Chapter 638 The Seer’s Answer

For several seconds, Liam simply stared at the Seer.

The swirling cloud around them moved slowly, curling around their bodies like a living mist while the rest of the world remained completely hidden beyond it. He had expected an answer. After everything they had gone through to reach this place, after surviving the Gargoyles and the strange trial that had nearly broken their minds, he had expected the woman standing before him to finally explain something.

Instead, she simply looked at him.

Her expression was calm, almost impossibly calm, as though the weight of everything happening around them meant nothing to her.

Then she finally spoke.

"The Aetherial."

The single word was soft.

Yet the moment it reached Liam’s ears, something inside him reacted.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

"The Aetherial?"

The Seer nodded.

"You want to know who you are. You want to know why your system changed, why you possess abilities that should not belong to an ordinary human, and why your path has continued leading you toward things that even you do not understand."

Liam’s expression became serious.

Every word she spoke seemed to touch something buried deep inside him.

She continued in that same gentle voice.

"You want to know where the Aetherial came from. You want to know what happened to your people. You want to know why you were brought into this world and why the power within you continues to awaken."

Liam stared at her.

"Yes."

His answer came immediately.

The Seer smiled faintly.

"I will not tell you."

Liam’s eyebrows shot upward.

"What?"

"I will not tell you what you need to know about the Aetherial."

There was no hesitation in her voice.

Liam stared at her for several seconds as though he was waiting for the punchline.

There wasn’t one.

"You brought me all the way here just to tell me you aren’t going to tell me anything?"

The Seer tilted her head slightly.

"You misunderstand."

Her voice remained gentle.

"The answers you seek are not meant to be handed to you. They are meant to be discovered by you."

Liam’s expression tightened.

"That sounds like something someone says when they don’t want to answer a question."

A tiny smile appeared on her lips.

"You have always been impatient."

The words made Liam pause.

There it was again.

That strange feeling.

That certainty that she knew him.

Not merely knew his name or his current circumstances.

She spoke as though she had known him for years.

Perhaps longer.

But before he could question her about it, she continued.

"I can guide you."

She raised one hand slightly.

"I can lead you toward the places you need to reach. I can place the pieces before you. But the one who puts those pieces together must be you."

Liam remained silent.

Part of him wanted to argue.

Another part of him understood exactly what she meant.

He had already been given too many answers by the system without understanding why those answers existed. His entire journey had been one discovery after another. Every time he thought he understood something, another mystery appeared behind it.

Maybe this was no different.

Still, he couldn’t help feeling disappointed.

"So you’re basically giving me homework."

The Seer’s eyes softened with amusement.

"If that is how you wish to describe it."

Liam sighed.

"Great."

The Seer raised her hand.

Then she snapped her fingers.

The world changed.

The thick cloud surrounding them immediately began to dissolve.

The mist that had blocked everything outside scattered in every direction, fading into the surrounding white space until Liam could once again see the others.

Tatiana was standing only a short distance away.

Irina was beside Leonid.

Agatha, Mary and Gregor remained together, all three watching Liam and the Seer with varying expressions of curiosity and confusion.

From their perspective, only a few seconds seemed to have passed.

None of them had heard anything.

None of them had seen anything.

Liam looked around.

"So you guys couldn’t hear us?"

Irina shook her head.

"Not a word."

Leonid frowned.

"Whatever that cloud was, even my senses couldn’t penetrate it."

Tatiana’s eyes remained fixed on Liam.

She looked as though she wanted to ask what had happened, but before she could, the Seer turned away from Liam.

Her attention shifted toward Agatha.

Agatha immediately straightened.

The atmosphere around her changed.

She looked almost reverent.

The Seer looked at her for several seconds before speaking.

"Yes."

Agatha’s eyes widened slightly.

"I guided you here."

The witch swallowed.

The Seer continued.

"And yes, I am the goddess you serve on Earth."

Silence.

The confirmation was simple, but it carried an enormous weight.

Agatha’s eyes immediately lowered.

Mary and Gregor did the same.

Liam looked between them.

"But how?"

The Seer turned her eyes toward him.

For the first time, there was something almost impatient in her expression.

"That question is not important."

Liam blinked.

"Not important?"

"No."

She slowly walked past Agatha.

"I have limited time to spend with you mortals."

Mortals.

The word struck Liam harder than he expected.

He watched her carefully.

Mortals.

She hadn’t called them humans.

She hadn’t called them witches or werewolves or vampires.

She had called them mortals.

There was something about the word that made the distance between her and everyone else suddenly feel enormous.

Liam had already suspected it.

Now he knew.

She really was a god.

A genuine god.

Not some powerful witch.

Not some ancient magical creature.

Not some powerful being that had simply lived for thousands of years.

A god.

And somehow they had walked into her domain as though they had simply taken the wrong road.

Liam stared at her.

What the fuck was going on?

Before he could ask another question, the Seer lifted her hand.

A soft light gathered above her palm.

The light expanded.

Lines began forming inside it.

Liam’s eyes narrowed.

A map.

It wasn’t a normal map.

