Become their wicked yet gentle lord.

……

The shadows of the glasses collided in the firelight, cheap ale splashed on the ground amidst curses, and as heavy snoring began, a figure hurriedly slipped into the cell.

She trembled as she reached out to the figure on the rack and brushed his hair aside.

This disheveled figure was completely different from the introverted boy who lay on the grass a year ago.

Whip marks, branding marks, knife marks... Huge iron bars were driven directly into his limbs, binding him firmly to the cross. The magical markings on them were so strong that even a young female magician could not break them.

"Why……"

A familiar voice reached his ears. The hunter, who had remained silent in the face of punishment and was called a 'heretical being whose mind had been corrupted', finally moved his neck, his head shaking slightly as if searching for that familiar figure in the darkness.

The shy eyes were gone from his sockets; in their place were two dark holes filled with scabs of blood…

"It's you, Miss Magician..."

Finally, she was no longer as indifferent as before, but spoke with a gentle voice, as if she hadn't seen her friends for a long time.

"Why! You fucking! Why! Why did you persist to this extent! What kind of bewitching spell did that White God cast on you to make you so devoted!"

The mage roared in a suppressed voice, gripping her staff tightly. She turned around, and a chilling aura began to condense around her as her gaze locked onto the drunken executioners before her.

"No."

The hunter's voice interrupted her spell, and she turned around in disbelief to look at the man.

If they were killed, the mage wouldn't be able to escape unscathed either. But the hunter knew that the mage's anger seemed uncontrollable, so he used a request to stop the girl's spell.

"Please, please, can you take my family away with you..."

"You...where do you get the nerve to ask me for this..."

"sorry."

"Heh, where's your White God? Why didn't He come to save you, to save your family?! What did He give you?!"

"She saved me, many years ago, and..." The hunter smiled, a mixture of satisfaction and regret, "She gave me a gift that is unparalleled in this world..."

She... well...

The differences in personal pronouns in the common language of Otus left the young magician feeling suffocated.

"what……"

The magician's lips twitched a few times, but tears replaced his words.

She placed her trembling, tear-streaked cheek in the hunter's palm. The moist warmth replaced all her previous skepticism, causing the hunter's fingers to tremble slightly, but he ultimately did not bend them to caress the girl's cheek.

He seemed to realize something and said, "I'm sorry."

Then, the magician gritted his teeth, left the dungeon, and rode his horse towards the mountains...

She darted through the mountains and forests like a madwoman, walking across cliffs and precipices, letting the ice and snow cut her skin.

Finally, she discovered an underground city in a cave.

The mountainside is riddled with cave entrances, but the entire city is desolate and old. Only beside the huge blue crystal in the central square, there is the figure of a mature and gentle woman.

Her long, white hair enveloped her body, which was dressed in a simple leather coat. Her hands gently cradled her slightly protruding belly, and the blue crystal emitted a faint glow as it flowed into her abdomen.

The only strange thing was that the huge blue crystal did not resemble the Snow Spirit Beast sculpture.

"you are……"

The white-haired woman looked wary, but still politely glanced at the disheveled, distraught female magician in front of her.

"Ha...ha...so that's how it is...you're the White God..."

The female magician knelt on the ground and laughed maniacally.

Chapter 26 Warm Ice

The White God seemed to remember something, and his gaze towards the female mage lowered.

"I see. You must be the one he mentioned..."

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!!!"

The female mage frantically struck the ground with her staff. Her irrational actions caused the White God to protect her abdomen and take two steps back.

"Why didn't you go save him... Aren't you the White God... Aren't you a deity...?"

The female mage's words caused Bai Shen's expression to change. She struggled to her feet and anxiously asked:

"What happened? Please tell me!"

"What happened? Hehe~ Haha ...

"Now you want to say you know nothing?! You're lying! You're faking it! You're deceiving me!"

Amazing magic condensed on the staff. The girl seemed to realize that her magic had been greatly amplified in front of the blue sculpture. This was the treasure she had been dreaming of, but she no longer cared.

"I'm sorry, I really don't know anything, please tell me..." A white light appeared on the White Goddess, as if she was preparing for battle, but her solemn expression and movements showed that she was also concerned about the fetus in her womb.

“This child… is a hybrid of a snow spirit and a human… such a thing should not have happened… It is very fragile, and I can only stabilize its existence by staying next to the Sacred Stone…”

"What happened to him?! Please tell me!!!"

The White God's tone was heavy and anxious, and the magician shook his head frantically, refusing to believe it.

But in the end, her staff slowly lowered, and she said, dejectedly:

"It's nothing...it was just some crazy talk I made out of jealousy..."

"But!"

The White God's words stopped the magician who was about to leave, but the magician only turned back mockingly:

"Ah~~ What? You're going to be fooled by your rival? Fine... Once you leave this so-called sacred stone, your bastard child won't be safe, right? I'd be delighted! Anyway, in a direct fight, I have no chance of winning, do I?"

The White God's steps halted at the edge of the blue light, looking at the young girl before her with some suspicion. She seemed to see through her clumsy lie, but reminded by the magician's words, she dared not leave easily…

"In another two weeks, the fetal heartbeat will stabilize. May I ask..."

