Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Then everything returned to silence.

Silence, a long, drawn-out silence. A silence as enduring as unyielding ice. After that, perhaps a hundred years passed, perhaps a thousand, perhaps even longer. Then, that faint whisper rose once more.

'Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, are you willing to fight for the survival of humanity?'

【What did you say?】

Emerging from the eternal silence was a recognizable landscape: a crimson planet. The earth was parched, the seas vaporized. Crimson lightning echoed through thick cumulus clouds, and ceaseless flames and rolling lava flowed between cities and wilderness. And at the very top of the sky, a ring of light covered the entire horizon.

That was Earth, the future Earth relative to the dead girl. A cataclysmic event from an unknown source burned human history and the Earth's surface to ashes. Only the Antarctic ice sheet still held a few remnants of life.

The voice asked again.

—Are you willing to fight for the survival of humanity?

Everything in her field of vision changed once again. She saw time flowing backward, flames detaching from people, buildings, and other things, flying into the sky. They merged into the band of light in the heavens, which gradually shrank, disappeared, vanished, and then returned to the azure sky. And time on the earth began to flow again.

A flood of 21st-century common sense surged through her mind. She saw endless fields of bountiful harvest, and factories humming and operating, processing metals and fossils into all sorts of everyday and non-everyday objects—objects that only the nobility could access in her time, objects unimaginable even to royalty. She also saw skyscrapers rising from the ground, people living in peace and prosperity, with ample meat and vegetables at every meal—she wanted to go to more distant places to see more. But just as she tried to turn her gaze to a dark corner, everything before her eyes fell still once more.

A colossal halo appeared in the sky, its endless radiance pouring down from the heavens. This was the cataclysmic calamity that would descend in the future, incinerating the entire world. But as the light reached the stratosphere, she suddenly found herself regaining her mobility—her hands and feet could move. Simultaneously, a surge of power from an unknown realm erupted within her mind. She even felt that by simply reaching out to the sky, she could conjure a vast ice sheet covering hundreds of square kilometers, and with a little effort, she might even be able to sever the descending band of light!

By simply reaching out, we can save this city. By simply putting in the effort, we can save countless people from disaster.

All you have to do is extend your hand.

Just reach out your hand...

She instinctively reached out her hand towards the sky...

"But why should I?"—A thought that seemed to come from nowhere flashed through her mind.

Her hand froze halfway up, and the next moment, a beam of light crashed down from the top of the sky and struck the earth. The city directly hit was instantly vaporized, and the flames swept in all directions, burning fields, destroying forests, and wiping out all living beings on earth like weeds.

Everyone was dead. Hair burned, flesh melted, and in that brief moment, everything living in the girl's sight turned into burning skeletons. These burning skeletons seemed to be alive, emitting silent screams, their outstretched skeletal fingers reaching for her!

—'Why didn't you save them?'

The voice whispered in her ear.

—How could you not save him?

The voice rebuked her.

—'Do you even deserve to be called a human being?'

The voice was cursing in her ear.

The voice was faint, yet it penetrated everywhere. The voice was mixed, yet it revealed the characteristics of various people she seemed to know. Like her former tutor, like the maid who had taken care of her before the fall of the palace, like the vendors she occasionally saw on the street when she went out, like the official in charge of ceremonies when she was conferred a title.

Like her father, like her mother, like... her sister who died with her.

“I…” A strong sense of guilt suddenly welled up in her heart, and this feeling prompted her to admit her mistakes and acknowledge her guilt.

"I……"

She suddenly felt cold. Instinctively, she hugged her arms, only to find the exquisitely crafted doll, stained with her blood before its death, nestled in her embrace. Even more cold air emanated from the doll, rushing towards her heart.

Thus, the imposed guilt was dispelled by the silent coldness.

“I,” her voice became steady. “Why should I save you?”

—'Because you are guilty, you were born with great sin.'

Everything before her eyes changed again; time rewound, the year shifting forward more than a hundred years—early 20th-century Tsarist Russia reappeared before her eyes. And the area she could discern transformed from a city of the future into fields of a century ago.

She saw serfs toiling in the fields, laboring all day yet never able to fill their stomachs. The serfs' sons were emaciated, their daughters sickly. And the taxes continued to rise, because the nobles who owned land and serfs planned to buy a precious jewel to celebrate the tenth birthday of the Tsar's youngest daughter, Princess Anastasia!

