Let's Fight

"But what if I hide you in a dark room in my basement?" Sonia suddenly asked, "You wouldn't have to go outside. Just stay in the room to cultivate and amuse yourself, and only I would come see you. That way, you wouldn't be in any danger of exposure. You wouldn't drag me into trouble, and we could still be together." At first hearing, the suggestion didn't sound half bad, but Yaxiu couldn't shake an unsettling feeling about it. A strange tremor fluttered in his chest, and he quickly shook his head. "No, I have to go back to Gospel to find Lisi!" "It's not like you can go back right away," Sonia said, a bizarre glint flashing in her eyes. "During this time—" "Um..." Diya raised her hand. "Actually, I have a way to establish an empty door from Gospel to the Stars. It's just that the empty door's location in the Stars would be random. But if you give me a few days, establishing an empty door directly into Jialesi isn't impossible either." Yaxiu froze, then quickly caught on. "The Gospel System?" "The concept of an empty door is a brand-new world law. Even the Gospel god needs time to grow familiar with its underlying patterns," Diya said. "There are bound to be better complementary tools for Empty Door sorcery spirits to set up directed empty doors, but that requires development from sorcerers' ingenuity. For now, the Gospel System can only rely on big data analysis—like brute-force calculation—to determine the rough range for empty doors established in different environments and at different times. "If you want to return to Gospel, Yaxiu, I can have it arranged within three days," Diya said earnestly. "The Gospel Realm is under my rule now, and the Omniscient Weaver has never issued any special instructions regarding you outland travelers. As long as you come back, not only can I protect you, but seven hundred years of the Yisu imperial family's vaults will also be open to you. "You've been displaced and wandering for so long," the Witch said softly. "You can finally come home." Yaxiu was utterly dazed by this sudden windfall of good news. They could leave the Stars just like that? They didn't need to delve deep into the Abyss, they didn't need to slowly farm empty doors; they only had to wait for Diya to erect an empty door? He, Igola, and Harvey finally didn't need to keep rampaging frantically across the land. They could rest peacefully under the protection of the Yisu Empress? Their long, arduous journey... was it finally reaching its promised destination? "Can an empty door be made permanent?" Sonia asked, her eyes widening. Diya shook her head. "No. No corresponding miracle has been developed yet." "Then can empty doors be created frequently? Say, letting me visit the Gospel Realm two or three times a week?" "No. Creating a directed empty door takes an enormous toll on the Gospel System because there are too many factors influencing an empty door—fluctuations in the Void Realm, environmental factors, even the waters of the Flowing Gold River... Every time a directed empty door is established, it monopolizes a massive amount of Gospel computing power. Once or twice is fine, but doing it long-term would cause indelible negative consequences for the economy and people's livelihoods." "Then how about twice a month? Once to go in, once to come out. I could take a long leave of absence for a month." "Still no." "Why not?" "Because I never intended to tell you this in the first place." Diya lowered her head and stared at the tips of her shoes. "If Yaxiu were in any other country, I would've told him this in secret. But since he's in the Stars, there was no way to hide it from you, so I simply came clean." Yaxiu started to speak, then stopped, his gaze darting back and forth between the two girls. "...Aha." Crossing her arms over her chest, Sonia said calmly, "One of you didn't plan on telling me he was in the Stars, and the other didn't want to tell me she could connect to the Stars. You two really are... father and daughter, aren't you?" "I told you," Diya pressed her lips together tightly, "Lisi is Yaxiu's daughter! I'm Diya! I'm the princess, and Yaxiu is my knight!" "I can tell you've always wanted to evade that point. You're afraid he'll view you as a daughter and reduce your relationship purely to family affection," Sonia said. "Yet you share multiple souls in one body with Lisi. Back on the Time Continent, you didn't harbor any affection beyond friendship for the 'Observer,' did you? So wasn't it through Lisi's eyes that you fell for him? "Yaxiu said that your Yisu imperial house doesn't seem to have a paternal line, while the maternal line is just a puppet possessed by the Gospel god. A princess like you definitely grew up starved of paternal and maternal love. Even if you've always tried to avoid admitting it, the root of your feelings was simply infatuation with the fatherly affection he gave you, wasn't it?" Yaxiu stood up nervously. "Sword Princess..." The Sword Princess reached out and shoved him straight back down. Staring fixedly at the deathly pale Witch, she said, "My