Although he did not see his teammates upon entering the Void Realm, Yaxiu was in no hurry.
After all, he had already checked all of his team members in "Void Realm Exploration," and more importantly, he had the Void Realm Map to check their positions. However, when he opened the Void Realm Map, his attention was immediately drawn to a newly appeared special mechanic.
Just as he was studying the mechanic, he suddenly heard someone call out to him.
"Watcher!"
"Here!" Yaxiu instinctively answered, raising his hand and looking around. Right away, he spotted that splash of crimson in the crowd.
Seeing her striding over, lips tightly pursed as she pushed through the crowd, eyes locked straight onto him, the cult leader found it a little amusing. *Haven't we only been apart for ten-odd days? Why does she look like we haven't seen each other in ten years? I'm not going to vanish, there's no need to be this emotional...*
Even so, the corners of his mouth couldn't help curving upward. He lowered his head, brushing his bangs aside with a finger, and all the gloom and annoyance from reality was instantly swept away.
Yaxiu walked briskly toward her, mentally calculating what his first words should be. Before entering the Void Realm, he had deliberately consulted Igola on how to quickly rekindle closeness with a friend after a long separation: should he go with a breezy "hehehehe," a calm "let's go find the Witch," a teasing "did you miss me after so many days?", a preemptive "how did you do in the Meteor Tribulation?", a flattering "wow, you're so pretty I almost didn't recognize you," or perhaps... But as the distance shrank, Yaxiu realized he couldn't put any of the routines Igola taught him to use. His inexplicably racing heartbeat seemed to overload his mental bandwidth, leaving his attention fixed solely on the target in his sight.
When there were no longer any passersby between them, noticing that the Sword Princess showed no sign of slowing down, Yaxiu subconsciously opened his arms, ready to welcome her.
Just at that moment—
"Wat—ch—er—!"
With a hurried cry, a soft, delicate body crashed straight into him, nearly knocking Yaxiu off his feet.
As he caught the newcomer, a hint of surprise leaked into his voice: "Witch?"
The Witch clung to him like an octopus, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck, head nuzzling against his shoulder, her pretty face radiant with an uninhibited smile. Surprised as he was by the Witch's sudden passion, her personality had always been mercurial, so Yaxiu wasn't too bewildered.
Moreover, the joy and reliance in the Witch's eyes made Yaxiu think of another little girl waiting for him, and his heart melted like sweet ice cream.
"Watcher! Watcher! Watcher! Watcher!" the Witch chanted like a song.
"Yes, yes, yes, I'm here," Yaxiu said with a chuckle. "Haven't seen you in a few days, and you've gotten even cuter, Witch."
"Mm-hmm!" The Witch affectionately rubbed her cheek against his, giggling.
"Shouldn't you get off him now?" Sonia, hand resting on her sword hilt at his side, said coldly. "It's only been ten-odd days. Is there really any need to be this worked up?"
"No!"
The Witch's reaction was vehemently stubborn. "I won't get down! I'm going to hold the Watcher forever!"
Both Yaxiu and Sonia stared at her in shock. While the Witch certainly had reason to hug the Watcher, going this far was bizarre under any circumstance.
Furthermore, though the Witch could be petulant and childish, she wasn't actually a child; she wouldn't normally throw such a tantrum.
A subtle change crossed the Witch's expression. The willful, spoiled demeanor quickly receded. She bashfully climbed down from Yaxiu and offered an excuse: "I was just too happy and got carried away. Sorry."
In Diya's mind, Little Witch Lisi was being pinned down by the Black Butler, while the White Queen pulled out the Red Apostle's copper-reinforced leather belt and struck Lisi's backside over and over, making Lisi cry out, "I was wrong! I'm sorry!"
Indeed, the one clinging to Yaxiu just now hadn't been Diya, but Lisi.
Now that Diya was Her Majesty the Empress, there was no longer any need to leave a personality behind to stand guard in reality. On top of that, Lisi had been relentlessly clamoring to see Papa in the Void Realm, so Diya brought her along and let her little sister take the chance to let loose in a long-awaited reunion.
Yet Diya knew what was at stake. She had to continue "keeping secrets" to maintain the Secret Incarnation's authority. Before she completely mastered the god "Gospel," if she leaked the secret in front of Yaxiu and the Secret-Keeping Authority failed, all of her personalities would be obliterated by Gospel's vast, overpowering consciousness.
