Julia stood up and placed her hands behind her, Anna was familiar with this motion and knew Julia no longer intended to listen. Watching Julia walk beneath the sky that seemed ablaze, Anna followed her towards the centre of the courtyard. She curbed her smile, imitating Julia by also placing her hands behind her back.
When Anna stopped smiling and adopted the same posture as Julia, the two were truly like sisters.
Julia commented after staring at the sky for some time, “Even I never thought you would grow up to be so like me.”
Anna, like all other humans in the Julian empire, was not native to its land. The empire had no male population since Julia had a bad opinion of men; so they could only appropriate girls from other parts of the continent.
You cannot tell how a child will grow up, but Anna’s appearance was somewhat similar to Julia. Of course, their aura and charm were not the same, but just as Julia had said, anyone would take the two as sisters.
It was not only because of appearance but their temperament, bearing, spirit and other things as well.
“In truth, I had never care that you were a human. To saints, these things are of little significance.”
Julia gazed at the swirling whirlpool of flames forming in the sky, a beautiful light accentuate her incomparable beauty and supremely firm self-confidence and authority. “I have lived for around six million years, and never had I once form an intimate relationship. I was perfectly content with never producing an offspring because I never once doubted I will exist till the end of time.”
The surging flames grew to cover the entire city, yet did not manage to blanket the sky over Julia.
“I have taught you for a dozen years, but it seems half a year away was enough for you to forget everything.”
Julia firmly stated emotionlessly, “All things must die eventually, the affection between men will break no matter what. They are worth less than dirt.”
Anna asked, “Then what is the most valuable thing?”
Julia titled her head to look at the sky, seemingly watching the process Margrethe undergoes to transform. She said leisurely, “To live forever. To live is glorious.”
After a moment of thought, Anna asked, “What’s the point of living so long?”
“Why live? Why die in the first place. Since I have the capability to live forever, shouldn’t I seize upon it? You can distract yourself with menial things, but living in itself is the greatest gift.”
“Others decay, even saints and gods lose their power and die. Those individuals are, unfortunately, but you and I are different.”
Julia turned back and looked at Anna, continuing, “We are too attached to this world, unlike those saints and immortals who distant themselves from it. As long as this world is not destroyed, We will live on forever.”
Anna thought you speak of affection like dirt, but value attachment so much?
“Sister, what do you mean? Isn’t life and death a fundamental rule of the world? If sister, you managed to live so long, why hasn’t it killed you yet?”
Julia answered, “The natural world is the god of this world, it makes the rules, and that includes birth and death. Even the gods that can make their own rules are still within the natural world’s grasp.”
“Fortunately, I was born the earliest existence in this world. I had the unique opportunity to integrate my soul into the world. If the world wants me to die, it has to destroy itself to do it. The natural world prizes its existence, so it dared not to devastate itself just for me.”
Anna thought about it for a long time then asked, “Does that mean the world’s interest, is also your interest?”
Julia gazed to the sky, her eyes peeling off the celestials and into where the natural world resides.
“Of course, a threat to this world is a threat to me.”
Anna stayed silent for a long time before she asked with a trembling voice,
“Then… what about me?”
Julia said, “You are integrated into this world as well.”
“Because of that, if you and I want to live, Ovid must first die.”
---
Some people wanted Ovid to die, but some people wanted Ovid to live. This some people includes Cai Hua… and also the owner of ‘North Weave’.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
The fight between Ovid and Margrethe could be felt throughout the world, but to ordinary people, it’s effects were not that great. The sun faded and twilight fell.
The restaurants had closed their door after the last of their customers left, leaving the whole city very quiet. Due to the tense relationship between the Julian empire and the north in recent times, many of the merchants had left, and those remaining dare not speak out loudly in fear of bringing attention to themselves.
A young woman closed the door to her cauponae. She blew out the candle by her side that stuttered in the cold northern winds. As the flames were extinguished, she suddenly vanished.
The next moment, she appeared in the streets of Juliana. Allowing the hot air to push against her stola, she slowly lifted her head. Her smooth and tender hands that had always held a needle now slowly wrapped itself around the handle of an iron pole. Step by step she walked towards the outskirts of the city.
At the outskirts of the alley was a newly established church that Anna used to play in. Outside the church, a woman wearing common clothing was sitting on the ground.
The woman on the ground was watching Margrethe transform. Her clothing was foreign and revealed she came from the same continent as that foreign king who used an obsidian sword. Her face was eerily calm as if she had seen all there is in life.
The owner loosened her hair as she approached the church.
The woman on the ground blink, but the eerie expression on her face did not change. Only with the sound of the owner did she slowly rise from the ground.
There was an obsidian knife in the foreign woman’s hand. She swung her hand and the tip sliced through the air with a whistle. The sharp edge cut through the stone walls of the church and then through the body of the clergywomen hiding within the church. Simulateonously, the neck of all those clergywomen made a sputtering sound and fresh blood seeped out.
Closely following that, the head of the clergywomen clicked, and like an overripe fruit, detached from their body and fell onto the floor with a soft thud.
