Lord: I have built a witch's sanctuary.

Chapter 115 You Should Have the Courage to Be Disliked

Chapter 114 You Should Have the Courage to Be Disliked

Top floor of the inner fortress of Frostwolf City.

Lorraine stood by the window, her fingers lightly tapping the edge of the stone platform, her gaze fixed on the gray, snowy plain beyond the city walls.

Just as he was thinking about how to further strengthen the defenses of Frostwolf City.

The door behind me creaked open.

Lyra walked in, her boots making a soft sound on the stone slabs.

She was not tall, and was wrapped in a dark gray cloak. Her eyes—one black and one gold—stood out conspicuously in the dim tower.

"My lord, you wanted to see me?"

Lorraine turned around and glanced at her.

This girl has changed so much since she first joined the territory.

In the past, when she stood in front of people, she always hunched her shoulders and looked down at the ground, as if she was afraid that even taking an extra breath would bring disaster to those around her.

Now she stands very straight, and there is always a light in her eyes.

"Sit down." Lorraine gestured with her chin toward the chair next to her.

Leila didn't stand on ceremony. She pulled out a chair and sat down, placing her hands on her knees, waiting for him to speak.

Lorraine sat down opposite her, propping his elbows on the table, and looked at her: "What level are you at now?"

"A second-tier Fate Witch." Lyra blinked. "You know better than I do."

"Yes, second tier." Lorraine nodded, her tone flat. "Not enough."

Leila was taken aback.

"The fifth-tier Winter Lord will be heading south in twelve days."

Lorraine held up one finger. "Anna is fourth-tier, Catherine is fourth-tier, Victor is fourth-tier and can fight, but he's not very stable. Ohm is third-tier, Olivia is third-tier, and you—second-tier."

He paused, staring into Lyra's eyes.

"You are the Witch of Fate, Lyra. Even though your rank is far below the fifth rank, you, as the most special witch, possess the ability to challenge those of higher ranks. Your potential is much higher than you think."

Layla's fingers twitched slightly as she gripped the edge of her cloak, then quickly released it.

"You mean—you want me to advance to the third rank?"

"It's not about you," Lorraine corrected her. "It's about you who deserves a promotion."

Leila remained silent for a few seconds.

Of course she wanted a promotion.

But from the moment she awakened as the Witch of Fate, she knew that she was different from other witches.

Each of her promotions consumes ten times more resources than other witches.

The third tier is a qualitative leap, and it will only consume more resources. This time, does the lord have to bleed money to advance to the third tier?

"The third-tier advancement ritual—" Lyra paused, "...how many resources are needed?"

Lorraine did not answer immediately.

He pulled out the Witch's Tome from his pocket, traced his fingertips through the air a few times, and an information panel that only he could see appeared before his eyes.

The words slowly appeared, and he read them line by line, his expression gradually changing.

"interesting."

Seeing the change in his expression, Leila felt a little uneasy: "What's wrong?"

Lorraine closed the secret manual, leaned back in his chair, crossed his fingers in front of his abdomen, and looked at her with a more complicated expression.

"When other witches advance to the third rank, I just draw arrays, gather materials, and guide magical resonance for them. But your advancement this time is different."

"Why is it different?"

"The third-tier ritual of the Witch of Fate does not require a magic circle," Lorraine said slowly, emphasizing each word, "nor does it require even a single magic crystal."

"No materials are needed."

Leila frowned. "Then—what do I need to do?"

"This time, it's a ceremonial promotion; it requires you to return to the starting point of your destiny."

"What you're going to experience is going back to the past and going through the cruelest fate you've ever had before."

There was a moment of silence in the tower.

The wind howled in through the window cracks, causing the candle flame on the table to flicker violently.

Leila's back stiffened for a moment.

Lorraine looked calmly at the girl before him and continued, "This promotion is your chance to prove to fate that you are worthy of it, and to prove—"

"Prove that you are no longer afraid of fate."

Upon hearing these words, a very subtle ripple flashed in Lyra's heterochromatic eyes.

As a witch of fate, she was once a prisoner of misfortune.

Although she now has the power of destiny in her hands, is she truly no longer afraid of it?

"Are you scared?" Lorraine asked.

Leila thought back to her past years.

They were expelled from seven towns and driven away countless times.

Wherever she went, trouble would follow: a city wall would collapse, a plague would strike, food would rot, and the shaman who presided over the ceremony would die suddenly.

She is a jinx, a walking curse, a plague that everyone avoids at all costs.

