Hate me, Miss Witch!

The Silver Moon manifested, casting its reflection into reality.

Silvia's pupils lost their focus.

Shiayar, on the other hand, bit the tip of his tongue violently.

The taste of blood spread through Shiayar's mouth, and with the stimulation of this pain, he forcefully roused his already nearly depleted spiritual power.

Then, Shiayar gathered the roused, meager spiritual power.

Using "Moon Reading," he rewrote the girl's memories.

He erased the fragments of Silvia's memories about himself after the backstabbing at the Morningstar Hills and extracted them from her Soul.

Then, he filled in new memories that had been rewoven.

A girl imprisoned in a garden since childhood, naive and romantic—she could not have survived the era known as the 'Calamity Land,' with the kingdom in decline, the evil cult and beast tide rampant in the world, and the Abyss covetously watching.

But—hatred can change a person.

It can teach a girl, once naive and innocent, to be cautious and careful.

To learn to hide her strength and identity.

To learn to always harbor a wariness of others.

"So—"

"Hate me, Silvia."

"This hatred, this enmity... will become your sustenance."

"It will be the strength that lets you survive in this lawless world, become powerful—"

"And eventually, ascend to the pinnacle of the world."

In Shiayar's eyes, the spinning Silver Moon slowly dispersed, eventually turning into nothingness.

After doing all this, Shiayar finally took Silvia's hand and led her step by step onto the metallic disc.

Shiayar took out a tissue, wiped the Ashes off Silvia's pale cheeks, and adjusted the girl's long hair that had been disheveled by the wild wind.

Then, using his last bit of strength, Shiayar activated the Teleportation Array.

The next instant.

A bright blue light of Magic Power flared up.

On the metallic disc, the mysterious rune array began to operate. The sound of mechanical gears turning and the glow of Magic Runes echoed each other, lighting up Silvia's beautiful, lusterless eyes.

And as the metallic disc began to rotate,

Shiayar's figure also began to blur, dissolving into numerous illusory specks of light.

At this moment, having lost the protection of the Echo of History, he was already barely sustaining himself against the wash of the river of time.

And now that all processes were complete, there was no reason to forcibly persist in staying there.

Shiayar's gaze lingered on Silvia, enveloped in the magical luminescence.

He moved his colorless lips, forming a faint smile.

"If my assumptions are correct..."

"Then, Silvia."

"Perhaps—"

"At the end of time."

"We may have a day when we meet again..."

The next moment.

A scorching blast wind blew from the burning city.

When the desolate wind had passed, Shiayar and Silvia were no longer seen amid the ruins of the Azure Garden Royal Capital.

Only their final words faded away with the shattered light and vanished.

...

After an indeterminate amount of time had passed.

In the deep mountains on the border of the Azure Garden Dukedom, Silvia slowly came to.

The girl's bewildered gaze swept around her, then gradually became resolute and cold.

Her last complete memory stayed on Shiayar's cold, bloodstained blade in the sea of flowers at the Morningstar Hills.

After that, Silvia's memories became fragmented and incomplete.

Perhaps because of her severe injuries and resulting unconsciousness, her lucid moments were extremely brief. Only a few battered fragments of memory remained.

The rough course of events was this: the elders of the Brunestadt family discovered Shiayar and Norton's ambitions, which led to a fierce battle between the two sides.

The battle was intense, and Norton's plan ultimately failed due to a backlash from the seal.

But the Brunestadt family also paid a heavy price; almost all the elders and family members died in the battle.

Silvia had accidentally absorbed some of the Divinity from the broken seal during that battle. A few family elders then activated a secret teleportation array hidden within the mansion and sent her out.

In the instant she was teleported away, the only living person left in the mansion was Shiayar, also the final victor.

He looked at Silvia with indifferent eyes as she was being sent away, desperately protected by the family elders. His blade, which he had just pulled from an elder's neck, was still dripping with a spray of blood.

"Silvia, you are too weak."

"So weak that you don't even qualify to take part in this battle or seek revenge against me."

