Chapter 173: The Flower of Destiny

Chapter 173: The Flower of Destiny

Across the boundary of worlds, far away from the chaotic tides of the Bloodborne Sea, a silent clock struck 2:00 AM within the private sanctuary of a royal palace.

Avrill Pearl stood rigidly in the center of her candle-lit study, her warm, emerald-green eyes reflecting the flickering flames. The room was comfortably quiet.

On a mahogany table before her rested the elements of her ultimate gamble: the Severed Record Book Page, its ancient parchment humming with a yellow color, and a small, sealed glass vial containing a single drop of Silas Curtson’s anchored blood — the blood of a man who had been into the dreaming gaze of an Outer God, since he was fine even after that; his blood could be used as a resort.

"To ascend to the next world, you need to meet the death ascension requirements... the step of the ladder you wish to take has broken legs."

The detached, booming warning of Mr. Mysteries echoed clearly within Avrill’s mind. Well, she knew the absolute law of the Threadbinder Authority: to weave the threads of fate, one must first completely detach their consciousness from the physical vessel of their own mortality to touch their Astral form. You could not bargain with fate while your own fate was sealed within a physical flesh.

Avrill drew a steady breath, her fingers trembling slightly as she uncorked the vial. She poured the single drop of Silas’ anchored blood directly onto the surface of the Severed Record Book Page.

The moment the dark, spiritually charged fluid touched the ancient script, the page simply dragged it toward the bottom as the blood began to stretch, unraveling into thousands of golden threads of fate that aggressively burrowed into the air, seeking a destination.

Without a second thought, Avrill raised a slender, silver dagger and looked at the page where the requirement was—

’1: Pour the spiritually anchored blood onto the page, once you see the golden threads of Fate... Stab your heart without harming your physical form. It can be done by using the golden threads of Fate to drive directly into the heart of one.’

’2: Create an Astral form directly derived from your golden threads of Fate.’

’3: Do not pry into the Fate of the cosmos; return immediately once the Fate is drawn.’

Huff... huff...

She closed her eyes; as the princess of the kingdom of Sunken Oasis, she had never truly had to worry about a single injury. Having a body of delicate royal, she had never truly faced such deeply unsettling things.

Avrill’s breath hitched. The air grew frigid, smelling faintly of ancient dust and the metallic tang of Silas’ altered blood. Her delicate skin, unmarred by labor or war, erupted in goosebumps. Being someone who had been unexperienced and on top of that who only knew about studying the occults, the closest she had ever come to violence was watching the palace guards train from a shaded balcony.

Her body was a temple of royal privilege; her soft hand instinctively recoiled from the cold silver dagger.

’Stab your heart without harming your physical form...’

The instructions almost mocked her. How could one drive a blade into the core of their life force and remain whole?

"...the step of the ladder you wish to take has broken legs." Mr. Mysteries’ voice echoed again, a reminder that she was stepping into an abyss with no safety net, but looking back was no longer an option.

Fear of fate was truly the most frightening thing. To counter fate was also a fate.

Avrill gripped the silver dagger with both hands again and held it tightly. She closed her warm, emerald eyes once again, shutting out the flickering candlelight.

She shook her hand. At that moment, only one she could believe was the Mysteries, who didn’t seem to be just a deity to her. ’He’ was a guide.

She clasped both her hands together and chanted the honorable names.

"You are The Lord Light that Walks Beyond the Sun."

"You are The Keeper of the Godless Heaven."

"You are The Last God of a Dying World."

"You are The Lost Destiny of Time."

Just as he finished speaking the word, a sudden reassuring calmness settled onto her mind. The instant protective eyes of the spirit world looked upon her, giving her a warm feeling in her heart.

She finally pressed her lips together; even with her hands trembling and the fear took over, she couldn’t step back from moving further. In the end, she wanted to run away from her fears.

The glowing filaments aggressively snapped toward her, instantly boring through her silk gown and sinking directly into her chest.

Spurt!

Avrill finally forced the dagger deep into her chest. The physical pain was instantaneous, but it lasted for only a fraction of a second. Her knees buckled as the light drained from her emerald eyes, and she let out a low whimper.

A sudden freezing pressure of the golden threads bypassed her skin and ribs, wrapping around her beating heart. Her eyes snapped open, dilated with sheer terror.

