Cloud Thinking

Chapter 346 The Barrier of Fate (Page 12)

Endless darkness, thick and heavy, like an icy sea that freezes even the soul.

Helia's consciousness sank and floated within it, without direction or time, with only the cold touch of Mobius against her neck and the indifferent, ethereal voice of Vesemir, like a final judgment, echoing repeatedly in her broken heart.

"Follow me back...purify...adapt..."

No...no...teacher...

She tried to shout, but no sound came out.

She tried to struggle, but couldn't feel her limbs.

It was as if only the very core of consciousness remained, endlessly plummeting into the abyss of despair.

Just when she thought this darkness was eternal, that her soul was about to completely dissipate, or be dragged into some unknown, terrifying future called "purification"—

A voice pierced through the thick, seemingly all-encompassing curtain of darkness, gently resonating deep within her consciousness.

"Tsk, sleeping so soundly? It seems our noble princess has suffered quite a bit this time."

The voice carried a familiar languor and playfulness, yet also a hint of barely perceptible concern, like a pebble thrown into a still, deep pool, instantly creating ripples.

Helia's chaotic thoughts suddenly came to a halt.

That voice... it sounds familiar...

She recognizes her!

It's that elusive intelligence broker who always appears in the most unlikely places and knows countless secrets—

“Snow… Nightingale?” She tried to respond in her mind, but only felt a weak fluctuation.

"You got it right, but there's no reward." The Snow Nightingale's voice seemed both close and far away, carrying a strange echo. "Don't bother 'speaking,' just think. In your current state, you're as fragile as a newborn ghost."

Helia struggled to gather her scattered consciousness: "Where...am I? Teacher...and that other person..."

"So many problems, let's take them one at a time." Snow Nightingale's voice paused, as if she sighed, a rare seriousness mingling with her usual nonchalance:

"First of all, congratulations, you're not completely dead yet, and you haven't been cleaned up by that old thing to be used as a 'vessel'."

"Secondly, you are in a very special place—the narrow passage of fate."

"Simply put, it's a small gap between reality and the long river of fate, it's my... well, you could call it my 'safe house'."

A narrow passage between fates? A safe house?

Helia felt a moment of confusion, followed by a great deal of doubt.

What kind of place is that?

Snow Nightingale? What is her true identity? Why is she here? And how did she manage to rescue me from that old, immortal being?

Countless questions flooded her mind, giving her a splitting headache.

"Stop guessing." Snow Nightingale seemed to be able to read minds, her tone returning to a teasing tone. "You think that after making such a commotion in that dump of Morabi's, and then having me 'deal with' that metal lump, everything would be fine?"

“I’m a businessman who sees things through to the end… even though this deal resulted in a slight loss.”

Her voice was lower, carrying a hint of frustration and barely perceptible fear: "When the old man from the Heris family makes a move, Morabi and the other noble families act like grandsons seeing their grandfather, too cowardly to utter a single complaint."

"Giant God Soldier? Ha, in his eyes it's probably no different from a toy, he could crush it with a flick of his wrist."

"I originally came to discuss with you how to deal with this suddenly appearing, ridiculously powerful troublemaker. After all, we have some acquaintance, and he's clearly targeting you."

Helia was deeply shaken.

The old geezer from the Heris family destroyed the Colossus? But wasn't their family involved too? Was it done behind the old geezer's back? Was it Judith's own idea?

Moreover, she had entrusted Snow Nightingale with dealing with the Colossus precisely because of its mysterious and unpredictable abilities, but she never expected...

"And then," the Snow Nightingale's voice continued, tinged with self-mockery, "I had just arrived in the North and hadn't even found you yet when I stumbled upon that 'wonderful' final scene."

"Good heavens, souls self-destructed, dragons went berserk, even the fallen God of War popped out... and in the end, they were forcibly sealed back in."

She took a breath and sighed deeply, "Your Highness, your life is truly full of ups and downs."

Helia felt a sharp pain, and those images resurfaced uncontrollably.

"Alright, stop being so downcast." Snow Nightingale interrupted her brooding sadness, her tone becoming serious. "Listen, time is running out, and I can't stay here any longer. I'll get straight to the point."

"First, I saved you... well, to be precise, I saved your 'soul'."

"In the instant that guy Heris used those controlling threads to pierce the depths of your soul, stimulating the power within you only to have it pushed back down, and you were completely unconscious, I seized the opportunity and used some... special methods to quietly 'steal' the essence of your soul and stuff it into the Narrow Space of Fate."

"The body he took away is empty inside; it's more like a decent-quality empty bottle."

Helia instinctively let out a "ha".

The soul was stolen? The body is empty?

that……

“That’s right, he’s been fooled for now.” Snow Nightingale’s voice carried a hint of smugness, but it quickly became serious again. “But only temporarily.”

“That guy’s perception and methods are unfathomable. Once he starts his so-called ‘purification’ or ‘adaptation,’ we will soon find something is wrong. So we have limited time.”

“Second,” Snow Nightingale paused, as if choosing her words carefully, or recalling a thrilling incident, “your teacher… well, Mobius, right? He was a ruthless man.”