The surface seemed to shift constantly, displaying mountains, rivers, strange symbols and enormous regions that Liam couldn’t recognize. Some areas appeared completely black while others glowed with faint silver light.

The map looked less like a drawing and more like a piece of something alive.

Liam took a step closer.

"What is that?"

"The path."

The Seer looked at the map.

"The path you must follow."

Liam’s eyes moved across its surface.

He tried memorizing everything he could.

There were locations he didn’t recognize.

Symbols he had never seen.

A large circular mark appeared near the center of the map, surrounded by several smaller symbols.

Then something unexpected happened.

The map disappeared from the Seer’s hand.

It reappeared directly in Liam’s.

He barely had time to react.

"What the..."

The map suddenly dissolved.

It didn’t burn.

It didn’t disappear.

It became light.

The entire thing broke apart into countless glowing particles that rushed toward Liam’s chest.

His eyes widened.

The light sank directly into his body.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then Liam felt something move through his mind.

Images.

Locations.

Symbols.

Routes.

A sensation of distance.

It was as though someone had taken an enormous amount of information and compressed it into a single moment before placing it inside his consciousness.

Liam staggered slightly.

Tatiana immediately took a step toward him.

"Liam?"

He raised a hand.

"I’m fine."

He wasn’t entirely sure that was true.

His mind felt like it had just been struck by lightning.

The Seer looked at him.

"Everything you need to save your home is in there."

Liam slowly lifted his head.

"My home?"

The Seer smiled.

"Earth."

That word carried a strange warmth.

For the first time since they had arrived, Liam’s expression softened.

Earth.

Dickson.

The others.

Everyone he had left behind.

The people who had no idea what was happening beyond their world.

The people who were depending on him.

His hand slowly closed into a fist.

"I’ll save it."

The Seer didn’t answer.

She simply looked at him.

There was something in her eyes that Liam couldn’t understand.

Something almost sad.

Something that vanished so quickly that he wondered whether he had imagined it.

Then she turned toward the witches.

Agatha immediately bowed her head.

The Seer smiled at the three witches.

"You have done well."

Agatha’s eyes immediately became wet.

Mary lowered her head.

Gregor looked overwhelmed.

For people who had spent their entire lives serving an unseen goddess, standing directly before her was probably something they never imagined would happen.

The Seer raised her hand.

White light suddenly erupted around them.

"What is happening?" Irina shouted.

Tatiana immediately moved toward Liam.

Leonid reached for his weapon instinctively.

But there was no attack.

The light simply swallowed everyone.

For one brief moment, Liam saw the Seer standing alone in the center of the white world.

Her expression remained peaceful.

Then everything disappeared.

Liam’s feet touched something solid.

His eyes opened.

Grass.

He was standing in an open field.

The others were scattered around him.

Their horses stood nearby, apparently unharmed and completely calm as though nothing unusual had happened.

Liam looked around.

The mountains were gone.

The strange cloud realm was gone.

The Gargoyle passage was gone.

Everything had disappeared.

Leonid was the first to react.

He immediately jumped from his horse and looked around.

"What the hell?"

He turned in a slow circle.

"We were just in the mountains."

Irina looked around in disbelief.

"There isn’t even a mountain nearby."

Agatha was staring at the horizon.

Her expression was difficult to read.

Mary and Gregor were equally stunned.

Tatiana didn’t seem concerned about the surroundings.

Her eyes were already searching for Liam.

She found him.

Then she noticed something.

"Liam."

He wasn’t listening.

His eyes had suddenly dropped toward his own body.

He looked down at his shirt.

His hand slowly moved toward his side.

The place where the Gargoyle had torn him open.

He hesitated.

Then he grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled it upward.

His eyes widened.

The wound was gone.

Completely gone.

There wasn’t even a scar.

The bruising had vanished.

The deep claw mark that Irina had frozen earlier had disappeared as though it had never existed.

Liam stared at his stomach.

He touched the skin.

Nothing.

No pain.

No tenderness.

Nothing.

His eyes widened further.

"Holy shit!"

Everyone turned toward him.

Liam ran his fingers over his stomach again.

"It healed."

Tatiana immediately approached.

"What?"

"This."

He pointed at his side.

"The wound."

Tatiana looked.

Her eyes widened.

Irina hurried over as well.

She had personally frozen the wound only moments ago, and now there wasn’t even a mark left.

"What the hell?"

Liam looked toward the empty sky.

The Seer was nowhere to be seen.

Yet somehow, he knew.

She had done it.

He lowered his shirt slowly.

For several seconds nobody spoke.

They had entered the mountains wounded, exhausted and confused.

They had faced the Gargoyles.

They had survived the trial.

They had met a goddess.

And now they were standing in an ordinary field as though none of it had happened.

Liam looked down at his hands.

His mind was filled with questions.

The Aetherial.

Caelus Vaelorian.

The map now buried somewhere inside his consciousness.

The Seer’s strange familiarity with him.

And the way she had looked at him as though she had been waiting for him for an impossibly long time.

Liam slowly raised his head toward the sky.

"What the hell am I?"