Thus, the serfs received not enough food to feed their families that winter. Their daughters died of illness and hunger, and their wives, while gathering wild fruit in the forest, were killed by wolves. In despair, the serfs couldn't even find a suitable roof beam, and after a day and night of mourning, they hung themselves from a crooked tree. When the sun rose the next day, only the serf's son was found weeping helplessly beneath the tree!

The image freezes on the desperate, weeping face of the serf's son.

"You were born with original sin, your blood is tainted. You owe them, and you should repay them."

The voice rang out again. And this time, it was clearly much more persuasive than before.

Guilt surged into her heart again in an instant. However, before she could speak, this oppressive feeling forced her to, another chill emanating from the doll froze her heart, which was beating with self-reproach.

She suddenly realized that the frozen face looked familiar—that innocent face, that pained face. That resolute face, that determined face—wasn't that the face of the soldier who executed her entire family in Catherine Castle seven years later?

So her guilt faded away once again, and her resolve returned.

“I don’t owe them anything,” she said calmly and firmly. “Because they have already taken everything I had from me and repaid all the blood they had shed.”

—'That's not enough, far from enough, you'll never be able to pay it back!'

"You say it's not enough, then who decides whether it's enough or not? Who decides what constitutes a sin? Who decides how it should be repaid?"

—'The whole world has decided your sins, the whole world has decided you will have to pay with even more blood!'

“But I don’t acknowledge it.” The doll in the girl’s arms emanated even more coldness, and her tone grew increasingly indifferent. “I don’t accept your theories. I don’t accept your judgment. If you want it, then come and take it. Just as you did in the Kremlin, just as you did in Catherine Castle. And I will defeat you, destroy you, and send you plummeting into the abyss with your sinful delusions.”

—'You don't deserve to be called human. You're not even willing to protect your own people.'

“The ‘people’ of the Romanov family died out more than a hundred years ago. Those who were loyal to the Romanov family have also been wiped out over the past hundred years. Those who live on that cold land now are, without exception, all descendants of traitors.” Her tone was cold, and frost formed at her feet.

“I will not save you, just as you did not spare me back then. Since the inhabitants of the frozen land do not need Romanov, then as a descendant of Romanov, I do not need you either!”

Her tone was resolute, leaving no room for negotiation. And her will was firm and unwavering, leaving even the speaker, who claimed to be 'human,' speechless.

Then all the sights faded away, and darkness returned.

—'Then you shall sleep here forever.'

The voice said this and then disappeared.

Then, time continued to flow in the silent darkness.

One hundred years, one thousand years, ten thousand years.

Perhaps longer.

—Are you really unwilling to lend a helping hand to the helpless and vulnerable?

"Why should I serve the descendants of the murderers who killed my entire clan?"

"Even Queen Boudica was willing to fight alongside Emperor Nero for the continuation of humanity. As a nobleman, don't you think your magnanimity is somewhat narrow?"

"Is this how you get her to submit? What a pity, I'm just a princess who died before I ever had any power. I'm much more petty than a proper queen."

"But those who destroyed your family are long gone, and their descendants have not shed a single drop of your blood. You have no reason to be hostile towards them."

"Then why were my sisters and I, who had never hurt anyone and had hardly ever left the palace, beaten to death in the snow outside Yekaterinburg? Was it not because I was a member of the Romanov family, a descendant of those whose hands were stained with innocent blood?"

—'…………' speechless.

This time, the voice finally fell completely silent. There was no sign of it returning.

When it was all over, the feeling of cold and falling filled the girl's entire body.

Another, detached female voice, completely different from the previous complex voice, rang in her ears. The instant she heard it, she sensed that the speaker was a quiet, reserved woman, perhaps sitting in a spacious library, sipping rich black tea and perusing ancient documents.

'You have passed the test,' the woman said.

And so, the little princess who had died finally opened her eyes.

..............................

Meanwhile, in Immanuel in the 27th century BC, Flora, who was in the temple dealing with many miscellaneous tasks, suddenly seemed to sense something.

"What happened?" She subconsciously looked south, only to find that apart from the three souls of the dead being recalled from outside Gilsu City, there was almost nothing unusual. She was a stingy person; although she claimed that only warriors could enjoy the privilege of being resurrected, in reality, she would mark the surface of the soul of anyone who prayed to her, whether they believed or not, to ensure that even if they died, their souls could be recalled and resurrected. She quickly examined the three souls that should have been brothers.