"The soul self-destruction was so thorough that ordinary methods wouldn't even allow you to get close enough to escape; you'd be scattered by the aftershocks. However..."

Her tone carried an almost mystical quality: "Fate... sometimes leaves behind an extremely faint 'possibility'."

"In that void where the soul was annihilated, I grasped that almost non-existent 'echo' that belonged to his own strong obsession, or rather... the most primordial fragment of his mark."

"It's not even as good as a candle flickering in the wind, but it is indeed a trace of 'existence,' not completely erased. I brought it in as well."

Teacher...is there...is there still a trace?

Helia's consciousness erupted with a bright light, a mixture of hope, unbelievable ecstasy, and heart-wrenching pain.

"Don't get too excited," Snow Nightingale immediately poured cold water on the idea. "I told you, it's just the faintest 'trace of existence,' even more ethereal than a fragment of a soul. Whether it can 'come back,' and how it will 'come back,' are all unknowns."

“He’s not even 'near death' right now; he’s more like… a wisp of smoke hanging between existence and non-existence.”

“I placed him deeper into the narrow passage, where time flows more slowly and quietly, which might allow his 'wisp of smoke' to drift a little longer. But this is ultimately not a solution.”

Helia's newly raised hopes were once again overshadowed.

But in any case, this is a billion times better than disappearing completely!

“Third, and most importantly,” Snow Nightingale’s voice became incredibly serious, even carrying a solemnity that Helia had never heard before, as if it came from an ancient oath, “Let’s get to know each other again, Princess Helia, or rather… the vessel for the resurgence of the God of War.”

"I am Snow Nightingale, a senior intelligence broker of the Philosophos Society. This is just one of the many identities I have in the world."

“My true identity is one of the current high priests of the ‘Triple Temple of Fate,’ an organization that serves fate, observes it, and maintains the relative stability of its various branches.”

"I suppose you already had a guess when you heard that you were in a narrow passage of fate."

The High Priest of the Triple Temple of Fate? Helia captured one not long ago, but unfortunately, she didn't get any useful clues out of him before he escaped. Now she's run into another one...

This only shows that the goddess of fate was paying much closer attention to her than one might imagine.

“Don’t be surprised, everyone has secrets, especially those of us in this line of work.” Snow Nightingale seemed to smile. “The Fate Rift is one of my special abilities. I can briefly interfere with the ‘gaze’ of fate and obscure the perception of beings like the immortal descendants of gods, precisely because of this identity and certain… forbidden knowledge associated with it.”

"But the price was not small. This time, in order to steal that sliver of 'possibility' between you and Mobius from under his nose, I almost exhausted all my resources and even risked disturbing some things that shouldn't have been disturbed."

"That old codger... he's probably starting to realize that his fate is taking a slightly unusual turn."

“So,” Snow Nightingale concluded, her tone regaining some composure, “this is the current situation: your body was taken away by Heris as an empty vessel, but he will find out sooner or later that it is empty.”

"Your soul is safe for now, but trapped in the narrow passage of fate, without a body you are like a rootless duckweed, unable to do anything."

“I managed to preserve a very faint trace of your teacher Mobius’s existence, but it is in grave danger.”

"As for me, in order to save you, I have already revealed some of my trump cards, which has attracted his potential attention. I will not be able to use similar methods again for a short period of time."

“Now, Princess Helia,” the Snow Nightingale’s voice entered Helia’s core consciousness clearly and calmly, “tell me, now that you know all this, what do you intend to do?”

"Should I stay here, in my soul form, and wait for a turning point that may never come, or... try to reclaim my body, save my teacher, and then make that old bastard who thinks he's in control of everything pay the price?"

In the dark space of consciousness, the words of the Snow Nightingale were like thunder, shattering Helia's chaotic thoughts and igniting the last vestige of indomitable flame deep within her soul, a flame almost submerged in despair.

She gritted her teeth and said, "As long as I live, I will avenge this!"

-

The darkness gained texture.

As Helia's consciousness gradually stabilized within the Rift of Fate, she began to "feel" the space of this special existence.

There is no up, down, left, or right; no rotation of the sun and moon; and not even a real sense of "existence"—this is a fluid, viscous realm that exists between existence and nothingness.

It's like a dream sunk to the deepest part of the ocean, or like the chaos that floated in the beginning of the universe before its birth.

She lay—if the action can still be described as "lying"—in a cool, still darkness.

Without the constraints of a physical body, the soul reveals its most essential form: a faint but resilient light, constantly dissipating and gathering at its edges, like a candle flickering in the wind, yet knowing better than any candle flame how to preserve itself.

"Sleep." The Snow Nightingale's voice seemed to come from a great distance, or perhaps it resounded directly within her consciousness. "Here, time has no meaning. You have exhausted too much; your soul needs to rest."

So Helia "slept".

This is not sleep in the ordinary sense, but a state of self-repair for the soul.

Her consciousness came and went, sometimes clear enough to recall every detail of the battle—Colin's withered corpse, the black water that the water ghost man had dispersed, the teacher's cold forehead pressed against her neck at the end—and sometimes so blurry that only a certain instinct remained: to survive.

In some corner of her consciousness, a tiny but steady spot of light remained always lit.