sourced from ancient glacial meltwater, it had never once frozen over, even in the bitterest winter winds.
The lake was as clear as a mirror, reflecting the twilight colors of the sky. From pale gold near the shore to deep emerald green in the distance, it resembled a sparkling, translucent turquoise gem.
"It really is gorgeous. Much more magnificent than the lake at your Protos Royal Magic Academy."
Sigrid and Lanqi strolled along the wide path beside the lake.
The southern shore opened into a spacious clearing, its ground cover glistening softly under the setting sun.
A handful of verdant spruces stood along the bank, birds occasionally perching among their boughs, and just a few steps farther ahead, an unbroken line of natural stone tablets stood erect.
"Violet guessed the Star of Oblivion is at the bottom of this lake because she noticed Hyacinthus's hair was wet when he left that day, as if he'd gone into the water. And in this monastery, the only place deep enough to require Hyacinthus to dive personally is likely this lake."
Lanqi and Sigrid stood by a boulder at the shore, gazing out at the calm surface.
Even for them, gauging the true depth of this magic-infused lake was no simple task.
"Diving down to blindly dredge up the star is actually pretty dangerous. On one hand, magic gets disrupted down there, and if you accidentally touch the Star of Oblivion underwater, you might fall into an illusion and drown."
Resting her chin on her hand, Sigrid analyzed the situation.
"Still, no worries. Your Bishop has a way."
She snapped her fingers lightly. A silver brilliance bloomed over the grass, and a silver figure appeared before them.
The puppet gleamed with a bizarre silver glow from head to toe, as if draped in a gossamer veil woven from starlight.
"Oh, isn't this the silver puppet you left to protect me back then?"
Lanqi recognized the golem.
Although this humanoid puppet formed of silver light lacked a face, its silhouette was identical to Sigrid's, exuding an immensely formidable aura.
Back when they encountered Askesan in Bandera City on the Protos Empire's northern border, Sigrid had gone to fight Askesan and left this very summon beside Lanqi to protect him.
[Telekinetic Puppet]
[Category: Summon Card]
[Rarity: Pink Sacred]
[Attributes: Telekinesis / Link]
[Tier: 8]
[Effect: Gains 80% of the summoner's base attributes.]
[Remarks: Mastering this puppet requires finesse, talent, hard work, and sweat.]
It had been a long time since he last saw it. Back then, Lanqi hadn't been able to appraise its stats, but now he could finally see them clearly.
Logically speaking, this puppet was rather underwhelming among Tier 8 Sacred cards, as it couldn't replicate the summoner's spells or martial arts. For instance, while the Lord of Bones's clones inherited very low base attributes, they possessed all of the original's spells.
For Sigrid, however, this puppet happened to be the most fitting summon.
The sole drawback was that among spell cards, equipment cards, and summon cards, summon cards consumed the most mana, and once summoned, they required continuous mana upkeep. Under high-pressure conditions, given that Sigrid's mana pool wasn't particularly abundant, using her mana to cast buffs and healing spells on herself was far more cost-effective than keeping a puppet clone summoned.
The silver puppet came to a halt in front of Sigrid and Lanqi, bowing slightly.
"Help me search underwater for a piece of dark meteoric iron. At night it emits light and carries illusion-attribute magical fluctuations. Also, remember not to disturb the lake's ecology—keep your movements minimal."
Sigrid instructed.
"Understood, Lord Bishop."
Though mechanical and ethereal, the silver puppet's voice was firm and resonant. It walked toward the center of the lake and submerged in an instant.
Ripples spread outward, but the water soon regained its stillness, as if nothing had happened at all.
All was quiet.
"So we just wait now? If only my Poet of Great Love were this obedient."
Lanqi exchanged a glance with Sigrid.
"Yep. Let's go sit on that bench over there for a while."
Sigrid pointed toward the stone bench behind them.
"Though with Lanfu's personality, if she ever suddenly started obeying your every word, you'd probably need to start worrying,"
she added.
"Old Fu? Her effects don't work on me anyway. At worst, she'd just kick me twice."
Lanqi smiled and walked over with Sigrid. The two sat down together on the bench, leaning comfortably against the backrest to watch the sunset.
"Taking in the sky like this is quite nice, too."
The lake reflected the golden sunset glow, blending seamlessly with the sky.
Twilight gathered as the light grew dimmer, leaving only a lingering trace of afterglow at the horizon.
Deep in the heart of the lake, a flicker of light illuminated.
