"how's it going?"
As a swirl of gold and black appeared on the stage, Shad and Miss Sylvia walked out hand in hand.
Luvia, who was waiting for news at the Wilde Opera House, came immediately, followed by Tifa.
"The result is very good. I will turn the key immediately. Oh, is there any new news?"
Shade also asked, Tifa nodded slightly, and looked at Shade with some concern:
"Miss Beas witnessed the blooming of the first Randall flower. That was over an hour ago."
"So according to estimates, the crazy guardian is finally going to appear?"
Miss Sylvia asked, Luvia's voice was very calm:
"Let's talk about it after Xia De comes back. It'll only take three seconds anyway."
Xia De took out the time key, looked at the cat on his shoulder, and finally did not hand it over. Instead, he stroked it and turned it into a toy and put it away.
"Mia, just follow me. I already know what to do next. Also, where's Sirius?"
He was still worried about the not-so-perfect ending.
"Don't worry, we didn't let her leave the opera house all night. Now she is helping to prepare the potion in the basement."
Luvia said, and Shade was relieved:
"Don't worry about her having to sacrifice herself. I got something good this time."
He took out the Heart of the Earth (fragment) from his pocket. Compared with the golden stone, it was not only larger in size. The ancient and heavy power almost suffocated the girls who noticed the stone. A life ring even appeared behind Luvia, and then the five-ring miracle spirit rune - the Heart of the Earth was engraved.
Xia De declined to comment on this.
"May the World Tree protect me in infinite time."
After a simple hug, Shade said goodbye to the girls who were worried about him, and then inserted the almost completely broken key in his hand into the door frame in front of him.
Click!
Stranger, you have stepped into the "Corridor of Time".
Message from the ancient god "Father of the Infinite Tree":
Autumn of the 3028th year of the Fifth Era, Northern Continent, Evernight City.
Event: Whispers of the Eternal Night.
Duration: 3 minutes (5/4).
You get additional information.
The figure of the Infinite Tree Father watches over you.
Compared to the normal time mission, the content obtained this time was relatively brief. There were no extra missions, no extra mission rewards, and the number of times became a strange "5/4". Xia De knew that he could get an extra chance, which was already the limit, and he did not expect to have a second chance.
"So, we must solve the problem once and for all!"
After entering the white fog, he did not move forward immediately, but stopped and took a deep breath.
If he continued to move forward, he would probably return to the temple of the Old God of Night. He needed to be prepared to face the Old God and take Fiona away.
"Although burning divinity is not feasible, the afterglow of divinity is still useful."
He touched his body and although he had no hope, he still brought some relics with him before he set out, and even held a night watchman in his hand. But at this time, he didn't bring any items.
"So, this is the only thing we can rely on."
He took out the parchment with the handwriting of the writer and the princess, and read the story written on it for the last time.
After telling the story to the gods of the past, although the spirit runes did not appear for the time being, the familiar seasonal feeling in his heart had already appeared. For Shade, the acquisition and formation of these "fairy tale puzzles" and storytelling have never been the most important link. The most important link is that he understands these fairy tales and understands the qualities that he possesses.
This is not a power that can be understood by deliberate study. What is needed is to use one's own stories to set off those fairy tales.
Since Xia De got the "Little Match Girl" out of "pity" at the beginning, he knew that the fairy tale puzzle lock could not be learned by deliberately arranging it. And now, he knows that another opportunity has come.
"Fiona, I will get you out safely."
The pressure from the gods that could be felt every time he took a step and the tingling sense of crisis urged Xia De to stay away from such a dangerous place, but thinking of the promise, Xia De strengthened his confidence.
The thick steam fog mixed with the white mist around him. In the depths of the lingering white mist, as the whistle and bells sounded in the silent space, a life ring emitting brilliant four-color light appeared behind Shade.
He clutched the parchment that Dorothy and Lesia had prepared for him, and finally took another step forward.
"Shad!"
Clearly, she was facing the god sitting behind the curtain the moment before and was hugged by the man in front of her, but the next moment, white mist emerged from an unknown corner and directly took away Xia De who was hugging her.
The witch Fiona Drago could never use any words to describe her feelings at this moment. The departure of Shade also represented the disappearance of the glory of the sun and the moon. The endless night invaded, which represented the opposite of the day, the power of darkness, shadow and emptiness, and almost immediately made her consciousness drift into the deepest dream.
