Land of Destruction and Rebirth

To Teacher Valerie.

A gas lamp glowed on the bedroom desk as Ivy solemnly sealed the letter. The red falcon on the windowsill nodded at her, gripped the envelope in its beak, spread its wings, and vanished into the night.

Over the past two years, she had sent no fewer than twenty letters to the Society, yet she had never received a satisfactory response.

This time, as expected, the great nobles of the Imperial Capital had once again rejected her application to station troops in Brookwood Town. Those pampered people always believed they had more important things to do and dismissed the threats she mentioned in her letters.

In tonight's letter, her teacher proposed transferring her back to work in the Imperial Capital, saying that her mother was getting old and that she shouldn't keep making her family worry.

Ivy clenched her fists.

Those people had no idea what kind of crisis the Empire was facing.

Werewolves suddenly appearing in the mountains, Cursed Objects estimated to be Third-tier or above, and last night's blood moon—all signs pointed to Evil God Cultists having set their sights on this remote town.

Her gaze once again settled on the yellowed newspaper lying on the desk.

<The Witch's Downfall—Evil God Cultists Are No Match for the Empire!>

The grandiose headline displayed its writer's pride. This Gryphon Daily reporter had stood beneath the execution platform and witnessed the Witch's execution from beginning to end. He wrote of the Witch's life in the paper—once one of the Empire's most outstanding Elemental Shapers, she had fallen into corruption after being bewitched by an Evil God.

The black-and-white illustration in the newspaper kept changing, replaying the execution scene Ivy had watched countless times. A woman with a black sack over her head was tied to a wooden stake. The executioner splashed oil over her body and set her alight with a torch. The flames swallowed her almost instantly, and when they died down, nothing remained on the stake but a charred corpse.

Yet Ivy's brows remained tightly furrowed. From beginning to end, the Church had never allowed anyone to see the Witch's face. The official explanation was that the Witch possessed a pair of evil eyes capable of bewitching people's hearts, but it also gave people room for another possibility.

For instance, in that battle that destroyed more than half the Imperial Capital, the Church had failed to capture the Winter Witch alive and could only find a scapegoat.

The Gryphon Daily reporter, however, firmly believed the Church's propaganda. After the execution, the newspaper lavishly praised the Church's great achievements, and even now, the great nobles of the Imperial Capital believed the Winter Witch was thoroughly dead.

But there were also rumors that the badly wounded Witch had escaped the encirclement of the Church and the Knights Order, fled from place to place to a remote town, and left the Empire's borders.

Ivy rubbed her forehead wearily. She had sorted through and pieced together every rumor, deducing the Winter Witch's most likely escape route. That was precisely why she had left the Imperial Capital and insisted on coming to Brookwood Town.

Brookwood Town had been the Winter Witch's final stop. In the eyes of the Evil God Cultists, this town held extraordinary significance. They had given it the name "Land of Destruction and Rebirth," firmly believing that when the Winter Witch returned, she would bring destruction to this decaying Empire.

That had been two years ago.

The recent signs around Brookwood Town all indicated that the Witch was showing signs of rebirth. Ivy had long since sent her organized route and manuscripts back to the Society, but...

The nobles of the Imperial Capital thought she was a delusional Clown. They still firmly believed the Winter Witch had been burned to death in the execution two years ago.

After all, in a place like the Imperial Capital, a mere Second-tier graduate of the Enlightenment Society had no voice at all. Even her father had written to warn her not to send any more incomprehensible letters, saying they would only bring shame upon the family.

Ivy sighed and gathered the documents on the desk, placing them in the drawer.

Only time could prove everything.

So she ignored Teacher's advice once again. She would rather die alongside the truth.

Ivy took off her trench coat and hung it on the rack, wrapped herself in the blanket, and lay in bed, unable to sleep for a long while. Besides the Evil God Cultists, there was something else troubling her Inner Heart.

Ivy felt as though she had forgotten something, but no matter how carefully she thought, she couldn't find any clue. For someone who pursued truth, this was nothing short of torment.

Her sleep was restless, drowned beneath endless nightmares.

She dreamed that she stood on the town streets, and everywhere her Line of Sight reached was covered in ice and snow. Before her stood the town's familiar residents, still frozen in the poses they had held while fleeing, their panicked expressions permanently fixed in that instant.

She also dreamed of a cloaked figure standing high atop the bell tower, looking down at her. He wore a strange mask, beneath which was a scarlet eye.

When the sky outside the window began to pale with dawn, Ivy jolted awake from her nightmare.

She threw off the blanket and sat up in bed. Her body was already drenched in sweat, and the Golden Hair atop her head had split apart in panic. At last, she remembered what she had forgotten last night.

Oh no!

She'd forgotten to bring Ethan food!

That guy... hadn't he been eaten by a hungry Wolf Chicken?

Meanwhile, Ethan, who went to bed early and rose early, was struck by a bolt from the blue the moment he stepped out of the little cabin.

The moment Miss Chloe saw him emerge, she happily stood up from the mattress and greeted him good morning, revealing the object she had been pressing beneath her body.

A corpse with unclosed eyes lay sprawled on the ground, its right hand stretched desperately forward. A long trail of blood had been dragged across the ground.

Ethan stared at the corpse for over ten seconds, then calmly retreated into the cabin and closed the door.

Maybe he wasn't awake yet.

Ethan steadied himself and slapped his cheeks to stay alert. After preparing himself, he pushed the door open again.

"Good morning, Miss Chloe."

"Cluck!"

Miss Chloe replied energetically.

She sat back down on the mattress. This time, the corpse was hidden from view, leaving only a section of its right hand sticking out from beneath her body, along with the bloodstained mattress.

"Go dig a hole, Miss Chloe."

"Cluck?"

Having received the order, Miss Chloe immediately trotted over to the open ground before the cabin and began digging with her claws. Ethan grabbed the shovel inside the cabin and followed after her.

As they dug, he heard Miss Chloe's explanation.

She had picked up the corpse from the road. Late at night, she heard someone crying for help and went to investigate. By the time she arrived, the man was already lying on the ground, bleeding from all seven orifices and convulsing nonstop. Seeing that he had completely lost consciousness, she feared he would catch cold lying there, so she dragged him all the way back to the cabin, settled him on the mattress, and even used the feathers on her belly to keep him warm, just like incubating an egg.

What a kind little hen!

Ethan wanted to praise Miss Chloe for her kindness, but if anyone else saw this scene, they would probably come up with a different version of the story.

For example, he had joined forces with a Wolf Chicken to ambush an innocent passerby in the wilderness, brutally murder him, rob him of his belongings, and bury the body.

"Ethan, I brought you milk and brea—"

The voice that made Ethan's scalp crawl came from behind him, and as it drew near, it abruptly cut off as expected.

He stiffly turned around. Ivy stood on the dirt slope, carrying bread and milk, while both her eyes and the Golden Hair atop her head scanned him warily.

"Let me explain."

He had to explain the situation to Ivy as briefly as possible. "This person died of natural causes."