The Fate in Your Hands

"If you'd surrendered sooner, you wouldn't have had to come to this. Goodbye, little thief."

The witch pulled out her dagger, watched Chen Xuan fall, then headed toward Joan of Arc.

"Your Excellency!" Joan cried in alarm.

"He isn't a messenger at all—not even a believer in the Lord God." The witch shook her head regretfully. "I suggest you give up resisting... That way, when I'm later condemned as an evil witch, you can be vindicated and remembered as a hero of France. If you insist on fighting, you'll only confirm the charge of treason..."

Suddenly, the expression on Joan's face changed.

Her surprise, grief, and hesitation gave way to utter devotion.

...As if she had seen the Lord God she worshipped with her own eyes.

Could it be?

The witch spun around. A flash of sword light swept toward her. Though she leaped back at once, she was still a moment too slow!

The sword qi struck her around the middle and sliced open her abdomen like a hot knife through butter!

Blood spilled everywhere.

Her face turned deathly pale. She stared behind her in disbelief.

Chen Xuan had stood up again!

"How is this... possible?"

She had stabbed him straight through the heart!

What kind of ability did he have?

Was he immortal!?

But in Chen Xuan's eyes, what had just happened was entirely different. As the red-haired witch teleported behind him, another voice had entered his mind. Just three simple words: "It's done."

Then he saw her draw her dagger and stab at empty air beside him, as if another Chen Xuan stood there and he himself were the phantom. The same bizarre sight had played out for his enemy and Joan. From the shift in Joan's expression, from shock to fervent faith, he could imagine exactly how his "return from the dead" must have looked.

"What kind of spell was that?"

"The Eight Gates Formation. Those trapped within it and unable to escape have their lives, deaths, joys, and sorrows controlled by a single thought." Liu Shuyue's voice came again, as if she had read his mind. "It's a kind of talismanic art. It takes some effort to cast, but once the formation is complete, you're invincible. Her life is yours."

Looking at the witch, who was kneeling on one knee, Chen Xuan raised three swords of sword qi and aimed them at her again.

That strike had clearly injured her internal organs. She couldn't dodge a sword now; even moving too much might widen the wound and make her intestines spill out.

In the end, it had come to this.

Chen Xuan took a deep breath, ready to send the Thousand Thoughts Sword stabbing forward.

The red-haired witch gritted her teeth and slammed one hand against the ground. The next moment, she vanished without a trace, replaced by a metal cylinder the size of a tree stump. It was ticking incessantly.

A bomb!?

Right—if she could swap places with specific objects, all she had to do was prepare one in advance somewhere outside. Then she'd always have a way out.

But using a bomb as an escape route was pretty extreme. That cylinder had to be packed with high explosives. It had enough power to blow the entire dungeon sky-high!

"Joan, Liu Shuyue, run!" he shouted.

At that very moment, an invisible hand seized him.

"Gate of Rest, open!" Liu Shuyue cried, and a towering surge of water suddenly burst from a prison cell!

"Let's go."

Chen Xuan had no idea what was happening or where the water had come from, but at a critical moment like this, he could only trust her. He grabbed Joan with his free hand as she rushed over and let Liu Shuyue pull him into the water. Amid the surging current, he faintly saw a pitch-black opening appear in the stone wall of the cell. The water was gushing out of it.

Once they passed through the opening, the light abruptly dimmed. Then he felt himself rising rapidly. A dozen seconds later, he broke the surface and finally breathed fresh air again!

"Cough, cough... Where are we?" Chen Xuan looked around. The dungeon and castle were nowhere to be seen. They were surrounded by a rippling lake, with a brilliant starry sky overhead.

Suddenly, a muffled boom came from far away, like thunder on a clear day.

He looked toward the sound and saw many flames burning in the distance.

"Was that explosion from the royal residence?"

"More or less." Liu Shuyue appeared beside him. Unlike Chen Xuan, her hair was perfectly neat, and not a single drop of water clung to her. She had clearly used some sort of water-repelling art. "This technique can attack or defend, advance or retreat. Since you said we should run, I opened the Gate of Rest. Looks like it sent us to a lake near the dungeon."

They'd crossed several miles in the blink of an eye...

Talismanic arts really were a versatile, high-level discipline.

"I didn't expect her to escape the Eight Gates Formation so quickly, even with her mind under its control. The magic beyond the Abyssal Sea truly is formidable." Liu Shuyue glanced at Joan, who looked completely bewildered. "At least we rescued our guest safely. The trip wasn't in vain."

Crazy Thursday, huh...

Judging by her nickname and her weapons, she seemed to come from the same era as him. But how could the world he knew possibly have someone like her?

