Self-Introduction

"So Weise knew you both in the Void Realm and in reality—just like the Witch..." There was a subtle, loaded undertone to Sonia's words. Diya blinked, hurriedly explaining, "Before you gave me the Soul Summoning sorcery spirit containing the 'concept of secrecy,' Yaxiu, I had no idea the Observer was Yaxiu at all! I didn't mean to hide it, but so much happened right after. I became the Gospel Incarnation, the Yisu Empress, and had to rely on the Secret-Keeping Authority within the 'concept of secrecy' just to resist the divine contamination. Back then, even if I wanted to confess, I couldn't. "It's only now, after I used the miracle of 'Overcoming the Superior' to barely hold back the Gospel god's influence, that I dare reveal my true identity." Yaxiu was taken aback and asked, "So when Lisi and I first met, you didn't actually know who I really was? You didn't recognize me in the Void Realm?" "Did you forget your Silver Blessing, 'Observer's Countenance'?" Diya countered. "In the Void Realm, I couldn't make out your face at all... It wasn't until after you left the Gospel Country that your 'Observer's Countenance' finally stopped working on me. "Besides, you deliberately avoided revealing anything about your circumstances in reality while in the Void Realm. How could I have ever connected the Observer and Yaxiu as the same person?" Yaxiu murmured, "I really had no idea it was like that..." He paused, looked at the two of them, and said, "Then... I might have met another Witch, and another Sword Princess." He told them about Black-and-White, who had signed a 'Non-Inquiry Treaty' with him, and Dead Frenzy, who had once visited him in Shattered Lake Prison. Sonia and Diya shook their heads repeatedly as they listened. "I never did anything like that. Wait..." Diya blinked, lost in thought. "Then it seems I met another Observer, too." "Me too," Sonia murmured. "He appeared by my side two or three times..." Yaxiu asked curiously, "It's one thing if I couldn't tell, but you two couldn't tell the difference either?" "No, because..." Sonia pondered, "his tone and personality were quite similar to yours, not glaringly obvious like the contrast between me and the Dead Frenzy you spoke of. Though thinking back carefully, he was a bit stricter and colder than you. It was just that back then I didn't know you very well, so at most I thought your moods were fickle. "Once we grew familiar with each other, he never appeared again." "It was the same for me," Yaxiu said. "We weren't very close at first, so I didn't think much of it, but after we became familiar, they stopped showing up." Now Yaxiu could be certain that Aurora's Sorcerer Handbook had hidden settings he knew nothing about. The Dead Frenzy who had guided him into the sorcerer world back in Shattered Lake; the Black-and-White who, intentionally or not, had prevented him and Lisdia from recognizing each other in Gospel; and the Observer who had successfully recruited the Sword Princess and the Witch into the team—who on earth were they? Their dark sides? Shadows? New lifeforms born from the sorcerer character portraits? Or were they all artificial intelligence avatars of Aurora's Sorcerer Handbook, with the AI merely donning different skins to better serve different subjects? Or had substitute sorcery spirits gained sentience? There were simply too many possibilities, and Yaxiu had no way of knowing. He summoned the game interface and opened "Operator Management" to search for clues, but immediately caught sight of Youlan Weise's grayed-out portrait. Yaxiu froze slightly, then let out a soft sigh. "This kind of brain-draining work was supposed to be Weise's job..." Meanwhile, on the other side, Sonia was dwelling on Dead Frenzy. She recalled how, right from the start, Yaxiu had felt an intense affinity toward her, relying on her without the slightest reservation. Back then, she had wondered why this 'reincarnated legend' acted so much like a child. As it turned out, the one Yaxiu had truly relied on was the Dead Frenzy who had helped him through his hardest days in Shattered Lake Prison—not her, Sonia Servey. So even the very beginning of everything had originated from a misunderstanding... "Do you remember the Observer saying that during the Weaving Ceremony, he planned to help Lisi grant her wish?" The Witch suddenly walked up beside her and whispered into her ear. "I remember." Sonia lowered her head. "He really dotes on you." "On Lisi, not me," Diya said. "And helping Lisi was actually his second choice. He was just afraid of fulfilling his own wish, which is why he gave it up to Lisi." "Afraid?" "He said there was someone in another country far away that he wanted to see, and if he could make a wish, he actually wanted to see that person," Diya said softly. "It was just that he felt he wasn't ready, and felt the other person wasn't ready either. He was afraid meeting would ruin her life, so he wanted to maintain the status quo. "You resent that I got to know Yaxiu in reality first, and I resent just as much that you got to know the Observer in the Void Realm first." Sonia was stunned for a moment, then walked slowly over to Yaxiu. Under his puzzled gaze, she gently pressed her right hand to her chest and introduced herself: "I am the Sword Princess, a second-year student at Sword Flower University in the Country of Stars, Sonia Servey. Just call me Sonia." Yaxiu blinked, then answered earnestly, "I am the Observer, an idle vagrant, Yaxiu Heath. Just call me Yaxiu." "Yaxiu, Yaxiu, Yaxiu, Yaxiu..." Sonia savored the name, as if she could taste sweetness within it. She gently extended her hand, and Yaxiu instinctively took it. First their palms aligned, then their fingers interlaced, pressing tightly together. Because they were sword sorcerers, neither grew long nails, so they could grip each other's hand as hard as they could without causing harm. "Hello, Yaxiu." "Hello, Sonia." They looked at each other and couldn't help bursting into laughter. Yaxiu said, "It feels weird hearing you call me by my real name—there's this inexplicable sense of embarrassment... How about we switch back to Observer, Sword Princess, and Witch?" "No way. What you call us is your business, but Lisdia calls you by your real name, so I'm going to call you by it too," Sonia said. "Yaxiu, are you two done with the topic of your reunion?" "Probably not, but we can talk about your topic first, Sonia," Yaxiu said. "We have plenty of time. We can take it slow." "My topic hasn't changed." Sonia lightly scratched the palm of his hand with her fingertip. "I'm ready. Are you ready to come to Stars?" "Speaking of which," Diya said, sitting down beside Yaxiu and taking his arm, "you didn't enter the Thousand Wishes Kingdom of Heaven, Yaxiu, but were teleported elsewhere by the spatial turbulence Weixi triggered. So where are you right now? Paradise? The Abyss? Or did you end up back in the Blood Moon Country?" Yaxiu blinked and said, "By the way, have you noticed a pattern in every country I've crossed into? Even though the reasons were always different, in Blood Moon I was a death row inmate escaping from prison; in Gospel I was a vandal following Annan to desecrate gods; in Senluo I was hunting down the Silver Lantern... "No matter which country I'm in, I'm always a traveler who can never settle down—either being hunted, or hunting someone else." Diya and Sonia blinked, not understanding what kind of nonsense Yaxiu was spouting. "So..." Yaxiu said slowly, "Sword Princess, have you heard that three Sanctuary wanted criminals recently appeared in the Country of Stars?"