For the current Tertia, the fact that she could still feel nervous and uneasy over soone she had never truly t was, in itself, a very strange thing.
But Shuanghua could understand how she felt. Back when they were students, Professor Rosalyn would constantly pour into them stories of Grandmaster’s greatness, wisdom, kindness, charm, and so on. Over ti, a fixed image had taken shape in the two girls’ hearts—that Grandmaster was the sum of everything beautiful in this world, and that she naturally ought to be everyone’s shared idol. You could see as much just from how their teacher could never let go of Grandmaster in her thoughts.
Of course, that was impossible. Just like how star-chasers didn’t actually chase the real celebrity, but rather their own emotional projection, the Grandmaster in Tertia’s imagination was not the real Silver Witch.
So later, when the War of Divine Judgnt ended, when their teacher and the Witch of Finality perished together, and Grandmaster still failed to appear, Tertia clearly perceived this truth. She sealed away all those forr feelings of worship, leaving only the obsession with following in her teacher’s footsteps. As for Grandmaster, she beca more like so fleeting dream from childhood, almost completely forgotten.
Then—
Hundreds of years passed. One day, Tertia—who still looked like a young girl, but on the inside was an old granny who’d lived five centuries—suddenly discovered that her childhood idol was alive.
No, not just alive—she had truly descended into the mortal world. And Tertia had greeted her by offending her first in a deeply disrespectful way.
Her feelings, naturally, beca delicate and complicated, and for the first ti in ages, the anxiety she usually buried deep beneath her domineering personality was stirred awake.
In fact, this was also how Shuanghua had felt after eting Grandmaster again. She just wasn’t good at expressing herself, a total coward when it ca to that sort of thing, so it didn’t show. Only now that Tertia was getting nervous too could she reveal that side of her thoughts, empathize with her Senior Sister, and help her think of counterasures.
Under the night sky, fine snow drifted like white powdered sugar, falling on the heads of the two sisters as they earnestly discussed their strategy.
Thinking of scenes from various adventure novels, Tertia kept rehearsing what she should say later, ntally drafting and redrafting her lines. Shuanghua stood to the side, fully focused on providing input—her thod was to nod or shake her head, indicating good or bad, wonderfully simple and efficient.
Just then, a soft cough sounded from not far behind the two of them.
They turned around reflexively and saw, atop a black boulder half-buried in snow on the cliff not far away, a breathtakingly beautiful girl with long silver hair and dark red eyes. She stood there quietly, looking down at them.
Even without any self-introduction, Tertia imdiately understood who she was. Then, thinking of all the things she and Shuanghua had just been discussing, the atmosphere in the air turned awkward in an instant.
Today, Yvette was wearing a black top and black skirt—the outfit she had often worn back in the Land of Finality. She’d chosen it to et with Tertia, wanting to co across as a bit more formal. Looking at the two at a complete loss for what to do, she smiled and said, “You two were taking a while, so I ca over to take a look. You can keep talking if you like—I’ll wait.”
Keep talking? Tertia could feel her cheeks heating up. How was she supposed to keep talking now?
She glanced at Shuanghua and found her little junior sister giving her an encouraging look. She could only draw a deep breath and say, nerves on edge, “Grandmaster, I—I’m very sorry I failed to recognize you last ti—”
“That’s nothing worth ntioning. I’ve already forgotten it; you shouldn’t dwell on it either.” Yvette shook her head. She hadn’t revealed her identity last ti to begin with; a bit of misunderstanding was perfectly normal.
It was just that different people had different perspectives. What was a trivial matter to her had taken on a very different weight in Tertia’s mind, sothing she’d even been brooding over.
Tertia thought, as expected, Grandmaster really was as gentle as Teacher had said.
Once she had untied the knot in Tertia’s heart, Yvette had Shuanghua open up the divine realm. Snowmist Lodge was nice, but important talks obviously needed to be held sowhere safer.
Inside a wooden building atop a snow peak in the Snowwind Divine Realm, seated beside an indoor fireplace, Tertia finally learned the whole story behind the Silver Witch Church’s recent activity in the Snow Country, as well as the truth of the Cold Mist Barrier.
“Do you have anything you’d like to add?” Yvette looked over at Tertia.