In those years, she lived like a stray dog, scavenging scraps from garbage cans, sleeping in roofless shacks, and counting down the days as she arrived at each new place.

Counting down to the day disaster strikes, counting down to the day she is stoned and driven away.

But she stayed in the Tower of Babel for so long, and the sky didn't fall, the earth didn't crack, and the food didn't rot in the fields.

She grinned, revealing a small canine tooth.

"I'm not afraid. When do you want to start?"

Lorraine stared at her for three seconds.

Then he laughed.

"tonight."

As night fell, Lorraine led Lyra to the Clock Tower of Fate.

The building stands inside the fourth-tier city wall, its spire piercing the night sky. The hands on the clock face turn slowly, emitting a deep hum, like the beating of some giant heart.

Anna stood at the entrance of the clock tower, holding a stack of things in her arms.

Seeing Lyra approach, she handed her the cloak she was holding.

"Put it on, it's cold inside."

Lyra took the cloak, her nose twitching. "It smells so good, Anna! Did you bake some bread?"

Anna's ears turned slightly red: "—I saved you a piece, eat it after you advance."

Ignoring their chatter, Lorraine walked to the main entrance of the clock tower and pressed her palm against the door.

The doors of the Clock Tower of Destiny slowly opened at his touch, revealing a deep, spiraling staircase inside.

"Once you go inside, you'll see a door."

Lorraine turned to look at Lyra. "Push open that door, and you will return to the starting point of your destiny—the moment when you were first struck by misfortune in your life."

Leila pulled her cloak tighter around herself and nodded.

"There's only one thing you need to do." Lorraine reached out and pressed down on her shoulder, the pressure light but heavy. "Stand there, watch it, and don't run."

"and then?"

"Then fate will test you." Lorraine's gaze darkened. "It will test you with what you fear most."

You have to hold on.

Leila bit her lower lip.

"I don't know exactly what will happen."

Lorraine released his grip and took a step back. "Because this is a test that fate has given you. If I had known beforehand, it would have affected your promotion."

"This is your own path, Lyra. I can't help you."

Anna clenched her fists, holding back for a long time, but finally couldn't help but say, "What if something unexpected happens?"

"No," Leila interrupted her.

She smiled at Anna, then turned to face the clock tower entrance and took a deep breath.

Golden mist poured out from the door, wrapping around her ankles, icy cold.

The hands on the clock suddenly sped up, and the buzzing became sharp, as if something had awakened deep within the clock tower.

Leila took the first step.

The spiral staircase was narrow, and there were no torches on the stone walls; only the layer of golden mist emitted a faint light.

She climbed higher and higher, and with each step she took, the doorway behind her grew darker, and Anna and Lorraine's figures were gradually swallowed by the darkness.

Reaching the top floor or the bottom floor, in the chaotic space, she saw a door.

The wooden door was old, with most of the paint peeling off, and the doorknob was a rusty iron ring. This door didn't look like something a witch would use; it looked more like the back door of some dilapidated church in the countryside.

Leila recognized it.

Her hand hovered over the doorknob for two seconds.

Then he pushed the door open forcefully.

Behind the door was a blanket of snow.

Everything was white, from the sky to the ground, even the wind was white.

Lyra stood in the snow. She looked down at her feet; the snow was thick, covering her boots, but she didn't feel cold.

This is not real snow.

She looked up and saw the village.

A wooden fence surrounded a circle of low houses, with grayish-white smoke billowing from the chimneys, and several skinny dogs lying by the roadside.

A name was engraved on a wooden sign at the entrance of the village, but the writing was so blurry that it was almost illegible.

But Leila doesn't need to see it clearly.

"Crow's Nest Village," she murmured the name, a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth.

This is where she was born.

Golden mist slowly gathered behind her, like a curtain separating her from the path she had come from.

Lyra didn't look back; she knew there was no going back—at least not until the trial was over.

She walked toward the village.

No footprints were left on the snow. Her body slipped through the village fence like a wisp of smoke.

This is a memory, not reality. She was merely an observer.

The village was very small, with fewer than forty households, squeezed on the edge of the northern wilderness, making a living by hunting and cultivating a few acres of meager land.

Perhaps because it is too remote, even the powerful and unpredictable moments rarely come here. The village is barely able to cope with the situation thanks to a first-tier witch who accidentally awakened her powers.

Leila followed the path she remembered, passing a frozen well, a blacksmith's shop with half its roof collapsed, and finally stopped in front of a small house at the far east end of the village.