"Enough." The mage interrupted the White God's question, concealing his expression with his large mage hat.

But she still took a deep breath and spoke in a tone as if nothing was wrong.

"Half a month, right? I understand. You don't need to worry about the rest... Until then, you can just stay here..."

The girl lied, biting her lip so hard that the blood that flowed out froze.

"Wait!" The White God called out to the magician again. After hesitating for a moment, he resolutely broke off a piece from the blue sacred stone and handed it to her. "Please..."

The magician didn't say anything, but silently accepted it and left.

She didn't say that there wasn't enough time...

From an observer's perspective, Ryuka lowered her eyes.

He was now fully conscious, understanding who he was and what he was seeing. He just couldn't understand why he was seeing these things.

As for the ending of this story, Ryuka already knew it.

After all, the magician had been searching for ten days in a frenzy, but she herself had forgotten, or rather, did not want to remember.

At that moment, Ryuka felt that there was another person beside her.

Looking back, there was Melanie, her face deathly pale.

Sure enough, upon closer inspection, Melanie and the young sorceress looked remarkably alike.

So, when I switched perspectives earlier, was that someone I felt brushing past me? In other words, while I was in the mage's perspective, Melanie was in the hunter's? Melanie, have you thought about it...?

And then she appeared here...

"Has the Hunter's story come to an end?"

Ryusha's words made Melanie shudder, as if she had just woken up from a nightmare. After a long silence, she finally spoke with trembling lips.

"what……"

"Is this woman your teacher?"

"Um……"

"Really? I thought they were mother and daughter..."

"Shut up."

Melanie interrupted Ryusha, seemingly a little angry. The boy in front of her had witnessed this story firsthand and remained unfazed, even having time to joke.

She clenched her fist, then relaxed it.

What right or standing do I have to think this way...?

Vitry isn't here; this is the shared thought of both of them. Perhaps they want to see the existence of this story, but they don't want Vitry to know.

Silence fell as the two watched the magician return to town.

Meanwhile, the executioners were packing up to leave, ending this disappointing and tedious journey.

"Ah~ Miss Magician, what a pity you're back so late~ But it's alright, at least you won't have to see anything heartbreaking."

"Whatever happens, don't you care about Shirakami anymore?"

The group looked at each other, and finally spoke tentatively.

The magician, however, gave reasons that were convincing enough for them to believe.

She found the White God and discovered a blue gem that could greatly amplify ice and snow magic—a supreme treasure that would drive any ice and snow mage mad.

The girl took out the blue crystal and waved it, which indeed made the few people present who knew ice and snow magic gasp for breath.

"Don't rush, there are still many there, but we must stay united, and in order to avoid leaks and attracting competitors, none of us are allowed to leave. I will personally take you to the White God's hideout later."

The young magician smiled smugly.

Even for a knight, the profit from acquiring and reselling such a possession would likely be astonishing.

The mage admitted that she was deeply resentful of the hunter's death, but she hated the 'White God' who had caused it all even more. In her words, the White God was nothing more than a heretical race called the 'Snow Spirits,' and there was only one of them.

"Tsk, teacher..." Upon seeing this, Melanie gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and looked very disappointed.

"So, she's not such a bad person after all," Ryuka blinked and said.

"Let's keep watching."

"Ha, you really are a heartless brat, so unfazed," Melanie said, somewhat annoyed.

“This is a story that has already happened,” Ryuka said calmly. “The tragedies in history are as vast as the ocean. Even if it’s hard to keep going, sometimes you have to keep reading in order to understand, learn, and feel something from them.”

"Really? What did you learn?"

"For example, don't believe everything others say, even your own teacher?"

Faced with Melanie's taunts, Ryusha responded calmly, which angered Melanie so much that she swung her staff at him.

The staff pierced through Ryuka's body as if passing through a phantom.

Realizing that they were both currently in spirit form, Melanie turned around in annoyance, gritting her teeth as she said:

"Teacher...she didn't tell me much. I only learned through indirect inquiries and other information that before she passed away, she was still troubled by something that happened in Linhu Town many years ago...and then I learned that there are treasures here that can amplify ice and snow magic..."

"I...I didn't know the story was like this, the teacher was actually like this, like this..."

“The story isn’t over yet,” Ryuka interrupted Melanie.

"Let's keep watching. A single word can't tell the whole story, and knowing only half of a matter is also insufficient. Sometimes, even a complete understanding can lead to misjudgments due to missing information..."

"You little rascal, you really are..."

"Get out!!!" A sudden curse interrupted Melanie's words.

In the distance, a little girl was crying and throwing stones at the young female magician riding a horse.

"It's all your fault!! It would have been better if you hadn't come at all!!!"

Upon seeing the little girl, Melanie suddenly paused, a look of confusion on her face.

Ryuka also looked over. This little girl... is she the hunter's youngest sister? She had only seen her once in her previous memory. Children really grow up quickly. In just one year, her appearance has changed a lot.

She looks somewhat like Melanie... Several parts of Melanie's body that don't resemble those of the young sorceress look very similar to this little girl.