NOVEL NEXT Ch. 94
Chapter 94: The Fairy Tale Book and the Queen
The Tower of Arcana, beside the Epoch Tombstone.
As the words appeared on the light screen, the spacious hall fell into a brief silence.
Dean Silver’s motion of curling her tail around a dried fish, as if watching a movie while munching popcorn, froze mid-air.
Even in Ophelia’s pupils, a flicker of surprise appeared.
The very next moment—
The line of deep blue text shattered, turning into fragmented shadows.
Yet on the light screen, the girl with long ice-blue hair still lounged lazily upon the throne.
Her right arm propped against the throne’s armrest, supporting her cheek with her hand, while the other hand absentmindedly toyed with a small clay figurine, as if completely unaware of the Nightworld’s notification.
From Dean Silver’s perspective, the scene felt extremely out of place.
For a typical Nightwalker, the first reaction upon entering the Nightworld should be vigilance, followed by cautiously surveying the surroundings...
After all, for Nightwalkers, entering danger the moment they arrived in the Nightworld was par for the course.
Without that basic sense of caution, Akxia could never have become the top student of Starfall Obelisk.
But this girl who looked identical to Akxia showed none of the wariness expected of someone stepping into the Nightworld for the first time.
In fact, quite the opposite—
It was as if she wasn’t a transient Nightwalker of the historical remnant, but rather a true native of this world.
As though she had already lived in the Nightworld for countless years.
“What’s going on?”
Dean Silver narrowed his eyes, glancing at Ophelia beside him. “Could this little Akxia be an imposter?”
That was the intuition of a magical beast.
“Or perhaps... a reincarnation of some kind?”
“Since the background of the Nightworld is the Sixth Epoch, and the Sixth Epoch is the closest to the ‘Pale Interregnum’ among the old eras…”
“Then maybe this so-called Queen of the Underworld is Akxia’s past life?”
Dean Silver recalled some web novels he had recently read out of boredom in the school infirmary.
Those stories especially loved to explore reincarnation plotlines.
Spanning three lifetimes, transforming from demon gods and angels of the Celestial Realm into mortal princes and royal consorts, and still falling in love even if the world were to end.
Though a magical beast, Dean Silver had long since integrated into human society, becoming a true shut-in ferret, unable to live without novels, anime, games, and carbonated happiness in a bottle.
“No, it’s not reincarnation.”
Ophelia shook her head. “In those novels, reincarnation involves matching a new body, and the soul is inevitably reshaped… The past and present selves are actually unconnected, merely similar in appearance.”
“But Akxia is different.”
“I modified the image crystal, imitating the effect of a regalia’s soul-binding after acknowledging a master…”
“It’s directly bound to her soul.”
Ophelia stared at the scene within the light screen. “Her soul is Akxia’s true self.”
“If it weren’t, we wouldn’t have seen that Nightworld notification just now… Normally, only the Nightwalker themselves can see such messages in their mind.”
She paused for a moment, the black undead metal around her swirling—an auxiliary AI analyzing stored data on her behalf.
Moments later, the flowing metal gradually settled down.
Ophelia slightly lifted her head and came to a definitive conclusion. “Rather than reincarnation—”
“It’s more accurate to say that Akxia and this Queen of the Underworld are actually the same person, who lost part of her power and forgot part of her memory.”
A metallic gleam flickered briefly in her eyes before returning to their original crimson hue.
“That’s the most reasonable explanation for the so-called ‘Singularity of Fate’ mentioned in the earlier Nightworld notification.”
“Otherwise—”
“If some ancient being had survived from the Sixth Epoch to the present day, and entered the historical remnant of the Sixth Epoch via the Nightworld again, would there be two identical individuals?”
“The singularity of fate must be the Nightworld’s way of imposing a rule—there can’t be duplicate versions of the same person within a historical remnant.”
“If a case like that occurs, then the Nightwalker will descend using their pre-existing identity in the Nightworld.”
Her tone was calm. “According to the data stored in my auxiliary intelligence, Miss Akxia was discovered by the old principal of Starfall University during an exploration of some ruins, and taken back to the academy as an adopted orphan.”
“Yet without any prior training in transcendent knowledge, Miss Akxia stepped directly into the Death God sequence. I even suspect her Nightblade, ‘Angel of Death’s Decree,’ wasn’t awakened through the Nightworld, but something she was born with.”
“These things seem completely illogical, at least inconsistent with what modern Transcendents know about the Sequence Ranks and Nightblades—”
“But if Miss Akxia didn’t originate from the Sixth Epoch, but was instead someone from a lost civilization before the old era…”
“And she lost her past memories and power due to some secret reason—”
“Then every mystery surrounding Miss Akxia suddenly becomes perfectly reasonable.”
Once again, Ophelia looked toward the light screen projected by the image crystal. “As for the odd behavior she’s showing right now.”
“It’s probably because the memories of Akxia the Round Table’s chief Nightwalker have been temporarily suppressed, and her consciousness is currently led by that of the Queen of the Underworld in the Nightworld…”
“Perhaps it’s due to the Nightworld’s role-playing rules, or maybe her present-day memories are simply too faint compared to her past life, causing a shift in dominance.”
“Little Snow Ferret—”
Her voice echoed beside Dean Silver’s ears. “I don’t think I’m wrong.”
At her side, Dean Silver instinctively curled deeper into her fluffy tail.
The information Ophelia possessed aligned perfectly with Dean Silver’s understanding of Akxia.
And with that, all the doubts that once surrounded Akxia now made sense.
“Still, what you said really doesn’t match your age,” Dean Silver cast a sideways glance at the second princess beside him.
She was far from being just a twelve- or thirteen-year-old girl.
Even those mighty nobles in the imperial capital trembled at the mere mention of Ophelia’s name.
For such deep schemers, to be intimidated, it could only be by someone even deeper and darker than they were.
While other noble scions at her age were being pampered in ivory towers, composing poetry about butterflies and love, Ophelia was already deeply entangled in the capital’s political whirlpool—moving through it with ease.
“Well, I do have a sister like that.”
Ophelia smiled lightly. “Father needs a well-behaved, obedient, and presentable princess.”
“And his allies among the nobles—and the people of the entire Empire—are expecting a successor with the political skill to uphold his legacy and make the Kingdom great again.”
“If I don’t shoulder this burden, respond to these expectations, and portray the image they want to see…”
“Then all that pressure and the overt malice from our enemies will naturally fall on my sister.”
“And taint her brilliance.”
She twirled the ends of her chestnut hair, and a sly smile suddenly curled at the corners of her lips.
Ophelia’s soft mutter vanished into the wind—so much so that even Dean Silver couldn’t hear clearly:
“It’s just… in the end, those people will probably be sorely disappointed.”
Dean Silver looked at Ophelia and was just about to ask another question—
But at that moment, the changes on the light screen pulled his attention away again.
On the screen, the girl on the throne, after fiddling with the clay doll for a while, seemed to lose interest in it, unable to determine how it had appeared.
She carefully placed the clay doll on the armrest beside her and tapped lightly with her pale index finger.
In the faint twilight glow, a book illustrated with images and embossed patterns silently appeared on her lap.
It seemed to be a fairy tale book, and through its cover, one could glimpse the male and female protagonists within—
A young knight wielding a silver sword, and a female protagonist cloaked in shadows and black mist, resembling a witch.
The girl with the long ice-blue hair reclined in her seat, gazing at the fairy tale book in her hands...
From time to time she reached out to turn a page, her dark violet eyes shimmering slightly with light.
Outside the palace, the pale twilight slowly flowed.
Time seemed frozen here, as if destined to last forever.
……………………