Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 1338 Do Everyone Have the Right?
Sadness can resonate, echoing like starlight no matter where in the world it is.

same moment.

At the confluence of the Stormy Ocean and the Chaotic Sea, on the surging surface, a colossal steel warship cleaved through the raging waves. Fafrena, the Witch of Strife, stood on the bridge, her gaze sweeping across the tactical map like a hawk's, a cold command about to be uttered. Suddenly, an unprovoked, tearing pain pierced her heart, as if the strongest anchor had snapped and sank into an abyss. She gripped the edge of the command console tightly, her knuckles turning white from the force, the hard metal groaning under her weight.

All her fighting spirit, all her calculations, were instantly overwhelmed by this pure and icy sorrow. She opened her mouth, but no sound came out; the meticulously planned battle scene before her blurred into a hazy blur. A vast, incomprehensible emptiness gripped her, suffocating her more than the most turbulent sea. She could only cling tightly to the cold metal, supporting her suddenly powerless body, letting the unfamiliar grief, originating from the depths of her soul, nail her to the spot.

The warship continued to cut through the waves, but the commander seemed to have become a stone statue frozen in sorrow.

……

The port of desolation, atop the tallest tower.

The senior arbitrators of the Holy See were holding a routine meeting to discuss the next course of action and specific goals. As the person who convened the meeting, the Fear Witch Scarlet found an excuse to get rid of those tedious official duties and endless controversies and went to the terrace outside to relax, looking down at the quiet city below, which was soaked by rain and dimly lit.

The night rain in the desolate harbor carried a salty chill. She was used to it, used to using this height and cold to examine the insignificance and fragility of mortals. However, at this moment, an unprecedented chill, not from the external wind and rain, suddenly erupted from the depths of her heart. Her slender body swayed violently, almost falling from the edge of the towering tower. She instinctively grabbed the cold stone railing, but the chill from her fingertips could not dispel the icy pain in her heart. Her vision blurred instantly; the city lights below distorted into a hazy halo, and all she could hear was her suddenly erratic heartbeat and the roar of her surging blood.

All that is important will pass away, leaving only sorrow.

The witch named Fear slowly closed her eyes, letting the cold rain mixed with uncontrollable tears slide down her cheeks, experiencing for the first time in her life what the fear of loss was.

……

In the chapel, in the quiet study.

In the dimly lit room, a single lamp shone. The Witch of the End, Times, huddled amidst a mountain of books, her fingertips tracing a vivid and beautiful scene. A spiritual empathy made her feel as if those fairy tales were unfolding right before her eyes, filled with childlike wonder.

But the next moment, the words on the pages suddenly twisted and danced as if alive, completely losing their original meaning. A vast and heavy sorrow, like a silent sigh, instantly filled the enclosed space, making it almost impossible for her to breathe. The book slipped silently from the girl's hands, hitting the carpet with a dull thud. She raised her head blankly, her empty eyes sweeping over the familiar bookshelves around her, yet they felt utterly strange and distant.

A profound emptiness, inexplicable by any knowledge or logic, gripped her. It wasn't directed at the apocalypse mentioned in every ancient prophecy, but at an ending she hadn't anticipated, yet which seemed predetermined. She slowly curled up in the gaps between the stacks of books, her arms tightly wrapped around her knees, like a lost child, experiencing for the first time an utter loneliness and loss.

The words that recorded countless beautiful stories have lost their weight at this moment, unable to fill the sudden, heavy emptiness in my heart.

……

The headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller, which is also the largest comprehensive charitable hospital in the neutral country of Venice.

Inside the office, only the scratching of pens on paper could be heard. The Plague Demoness, Pereira, was intently reviewing a report on the spread of a new plague south of the Alps Mountains, calmly planning her response. Suddenly, her hand trembled violently, and a drop of thick black ink spilled uncontrollably onto the document, quickly spreading like an ominous stain.

Like swallowing the sharpest sorrow in the world, a cold pain pierced her heart without warning, followed by a vast and indescribable sense of bewilderment, so heavy that she could hardly breathe. The document slipped from her hands, the uncontrolled words leaving long ink marks on the blank paper. All her calm thoughts were instantly swept away by a torrent of pure emotion. The smell of disinfectant in the office had never been so pungent, and the city lights outside the window seemed distant and indifferent.

She slowly bent down, letting her long hair obscure her face. From a very distant place, it seemed to come the sound of the living weeping for the dead, a common sight in the hospital, but every time, especially this time, it was so heartbreaking that it almost suffocated.

……

Far from the bustling, abandoned docks, the sea breeze carried a salty, lonely chill. The Calamity Witch Eve stood alone, barefoot, on the edge of a cold, moss-covered wooden stake, silently gazing into the dark, boundless depths of the sea. The proposal to install more calamity detection devices in and around Capua City had been unanimously approved. Her colleagues at the Calamity Detection Bureau believed this would greatly enhance the region's resilience to natural disasters, but the young girl held no hope. Because the calamity detection devices could only predict the occurrence of disasters; even if they knew a storm was coming at sea, would the fishermen and sailors abandon their voyage?
For ordinary people, there are always things more important than life itself.

Survival, life, ideals, emotions, or...

The waves crashed against the rocks, roaring without warning, a deafening sound echoing as the most violent volcano erupted in the deepest part of the sea. As if sensing that anger and despair, the girl's frail body swayed suddenly in the cold wind, almost losing her balance and falling into the sea. She felt something being torn from her life, a process more absolute than a storm dismantling a ship or a tsunami swallowing a life, irreversible and beyond redemption.

Pain surged through her like a tidal wave. The girl gasped for breath, slowly crouching down, hugging herself, burying her face in her knees, her shoulders heaving silently as the sea breeze tousled her long hair.

