Chapter 1218 - 1218: D524.Rather Than Spending Seven Days to Create the World, It's Better to Make a Cute Girl

After being swept into the raging wind of the Limit Breaking Curse, the Hero's consciousness plunged straight into the abyss within herself.

Infinite magic power transformed into a straight path, like a fall, rapidly pulling her soul downward.

The speed was so fast that the light spots floating beside her stretched into lines.

In comparison to an ordinary Magician, this rate of descent was like a caterpillar compared to a Chocobo, with the latter finishing in ten seconds what would take the former a whole day, enough to make anyone without the experience scream piercingly.

However, the Hero had long become accustomed to this sensation.

A short while ago, after defeating the Pale Knight that emerged from the Dungeon, she felt the magic power within her reach a new critical point.

As long as she crossed that boundary, she could reach the same realm as the predecessor of Divine Knowledge and see the endpoint of her Profession path.

Though it wasn't intentional, at that moment she wasn't overly eager to embrace such a change.

She once thought that having enough Strength to kill a Goblin was sufficient. But as time passed, the Hero was no longer that careless child of the past.

She once promised her brother to actively become stronger, learned a lot from her master, and even fell in love with learning.

Yet somehow, there was an inexplicable premonition that the opportunity to enter that realm, the moment her destiny's finale would be unveiled, wasn't then.

And now, with the support of the magic power from the Limit Breaking Curse, that long-postponed change had finally become unstoppable.

She no longer resisted, instead throwing herself into the tide of Awakening.

Her consciousness began undergoing a fascinating transformation.

On one hand, she was sinking into the abyss. This was a sensation she was already familiar with, like diving into a deep sea with no visible bottom, surrounded by icy water, yet numerous light spots formed various images, like glowing sea creatures or constellations floating around her.

On the other hand, it felt as if she was rising into endless void, above her was a universe without boundaries, starlight casting from an immeasurable distance, faint yet undeniable.

This sensation was not unfamiliar to her.

Once in the Capital, when facing the Four-winged King, she transformed into the Holy Mother Peak, burning through the final afterglow of the Magic Origin Secret Medicine and unleashed power comparable to a Forbidden Curse.

The eternal winter night of the Heavenly Silence Star—a Forbidden Magic capable of freezing all possibilities, even causing a planet's silence.

Back then, she had cast the magic purely by instinct; she could use it, yet didn't know why, difficult to comprehend, unable to explain what she felt then.

But now, she could understand.

At that moment, the infinitely elevated perspective and the dimensions she observed weren't physical, or even visible in a space-time sense.

It was destiny.

An endless branching of possibilities, using everything accumulated from the past as a starting point, leading to an endlessly extending future.

The power of that Forbidden Curse could freeze the present's extension and reduce infinity to zero.

But that was only the theoretical effect, practically it was still limited by the abilities of the Spellcaster.

The more possibilities the Spellcaster could see, the more could be frozen. The so-called "infinite" was ultimately limited by the individual's viewpoint. If the possibility was beyond imagination, not even the power of a Forbidden Curse could withstand it.

In reality, she was defeated by the Four-winged King precisely because of that.

After all, she had never thought there was a future for her to become a Saintess, she merely wanted to go to the Capital to study...

Nevertheless, with the ocean-like magic power at the time, the possibilities she saw were as numerous as stars in the sky. Countless branches and outcomes of numerous people, whether happy or tragic futures, flashed before her eyes like fish swimming upstream.

Back then, she saw many people's possibilities, but now, what appeared before her eyes were only her own possibilities.

Even so, the number of world lines she saw exceeded what she did then.

She saw a destiny where she became a Mage, a destiny where she was male, a destiny as a Princess, and even a destiny where she was never born...

Because she was sinking into the abyss of herself.

The abyss of self is everything accumulated in the past. The deeper it goes, the more it touches on the distant past.

The more distant past she touches, the more "undetermined" things there are, and the future possibilities begin diverging exponentially.

If she hadn't become a Saintess, if she hadn't become a Hero, if she hadn't met that person, or if she hadn't been born in the Viscount's House...

The more "ifs" that arise, the deeper she descends, the more her perspective rises, almost losing sight of her original self.

Every Profession's path to Growth has its risks. For Magicians, the risk lies not only in the cost of money, luck or misfortune, but more in the loss of self.

Destiny is not predestined, yet it is not within human control either.

Although there are those who believe conversely that because it cannot be controlled, it is hence predestined.

But at least for the individual, the past is certain, while the future isn't always so.

The awakening of a Magician is inherently about finding "possibilities not present now" from their own past, capturing and placing it into their future.

But how to distinguish, which of the captured possibilities and the original present self, is truly real?

In awakening through lineage, a Magician might be eroded by beastliness, losing sanity—unable to discern whether they are humankind or Magic Creatures.

In awakening past lives, a Magician's character could drastically change, as if a different person—unable to confirm living in the present, overtaken by Undead from the past.

In seeking origins, a Magician might directly lose consciousness, becoming an empty shell—an excessively diminutive microscopic will dissolved by the macrocosm of the world.

And ultimately, when confronting one's own destiny, a Magician faces something that transcends the sum of all above—determining the finite self within the infinite.

Upon reaching this realm, they can transform their own abyss into an independent universe, gaining solitude's peace from the tide of destiny.

Some risks of the Magician Profession, some the Hero had experienced, others never troubled her.

But at this final threshold, there's no bypass for anyone.

The Hero had an epiphany—why did she choose to start stepping through the door now?

Because the existence that most wanted to interfere with her destiny, and which had once succeeded, now reached out to her with malign intent once again.

Just as once, due to the interference of the Nether Sea Dream, she was unable to ascend to Legendary status. Without overcoming the barrier known as the Four-winged King, the so-called "mastering one's own destiny" was nothing but empty talk.

She realized that what she needed to do was to shake off others' interference and choose, or be chosen, in solitude on that one uniquely shining path within the infinite tree diagram.

The endless radiance of possibilities completely drowned out everything before the Hero, making her unable to see the present, unable to see the past and future.

But she did not panic, simply closed her eyes gently, and then opened them once more.

From a slightly lowered perspective, she saw a hooded figure before her, who lifted the hood to reveal their true face.

White hair like snow, blue eyes like frost, that exquisite face bearing a trace of unease yet also a trace of forced braveness.

This was something she hadn't noticed at the time.

"After all, it was because I liked the warmth of humankind that I chose to join your Church."

The long unseen Snow Woman Sister smiled like that.

Seeing this, the Hero couldn't help but curve her lips into a smile.

Indeed. Had she not met the Snow Woman, she would have encountered more trouble at the border.

Unable to forge the Finger Claw, unable to gain help from the Snow Woman Clan, unable to find Sister White Snake, and eventually perhaps never leaving the Highland...

Thus, to the present self, the beautiful woman with white hair and blue eyes standing before her is an indispensable important existence.

If she hadn't met her, there would be no present self.

Therefore, this destiny can be said to be predestined—

"—such things, I can do as well."

But just as the Hero was about to step forward to grasp the Snow Woman's hand, a deep voice came from behind.

[The Hero's Constitution value is above 461 but below 762, due to the effect of All-Knowing, the Four-winged King's value is adjusted to 732+10=742]

[The Hero's Constitution value achieved Critical Success, +50=782]

[The Four-winged King's interference failed]

[The Four-winged King activates skill: Quadruple Sacred (Limit Breaking Power)]

[The Four-winged King gains three more determination chances, if failing twice more, will fall into a rigid state]