Witch Redemption

Unfortunately, even though Li Lan tried his best to save the witch who was on her deathbed, the information that appeared in his mind after using "First Aid" made him feel disheartened.

Undeterred, he quickly cast four buffs on the witch: "Prayer," "Blessing," "Protection," and "Courage," and applied numerous healing potions, but to no avail. What lay before him was a utterly hopeless reality.

Lansie will die!

Even Li Lan's profession as a priest couldn't save her; she had already missed the best opportunity to save her!

Shaking her head, Li Lan helplessly recalled the professional artifact beside her and reached out slightly to grasp Lanxi's left hand. As a result, the weak and cold slender left hand seemed to respond, as if it wanted to tightly grasp the only lifeline.

Li Lan saw Lanxi murmur as if she wanted to say something, her empty beast eyes fixed on Li Lan's face.

"As a basic human instinct for survival, perhaps what she was thinking at that moment was, 'I don't want to die yet...'"

Li Lan felt a pang of melancholy. He bent down slightly, wanting to hear the last words of the witch who could be considered his accomplice.

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

They're all dead. All her companions who came from another world with her abandoned her and left first. Now, she too is about to follow in their footsteps.

In a daze, she gradually sank into a dreamlike state, almost forgetting everything.

However, there are two things she will never forget, and she will never forget them, not even at the end of her life.

The first thing she had to do was protect her companions; they were her only family in this world, people she absolutely could not betray. The second thing was that she could never forget the wandering witches who had given her renewed hope. It was their concern and their salvation that gave them the only ray of light in their despair, a ray of light that guided them on their true path forward.

Even if they perished in the process of moving towards hope, they never forgot this true guiding light.

I've forgotten how long I've been in this daze. I've woken up from the cold darkness several times, without fear or sadness, just wanting to find the light, only to be met with inexplicable disappointment.

Until this final awakening...

In the blurred vision, the woman with long silver hair and the distinctive features of the elven race was looking at her with pity. She leaned down slightly and took her left hand. Beside this woman was another blonde woman, who also looked sad.

"Death is truly terrifying... There's nothing after death... But..."

What I fear more than death is loss—losing my companions, losing the will to live, losing this last hope.

At this moment, she was not trying to grasp at the last straw. From the moment she suffered Ann Gnath's fatal blow, she had already accepted her death. She was just unwilling to accept that she could not take revenge at this last moment, unwilling to accept that she could not grasp this last hope.

Even so, perhaps she was satisfied to see the faces of these wandering witches again in the last moments of her life?

The image of Lana Sivir rescuing them from dire straits still lingered in their minds, as did the gentle face of Karen Elf when she showed concern for them. These wandering witches were among the few truly kind people they had encountered in this world after experiencing so much scheming and intrigue.

Even in the final moments before life fades away, at least... hold onto a sliver of hope once more!

Feeling the warmth emanating from her left hand, Lansie, in her final moments of lucidity, mustered the last of her strength to utter a hoarse final cry, "Thank you... Karen... Lana... and everyone..."

Those final, barely audible murmurs were not the survival instinct Li Lan had imagined, but rather they deeply shocked him, even causing him pain. He sensed an indomitable will in those last words, and he felt a glimpse into Lanxi's final inner world.

With almost no ties left, dying in this damned world might not be such a bad thing.

Li Lan, Lana, and all the witches present watched helplessly as Lanxi's eyes began to glaze over, and as she completed her final journey through time.

Was the witch's death the way to end the time travel? No one knew. All the witches present only remembered the sadness of their companions before their deaths, only remembered how close death was to each of them, and how fragile each of them was.

Li Lan gripped Lanxi's lifeless left hand tightly, her voice almost clenched through gritted teeth, "This injury is extraordinary. I want to know what happened, and where are Olivia and Emma? Where did they go?"

Upon hearing this, Paige, codenamed Witch 040, also felt anger welling up in her eyes, but she suppressed it. "Previously, only Ann Grenas and Lanssie in the team were at a lower level. Because we planned to stay at level nine of the magic book, we wanted to let them move freely. But I didn't expect that Ann Grenas would kill three witches in a row and eat their corpses with his strange left hand."

After the description, Li Lan was suddenly startled. All of this was similar to the scene that the resentment of the sealed object had shown him before. He never expected that everything that seemed to happen in a dream was actually his first-person perspective as Ann Gnath.

"Why did he do that?" Lorina, who had a fairly good relationship with Ann Grenas, was taken aback. She was certain that Ann Grenas was also from Earth and might have originally been an elite member of the upper class. In any case, it was impossible for him to be so morally corrupt.

Could it be that the two sides have some kind of grudge?