……

In Nimscher, the city of springs, only the geysers still gush forth in the quiet park, carrying the clearest water from two hundred meters underground, nourishing this land once blessed by the spirits of the springs. Human memory is finite; the unprecedented snowstorm and subsequent riots of a year ago seem to have been forgotten by the city's residents. In the isolated islands illuminated by streetlights, pedestrians move back and forth, each with a tense expression and hurried steps, as if even a second's delay would mean missing out on a crucial turning point in their lives.

But do they realize that no matter how many twists and turns there are on the road of life, they will eventually reach the same destination?

Lilith, the Witch of Death, sat on a park bench, oblivious to the hustle and bustle of the world, focused instead on licking the melting strawberry ice cream in her hand. The taste of death lingered, bitter, yet somehow mingled with the scent of herbs and paper. Only the sweetness of higher sugar content could stimulate her brain, allowing her to temporarily forget that decaying and lonely flavor.

But without warning, her sense of taste vanished. Not only the sweetness of the ice cream, but even the taste of death itself disappeared without a trace, as if she had been born without senses or awareness, and therefore without any joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness. A vast emptiness irrationally filled the girl's mind, leaving her bewildered like a lost child, until the cold sensation between her fingers jolted her back to reality, and she looked at the ice cream in her hand with horror.

The melted cream was flowing between her fingers, its pale pink color complementing her fair skin like the color of blood.

……

The headquarters of the Witch Society, the Azure Dragon's Nest Ladiste, was dimly lit in the office belonging to Tentis, where no lights were on.

The Witch of Reality stared expressionlessly at the document on the table. It was a request report signed by Fei, the head of the Magic Research Department, and jointly submitted by 312 researchers within the organization, requesting the suspension or alteration of the Faith Power research project. The document was dated a week ago.

A week seemed too short for Tentis to write her opinion, agree or disagree, on the report. This seemed like an unbelievable thing for the efficiency-driven witch.

But it suits her sensibilities.

She slowly closed her eyes, her lips moving silently, as if talking to herself, or perhaps conversing with someone from her memory. Only those closest to her could decipher the meaning of her words from her lip movements—

Sincere feelings will never hurt anyone.

……

When life comes to an end, its meaning is nowhere to be found.

The dead pursue ideals, though sometimes they are unclear about what those ideals truly are, drawn to them like moths to a flame; the living feel sorrow, yet cannot articulate the source of that sorrow. If we dwell too much, we fall into the trap of the past; but if we can learn indifference, how can we bear to ignore the tragedies unfolding before our eyes?

Therefore, reality is often a false proposition.

Gazing at the falling snow, those dark, withered snowflakes are proof that no one ever existed. Saint Charlotte couldn't help but wonder, amidst those unfamiliar scenes and turbulent emotions, how she longed to foresee the future... Are you still watching?
A thought, like a flower of longing, sprouts a branch, only to wither and die in an instant. Its existence is so fleeting that words cannot describe it. Perhaps only by severing the eternally flowing river, dividing it into a thousand equal parts, and spending a thousand years searching carefully, can one find any trace of its bloom. But mortals pursue meaning, and therefore will not waste their precious lives on anything meaningless, let alone this seemingly insignificant moment of longing.

If we grasp that longing, can we see the threads of fate extending below, and pursue those lost dreams? Such a ridiculous and absurd idea, like a fantasy while still wandering in the mortal world, imagining that I can soon awaken the sleeping girls one by one, soon return to the Heavenly Sanctuary, soon return to the carefree and intimate life in my memory... Things that are so desirable yet unattainable, just to be spoken of make people laugh.

The young woman, Wang Quan, withdrew her gaze regretfully, turning back to the path she had come from. On this land etched with scars and wounds, people were gripped by fear and sorrow. The war was over, but those who perished in it would not return, just as a numb heart cannot be healed. In the desolate ruins of the city, in the silent decay of weapons, in the weary eyes of soldiers, all memories would become history, unchangeable.

It can be changed.

I will change all of this.

She silently told herself to keep her promise to him and then save everyone.

The serpent of fate, with its tail looping in a circle, reflects countless images within it: the fixed past, the present being experienced, and the uncertain future. It turns ceaselessly, leading all the material and immaterial destinies of the world down an unpredictable path. Although in many ancient myths or obscure prophecies, sorcerers, wizards, and even astrologers imbue fate with various magical imagery, calling it "the string of the universe," "the thread of cause and effect," or "the pen that writes the final chapter in the invisible book," in reality, it is more like a wheel, constantly moving forward while also constantly cycling.

But what if it suddenly stops at some point?

That must be a scene unimaginable to mortals, for they could never witness it. For the chosen ones, time and consciousness are frozen; the world seems to have never existed.

There was no roar, no tremor, no unsettling tremor, no harbinger of impending disaster; only the unstoppable torrent of time crashing against an invisible dam, stirring up heart-stopping ripples. The entire world was paused in that instant, absolute silence descending. The lingering smoke of battle, the falling snowflakes, the howling dust in the wind… in this frozen destiny, all appearances of movement were instantly frozen.

The girl's heartbeat became so clear at that moment; it was the only sound that could be heard in the whole world.

then.

“Let’s begin the tracing,” Saint Charlotte said softly.

Tracing back to the very end of the river of time, the older the era, the more destiny Saint Sharia can alter. In the same dimension, time and destiny are inextricably linked; the former is cause, the latter effect, forming a fundamental balance, or rather, a cycle. Having regained her full power, the girl gained a deeper understanding of the authority she wielded, ironically, because she was meant to be a maintainer and guardian of the laws, not someone who, for personal gain, actively broke them.

Everyone has the right to be willful once. The girl couldn't help but think that now it was her turn to exercise that right.

Give me some cats