Over these past days, Yvette had already gone over many things about the past with Shuanghua in fine detail, learning a great deal of old stories. But back then, as the youngest junior sister, Shuanghua hadn’t been privy to higher-level matters, so she knew very little. All the information she had ca from what Tertia had told her.
And Tertia certainly wouldn’t have told Shuanghua everything. Those matters were, after all, based on speculation. Throwing them around carelessly would be irresponsible and could easily lead her down the wrong path. Tertia had the courage to face the True Gods directly, but in the divine realm, Shuanghua was probably at the very weakest tier and naturally didn’t have that kind of fearlessness.
By the way, inside the divine realm, Yvette had also sparred with Shuanghua a few tis. The result was that Shuanghua’s Snowwind divine arts were already on par with the Origin Civilization’s super-class spell formulas in the 100,000–160,000-spec range—that is, the highest specs a personal terminal could reach.
So if you were only talking about raw magic output, rounding it off, Yvette herself was just at the weakest tier of the divine realm, only with a few hidden trump cards up her sleeve.
Tertia hesitated for a mont, then suddenly asked, “Grandmaster, are you a True God?”
“No.” Yvette answered very crisply.
She had already told Tertia that her divine realm had only been pinched into shape two months ago. She could pinch out several of them, sure, but they were all newly born divine realms. There was no way she could already be a True God.
Still, she had once entertained a pleasant little fantasy: if, soday in the future, she snuck into the Ancestral Holy Spirit’s divine kingdom and took a stealthy nibble with Shadowtouch—wouldn’t she suddenly be able to copy-paste divine kingdoms too?
All right, it did sound a bit like daydreaming, but people had to have dreams, after all.
“Grandmaster, do you know how one becos a True God?” Tertia asked again.
It sounded at first like she was asking for herself, but in the current situation, Yvette was sure there was more to this question. She shook her head and waited for Tertia to continue, and soon heard her say, in a voice tinged with doubt, “Grandmaster, I don’t trust the True Gods either—but not only because of the War of Divine Judgnt.”
“As I spend more and more ti in the divine realm, I’ve beco increasingly certain of one thing: relying on pure cultivation alone, it’s impossible to achieve the qualitative leap from divine realm to divine kingdom. You can only keep expanding the divine realm, making it bigger and bigger—but that’s it. There must be so critical point involved here, but I haven’t been able to find it.”
“And this problem also showed through in Teacher’s actions. For a long ti after she beca ruler of both humans and demons, she no longer focused on herself and didn’t put much effort into cultivation. At the ti, I couldn’t understand it. I thought she was just busy, governing two continents and unable to settle her mind. But now I’m certain that, even back then, she had already noticed sothing off about the path to godhood.”
Here, Tertia looked into Yvette’s dark red eyes and calmly asked, “Grandmaster, think about it. Breaking through to beco a True God right in the middle of the War of Divine Judgnt—doesn’t that timing seem a little too convenient? But what if the right to decide who gets to beco a True God has always been in the hands of so very specific will?”
”
Her voice echoed softly through the warm room. Firelight danced across her face, cutting her expression into crisscrossing bands of light and shadow.
“You an the True Gods control the path to godhood? That it was only with the coming of the Day of Finality that Rosalyn got the chance to ascend?” Yvette asked imdiately. Shuanghua, who hadn’t dared interrupt, showed an equally stunned expression at her side, her mouth slightly open.
Tertia nodded, saying in a low voice, “So I think, if that really is the case, then the fundantal responsibility for Teacher’s fall must lie with the True Gods. If they had opened the path to godhood a bit earlier and let Teacher beco the God of Truth and Magic in advance, with her wisdom, she never would have allowed the War of Divine Judgnt to end the way it did. She might even have—”
Tertia’s speculation cut off there. She didn’t continue, but Yvette and Shuanghua both understood the implication.
If the True Gods had only permitted the Legendary Mage to beco the fifth True God as a last resort, then in the War of Divine Judgnt, who could guarantee that they hadn’t secretly intervened, deliberately steering things toward a conclusion where the Legendary Mage and the Witch of Finality perished together?
And on top of that, given their status and influence, why would they take the initiative to spread the news, praising the God of Truth and Magic as a savior? Was that not, perhaps, a sign of a guilty conscience?
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