"Our initial suspicion is that all the witches he killed and devoured would give him a huge amount of grimoire experience, and he must have advanced to the Silver Grimoire, but his grimoire is a bit strange."

Peggy made no attempt to hide anything; at this moment, she also desperately wanted to catch Ann Gnath and kill the guy.

"You can gain a huge amount of experience by devouring the witch?"

Li Lan quickly exchanged a glance with Lana. As the first witch in this group to unlock a secondary profession, they immediately guessed something. This was very likely related to Ann Gnath's secondary profession!

"They're both transmigrators from Earth, yet there are people this selfish, using their own comrades as stepping stones to become stronger. What kind of person is that?"

Li Lan felt a surge of anger. Even in the face of this cruel world, neither the many witch predecessors nor Li Lan himself had ever given up the morality and bottom line that a person should have, and had never degenerated into an unforgivable demon. He never expected to actually see such a beast that went against the grain.

He can endure the world's injustices and persecutions, and he can resist them.

But these beasts who stab you in the back when they should be "one of us" are a million times more despicable than this cruel world!

"I think I understand what's going on. Where is Ann Gnath now?"

"Speak, I want to kill him!"

Chapter 122 The Struggle of Ordinary People

Faced with Li Lan's almost furious questioning, the witch codename 040, Peggy, who was quite indignant, was about to respond when the sudden sound of leather shoes outside interrupted the thoughts of all the witches present.

Looking back, I saw a blond man in a black trench coat standing in the doorway. His handsome face was filled with a cold indifference that made people feel intimidated.

The newcomer was none other than Eisen Geller, the Imperial Inquisitor who had interrogated Li Lan and the other three for four hours not long ago. His arrival made all the witches present feel as if they had been doused with cold water, and they instantly calmed down.

The higher-ups of the Witch Cult are invincible, and their orders must never be disobeyed; this is a consensus among them all.

Even the four wandering witches, Li Lan, who had acted quite rebelliously, could only completely control their emotions at this moment and voluntarily stood aside.

After all, the matter involving a certain Imperial Major General today is related to Li Lan and her group of four, so they need to be even more careful when approaching the higher-ups of this Witch Cult.

Eisen's cold gaze merely swept over the witches with their varied expressions before finally settling on the corpse of witch codename 077, Lansie, on the bed, his face revealing no emotion other than indifference.

"Are there only sixteen witches left alive now? Fifteen of them haven't even advanced to Silver Magic Books yet. It seems that as long as we confirm that the sealed artifact the Warden mentioned is on Ann Gnath, we can deal with these four wandering witches first, and the remaining ones will be taken over by the Sixth Apostle. This will fulfill the agreement between the two parties."

After passing the group of witches, Eisen calmly picked up Lanxi's already stiffened corpse, turned around, and prepared to leave.

This is the fate of all witches. Even if their comrades die in front of them, they have no right to collect their bodies and bury them. Everything they have belongs to the Empire, and only the Imperial Witch Order has the right to dispose of their remains.

Li Lan, Lana, Lolina, and Della were all familiar with this kind of scene. Back in Dawn City, Britney was also taken away by Major General Abbot in the same way, and no one knew where she was finally buried.

"Witch codename 040, do not forget the Witch Cult's orders, and this is a one-time exception!"

As he was about to leave, Eisen glanced at his face, his words filled with a strong sense of intimidation. Then, he changed the subject, "Witch codename 001, codename 002, codename 013, codename 099, come with me!"

As a powerful figure who oversees the region, Eisen couldn't possibly ignore the conversation Li Lan and the others had just had. If he continued to let these witches run rampant, something unpredictable could very well happen.

At this moment, neither Abbott's death nor the Ross royal family's objectives are clear, and Eisen would not want to create unnecessary trouble for himself.

He planned to detain these four witches who required special attention separately. Once he received confirmation from the warden of the Witch Cult tonight, he would kill all four witches tonight!

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

In the border region of Mori City, the long night stretched on, and Ryan, who was gradually growing thinner, sat alone at his desk, deep in thought.

Beside him, his wife Betty was sleeping soundly in bed, occasionally uttering strange murmurs in her sleep, while downstairs, the faint snoring of his younger brother, Leonard, could be heard.

This peaceful and stable life felt like a dream to him, and he was always worried that the dream would suddenly shatter and he would wake up at any moment.

"Hey......"

He had lost count of how many times he had sighed. Ever since he learned the terrible news about the witches, he had been suffering from insomnia and didn't know what to do.

"It is now certain that getting on the Imperial Royal Family's pirate ship is a dead end, and colluding with the witch and having goodwill towards her is definitely heresy in the Empire. Although all of this is still my secret, when this secret will be exposed is not in my control. It may be tomorrow, or it may be the day after tomorrow."