At first it was just a faint spark, but gradually more appeared, like emerging constellations or flickering fireflies.
Countless points of silver light converged, flowed, and swirled at the lakebed, ultimately weaving into a vast net that spread across the murky depths.
"Looks like the Telekinetic Puppet won't take long to find it."
Sigrid was certain that this silver glow was the sign of the Telekinetic Puppet hard at work underwater.
"There's no rush anyway. Legend says the Star of Oblivion only projects its illusion under the gaze of starlight once night has fully fallen."
Lanqi relaxed completely, leaving behind any trace of his working demeanor.
"Aren't you bored, wasting time here with me?"
Sigrid turned her head to ask.
This afternoon was supposed to be their date, but now it had turned into sitting by the lake, whiling away the hours watching the sky.
Back when they went on a date in Herrom, they spent almost the entire day running around exploring the city, rarely idling away time with such leisurely abandon.
"If this counts as wasting time, then wasting a whole lifetime like this sounds pretty nice."
Lanqi felt only the carefree bliss that came after finishing work, his voice tinged with a languid warmth rarely heard from him.
"Oh my, Holy Son, why are you suddenly saying things like that?"
Sigrid covered her mouth with a soft chuckle, leaning over to nudge him gently with her shoulder.
"Come to think of it, back on the train in the Protos Empire, we couldn't stop talking either. Even though we barely knew each other back then, we hit it off surprisingly well."
Lanqi reminisced about the past.
"Boss Cat even called the two of us chatterboxes back then."
Sigrid nodded in agreement.
"Meow meow, are you two talking about me?"
A familiar, childish voice drifted from behind them, and both turned to look over the back of the bench.
A small black cat was floating leisurely toward them through the air.
When they left Violet's ward earlier, they had used communication magic to contact Boss Cat, telling it to come meet them by the monastery's lake.
"Why did you call me back, meow?"
Boss Cat floated around the two on the stone bench, asking suspiciously.
It had been having a marvelous time outside Saint Creti Monastery playing with Antanas and the others when Sigrid's message suddenly called it back.
Yet here it found the two simply lounging on a lakeside bench, chitchatting—and apparently talking about it, no less.
"To take you along for something fun."
Sigrid scooped Boss Cat into her arms and spoke to the little black feline.
Their previous expedition to the northern frontier of Protos had been an adventure shared by the two of them and Boss Cat. If they were going to revisit old memories, Boss Cat couldn't be left out.
"Meow? How fun?"
Boss Cat wondered what fun thing could possibly exist in the monastery that it didn't already know about.
Recalling their adventures across the Northern Continent, whenever Lanqi and Sigrid got together, they seemed to indulge in incredibly dangerous antics every single day. The period when its nine lives had been most in jeopardy was precisely while tagging along with these two across the Protos Empire.
Still, Saint Creti Monastery was safe right now, so it tentatively assumed they weren't tricking it into anything too extreme.
"Very, very fun."
"So where are we going now, meow?"
"Just wait right here."
"Wait here, meow?"
"That's right."
The last warm crimson trace of twilight faded from the horizon, and night enveloped the entirety of Saint Creti Monastery.
A bright, round moon quietly climbed into the night sky, casting a cool silver radiance over the earth alongside a sky full of stars.
The mirror-smooth lake reflected the pure moonlight above, its glistening ripples resonating with the celestial river of stars.
The silver light intensified until the entire lake surface shone as bright as day.
A beam of light shot straight up from the lakebed, converging into a dazzling pillar of brilliance midair.
"Looks like it succeeded."
Lanqi and Sigrid's faces were bathed in pure white light, their eyes sparkling with delight.
In the center of the light pillar, a figure swam upward at blistering speed, churning the lake water into boiling silver-white foam wherever it passed.
"It's the silver puppet, meow."
Boss Cat stared at the summon breaking through the water's surface.
Back at their most perilous moment, this Telekinetic Puppet had provided Lanqi and it with no small sense of security; its memory of the puppet remained fresh.
The brilliant glow across the silver puppet gradually dimmed, dispersing into flecks of stardust that scattered on the evening breeze.
All that remained was what it clutched tightly in its hand: a deep blue ore, its surface furrowed like a fallen meteorite with sharp, angular edges, its crevices faintly pulsing with an eerie blue light.
"Doesn't it look a bit like a Void Gate from a Shadow World?"
Sigrid observed the ore's appearance, turning to ask Lanqi and Boss Cat.
