Witch's Mask

The two sat across the long table, staring at each other in silence.

After a moment, Isolde slowly raised her hand.

At her cuff, an inconspicuous button gleamed faintly.

[Secretsight Button] slipped from the black lace edge of her sleeve and fell into her palm.

It looked utterly ordinary, like a small decoration casually sewn onto any old piece of clothing.

But only Isolde knew that without it yesterday, she might not have been able to secure any gains from Ullr's contract.

She pinched the button between her fingers and flicked it out.

The button skimmed across the long table. Ullr caught it, his movement as light as if he were catching a gold coin.

Isolde said coldly, "I'm letting you keep it for now. I'll come back for it one day."

Ullr lowered his head to look at the button, gently rubbing it with his fingers like a greedy man who had obtained a treasure.

He tucked the [Secretsight Button] into the innermost hidden pocket over his chest and lightly pressed the pocket opening with his fingertips.

A circle of tiny contract runes appeared, then quickly vanished.

"Of course," he said softly. "I'm looking forward to that day."

Ullr gently pushed the silver box forward. It slid across the long table and stopped before Isolde.

Two Teleport Stones lay quietly inside, gray-blue mist slowly swirling around them.

[Trade Complete]

[Lost: Secretsight Button]

[Obtained:]

[Teleport Stone—Corpse Transport Road Behind Grey Dove Monastery]

[Teleport Stone—Crowcandle Castle]

[Notice: Teleport Stones are single-use consumable items. Please use with caution.]

Isolde looked at the final line and still felt a little pained.

But money flowed away like water, while recovering losses depended on robbery. That was the basic logic of this world, and she would have to get used to it slowly.

Just then, beyond the dining room window, a faint streak of white light appeared deep within the gray fog.

It was distant, yet sharp as a blade, slowly cutting through the shadows surrounding the Castle.

Ullr said slowly, "The monastery has begun probing the Castle's coordinates. Miss Isolde, you don't have much time."

Isolde rose to her feet and looked down at the Teleport Stone in her palm. Within the gray-blue mist, the mountain road piled with body bags grew clearer and clearer.

"Lia, while I'm gone, conceal the Castle completely from the outside."

Then she looked at Ullr and instructed, "And take good care of Mr. Ullr."

Lia bowed respectfully. "Yes, Miss."

Lia led Ullr away, leaving the two Teleport Stones lying quietly on the table.

Isolde stood by the window, watching the roiling gray fog beyond the Castle, feeling inexplicably uneasy.

Grey Dove Monastery was not Crowcandle Castle.

The Castle was the familiar nest of bones, Valen's old chessboard left behind.

But the Holy Court was different. It wore light like a cloak, and the more brightly a place was cloaked in light, the harder it was to see its shadows.

Isolde lowered her gaze and lightly touched her face with her fingertips.

This face and title were far too conspicuous now.

Even if she stood at the monastery entrance and did nothing, the Holy Court's people would probably raise their holy emblems at once and drag her onto an altar for a good roasting.

Not to mention that Ullr had said the Northern Witch Hunters, the Black Tower, and a Descender squad might all be going there.

Running into any one of those three groups would be enough to make her suffer.

Isolde closed her eyes and began using her disguise skill.

[Witch's Mask]

Ever since she had swallowed the Castle Authority, this passive ability had changed along with it.

Several outlines even surfaced in her mind for her to choose from. They were all souls she had devoured.

Isolde looked at Zheng Chuan's brutish face and crossed it out without hesitation.

Too stupid. Luo Qi wouldn't work either.

That face looked like the sort that would get beaten up in a dark alley before being interrogated.

Meng Yinyin, on the other hand, could work.

A mage by class, female, not particularly eye-catching in appearance, with traces of basic holy-light skills.

With a few adjustments, she would be perfect for disguising herself as a freelance mage and infiltrating the monastery's outskirts.

Isolde's fingers paused over Meng Yinyin's shadow.

Just as she was about to choose it, a ripple suddenly spread through the deepest darkness. Then, a fourth figure emerged.

The person stood far away, like a child who had done something wrong, shrinking awkwardly into a corner.

She was thin, her black hair tied back with the most ordinary plastic hair tie. Her face was pale from prolonged hunger and fear.

She wore a damaged novice jacket. Old wounds marked the back of her hands, and her eyes held far too much cautious eagerness to please, as well as... an almost humble desire to survive.

Yu Lingye.

Yu Lingye from her previous life.

Isolde's breathing suddenly grew lighter.

She had not expected [Witch's Mask] to be capable of stripping away even the past she most wanted to gouge out.

