The Witch's Anatomical Notes

Ch. 103



Chapter 103

Harvest and Famine

Under the blood-red sky, the stench of decay clung to Lia’s tongue, making every swallow catch in her throat, nearly impossible to go down.

She knelt at the edge of the altar, the sickle tightly gripped in her palm radiating a bone-chilling cold.

This holy relic that symbolized the Lady of Harvest’s authority was now rusted and dull, its once-sharp edge fractured with gaps, like the crumbling faith of her believers.

"Grandmother Irene..." Lia’s voice trembled. "The seal just trembled again."

Irene remained silent.

As the high priestess of the Harvest Temple who had guarded the altar for over thirty years, she sensed the loosening of the seal even more clearly than the younger Lia did.

Her hunched figure curled like a withered tree, and beneath her gray-white hair, veins filled with dark purple fibers squirmed under the skin.

This was the cost of guarding the altar, and the very purpose of their existence.

As the last remaining followers of the Lady of Harvest, if they left, the Lady would have no chance of awakening again, and the seal would collapse as well.

Yet, as more and more of the Lady's faithful passed away, the altar that sealed one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse—Famine was increasingly failing.

Just then, a panicked believer ran into the sacrificial grounds.

"High Priestess! A horde of dried corpses is pouring out of the Hunger Cavern—everyone’s barely holding on!"

"What!" Lia leapt to her feet.

But the panic on High Priestess Irene’s face lasted only a moment before she regained her composure.

There was now a trace of resolve in her eyes.

"Lia, take the Sickle of Harvest and go support them. I’ll find a way to reinforce the seal here."

Lia suspected nothing, and after taking the Lady of Harvest’s relic from the old priestess, she followed the messenger out of the sacrificial grounds.

Once certain she would not be disturbed, High Priestess Irene struggled to her feet.

"Five thousand years ago, the Lady of Harvest sealed the demon Famine. Three thousand years ago, the goddess fell. Ever since, the high priestesses of the church have offered their lives to sustain the altar. Now, it is time for this old body to walk the path our ancestors carved out."

As she spoke, she had already climbed to the highest point of the altar.

Looking up at the depiction of the Lady of Harvest above, her withered hand raised the dagger.

“Lia is still young. Hopefully, these old bones... can hold out a few more years.”

...

“Holy knights of the Lady of Harvest, death is only the beginning of life—the Lady shall open the gates to the divine kingdom for heroic warriors! For the Lady of Harvest!”

“For the Lady of Harvest!”

“...”

Inside the massive cavern, countless dried corpses crawled outward in an unending stream. Both the ground and the rocky walls were covered with their grotesque forms.

Outside the cavern, over a thousand holy knights held the line against the tide of corpses.

Though their faith granted them fearless courage, the Lady of Harvest had fallen over three thousand years ago, and the divine power remaining in the temple was nearly exhausted.

The blessings upon these so-called holy knights barely elevated them to the strength of basic knights.

Under the relentless flood of corpses, the warriors fell like wheat in late autumn, collapsing in swaths.

By the time Lia arrived wielding the sacred relic, more than two hundred bodies already lay strewn across the ground. This once most fertile land had been soaked in the blood of the faithful.

Lia’s eyes instantly filled with bloodshot fury.

She raised the Sickle of Harvest high into the air.

“The goddess will bless all her believers!”

As the sickle radiated golden light, a barely noticeable new crack silently formed along its blade.

At the same time, golden divine patterns lit up on the bodies of the remaining warriors. A surge of powerful energy erupted within them, momentarily raising their strength to that of high-ranking knights.

“It’s the power of the High Priestess!”

“The goddess is watching over us!”

“Kill!”

Empowered by divine might, all the holy knights erupted with unmatched strength and soon pushed the tide of corpses back into the Hunger Cavern.

Just as Lia exhaled in relief, the ground beneath everyone suddenly trembled, and a massive fissure split open across the crimson earth.

"What is that?"

Someone pointed at the red glow emanating from beneath the fissure and asked.

But what awaited her was a swarm of locusts bursting from the earth.

Each of these locusts was the size of a human head, armored in a tough exoskeleton, with massive mandibles capable of tearing through metal armor with ease.

In an instant, the brave and valiant holy knight legion was scattered by the locusts.

Lia raised the Sickle of Harvest high, slashing wildly as insect corpses fell like rain.

Yet against such overwhelming numbers, these losses were insignificant—a mere drop in the ocean. The gap she had carved was filled in the blink of an eye by more and more locusts.

She screamed in despair to her surviving comrades, "Retreat! Fall back to the sacrificial grounds!"

...

“Crack!”

A crisp sound came from the base of the altar.

Irene, in the midst of the sacrificial rite, lowered her head to look downward.

She saw the altar stone engraved with divine runes suddenly split open, a jagged crevice forming. The light of the runes flickered like a dying candle in the wind.

"No... we mustn’t let the demon escape!"

She tore open her robes, revealing a skeletal chest.

Embedded there was a cracked, emerald-green crystal.

"Great and all-knowing Lady of Harvest, please use our flesh and blood... to fill the void of divine power."

Gritting her teeth, Irene nodded.

She raised the sacrificial dagger and plunged the blade into her own chest.

Boom—

The altar collapsed with a thunderous roar.

The old priestess's body withered visibly by the second.

Yet the altar laid down by the Lady of Harvest only flashed once with divine light before collapsing and cracking even faster.

And from within the cracks, the locusts poured out in droves.

"No... it shouldn’t be like this!"

In her final moments, she saw Lia rush back to the altar.

But all Lia could do was watch helplessly as High Priestess Irene’s withered body, along with the shattered altar fragments, fell into the abyss. That fissure was spreading outward at a terrifying speed.

The crimson earth collapsed in large swathes into the rift roiling with black mist, as though it were decaying flesh devoured by an invisible beast.

And beneath that infernal chasm, a pair of blood-red eyes suddenly opened. A skeletal claw reached out from the depths.

Lia collapsed in despair upon the searing ground, the rusted Sickle of Harvest slipping quietly from her grasp.

"Five thousand years..." a hoarse voice echoed from the depths, its sonic waves rupturing the eardrums of the survivors with blood: "I was sealed beneath the earth for a full five thousand and one hundred years! That woman’s divine power has finally run dry!"

The skeletal claw snapped taut, and a figure draped in tattered burlap slowly rose from the abyss.

Its head was a damaged skull, and from the hollow eye sockets poured a lava-like green soulfire. Each time it opened its mouth, swarms of locusts surged from the depths of its throat.

"It’s time for this world to remember the taste of hunger again... Eh?"

The once-imposing Horseman of Famine hesitated slightly upon seeing the barren, endless scarlet land of the Old Lands.

It remembered being sealed by the Goddess of Harvest for spreading famine—back then, it was surrounded by fertile fields and dense forests.

So why did it now appear like a scene from hell?

And...

"Why can’t I sense the aura of the Goddess of Harvest?!" The Horseman of Desolation froze for a moment, then suddenly burst into mad laughter, "Kekekeke! I never imagined the gods had actually fallen!"

"Then am I not the only god left in this world?"


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