"Its operating principle might be somewhat similar to Shadow Worlds and artificial Shadow Worlds. After all, they're both illusions—and illusions of the past at that,"
Lanqi evaluated.
The puppet presented the meteorite before them.
Boss Cat gingerly reached out a paw to touch the mineral, only for a wave of chilling cold to surge into its pad, making it shudder from head to tail.
"You two were waiting here just to find this rock, meow? Can you even play with it?"
Boss Cat couldn't detect anything extraordinary about the stone other than how freezing it was.
"If Violet was right, this should be the Star of Oblivion."
Sigrid first set Boss Cat on top of her head, then received the deep blue meteoric iron from the Telekinetic Puppet, carefully holding it flat in her palm.
It was exactly as Violet had described.
She gave it a gentle squeeze, and the outer shell cracked open. The gem inside possessed a surface smooth as satin, with kaleidoscopic stellar radiance swirling within.
"Lanqi, give me your hand."
Beneath the starlight, Sigrid already seemed to sense the gem's magical resonance, much like when she had fallen into the Land of Gentle Slumber back then. However, the Star of Oblivion's illusionary power was far less coercive; unless one let down their physical and mental guard, they wouldn't necessarily enter the illusion.
Lanqi placed his slender hand over her palm, hovering over the meteorite.
Sitting on the lakeside bench, the two gently closed their eyes, attempting to use the surging mana within their bodies to resonate with the ancient power slumbering within the stone.
At first, nothing happened.
Though their eyes were shut, there was only darkness before them.
All that could be heard was the gentle lap of lake water against the shore.
Gradually, however, the mana inside them grew increasingly calm, and a strange sensation of weightlessness welled up.
The boundaries of consciousness blurred. The real world receded at breakneck speed, replaced by a boundless void of chaos.
A low rumble sounded in their ears, rising and falling like a tide, washing over their nerves.
Their memories burst forth like a broken dam, shattering in an instant into bizarre, dazzling fragments, before steadily resolving into coherent, vivid imagery.
In their daze, the tactile sensations of reality drifted farther away until the moment they selected their memory anchor point. A wave of overwhelming vertigo crashed down, their souls nearly detaching from their bodies.
It felt as though a century had passed, yet also like a mere fleeting instant.
Snow fell along the border, about to blanket everything.
When they opened their eyes again, the view opened up wide before them.
What met their gaze was a boundless, rolling snowfield stretching out to the horizon.
A biting gale swept up sheets of snow, blurring their vision into a sea of pure white.
"Wh-Where is this, meow?!"
Boss Cat's voice sounded tiny and helpless against the howling wind as it realized the three of them were sitting on a sled hurtling forward at high speed.
Shivering uncontrollably, it scurried to wedge itself between Lanqi and Sigrid, who were its only two pillars of support in this unfamiliar world.
Boss Cat looked up. A lead-gray sky hung low, merging with the horizon so that one couldn't tell where the sky ended and the earth began. Huge snowflakes tumbled from above, threatening to swallow the entire world.
Their sled dashed across the dead center of the snowfield, appearing utterly minuscule amidst the vast, desolate white wilderness.
Tiny ice crystals pelted against their skin with stinging force, the freezing cold threatening to congeal their very blood.
"Boss Cat, don't you find this place familiar?"
Lanqi skillfully steered the sled, glancing around. As far as the eye could see, there was only vast white snow and the silhouette of a city just beginning to emerge in the distant horizon—not a trace of human life, not even a single tree.
"Meow?"
Boss Cat tilted its head at a forty-five-degree angle, launching its mind into deep contemplation.
Why had they suddenly ended up in this completely unfamiliar place?
How were they supposed to find a way out of this freezing wasteland?
Was this reality, a bizarre and absurd dream, or an illusion brought on by that gemstone just now?
Countless questions swirled in its head, yet none offered an answer.
Setting those doubts aside, however, it reflected on Lanqi's question and stared at the snowy city outline that was looking more and more familiar. A terrifying suspicion gradually dawned in its heart.
"We... aren't reliving the battle in the northern frontier demonic territory from a year ago, are we?!"
Boss Cat asked with a trembling voice, recalling their most terrifying, desperate ordeal.
"Bingo,"
Sigrid answered cheerfully.
"LET ME OFF THIS RIDE, MEOW MEOW MEOW!"
Boss Cat shrieked, its tail shooting straight up in horror.
This wasn't the ride to the amusement park at all!
Chapter 861