At this moment, it seemed as if time had stopped in the eyes of the Dragon Witch. She had many questions and many reluctances. At the last moment of her life and consciousness, the scene of her not-so-long life flashed before her eyes, and she actually found that she was so lucky.
Although he was born into the royal family of the Red Dragon, his childhood was not satisfactory due to his mixed-blood identity and his mother's embarrassing background. After leaving his family, he made a living on his own. On that hot summer afternoon, in a small town whose name he had almost forgotten, he was wearing a tattered cloak to hide his tail and selling sunscreen potions in the ruins of the Fourth Epoch Castle. He met Miss Mana Felena and Miss Brynni Olanord who came with parasols.
"What did I do at that time?"
That is a very distant memory. I only remember that I was very short and had big eyes, and the sun was so hot that day.
"It seems that I mustered up the courage to sell them the potion I made myself, and then I accidentally bit my tongue..."
So, I was brought to the inn where they lived by the teacher in tattered clothes, and then I became the current Red Dragon Witch Fiona Drago.
The life and experiences since I met the teacher are even more bizarre than the fairy tales I heard when I was a child playing with my tail in my mother's arms. Four years ago, when I saw the young man who came in the snow at the library of Cadiz in the Dead Valley, I felt that I might have just been blinded by the scorching sun on that afternoon long ago and fell into a long hallucination. Maybe after waking up, I will still have to worry about the source of dinner and whether I can sell the potion with a short shelf life.
But none of this mattered anymore. In that long second, Fiona, whose blood had already been sublimated by Shade's messy ritual, finally clearly sensed the traces of time. Amid the terror of life and death and the oppression of gods, she surpassed any mortal of this era and truly touched the power of time.
The secret art of stopping time that she had seen on an ancient scroll many years ago was directly mastered by her because of her desire to live. But this could not save her, but it gave Fiona a chance. In the last second, she thought about her life, the people she missed, her own story, and the lullaby her mother sang and the stories she told when she was young.
But at the last moment, what she thought of was the story told by Xia De and described by her a few minutes ago. They both came from ordinary backgrounds and were oppressed by other family members.
However, the lucky Cinderella prayed to the night and got the crystal shoes and pumpkin carriage she longed for. She chose to leave her family and live alone, and then she met the teachers and him.
Shade's face seemed to be the last thing he thought of in his life. Although he felt guilty towards the teacher, Fiona was willing to forgive herself for being a little selfish at the moment.
"If I pray to the moon and the night, will you respond to me?"
She asked softly in her heart, even though she knew that Xia De's departure was an accident, and even if he came back, it would not change the facts that were about to happen. But her unwillingness to die, her attachment to life, and the emotions in her heart that she was embarrassed to express still prompted her to have such thoughts.
So, at the last moment before her body was swallowed by the night and she was about to lose consciousness, she said in her heart:
"Praise Silver Moon, praise you."
Nothing seemed to happen, but with a final sigh, she got the response she wished for.
In the sudden white mist, she heard Shade's voice again:
“That’s my promise.”
In an instant, the light of the silver moon once again dispelled all the darkness around. Four-color spiritual light flickered on the life ring behind him. Shade, who had come to this time again from the white mist, stretched out his hand to embrace the trembling Fiona, then turned around and looked directly at the figure behind the high curtain, which he finally saw clearly.
"I promised, so I will definitely do it."
Large tracts of night peeled off from the space as Shade returned, and then something moved. The power from the Great One was directly released on Shade without reservation this time. The figure sitting behind the curtain did not move visually, but Shade knew that "she" had reached out to him.
"You shouldn't have come back!"
After the words came out, the Red Dragon girl realized that she shouldn't say such a sentence at this moment, which sounded like a sentence from a witch romance novel, but Xia De didn't care:
"I promised."
The excitement in his heart finally reached its climax in the words that came out of his mouth. The approach of divine power made the divine afterglow on his body surface bloom, until the golden light on his body surface was dragged backwards by the wind pressure like a flame.
The parchment held tightly in Shade's hand was burning, and the beautiful letters of the common language of Drarion flew one by one towards the rapidly rotating brass ring. The story was engraved on the life ring, and also engraved in Shade's heart.
Time gives power to stories, and civilization gives depth to fairy tales. Originally, in the Fifth Age, fairy tales were not widely circulated, and were not enough to support the power of the ring wizards. Fortunately, Shade did not belong to the Fifth Age, and the girls writing on the parchment in their hands did not belong to this era either.