Thus, Diya had laid down rules for Lisi: no calling him Papa, only Watcher; no revealing her situation; no asking about Igola or Harvey... Lisi had agreed to all of it and followed the rules, but Diya and the others hadn't anticipated that even if she couldn't call him Papa, the moment Lisi laid eyes on Yaxiu, she would still revert completely into a daughter.
Although the older sisters were angry that Lisi had crossed the line with her spoiled antics, Diya knew that down deep, everyone was quite happy—despite the cruel jokes of fate, the schemes of the god, and life's displacements, she could still hold Yaxiu in her arms.
However, they still had a difficult problem they had to face.
Diya turned her head slightly, only to collide with the Sword Princess's unabashed stare, and hastily turned back, pretending nothing was amiss.
The Sword Princess.
She too could meet Yaxiu every night; she too was a teammate Yaxiu had scouted; and what's more, she had known Yaxiu longer than Diya and her sisters had.
Back on the Time Continent, because the Sword Princess and the Watcher were constantly bickering and giving each other the cold shoulder, and because the Sword Princess kept badmouthing the Watcher in Diya's ear, Diya had never been quite sure what their relationship really was. After all, from her perspective back then, there wasn't anything special about the Watcher; Yaxiu was much better by comparison.
Yet once they learned that the Watcher was Yaxiu, the Witch sisters' perspective underwent a 180-degree reversal.
Because that was Yaxiu! Even they loved him, so how could the Sword Princess not?
The Black Butler had analyzed it like this: "She pretended to be in a cold war with Yaxiu and spoke ill of him to you solely to drive you away from him. She must have harbored designs on Yaxiu very early on, so from the moment we joined the team, she tried every trick to stop us from getting to know him."
"How despicable! If only we'd realized earlier that the Watcher was Yaxiu, maybe..."
Diya didn't really want to attribute such sinister motives to the Sword Princess, but regardless of what the Sword Princess thought, any woman appearing at Yaxiu's side was the Witch's enemy!
Compared to the Sword Princess, they had one immense advantage—they knew Yaxiu in reality!
The Sword Princess hadn't even touched Yaxiu in the real world yet!
Unfortunately, because of the Secret-Keeping Authority, Diya couldn't speak of this secret, rendering that advantage practically useless. But it didn't matter. Even if she couldn't reveal that she was Lisdia, she could still pursue a romance with Yaxiu openly and fairly as the Witch!
In fact, thinking about it carefully, this might not be a bad thing, because Diya had always wanted to draw a line between herself and Lisi. Given Yaxiu's personality, if he ever equated "Lisi" with "Diya," he would most likely treat her simply as family—family bound solely by kinship.
Even without the need to "keep secrets," Diya had originally planned to use a clean, brand-new identity to build a relationship with Yaxiu anew. Now, with no need to invent a new persona, continuing to use the Witch "account" to date Yaxiu was actually even more convenient.
Only after she and Yaxiu solidified a new relationship would Diya reveal her true identity. Therefore, although the "Secret-Keeping Authority" constrained her, it served as both a restriction and a motivation.
On the other side, Sonia stared at the flushed, red-eared Witch, deep suspicion stirring in her heart.
Before their previous parting, the Witch's attitude toward the Watcher had been typical of ordinary teammates. Why had she suddenly become so affectionate?
Since they hadn't met in the Void Realm, the cause could only be internal or external.
The internal cause would naturally be a drastic shift in the Witch's personality, while the external cause could only be... reality.
Of course, it was also possible that the Watcher and the Witch had met in the Void Realm behind her back, but Sonia refused to let her mind go there. It wasn't that she couldn't imagine it, but rather that if she did, she couldn't imagine what she might do.
The Witch had better just be overly excited... She'd better be.
Pushing down the irritation in her chest, Sonia turned to see Yaxiu looking all around, and couldn't help asking, "What are you looking for?"
"Looking for our new teammate." Yaxiu surveyed the surroundings and shouted, "Yulanweise!"
"I'm here," a soft, gentle voice answered from nearby.
Yet neither the Sword Princess nor the Witch looked at the newcomer. Instead, they stared at Yaxiu in shock—
Why do you call us by codenames, but call her by her actual name?!
Chapter 541