Without warning, without reason, it was an inhumanely cold and enduring strike. The heads of over a dozen clergywomen, including a powerful bishop, but fell on the ground now dyed crimson red from their blood. Under the intense light of Margrethe’s transformation, this scene was both frightening and strange.
At this moment, the owner stood some hundred feet from the foreign woman. Her face did not move at all, as if she did not care the other person had killed a dozen innocents infront of her.
“You shouldn’t have come,” the owner’s voice rang out like an ancient bell.
The foreign woman wiped off the blood on her knife. A cold expression focused on the owner, and although her face was not giving off any expression, her mana fluctuation gave the impression that she had entered a state of high alert.
“The world was quite generous this time.” the woman spoke like a conch shell soaked in the ocean for a long time. “I couldn’t refuse.”
The owner said, “I can’t let you kill Ovid.”
---
Margrethe and Ulrika were not actually the world’s representatives - both were too free-spirited and did not fear death as much as others had, so they do not obey the will of the natural world.
The type of person that would become the world representative was a saint, a saint who fears death so much they are willing to kill their own parents, and snuff out the life of their children in exchange for just a little extra time.
When she was offered the task of killing Ovid, the natural world had offered her two hundred thousand years of extra life. With such a boon, she had crossed the ocean, bringing only her obsidian knife of a similar level as that foreign kings’.
---
The owner took a step forward and was a little closer to the now-destroyed church. She lifted her head slightly and said, “I was offered by the lady to protect her son.”
The foreign woman repeated, “I was offered by the natural world to kill her son.”
The owner wore an extravagant stola, the foreign woman worn a cotton mantle. The owner’s hair was loosened and flowed by her shoulders. The foreign woman was tied with a red banner laced with gold.
The aura around the two of them was very similar. Aside from those two differences, there was nothing setting them apart at the current moment. It was because both had lived so long that the stench of decay and age had encompassed their entire body.
To people like them, age was the most important matter. With age came experience, and once a person had reached the entrance before godhood, the only method to improve oneself was through experience.
The owner said, “She wouldn’t harm your position. Return and I won’t kill you.”
The foreign woman thought the owner’s words were rather sensible and were in great conflict with the directions the natural world had given her. A strange emotion flashed through her eyes, which had been dead and cold. Any emotions to these people were a rarity.
“My chance is a bit higher,” the foreign woman’s voice remained emotionless.
The owner’s voice grew a little frustrated. “I’m actually a bit attached to the kid.”
The conservation between the two women had a strange rhythm throughout, for example, not a single question had been asked the entire time. They had both spoken with the utmost confidence, so it may be the reason. Thought it was more likely they had forgotten how to communicate after so long.
A message was sent to the other party using mana. They were in the last stage of negotiation.
The owner took another step, which showed the negotiation broke. The distance between the two shrank from a hundred feet to a dozen feet.
The foreign woman did not take a single step back. He only stared at the iron pole in the owner’s hand, as if waiting for it to become a needle.
---
A loud crashing sound came from the church. The slash had broken the foundations of the building. No longer able to support its weight, it fell and crushed the clergywomen beneath it.
The owner moved. The black hair immediately dissolving into a streak of black light. The iron pole in her hand had not been ground into a needle, but it was as sharp as one. It speared straight toward the foreign woman’s heart.
At almost the same moment, the foreign woman with the obsidian sword moved. The two women moved toward each other with the same strength and speed; not even Ovid could tell the difference between them.
The distance of 10 feet disappeared in a moment. The owner and the foreign woman suddenly crashed together.
Their speed was someone only a saint could observe. To an ordinary spectator, the two were separated by ten feet in one moment, then standing nose to nose the next.
The strikes of dark light crashed together. Aside from a few cracking sounds, there was only a deadly silence.
---
The body of the knife, had terrifyingly, cut through the owner’s shoulder and reaching her neck.
The iron rod was, with frightening accuracy, stabbed into the foreign woman’s heart.
The owner had moved first, so she speed was slightly greater than her opponents’. When the two crashed together, she had taken the extra time to lift her body. With that nanosecond, she had saved her life.
At that moment, the owner was standing a bit taller than the foreign woman. The iron pole in her hand reached down as if she was fishing in the ocean.
---
There came a faint sound in the courtyard of the church. The sound was drowned out by Margrethe, but it landed in the owner and woman’s ear nevertheless.
Like pulling back the pole as the fish bit, the two women moved back and the weapon in their hand left the other’s body. At this moment, a snuffing sound came from the woman’s heart - it seemed like something had extinguished.
After receiving such an injury, there was no expression of pain on the woman’s face at all. She only stared at the sky like a person griefing after the fish had escaped. She wondered how the owner had been faster than her.
The owner had finished her opponent in one strike but also took a heavy injury. But she had not lost her life, so she remained expressionless.
The foreign woman had lived a bit longer then she had, but that was soon to be surpassed. She had been a bit faster because the bishop who had died suddenly had spent the last of her power to harm the foreign woman.
The owner lifted her head to look outside the city at Ovid. She said extremely slowly, “It’s up to lady now.”