The door was open.

The sound of a baby crying came from inside the house.

Lyra stood at the doorway and saw the scene from sixteen years ago.

A woman lay on a wooden plank bed, her face ashen, her lips devoid of color. Her hands rested at her sides, her fingers limp and lifeless.

Standing nearby was an elderly woman in her fifties, holding a wrinkled baby in her arms, frantically wiping it with a rag.

The baby is crying. The sound is high-pitched and shrill, as if it's putting all its energy into this one thing.

The old woman looked down into the baby's eyes and froze.

One black and one gold.

"Evil—evil eye." The old woman's voice trembled. "Heterochromatic eyes, this is—this is the eye of a calamity—"

Layla suddenly remembered that her eyes hadn't become heterochromatic after she advanced in rank.

Instead, her heterochromatic eyes, which she was born with, slowly turned gray through hardship, and were then restored to their original color by Lorraine through a witch ascension ritual.

The woman on the bed turned her head with difficulty: "Let me—let me see her—"

The old woman hesitated for a moment before handing the baby over. The woman took the child, looked down into the heterochromatic eyes, and saw no fear on her pale face, only a tenderness bordering on despair.

"It's alright." The woman's voice was soft, as if she were coaxing a child, or as if she were trying to convince herself, "She just—just has different eye colors—"

Hurried footsteps sounded outside the door. Several villagers rushed in, led by a burly man with a fierce face, followed by the village's old priest.

"I heard the baby has heterochromia?" The burly man's voice boomed as he shoved the old woman aside, peered at the infant, and his expression instantly changed. "Damn, it really does have heterochromia!"

The old priest squeezed forward, stared at the baby with his cloudy eyes for a long time, and slowly shook his head.

"This child is destined for misfortune. He cannot stay in the village."

The woman hugged the child tightly, her voice suddenly rising: "She's my daughter! She was just born!"

"That's precisely why it needs to be addressed so early, right after birth!"

The burly man shouted in a rough voice, "Have you forgotten the blizzard last month? Lewis's cowshed collapsed and killed two cows!"

It's because you're carrying this thing.

"What does that have to do with my daughter!"

"How can it be nothing?" the old priest said slowly, his tone as if he were stating something perfectly ordinary. "Heterochromia is a sign of bad luck from birth; it's clearly written in the ancient books. As long as she stays in the village, the misfortunes will not cease."

Leila stood in the doorway, watching it all unfold.

Her expression was calm.

She had seen these scenes countless times in her dreams. She remembered every word and every expression clearly.

The baby's cries grew louder and louder. The woman held the child tightly, refusing to let go. A burly man and several villagers surrounded the baby, pushing and shoving, creating a chaotic scene.

Finally, the old priest made the final decision: "Don't kill her, but she must be sent away. Before dawn, take her out of the village and dump her in the wasteland. Whether she survives or not is up to her own fate."

The woman's cries were more heart-wrenching than a baby's.

Leila looked at the woman who was crying while holding her child—her mother.

A face she had never seen before, because the woman died three days after she was thrown into the wasteland.

She suffered severe postpartum hemorrhage, had no medication, and no one to help her; she died on that wooden bed.

"I know," Leila said softly, her voice echoing in the empty space of her memories. "I know everything."

Golden mist surged beneath her feet, and the scene began to change.

The village of Raven's Nest disappeared, and another place took its place.

The outer wall of a small town. In summer, the sun is blazing.

Lyra recognized the place—Greystone City, where she was adopted by an apothecary when she was six years old.

The pharmacist was a good man; he gave her food, clothes, and taught her to read.

But the good times only lasted four months.

She saw herself, six years old, squatting in the backyard of the pharmacy, her small body curled up, looking out through the crack in the door.

The street was in chaos; people were screaming and running.

A plague broke out.

The pharmacist stood behind the counter, frantically dispensing medicine, his forehead covered in sweat.

Then someone kicked open the door of the pharmacy.

"It's that jinx!" A tall, thin man pointed towards the backyard. "Ever since you picked up that heterochromatic-eyed girl, there hasn't been a moment of peace in the city! First the well water went bad, then there was a rat infestation, and now the plague—it's all her doing!"

The pharmacist stood in front of the door: "She's just a child."

"She's a jinx!"

More people rushed in. Stones smashed the windows of the pharmacy.

Six-year-old Leila ran out the back door barefoot, without even having time to put on shoes.

Leila watched the small figure disappear at the end of the alley, but did not chase after it.