Chapter 3454: The End of the Pilgrimage

The fluttering paper pages flew in the mountains along with the snowflakes, and the face of the priest with the peculiar hairstyle appeared on every single page.

He now had a gloomy face, no longer having his previous composure. As the numbers "1", "2", and "3" appeared on his face in sequence, pink and white puppets also rushed out from different pages.

The "Puppeteer's Script" could manipulate the fate of almost everything within a small range. By superimposing the 【Society of Ten Thousand Numbers Returning to One】's ability to manipulate probability through numbers, he had thought he would have no rivals in this battle of the Chosen.

He had not expected to be forced away by a man suspected to be the "God-Caller" outside the small town, and tonight he had encountered three such troublesome women.

The threads of Fate had long since wound around them, but apart from the slightly older blonde woman, the fates of the purple-eyed diviner and the blonde elf were both incomparably strange. The elf's fortune was surprisingly good; that good luck, which seemed like a blessing from the world, meant that even when the "Puppeteer's Script" wove misfortune for her, that misfortune did not take effect under the resistance of her good luck.

And the purple-eyed diviner seemed like an insulator for any fate; the fate written by the script was completely ineffective. Apart from the paper pages burning rapidly, no result was obtained.

Since weaving fate could not work, direct attack was the only means. The pink and white puppets received help from the "Puppeteer's Script" and could fly freely outside the stone steps in the mountains.

But even with such an advantage, three seconds later, they were still blown into fragments by Emilia's clean "Natural Energy Impact" while solidified in mid-air.

One-third of the sky full of paper scraps was now forcibly solidified in the air by the power of time. Miss Isabella had suppressed most of the power of that Angel-level relic by herself.

As for Luvia, after tossing a coin several times, she determined the hiding place of the cultist from the 【Society of Ten Thousand Numbers Returning to One】. While "Miss Sabel" cast spells to control the sky full of paper pages and Emilia attacked the puppets that kept walking out of the pages with great interest, her purple eyes lifted to look at the front right at an angle of about thirty degrees. Breaking through the illusion amidst the fluttering paper pages, she discovered a completely different hue:

"Snake skin!"

She threw the silver needles already tucked between her left fingers toward that direction. This was not a wonder, but purely a small technique of physical strength and mental guidance. As the silver needles pierced the snake skin amidst the paper pages, Luvia truly began to cast her spell.

Ink marks spread outward from where the silver needles touched the snake skin, and then the symbol of the "Infinite Snake" appeared completely on the surface of the snake skin. The priest, sensing something wrong in his heart, wanted to break free from the snake skin, but Luvia's spellcasting was already complete.

The thin silver needles completely pierced through that piece of snake skin, and then the entire piece of snake skin burned directly in the snowflakes. The "priest's" true body flew out of the snake skin immediately, and then he hurried to extinguish the fire.

But this period of research into the nature of snake skin had given Luvia a deep understanding of it. The fire was only a superficial phenomenon; its essence was burning luck. Even if the fire was extinguished, his luck would drop by at least two levels in a short period of time.

And since the "priest" had revealed himself, the attacks from Miss Sabel and Emilia arrived immediately. He already understood that the opponents holding the map who had come here were extraordinary, so after putting away the snake skin with most of its corners burned off, he turned around to make a final struggle.

Divine arts were activated, and the dice jumping in the void turned into substance and clattered in the snow. Luvia saw that this was not only the divine art of an evil god, but also the candidate's talent of the opponent at work. The jumping black dice constantly stirred the torrent of Fate, but her purple eyes saw something more essential:

"His talent is to lead every story he participates in toward tragedy..."

She wanted to cast a spell to counter it, but with a *neigh*—a golden stream of light appeared from the steps further below. The golden light emitted by the unicorn horns of Little Liana and Ellie hit the twenty-sided die that was still jumping constantly. The die exploded into dust in mid-air. The "priest," who was flying in the air stepping on paper pages, changed his expression and looked at the two unicorns in disbelief. Then, he no longer cared about any map, jumped off the side of the cliff, and disappeared into the sea of clouds below in the blink of an eye.

A touch of chaotic light in Miss Sabel's hand chased down, and then another echoing scream appeared in the mountains. The paper pages scattered everywhere followed the "priest" and flew downward, but Emilia still managed to snatch two pages in the chaos.

Seeing that her attack had hit the target, Miss Sabel wanted to follow and pursue to solve this troublesome enemy once and for all, but her right hand was caught by Luvia.

The purple eyes continued to look higher up the stone steps:

"No need. You are not the Chosen. Even if you chase after him, the probability is that you will only seriously injure him and let him escape. Moreover, the path we are on—once you leave it voluntarily, you will never be able to come back. There is no need to waste the opportunity to reach the end for such a cultist.

