Upon hearing this, she nodded gently, as if she had found an answer. "If your actions are driven only by impulse and desire, then you should leave this place."
"I will reopen the teleportation passage at the entrance to the palace and send you back to where you came from."
Clearly, the witch had misunderstood the primary motivation behind Char's actions. Upon hearing these words, Char became agitated.
After all, it had cost him so much money to come here, and he didn't even know if the plane ticket would pay off. Did she expect him to leave?
'What a wicked woman!' Char took a deep breath and spoke again, "It's not a superficial act. As I mentioned before, I am your believer, and it's only right for me to save you... Well, these words are better proved through action."
With that, he shook his head and walked directly toward the statue not far away. Being her believer was just an excuse, but he genuinely wanted to set her free from the bottom of his heart.
After all, the curse of being killed after saving her was something the witch herself had said. The lingering remnants of black mist around him seemed to be drawn in, wrapping around him and making Char's complexion grow even paler.
If he were to be killed by such a curse, he would surely gain several levels. With this thought in mind, Char walked briskly to the statue.
The witch's delicate lips parted slightly, holding the book in her arms, and she stood up slowly, hesitating to speak. Char's actions were somewhat unexpected to her.
But before she could speak, Char bit his index finger, and large drops of blood fell onto the surface of the statue. The blood droplets didn't slide off the statue to the ground; instead, they gently swayed for a moment and then slowly merged into the statue, disappearing.
The witch silently stared at the spot where the blood had fallen. There was a brief silence. After a moment, a series of faint noises echoed through the vast and quiet hall.
The statue began to show fine cracks, with the sound of chipped stone fragments falling away from its surface, spreading outwards. This was a sign of the impending unsealing! This scene clearly indicated that Char genuinely wanted to save her.
It's not desire or impulse, nor is it just empty words. The witch glanced deeply at Char, her thoughts hidden behind her eyes.
As the cracks extended, the thin stone fragments on the surface fell off at an accelerating speed, revealing the fair female skin beneath.
"Click, click, click..."
Under Char's astonished gaze, the stone pieces quickly peeled away, unveiling a perfect and flawless feminine body before him.
The original body, identical in appearance to the ethereal manifestation of the witch, had its eyes tightly shut, seemingly locked in a deep slumber.
But the most serious issue was that the original body was completely unclothed! Could it be that time had passed so long that the garments had turned to dust?
Char gasped, looking towards the ethereal manifestation of the witch, but she didn't seem interested in addressing Char's recent inappropriate gaze. Instead, her attention was focused on the shackles binding her wrists.
There, the shackles were covered in cracks.
"Clang!"
In the next moment, with a crisp sound, the pitch-black shackles shattered into pieces under the watchful gaze of the two. The pale body, devoid of strength, fell gently into Char's arms.
He instinctively wanted to reach out and embrace the witch's true form, but the ethereal thought form of the witch was a step ahead, merging with her original body.
An invisible force appeared, lifting her gently into the air.
Her long eyelashes trembled slightly, and then she opened her eyes.
The witch... had awakened.
The surrounding palace seemed to sense a strong premonition and trembled slightly.
Then, a formidable aura began to rise, as if some forbidden presence was slowly awakening from its slumber.
At the same time, starting from the witch as the center, an extremely eerie and pitch-black mist emerged from her porcelain-like skin. It surged and roiled like a violent storm, spreading out in all directions!
The black mist twisted and coiled around her like a serpent, adding a fatal allure to her cold aura and imposing an overwhelming pressure on the surroundings.
In just a brief moment, the entire hall was shrouded in countless layers of the black mist, resembling the storm clouds before a downpour, filled with a sense of impending destruction!
Terrifying!
Oppressive!
Despairing!
Staring at the scene that resembled the awakening of an evil deity, Char's pupils dilated slightly.
In the center of the black mist, Char felt as if he had plunged into an icy abyss. Even his breath seemed to freeze. It was a deathly aura that clung to him, like an evil deity whispering in his ear, urging his life to come to an end. Weaker-willed individuals might have already succumbed to madness.