"Right now, you're not even worth killing."

"My foolish little sister,"

"If you wish to kill me, then loathe me, hate me..."

"And live on, hideously."

...

"Shiayar—"

"Brother."

The girl extended her pale white fingers and removed the amethyst hairpin from her strands of hair.

In those beautiful eyes, a mixture of chestnut and silver—

All the bewilderment, innocence, romance, and yearning that had once belonged to the girl had vanished without a trace.

In those eyes, now as cold as ice and devoid of any impurity—

Only an indescribable frost remained.

"Since you think that as I am now, I am not worth killing,"

"Then I will surely stand at the summit. And I will thoroughly repay you for everything you have done to me..."

...

That day, multiple Godly Descents broke out in the Ancient Dukedom Azure Garden.

The majestic presence of Fabled Creatures walking the mortal plane could be seen even thousands of miles away, an awe-inspiring sight that caused unease in several neighboring kingdoms.

Several Legendaries were alerted. They waited on the borderlines, anticipating the commencement of a godly war.

But in the end, the Godly Descent's Bodies searched for several days to no avail and could only retract their power in vain.

And so the Azure Garden Dukedom crumbled under the aftershocks of the Godly Descents, quickly becoming a relic of history.

Some Legendaries examined the traces of Divine Power left at the scene. They determined it was a Godly Descent triggered by the breaking of the Twilight seal.

Thus, in the ancient texts of later generations, this brief line was added—

"Azure Garden Dukedom was annihilated in the year 346 of the Holy Calendar due to the Twilight Calamity."

Years later, a female Beastmaster rose like a comet.

On the Western Continent, then still shrouded by the 'Calamity Land,' she carved out an illustrious name for herself.

In just a few short years, she reached the Titled Rank, and her title was 'Gray-Silver Witch'.

But by the time Silvia had recovered her true name and begun her search on the Western Continent,

she found she could no longer locate any trace of Shiayar.

It was as if, after that day of Godly Descents, the boy named Shiayar Egutt had vanished from the Western Continent entirely.

Then, a few more years passed.

When Silvia ascended to the rank of Legendary, her spiritual power was sublimated to completion. It transformed into a sea of spirit, allowing her to perceive her Soul and mind from a higher dimension—

Only then did she discover the altered traces deep within her Soul, the rewritten fragments of her past memories, and the blank segments that had been extracted. She also found the final words Shiayar had left for her.

That day, Silvia, the 'Gray-Silver Witch,' established a pure white Tower on the Golden Plains across the Grant Sea. In a secondary plane, she also created a palace, enveloped in frozen Twilight.

It was the sanctuary she had built for herself.

It could also be said to be her own tomb.

Many powerful beings thus regarded Silvia as an anomaly among Legendaries.

The Divine Realm, a coveted dream for countless Legendaries, was within her easy reach, yet Silvia showed no interest in it whatsoever.

She seemed to grow stronger solely to wait in this tumultuous mortal world for someone's return.

"Brother Shiayar left me one last sentence."

"Shall we meet again at the end of time?"

"If that is the case,"

"then let me wait for your return."

"I want you to tell me, in your own words, the truth you hid that day, and what feelings you truly held for me."

"Whether it is a hundred years or a thousand..."

"As long as you have not returned, I will keep waiting."

—Excerpt from the "Diary of the Gray-Silver Witch," page 704, Holy Calendar Year 360, Month of Blooming Flowers, 13th day.

This was the last page of the "Diary of the Gray-Silver Witch," frozen within the Twilight Palace.

「Afterward.」

Five hundred years passed.

The 'Calamity Land' era ended.

Saints had bled, and the chaotic era—when Demigods, Angels, and other Fabled Creatures walked the earth—came to an end.

Godly Descents also became fleeting legends, passed on only in the verses of wandering poets.

Legendaries once again became the supreme beings on the Western Continent.

And the long-sealed "Diary of the Gray-Silver Witch" was opened once more after five hundred years.

Then, a new chapter was written.