"That's true." Chen Xuan set aside his doubts. "Let's head back to the Ability Store. Gilles de Rais is waiting there."

"Lady Joan... Thank goodness you're safe!" The general, who had been anxiously pacing outside the store, rushed over the moment he saw the girl return unharmed. His face was alight with joy. "That vile witch didn't torture you, did she?"

Joan shook her head. "His Excellency the messenger told me everything. You've been doing all you can to rescue me. Thank you."

"You're the commander of the entire army, the Saintess who will save our homeland. It was only right for me to do what I did!" Gilles de Rais waved his hands hastily. "The soldiers at the front are all waiting for your return. If you declare yourself innocent, they'll surely stand by you!"

"I..."

"Are you worried about the evil witch? No matter how many devilish tricks she has, she can't control all the troops at the front. If we all rise up together and urge the king, he'll surely change his mind—"

"No!" Joan cut him off firmly. "How is that any different from rebellion? The troops on the front lines are there to fight the English. I have no right to command them for my own purposes!"

"That witch... probably won't show her face again," Chen Xuan said suddenly. "She escaped, but with injuries like those, she's as good as dead."

It was hard to say whether she would actually die. But if she really came from the same world as he did, and her goal was to make Joan die as recorded in history, then her mission had already failed completely. The fabricated identity of a witch was now meaningless, too.

He just couldn't understand why anyone cared so much about Joan's death. He had worried about affecting history as well, so he'd gone out of his way to look up a lot of information. The results showed that Joan's fate hadn't changed at all: she had still been defeated and captured near Compiègne City. That meant the Saint Maidens in the two worlds weren't the same person. So why did anyone care so much about her death?

And Crazy Thursday seemed to understand her abilities better than he did.

Who was she, really?

"But even if one witch has fallen, another might appear." Chen Xuan continued, "They're the minions of hell. As long as they haven't achieved their goal, they'll keep coming."

"That's what I'm worried about, too," Joan said.

"I have a suggestion. It might help."

"Please, go ahead."

He gave the Saint Maiden's shoulder a light pat. "Why don't you retire?"

"Re...tire?"

"How can you!?" Gilles de Rais immediately objected. "Lady Joan is the army's banner, the soldiers' guiding light. We can't afford to lose her!"

"Which would be better: that, or her dying?" Chen Xuan countered.

"Uh..." Gilles de Rais was at a loss for words.

"Just because she's no longer commander, does that mean she can't remain a pillar of strength and guide you in the fight? The most important thing is that she gets to live." He laid out his reasoning bit by bit. "The witches want to eliminate Joan, and some nobles in the palace can't stand her either. Rather than leave her in the public eye as a target for every faction, she should retire and protect herself. The dungeon was almost certainly blown apart and flooded. Anyone would assume Joan had died, so we may as well play along and fool the devils hunting her."

"Besides, retiring doesn't mean she has to stay out of everything. If the English army comes back, she can always return." Chen Xuan looked at Joan. "But it's only a suggestion. The choice is yours."

Joan thought it over seriously for a long time before the knot between her brows finally eased. "This really is the safest way to handle things. The country won't lose strength to infighting, and the factions will all be satisfied by the story that I was killed by a witch."

"My lady..." Gilles de Rais looked pained. But compared to losing the Saint Maiden entirely, this was a good outcome. "I understand. Your will is my duty. I'll make the arrangements for your retirement."

"Please do, General."

Afterward, Joan drew Chen Xuan aside. She hesitated for a moment before asking quietly, "Your Excellency the messenger, may I ask the almighty Lord a question?"

"You want to know whether what the witch said was true?"

Joan's eyes widened. "You... knew?"

It was written all over your face. How could I not guess? Chen Xuan nodded slightly. "The Lord God has given me a revelation."

The girl clasped her hands tightly to her chest without realizing it.

"She said that if I stayed alive... my homeland would fall into decline, the army would lose heart and become divided, and the fragmented Resistance Army would lose to the English invaders. My mission ended once we reclaimed Orléans and Reims. Everyone needed a Saint Maiden's sacrifice to unite them..."

Her voice grew quieter and quieter until she fell silent.

In the dungeon, she had been able to use her anger at the witch to drown out her doubts. But that didn't mean she could simply forget what she'd heard. Jeanne d'Arc had always been sincere and passionate, and she took every question seriously.

"The answer doesn't matter."

She blinked. "I-it doesn't matter?"

"That's right. Any prophecy is just a guess about the future." Chen Xuan smiled. "What the future becomes depends entirely on the people living in the present. It can change in countless ways; no single prophecy can encompass it all. In other words, as long as you're willing to make it happen..."

He opened his arms to the girl. "Then your fate is in your hands."