The curse of madness enveloped Char. At this moment, he realized what the little bird must have felt before it died. The black mist crawled into Char's body from all angles, not toxic, but causing his bodily functions to deteriorate rapidly. His temperature dropped, and his skin began to show signs of withering.
It didn't matter who you were or what you had done; once you came into contact with this black mist, death was inevitable. It was an absurd and equalizer of all beings.
But at this moment, Char had no time to think about these things. His thoughts were dissipating, and his whole being was covered in cracks, like porcelain. His legs could no longer support him.
Could he finally level up?
With this thought in mind, Char felt relieved, with death just a step away.
So, he struggled to lift his arm, reaching out to the woman above, attempting to accept more of the curse's power, accelerating the process.
But from an outsider's perspective, he appeared like a fanatical believer in pursuit of faith.
In the final moments before his consciousness faded, he locked eyes with the witch.
The witch waved her hand and conjured a tattered, pitch-black veil over her bare body, similar in style to the one worn by her spiritual form.
She descended gracefully from mid-air, her toes barely touching the ground, until she was before Char.
Faced with such a powerful curse of black mist, Char's strength was far too weak, and he had no resistance, leading him to his imminent demise.
The witch remained silent, gazing at the pale-faced Char. She had many questions she wanted to ask him, such as where he came from.
For example, why he was willing to risk his life to save her. However, the encroaching black fog did not give her much time to inquire further because the young man was about to die.
Finally, the witch murmured, "Do you have any wishes?"
"What is your... name?" asked Char intermittently, at the brink of death.
"...Agnes," the witch said softly, gazing at Char lying on the ground, and uttered the forbidden name that hadn't been mentioned for thousands of years.
His pale, withered face was nearing the end of his life.
The witch gazed at Char lying on the ground and softly spoke the forbidden name that hadn't been mentioned for thousands of years. His once fair face now appeared pale and withered, nearing the end of his life.
"Is there anything else?"
Realizing that asking for her name might be his last wish, Agnes paused for a couple of seconds before asking again. By this time, Char's vision had already plunged into darkness, and even his consciousness was dissipating.
For some reason, as he heard the witch's cool and pleasant voice, Char's mind was suddenly flooded with the scene he had witnessed when he entered the palace earlier. Under that tree, the graceful woman in the black dress was smiling at him.
So, Char mustered his last remaining strength and, on a whim, said, "Then... you... might as well smile more..."
Afterward, his consciousness completely dissipated.
Death.
.......
The palace was filled with surging black mist for a considerable amount of time. It wasn't clear how long it lasted, but eventually, the calm returned. Throughout it all, the witch stood quietly in her place, silently gazing at the spot where Char had disappeared.
A prolonged silence.
"..."
Ultimately, she looked at her hands without any expression, and in her palms, a thick book and a feathered pen appeared instantly. She opened one of the pages in the book, which contained many peculiar dates, most of them starting with the words "Abyssal Calendar."
Because she had been sealed in this place for a long time, she had lost her sense of time in the outside world. As a result, she had created a calendar system to measure time and dates specifically for herself.
It seems to be a diary used to record daily trivia. The witch also keeps a diary?
If Char were still here, he would undoubtedly find it quite intriguing.
The diary's owner, following the previously written parts, finally found a blank space. The recorded content above is highly consistent, mostly summarized as "Nothing of note happened today."
The witch gently picked up the pen, stayed silent for a moment, and then left a line of writing below the most recent date.
[ A strange human arrived today.
He was as feeble as an ant, but upon seeing me, he didn't show the usual expressions of fear or disgust like other humans do.
To free me from my confinement, he acted without hesitation, even paying the price of his life for it. And the result showed that he truly was the one who harbored such fervor.
Since my inception, it's the first time I've encountered such a human.
Before he died, I asked him about his wish, but all he wanted was to know my name.
He also said... he hoped I would smile more.
What is "smiling"? ]