There was nothing unusual. The memories on the surface of their souls indicated that the three brothers had simply gone to Gilsu City and died silently at night. The most likely cause of this was a sudden attack by a powerful magical beast during the night.

She frowned, summoning an invisible messenger that was directed towards the spot where the three brothers had died. As she did so, her gaze met that of the hand bearing the Command Seals.

The red Command Seals in the equilateral triangle remained as stable as ever. Yet, she always felt that something was amiss within them.

“Love, you said…” She gently stroked the flame-shaped bird on her shoulder. “Could it be that a new Servant has descended?”

She called the flame-shaped bird, which represented divine wisdom, 'love'.

Chapter Nineteen: The Little Princess's First Battle

Meanwhile, on the wasteland outside the city of Gilsu, the little princess, awakened once more, curiously surveyed the world before her.

“I am... Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova.”

"I am a Heroic Spirit, I am a Servant."

She easily confirmed her identity and solidified her self-perception. A wealth of information she had never known in her previous life poured into her mind, helping her understand the world from the perspective of a follower.

[I am a Servant, and my Spirit Origin is... hmm, the pinnacle of deities, almost a supreme god? How strange, I haven't accomplished anything of value. Yet I was able to establish such a powerful Spirit Origin... Is it because my Master is too strong? But where is my Master?]

She looked around, but strangely, there were no other living beings besides herself. Apart from the stone slab beneath her feet, the land within a radius of about one hundred meters from her footing had been blown away by the sudden burst of magic and then frozen into pieces by the freezing winds of around minus one hundred degrees Celsius. As far as the eye could see, there was only a vast expanse of white.

Beyond the white expanse lay an ordinary temperate wilderness. There were grasslands and scattered shrubs, but nothing alive was in sight.

She looked down and saw that the stone slabs beneath her feet had been frozen into powder by the cold wind. She vaguely sensed an invisible yet vast magical passage. And at the end of the passage pointed to an equilateral triangular emblem.

No, it's not a crest, it's a Command Seal. Is my Master someone who possesses a Command Seal with an equilateral triangle shape?

The little princess rubbed her head. She felt as if she had experienced something before waking up, as if she had spoken to something she disliked and then seen a very kind person. But her memory quickly became blurry, making it difficult to accurately discern the specific events.

Strange. But it was just strange, not important. She felt that what she should do right now was find the Master who had summoned her. And then…

What should I do next?

The princess was confused. She knew she was a Servant, summoned through the Holy Grail ritual. But she didn't see herself as having any wishes to fulfill, nor did she feel obligated to obey the commands of some random stranger.

【I am a princess, a descendant of the Romanov family. Even if I descend as a servant, I have no obligation to kneel before anyone. Unless that is a true god… no, I should be considered a pillar of god now, right? God of cold? God of the north? Hmm… I don’t seem to possess any attributes like divinity or a divine core. So, should I be considered a hero standing shoulder to shoulder with the gods?】

Fragments of memories flashed through her mind—memories of playing with her older sister—and flickered in her mind like yesterday's illusions.

"Ugh..." She instinctively covered her mouth, and a wave of sadness and pain washed over her in an instant.

—Servants are not human, not living, not dead, and should not have hearts.

She felt a chill run through her body, her blood running backward. A bone-chilling cold, more piercing than the north wind, tore at her marrow and internal organs, making her curl up like a shrimp and turn as pale as a clam. Large tears rolled down her cheeks, falling to the ground and melting into tiny ice flowers.

—Servants should not have flesh, bone marrow and internal organs, and should not be so easily swayed by emotions.

The grief then turned into hatred and rage, directed at the armed soldiers who were hailed as heroes, stormed into his own court, shot or hanged his friends, imprisoned his own blood relatives and himself, and ultimately sent his entire family to their deaths.

They are not here, not in this era.

She could understand their anger and hatred towards the Tsar, but it was precisely because of this understanding that their anger and pain would not disappear.

People can understand each other, but it is precisely because they can understand each other that they know neither side has a way out. If one's own family is not wiped out, those people will not feel at ease. And if one's own family really manages to escape that war, then one will inevitably transform into a terror and unleash the flames of revenge on one's enemies until their descendants are completely wiped out.