“Once my actions are exposed, not only will I be hanged, but Reiner and Betty may also be implicated and tried by the Empire. If that happens, everything will be over!”

Ryan's mechanical prosthetic arm rested against the wooden tabletop, and his mechanical fingers tapped restlessly. With each tapping rhythm, his bewildered eyes gradually hardened.

"Today, I learned from the intelligence broker that the Goblin Kingdom's army clashed with the Imperial army in Charlotte City. The result of that battle was that Charlotte City became a dead city, and almost all the adventurers who went to that area perished. At present, due to the Empire's deliberate blockade, this news has not yet been known by many people."

"Combined with the intelligence that Major General Eric gave me before, the Empire will deal with this group of witches within two months. At that time, all my usefulness will be squeezed out, and I will be sent to the gallows... No, perhaps it won't even take two months. As soon as Major General Eric gets what he wants, I will die immediately!"

As a seasoned veteran who has worked his way up from the bottom for so many years, Ryan is no fool.

He had seen countless instances of this "crossing the river and burning the bridge" behavior—the birds are all gone, the good bow is put away; the cunning rabbit is dead, the hunting dog is cooked. To expect the supposedly turbulent imperial family to keep their promise? That would be a fool on his part!

"I wonder how many of those witches who went to the ruins of Mo City are still alive. If those four witch ladies can really bring back the so-called Scepter of Satogua, it might be a good bargaining chip. It's definitely not appropriate to pay for the goods on the spot. At that time, I will need to have Major General Eric, who represents the imperial family, to make the payment in advance. That's all I can do right now."

With another sigh, as if he could see his own death approaching, Ryan quietly got up and walked silently to the balcony.

This is the struggle of ordinary people. In this world, there are always too many things that make people feel powerless.

At that moment, Ryan recalled his father's glorious childhood, the pain of his father being stripped of his title and his family falling into ruin, and the years he had spent risking his life in the monster-infested region just to make a living.

"There are just too many regrets in life..."

He raised his head slightly, and the sky was pitch black. Everything below blended into the darkness, giving Ryan the illusion that if he took another step, he would surely fall into the abyss.

Perhaps it was at this moment that he remembered the witches who had once saved him.

If it weren't for them that day, he would never be standing here now, and he would never have been able to marry Betty as he wished. It all seemed like fate, as if an unseen hand was driving everything.

"Fate...the invisible hand..."

Not understanding why he suddenly thought of this, Ryan suddenly felt a strange sense of dread, but when he calmed down a little from the shock, cold sweat had already soaked his back.

Eight hours later...

"Betty, let's get a divorce."

"Brother Ryan, where are you...?"

"I don't think we get along. Do you know why I've been having such bad insomnia lately? It's because you sleep so badly. I can't stand it, and I'm starting to feel disgusted by you. How about this: I'll pay you some money, you can just consider it payment for sex, and from now on we'll go our separate ways..."

"Leiner, you piece of trash!"

"Brother, why are you hitting people?"

"So what if I hit your mother? Just because you have a few stinking bucks doesn't mean you can squander them! Get out of here! You'll never get a damn thing again!"

In just one morning, Ryan drove away his wife and brother, even making a big deal out of it to portray himself as a typical heartless man. In the end, he didn't forget to go to a brothel and spend a lot of money to indulge in a life of debauchery.

"We must spread this news as soon as possible. In addition, I need to find a way to formally 'persecute' Betty's family and Reiner. Although I don't know exactly how far I need to go, I hope it's not too late."

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

Kate, the capital of the British Empire, the Imperial Witch Prison, the Central Sanctuary.

After receiving the urgent report from Charlotte City, the warden of the Witch Prison, the Undying Iris, had been standing here for eight hours. Even at around three in the morning, she did not leave, remaining in this dark and empty space.

"According to the intelligence that Eisen relayed back, there are two main points. One is that Abbot is dead. In my divination, his death is indeed related to the Ross royal family, but the main driving force behind it is the residual ancient god's will in the ruins of Mo City."

For thousands of years, the reason why the British Empire has not planned to take action against the Goblin Kingdom in the ruins of Mo City is not only because it fears the royal bloodlines with demigod strength in the region, but also because of the remaining will of the ancient god.

However, it is now certain that after today, the remnant will of this ancient god will has been completely extinguished with the destruction of the Goblin Kingdom. From now on, there will be no more worries about attacking the ruins of Mo City.

"The second piece of information concerns the strange changes that have occurred to the witch Anne Gnath... a grimoire with red markings, and the markings have changed. This is no small matter; no witch in history has ever experienced anything like this."

After pondering for a long time, the old woman finally raised her hand slightly and clenched it. The pure white magic burned away in her palm, revealing the pitch-black "Codex of Cause and Effect". The moment she opened the book, a series of information came into view.