Through the medium of the dagger, her will drove the golden threads through her heart.

Thump.

Her heart should have torn open by that stab, but her soul took the damage. A soundless whimper tore from her throat as her consciousness ripped outward, projecting an Astral form.

Avrill looked down and saw her own physical body standing rigidly in the center of the study, eyes wide and vacant, the dagger held desperately against her chest.

She was floating. Strands of brilliant gold spilled from her chest, weaving together to form a translucent, ethereal silhouette that mirrored her own — her Astral Form. She had successfully detached from her mortality and stepped onto the broken ladder.

She hovered in the silent void of the spirit world; a terrifying, cosmic wind began to howl from the edge of her perception. The vast, chaotic tides of the cosmos stirred, as if an immense, multi-eyed gaze from the fog of history was beginning to turn toward the tiny, fragile light of her newly woven fate.

This was the transition state of the Threadbinder Descent, the mad path where an aspirant’s soul was stretched across the raw fabric of the universe.

She could see the unyielding loom of infinite, invisible strings that held the collective thoughts, memories, and tragedies of humanity. The sheer weight of the information slammed into her naked soul, threatening to tear her identity into shattered fragments of cosmic mirror.

The prayer erupted from her soul; the infinite strings violently stepped back as the influence of the Mysteries’ spirit world single-handedly carried over the whispers. All the spirits groaned wildly, their thousand hands reaching toward the sky, and their thousand opened up to devour the madness.

The chaotic, maddening words of the strings were instantly swallowed by a thunderous rush of cosmic wind. From the apex of the void, a boundless, protective white mist cascaded downward, completely insulating her fracturing soul from the dark loom. The silver threads of Silas’ anchored blood snapped into place around her, forming a perfect, protective cocoon that stabilized her sense of self.

Avrill felt her consciousness suddenly expand. The prayer she had just chanted — because she had anchored herself to a supreme deity — ’He’ also felt the weight as the barrier erupted from ’His’ spiritual resonance that was deliberately mixed with the boundless spirituality of the spirit world, where the spirit became the anchor, acting as a blind, cross-spatial intervention.

She quickly followed her golden thread of fate, but as soon as she grabbed it, the thread became deep red silk of Fate that bound her delicate, thin wrist and forced her back into her physical body.

’Gasp!’ Her body trembled as she stirred and jolted upward. The dagger, that should have torn through her clothes and gave her a deep wound, remained in contact with her clothes... there was no injury or anything.

Her emerald eyes could see the golden threads of fate, although she could only see them; weaving them to cause destiny to shatter wasn’t yet achieved.

Her gaze finally lay on her wrist, where a soft silk ribbon bound her. A silver and beautiful object that instantly grabbed her attention as she found it extremely gorgeous, but the word embedded in the ribbon brought her back to reality.

—The Threadbinder—

—Ordinal Eleven—

—The Apprentice Weaver—

—World Seven (柒)—

"Did I complete my Descent? I’ll ask Mr. Mysteries in the next meeting for more guidance."

The first Descent never gave a drawback, except for... a minor memory cost, which she didn’t realize when she lost it...

But deep within the fate world, she suddenly saw two yellow eyes, hidden behind the golden threads, but the very second, a wave of clouds emerged, concealing her vision to stop her from looking deeper.

***

Beneath the boiling crimson waters of the Bloodborne Sea, the miracle manifested.

The divine white mist, carried by the devoted prayer of Avrill, erupted directly inside Murphy’s mind. The pressurized barrier gave him conceptual oxygen, but alongside that, it instantly severed the dozen thin, needle-like flesh tongues that had pierced his forehead and cheeks and healed the wound slowly.

He had that pocket, that isolated barrier of the spirit world now, that he had previously used in Endless Stairs of the Emerald town... Although today, the barrier was much stronger, as it was directly created from the prayer of one of his followers.

The suction cups of the colossal kraken exploded outward, their ringed human teeth shattering into white ash as the protective mist of Mr. Mysteries forcefully rejected the deity’s passive corruption.

Mo Fei’s mind processed the realization with a small smile curling over his lips as she thanked Miss Sage secretly in his mind.

She survived the Threadbinder requirement and officially became an Ascended. Her anchor had stabilized the realm, and the backlash also saved him an opening.

"Now, the wrong for you, is me once again."