Chapter 205: Gaia?

"He just..." Triss felt her breath catch in her chest as she watched the scene.

The green light emerging from Magna’s fingertip and transforming into strange lines that surrounded the rock could only mean one thing.

"...cast a spell?"

Questions about how that was possible, considering he wasn’t a Shadow, wasn’t a Witch, and wasn’t even a woman, quickly faded from her mind. None of them seemed important compared to the most shocking thing she had just heard.

Before the green light appeared, Arthas had repeated the chant Magna was using, and that was what shocked her the most.

He had chanted a completely unfamiliar set of honorable names, ones she had never heard or recognized before, and somehow managed to cast a spell with them.

Triss wanted to repeat those names to herself, to make sure she would never forget them. But when she opened her mouth, she discovered that she couldn’t.

It wasn’t that she had lost her voice or was too shocked to speak.

She simply couldn’t pronounce them. Not even the first line would come out.

She didn’t have time to think about why, as the entire cave suddenly began trembling.

The enormous rock was slowly moving, causing an earthquake that shook the entire mountain.

"It looks like it’s about to collapse." Arthas looked around at the cave walls, where deep cracks were beginning to form.

He was already considering rushing over to grab the boy before he ended up buried beneath an entire mountain, but Triss stopped him before he could move.

"No. Wait a little longer."

Her eyes remained fixed on Magna, who was also looking around in surprise.

The boy appeared completely unaware of what he had just done or what was happening around him.

Yet he made no attempt to run away, choosing instead to remain where he was and wait for the rock to open.

Triss wanted to see what he would do next. She was also dying to know what exactly lay behind that rock.

Arthas accepted her decision. In Hecate’s absence, Triss was the one in charge.

Besides, they were both powerful enough that having a mountain collapse on them wouldn’t be enough to kill them.

And Magna no longer looked like an ordinary child to Arthas either. Surely, he had his own means of keeping himself safe.

They continued watching as the cave rapidly began falling apart around them, with the enormous rock slowly moving aside.

Once a large enough opening appeared, Magna quickly slipped through the gap, disappearing from their sight.

"What do we do now?" Arthas asked.

They had 2 choices. They could either follow the boy or leave the mountain.

A conflicted look appeared on Triss’s face as she struggled to make a difficult decision.

In the end, she turned around.

"Let’s leave. We need to help the Stonemen escape."

They weren’t the only ones inside the cave. There were many Stonemem living there, along with their Mother.

If the mountain collapsed, their Mother might survive, but the other Stonemen currently serving her would certainly be killed.

Triss gave one last look toward the enormous rock and the half-open tunnel leading into darkness, which was already beginning to close again as tons of broken stone fell from above.

Then her body disappeared, with Arthas following right behind her.

—

’Man... that scared me.’

Magna let out a sigh of relief after narrowly escaping being buried alive beneath tons of rock.

’But where am I now?’

He raised his head and tried to look around.

Everything was pitch-black. He couldn’t even see the tip of his nose.

The only thing he knew for certain was that the tremors had stopped. At least his surroundings were no longer collapsing.

There was no wind against his skin, not the slightest sound, and not even a trace of the heat that dominated the Underworld’s climate.

There was simply nothing his senses could detect.

He soon realized that there wasn’t even any ground beneath his feet. He was standing in midair, with nothing supporting him.

"Hello?" he called out in a whisper, hoping that hearing his own voice might offer some comfort in this endless emptiness.

His voice came out clearly enough for him to hear, but soon another voice joined it.

[Save point detected... Parsing files...]

"Gaia?"

Magna was taken aback when the normally silent AI suddenly spoke in its mechanical voice.

More messages quickly followed, one after another.

[Memory file found...]

[Project Split Characterization detected... Downloading files... Executing files...]

"What’s going on? What is Project Split Characteriza..."

Magna suddenly froze as countless images and sounds began flooding his mind.

They were memories containing millions of different moments, far more than his mind could handle. An unbearable pain began throbbing inside his head, making him feel that his skull was about to burst.

But there was nothing he could do to stop it.

The information kept pouring in.

Countless scenes flashed before his eyes, blending together with sounds and even feelings that clearly belonged to someone other than Magna.

In fact, these memories belonged to an entity that wasn’t even human.

He watched as this entity was born from nothingness and gradually took the shape of a woman.

She had no distinct features, resembling a mannequin more than an actual person, but through the sounds accompanying the memories, he learned that she had a name.

A name she had used before becoming the Matriarch of Life.

’Gaia...’

The name echoed through Magna’s mind as the scenes continued flashing before his eyes.

He saw a planet being born in the middle of endless darkness.

First came a world covered in lush greenery and azure oceans. Then darkness spread across the planet, causing everything on its surface to die and disappear.

After that, the planet split into 2.

His mind was being filled with visions of the events that led to the creation of the Witch World and the other realms, unfolding through the 5 stages of Genesis.

He was witnessing the entire process through the eyes of its creators.

First came the perspective of the Matriarch of Life, followed by Death, Fate, Time, and Order.

One after another, he experienced the memories of all 5 Matriarchs, their different perspectives filling his mind.

And as the creation continued unfolding before him, the pain became increasingly unbearable.

Even his body began to ache, with each passing scene making him feel that another piece of his flesh was being torn away.

Other sounds also kept ringing in his ears.

[Your Stamina increased by 1.]

...

..

.

[Your Strength increased by 1.]

Gaia’s messages continued appearing one after another, but its voice was no longer mechanical.

It had become a proper voice, although there was still something strange about it.

It sounded like 5 different women speaking inside his head at the same time, making the pain even harder to endure.

[Your Agility increased by 1.]

...

..

.

[Your Reaction increased by 1.]

The system messages kept coming, but Magna was in no condition to notice them.

If he had, he would have been both surprised and delighted.

He wasn’t only gaining Stamina from the pain. All his stats were increasing rapidly.

His body was also changing, but not in the usual way, where his muscles simply grew larger and stronger.

He was growing older.

His height increased, his features became more mature, and he rapidly lost the appearance of a 9-year-old child, gradually taking on the looks of a young man in his 20s.

And finally, just when his mind was about to burst from the overwhelming amount of information and his body could no longer endure the crushing pain, every scene and sound suddenly disappeared.

His surroundings were once again swallowed by endless darkness, without a single trace of light or sound.

Magna’s body collapsed in the middle of that infinite void, where not even the ground existed.