Release That Witch

Garcia stood in a garden and took a deep breath. She smelled rosemary in the gentle breeze.     

Even with her eyes closed, she knew that she was not in the Kingdom of Everwinter. That place had nothing except cold winds, frozen soil and no-scent coltsfoot, and the backyard of the castle was constantly filled with stench from the sausage and the meat hung up to dry. This place was obviously not her Port of Clearwater, either. Winds here were not humid or salty, and she could not hear any sound of sea waves washing up on the beach.     

"It must be the backyard of the palace of Graycastle," she thought.     

However, when she opened her eyes, she found it was somehow different from the place she remembered.     

Sitting by the central flowerbed, she touched the rough stone bricks. Once in her childhood, when she had been playing hide-and-seek here, she had stumbled over some brick and broken her forehead, blood spilling out to cover her whole face. She remembered that her father had already had the bricks replaced by smooth cobbles to prevent similar accidents from happening again, but after that she had been unable to hide herself here any more.     

She also remembered that the moment she had fallen, Gerald and Timothy had been there, too. They had been scared seeing what had happened to their sister. In order to comfort her, they had taken turns to imitate the way she had fallen and had deliberately hit their heads onto the bricks beside the flowerbed. Because of these stupid actions, they had been beaten by father afterwards.     

Garcia had thought that she had already forgotten this experience, like a secret deeply buried under a tree. However, coming back to this place revived her memories at once. When this experience was dug out, she found that she could still clearly recall every detail of it.     

She felt as if she traveled back to her childhood.     

In a sudden, she heard a strange voice coming from behind. "So, this is your world. It's a nice place for you to sleep forever."     

Following the soft, dreamlike voice, Garcia turned around and saw a woman dressed in white step out from the back of the flowerbed. She had long white hair, a perfect face and a pair of light red eyes, looking like an angel.     

The Queen of Clearwater pulled her face and said, "You're the church's witch."     

"My name is Zero. It's not appropriate to call me a witch. I'm a pure witch, different from those fallen ones," the woman said with a slight smile.     

Garcia said coldly, "Pure witch? You're just the church's plaything. What's this trick? Is this scene a mirage you create? Is this your ability?" She paused to pick up a stone and squeezed it in her hand. "It's not real! You can't deceive me!"     

The queen's roar reached far, but nothing changed after that. The stone did not break. Instead, its hard edges grazed her hand. When she released the stone, she could still feel the pain in her hand clearly.     

"Well, apparently, you're not ignorant of witches' abilities. It's much easier for me to explain." Zero lifted her dress a little and slightly bowed. "Welcome to the world of consciousness. I call it Soul Battlefield. We're going to fight against each other here. The winner gets everything, and the loser loses everything... just as the oracle in the Holy Book says."     

Soul... Battlefield?     

Garcia was stunned and suddenly felt a sharp pain in her chest. Before she had noticed, Zero had conjured a spear from nowhere and thrust it into her chest, making her feel hard to breathe. She opened her mouth, trying to shout, but failed to make any sound. At this moment, Zero turned the barrel of the spear and pulled it out, let Garcia's blood gush out and splash on her body. The queen knelt down, trying to cover the wound with trembling hands, but the massive loss of blood quickly made her black out.     

The next moment, Garcia found herself intact and standing in the same place, and the pure witch was leaning on her erected long spear and watching her from a distance, looking as if she had never left that place.     

Garcia panted heavily, thinking, "What happened just now? Is it just an illusion?" However, when she lowered her head, she saw a pool of blood at her feet.     

"This is the rule, but consciousness isn't immortal." Zero spread her hands. "The pain of each death is real to you. It'll consume your willpower and strength. When you can't bear it anymore, the real long sleep will befall you."     

She continued to explain in a gentle voice, "After each death, your body will be restored to its original state. Most people were able to withstand three to four times at most, but some strong-willed people I've seen could survive seven to eight or even more times. I'm looking forward to seeing how many you can take, but I'll understand if you decide to give up. After all, continuous deaths are an unbearable torment even for me. It's not a cowardly choice to quit this battle especially when you're doomed."     

With these words, she threw away her spear and drew out a long sword from her back. She jumped up, flying toward Garcia with the sword in hand.     

Garcia's eyes were widened in shock. "It's impossible for the pure witch to hide such a big weapon in her white dress, so they must be... conjured from the air?" In a sudden, some words that the witch had said flashed upon her mind.     

"So, this is your world..."     

"I call it the Soul Battlefield."     

"Consciousness isn't immortal... it's real to you."     

The sword struck down, but hit on a large iron shield, instead of cutting Queen of Clearwater in half. The rebound force was so strong that Zero could hardly hold the handle of the sword. After a loud crash, the sword flew out of her hand, and she involuntarily moved backward for quite a long distance. Meanwhile, Garcia was also knocked down by the impact.     

"I'm doomed?" the queen grated her teeth and sneered. "You said that this is 'my world', did you?" She rolled to get up and conjured a hand crossbow. When she was shooting at Zero with it, a crucifix rose behind the witch to trap her.     

With bolts shot into her tummy, the pure witch revealed a look of suffering on her face. She panted for a while and then said slowly, "I, I'm really surprised... ahem, usually it's hard for a person to perceive the rule of this world, let alone motivating his consciousness to fight back. Queen of Clearwater, you're definitely a tough opponent even for Lord Mayne."     

"Thanks for the compliment." Garcia picked up the spear on the ground. "If you didn't talk so much crap, I wouldn't realize the wonders of this world so quickly. Well, next, how many holes should I pierce your body?"     

The pure witch smiled bitterly, saying, "It's up to you."     

…     

When Garcia thrust the spear into Zero for the 10th time, the witch finally died. The queen intentionally avoided the vital parts by starting from her limbs and tummy. In the beginning, Zero had given out sad shrills but then she had gradually quieted down in the process.     

"Now, this witch will come back to life, but I won't lose. This is the palace of the Kingdom of Graycastle, my world. I can conjure anything here according to my will," Garcia thought.     

Soon, as a beam of white light shone through Zero's body, all her wounds were gone. She opened her light red eyes again.     

Garcia raised the spear, ready to kill the witch one more time. However, out of her expectation, Zero easily got rid of the ropes that tied her to the crucifix. She kicked the spear away and came close to Garcia. Before the queen realized, she lifted her hand and cut. Garcia lost all her feelings at once.     

In front of Zero who had nothing in her hand, a headless body feebly fell to the ground.     

How... is this possible?     

After a dozen seconds, Queen of Clearwater came back to life again. She covered her neck with her hands and staggered backward in fright, thinking, "Did the witch cut my head off with just her hand?" She looked at the broken hemp ropes on the crucifix and then at the blood on her own hands, convincing herself that what had happened was true.     

Zero smiled and said, "If you don't understand the rule of the consciousness world, how can I get a real fight? You look confused. Are you wondering how did I get rid of the ropes which were as thick as a finger? The answer is simple. As I told you, in this world, the winner takes all... Among all the people I've absorbed, there're some supremely powerful witches. They're strong, fast and not afraid of God's Stone of Retaliation. Maybe you've never heard of them before. The church calls them Extraordinaries."     

Zero opened her arms, saying, "You can't defeat me by conventional means. If you want to survive, you've got to try harder... Now, it's my turn."