understanding of the mind faction might be shallow, but even I know that multiple souls in one body influence one another. Lisi's feelings for Yaxiu will influence you sisters, just as you sisters' feelings for Yaxiu will influence Lisi... Can you really tell whether you're looking for a lover or a father?" The Witch's lips trembled, tears welling up in her eyes as though she might burst into tears at any second. Just then, her hair color began to shift erratically—flicking between black, white, and red before finally settling into distinctly sectioned, multicolored dreadlocks. Gritting her teeth, she said, "That is precisely why we didn't want you coming to Gospel. "The Void Realm is the limit of our tolerance. We don't want to keep seeing you in reality." Sonia laughed in sheer exasperation. "Tolerance? What are you tolerating?" "Tolerating you being the first to break our agreement and cross the boundary of friendship? Tolerating your sneaky little moves behind my back? Tolerating the way you deliberately or inadvertently keep me from getting close to Yaxiu?" The Witch's voice rose higher and higher, the resentment on her face intensifying. "You snatched away almost all the one-on-one time in the Void Realm! And you ask me what I'm tolerating?" "You didn't take the initiative yourself or fight for it, so how is that my fault now?" "Do you think I didn't want to take the initiative? I didn't dare to take the initiative!" The Witch shook her head vigorously, her tangled hair whipping around in streaks of murky color. "I didn't want to argue with you! I didn't want to ruin the team's atmosphere! I didn't want to destroy the stable dynamic we worked so hard to build! But you always take everything for granted. You always push for more and more. You've stuffed your pockets full of candy, yet you still want to grab more! "Back then, I could still comfort myself: as long as Yaxiu returned to Gospel, we wouldn't have to worry about your watchful eyes. We'd have our own time together, just the princess and her knight! At least... at least we wouldn't have to love someone so humbly, down in the dirt!" "You should be humble," Sonia enunciated every syllable. "Because I was first!" "Oh, really?" The Witch pointed at Yaxiu. "If a childhood friend suddenly dropped from the sky into his life right now, would you have the grace to step aside voluntarily?" "Hypotheticals like that are meaningless." "You only ever knew the Observer in the Void Realm! You don't know the real Yaxiu in the physical world at all. You don't know what he likes to play, what he likes to eat, who his friends are... Looked at that way, I fell in love with all of Yaxiu before you ever did! You only love that facet called the Observer! "Not to mention, you can't even protect him here in the Stars, whereas in Gospel, I can give him everything he needs. If we're really talking about who should be humble, it's definitely not me—someone who can offer an entire country!" Sonia's fury flared so violently it felt as though it would burn right through her chest. Almost instinctively, her hand clenched around the hilt of her sword, her eyes turning blood-red. "You—" "You're selfish." Refusing to back down, the Witch drew sharp dead lines from her fingertips. "Not that it matters—we're all selfish people. But you can't be so selfish that you assume everyone else is selfless. "Are seeds that missed their season forbidden from sprouting? Must love that arrived late simply surrender without a fight? There is no such rule!" she declared loudly. "Sword Princess, I never thought of defeating you or driving you away, because I know that's impossible. We are bound to be comrades who live and die together. The threads of our fate have long been hopelessly tangled... More importantly, Yaxiu would never give you up. "Yet you actually believe you can sever my bond with Yaxiu. "I've had enough of this treatment in the Void Realm. I won't continue putting up with your bullying in reality! I will not welcome you to the Gospel Realm—never!" "That's because I earned everything I have!" Sonia's face flushed crimson. "I did nothing wrong!" "Then what did I do wrong?" The Witch yanked her dead lines taut. "Was it wrong to fall in love with the knight who caught me as I plummeted from a tower? The prince who carried me out of the imperial palace? Why must I hold my breath and swallow my grievance before you?! You haven't considered my feelings at all... You haven't even considered Yaxiu's position!" Sonia bit her lip tightly, on the verge of tears. Pearl-like drops slipped from the corners of her eyes, yet she still held her head stubbornly high, her red ponytail swaying with pride. "I'm not wrong!" *Clang!* The tip of a sword drove heavily into the ruby floor. Yaxiu stood up, resting his weight against his longsword. Unfurling his void wings and expanding his Sanctuary, sword-colored sorcery power surged violently. "Come to think of it," he spoke up suddenly, "it's been over a month since we last met. I have no idea how much stronger you two have gotten. "Let's fight. Go all out."