My Notoriety Spreads Throughout the World-Chapter 460 - 397: Icy Embrace (Part 3)

Following the patrol team of soldiers to the bulwark, they took the elevator to the top. Sevia arrived at the edge of the wall, caressing the rough bricks, overlooking the entire city below.

The desolate wind stirred the girl’s hair, in her eyes, the once-bustling city was silent, as if shrouded in a layer of ash.

Gazing at the distant castle atop the mountain, the massive mountain standing in the center of the Kingdom, abrupt yet magnificent, the grand scene implied that the legend was not false, and a miracle from a century ago had manifested in this Kingdom.

Sevia tucked her hair behind her ear, took out a pen and paper, noted the date, and sketched the scene.

"What I love to do most on usual days is to stand alone on the city wall, the stronger the wind, the better." Atula said, spreading her arms wide.

"There’s always a gust of wind from my homeland, scented with wild grass and purple blossoms."

"Why did you choose to leave your homeland and come here?" Sevia asked.

"Because our homeland has already been destroyed." Atula said softly.

Brief words, yet filled with too much emotion.

Sevia was stunned. Clearly not long ago, the other person was still telling her about the scenery of their homeland, sharing their greatest wish.

"How could this happen?"

"That’s why I said, this broken world..." Atula tried to appear calm. "I know, my wish can never be realized."

"That meteor destroyed everything we had."

"The fragments of the meteor rooted into the soil of Tulan, the canopy collapsed onto the land, plains caught fire, rivers evaporated dry, the fertile soil turned to ash and scorched earth, and golden monsters emerged from within, wantonly slaughtering our clansmen."

"To be honest with you, all the stories I’ve told were recounted to me by Grandma Hatan during the Great Migration with our clan, I was born on a sheep’s back and have never seen my homeland with my own eyes."

Atula recalled her younger self.

Her parents perished in the arrival of the Golden Creatures. 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

That catastrophe became a scar etched into the souls of every member of the Titan Clan.

Young, she followed Grandma Hatan, along with thousands of clansmen, led by General Belisa, forced onto a path far from home.

At night, she laid on a sheep’s back, looking back toward her homeland, seeing only a giant Golden Tree rooted between heaven and earth, absorbing Tulan’s nutrients, she saw the sky and fields dim under that giant tree...

Sevia listened patiently as Atula recounted all this, perhaps this female warrior of the Titan Race was not as optimistic and cheerful as she usually appeared.

"Atula." At this moment, Flora stepped out from the watchtower, gesturing with her chin toward her.

Atula nodded in acknowledgment, looking at Sevia:

"Let’s go, you wanted to meet those Wizards, I’ll take you to see General Belisa first."

Sevia nodded.

The three descended the city wall, entering the depths of the watchtower.

All the way down, through dark gratings and passageways, into the dim underground space, the sight before them made Sevia’s eyes flicker.

Cages lined both sides in sequence, resembling countless squares embedded into the walls, numbering thousands.

Behind iron bars were piles of prisoner corpses, human limbs entwined like snakes, some bodies rotted and fermented to a high degree, fetid pus oozing from the seams of bones, like a massive plague incubator.

The guards, fully covered, were still not immune to the stench overwhelming them as they walked the narrow passage, flushing cells with water, the transparent stream filtered through corpses, thus the yellow broth mixed with waste and bloody pus flowed down the sloped incline into the prison sewer.

Bang—

The water washed a corpse down from above, the already rotten and fragmented head crashed against the iron bars, its eyes like popped billiard balls, ’plop’ out of the sockets, rolling to Sevia’s feet.

Confronting that horrific face, Sevia silently turned her head away, continuing forward.

The scenes that followed constantly assaulted Sevia’s senses.

She saw an old man caked in blood and grime, squatting in a cell, sending rotten scraps into his mouth for sustenance, muttering something furtively, and upon noticing her gaze, unveiling a strange smile.

She saw a woman cradling a child born in prison, her body already cold and rigid, leaving only the child’s cries echoing in this earthly Purgatory.

She saw someone coughing weakly, ultimately hacking up their dissolving innards, collapsing lifelessly on the ground.

She saw someone pounding the iron door of the prison, howling, half his face sprouting filthy coarse hair, arms devolved into thin long sticks like bamboo poles. Sharp incisors pierced through his entire lower lip, wailing in pain at the sight of light, he scurried back into the corner hunched over.

Tens of thousands are confined in this sunless, underground prison, struggling in despair before death brings release.

"All these are..." Sevia gasped.

"Your reaction is smaller than I imagined." Atula eyed the girl.

She grew increasingly curious about this one’s background.

To know, the first time she saw this scene, she was sick to her stomach, nearly vomiting bile, unable to eat for days, while having nightmares for more than a month.

"Mm."

Sevia had seen such memories many, many times.

The last scene at the Opera House, the "Artist" flooded her mind with countless painful memories, completely drowning her sense of self. At that moment, she witnessed all the suffering of the past centuries on the Star of Art.

These sufferings stacked upon her consciousness, making her the vessel of these pains, her ’self’ was breached by these countless foreign memories.

Before the journey of rebirth began, by sheer will, she traversed that storm to retain the last fragments of her self, preventing them from slipping away from her fingertips.

Initially, the memories of people brought her much distress, this symbiosis was undoubtedly painful, leaving her unable to discern between ’others’ and ’self’.

All she could do was bury every memory, along with her ’self’, beneath the surface of her memory sea.

Now, she simply navigates a small raft of ’self’ in an endless murky ocean, fishing for her own fragments.

Sevia doesn’t know how much time she has left to make a choice.

The consciousness of the "Artist" continuously nibbles away at and occupies her dwindling ’self’, she can feel her humanity gradually fading, emotional resonance diminishing, this leads to her growing cold.

This erosion is subtle, even if the voice in her mind no longer tries to tempt her, no matter how she threatens it with death, it’s all futile, once she fails to assemble a complete ’self’ before her consciousness is fully eroded, or proactively accepts others’ memories, becoming a new self.

When that happens, the true "Starry Singer" will descend upon this world.