Nor had she expected that the truest, most direct portrait of her soul would still look like this.

That shadow stood in the darkness, as though she had been forcibly dragged back into the world one second before being swallowed by the tide of snakes in her previous life.

She said nothing. She merely looked quietly at the witch she had become with those despairing, lost, yet desperately clinging eyes.

Isolde's outstretched hand froze in midair.

She thought she had forgotten that face, but seeing it again now still felt like something had lightly struck her chest.

An intensely complicated sense of rejection surged through her like a tide.

Instinctively, she wanted to turn away, because she hated that shadow.

She loathed Yu Lingye from her previous life—the weak, yielding girl who pressed her dignity into the mud just to beg others not to abandon her.

That useless fool, filled with modern gentleness and politeness, toyed with in the palm of a cruel world's hand, who learned nothing but how to identify crystal ore before she died, was the greatest shame of her life.

Yet just as she wanted to look away, a sharp pain unexpectedly stabbed through her heart.

That was her, after all.

The child who had once gone to school step by step in modern society and held hopes for the future.

The self who, even when pressed into the deepest mud, had gritted her teeth, shed tears, and desperately tried to survive.

She had been weak. She had been foolish. But she had never truly surrendered to the darkness.

If Yu Lingye had not struggled in the mud until her final moment without willing herself to close her eyes, how could there be an Isolde now, who had crawled back from hell to take up the chess pieces?

They were inseparable.

That was her root, the most painful yet purest piece of flesh and blood in her soul.

Outside, gray fog battered the glass, while a faint creak of wooden beams came from deep within the Castle.

Isolde gave a self-mocking laugh.

She could have chosen Meng Yinyin.

That would have been safer, more reasonable, and more like the sort of mage who would appear near the Holy Court.

But if even she despised that weak version of herself, then in this cold and cruel world, the girl who had died in the tide of snakes would truly rot forever in mud that no one knew about.

The survival skill Yu Lingye had failed to obtain in her previous life, the dignity she had never received, the road she had never finished walking—why couldn't they begin again?

At that moment, her hesitation faded.

The witch's coldness and Yu Lingye's obsession fused perfectly in the darkness. What flickered in her eyes was still that unchanging spark of a soul that refused to yield to fate.

"It'll be you."

Isolde raised her hand and touched that frail shadow gently but firmly.

In the darkness, the shadow that belonged to Yu Lingye raised her head.

The next instant, gray mist-light rose from beneath Isolde's feet, crawling inch by inch over her skirt, waist, shoulders, and neck.

Her elaborate black dress faded away. Her almost translucent pale skin gradually took on the color of an ordinary person's blood. Her overly long black hair shortened and fell across her shoulders, while her features slowly became plain and delicate.

A young woman of around twenty appeared in the mirror.

Not beautiful enough, nor striking enough.

But she was alive.

Isolde raised her hand and touched the mirror.

When the cold cracks pressed against her fingertips, she suddenly smiled.

"Not bad. Much cleaner on the eyes than in my previous life."

But appearance alone was not enough.

She closed her eyes and slowly drew forth the traces of a mage's class that she had analyzed from Meng Yinyin's soul.

A faint strand of white light rose from the callused palm of her ordinary hand.

She suppressed the light spell to a very shallow level. It was not as pure as that of a true Holy Court priest, nor did it carry the chill of the Castle's dark arts. It more closely resembled the magic used by a low-level wandering mage—clean and limited, with limited killing power as well.

Everything was just right.

She controlled her power precisely, covering the witch's mana circuits with the unicorn's holiness.

At this moment, even if a high-ranking Holy Court inquisitor stood before her and inspected her carefully, they would only think she was an ordinary human mage with some foundation. They would never connect her to the terrifying witch in the Castle who toyed with souls.

Everything was ready.

Isolde changed into a short gray cloak. Beneath it, she wore a lightweight mage robe that had been washed until slightly faded. Two ordinary low-grade potion bottles and an unremarkable dagger hung from her waist.

Finally, she picked up the Teleport Stone on the long table.

When the cold stone touched her palm, the gray-blue mist inside it trembled softly, reflecting her current appearance.

Yu Lingye in the mirror looked at her, and she looked at Yu Lingye in the mirror.

"We're leaving," she said to herself.

The next second, her five fingers suddenly tightened, crushing the Teleport Stone with all her strength.

The instant the gray-blue light exploded like a storm, every candle flame in the room bent inward in a bizarre motion.

Isolde heard the howl of wind, then her entire body was swept into a violent spatial current.