Let's continue walking. Emilia, what are you holding? Paper pages? No, no, I don't need them; keep them yourself, and remember not to use them randomly. Call Ellie and Little Liana, who are hiding behind, and be sure to follow me closely for the rest of the way."

Encountering the cultist from the 【Society of Ten Thousand Numbers Returning to One】 was just a small interlude. The rest of the journey was still led by Luvia, who held the map, as she guided everyone to move forward constantly.

In another very short cave, they were blocked by a lake inside the cave. Even at night, the two ends of the cave could see each other's positions, and the lake inside the cave very unluckily did not leave them any path.

Luvia then said:

"This is a place for pilgrims to bathe; we can just walk across the water."

The water surface was unusually calm. When Emilia, walking on it, looked down, she actually saw a series of phantoms beneath the water surface. She saw herself studying at the academy, then studying at the academy forever, growing up slowly, and then suddenly dying in some disaster—this was a quite boring life.

"This is..."

"Just some possibilities, similar to the effect of the 【Kaleidoscope of Divergent Paths】, no need to pay too much attention."

Luvia said. She had not looked down, but the witch beside her also looked at her own feet after hearing her words. Then Adele Isabella saw herself kneeling dejectedly in front of Claire's corpse. Next to that "corpse" happened to be Luvia's reflection on the water surface at this moment, and that reflection's hair was clearly long.

"Possibilities..."

After walking out of the cave, they returned to the snow again. Braving the wind and snow, they continued to move forward. At a higher position on the mountain peak, the road connecting the top and bottom was broken halfway. The broken part was more than ten meters long, and it looked like they needed to find a new path, but Luvia walked over directly:

"The path is under our feet, not in our eyes."

Even though even the Great Witch of Time could not sense any invisible path or steps, she actually stepped on the air. Emilia then extended her boot to test it and found that there really was a path, so she dared to follow. The blonde witch was very curious about everything here.

As for the two unicorns, their courage was quite great. Seeing Emilia step on the air, they jumped up directly, and instead of being as cautious as Emilia, they walked quite naturally.

After walking across the transparent bridge, the wind and snow ahead suddenly grew stronger. The gale blew so hard that these slender girls could not stand steadily. Luvia stretched out her arms to block her face and walked forward with difficulty, stepping into the snowdrifts.

She had only walked less than twenty steps when the wind and snow suddenly stopped again. But at this moment, looking at her side and behind, the figures of Adele Isabella, Emilia, and the two little unicorns were already gone.

The purple-eyed girl stood there in a daze for a while, feeling a sense of loss, then brushed the snowflakes off her shoulders and walked forward alone.

There was no longer a path ahead, only a snow slope tilting upward. During her solitary climb, she recalled her life experiences since becoming a diviner, thinking of every choice she had made at the key turning points of Fate.

"If I had made a different choice, could I still have reached this point?"

She asked herself in her heart, and the long-haired girl's answer was "Yes," that she would definitely have reached this point.

Items familiar to her gradually appeared in the snow: a crystal ball half-hidden in the snowflakes, divination cards scattered all over the snow surface, an obsidian pendulum reflecting starlight, a hydromancy bowl overturned in the snow...

She walked past these divination tools and continued to climb upward. This seemed to be the pilgrimage path's test for the pilgrim, but the effect was not great for Luvia. She just moved forward with nostalgia until, at the end of the highest point of the snow slope, she saw an archway standing there.

The archway was about three meters high and was piled up with stones of various colors. Each colored stone was square, and different runes were engraved on them. As for the stone at the very top of the archway, it was clearly the holy emblem of the Ancient God of Fate.

One could actually continue forward by bypassing the archway, but Luvia had an intuition that she must pass through the archway to reach the end of this pilgrimage path.

The so-called "archway" naturally had no door panels, but the inside of the archway was a layer of illusory, transparent hue. Her right hand pressed on it, and then a voice identical to hers asked Luvia the final question amidst the wind and snow in the mountains:

"Diviner who has come on a pilgrimage, what is the greatest achievement in your life in your struggle against Fate?"

And so, the girl with shoulder-length hair and the girl with long hair gave a common answer:

"Xia De Hamilton came because of me; the audience outside of Fate has taken their seat because of me."

Someone seemed to be laughing with satisfaction in the snowy night. The Ouroboros symbol directly above the archway radiated light, and that illusory, transparent barrier disappeared. Luvia's boots then stepped onto the snow behind the archway. Walking forward a few more steps, she looked at the scenery before her and sighed deeply. ===== CHAPTER 3455 =====