Chapter 286: Meeting Faces of Past Self


    I watched Diana moving towards the team, standing just one hundred meters away from the gates as she waited for them toe. She stood alone, without anyone else there to back her up, but who said she would need help?


    The team arrived, and they spoke in a muffled sound for quite some time, and finally Diana left them and headed back to me. The strangest thing was that the team was still present, and I felt like they were standing there, waiting for a response from me, and their faces told me how confident they were in getting the response they wanted.


    Diana reached up to me, with a grim face, as if she had a very grave news.


    "What happened?" I simply asked, while waiting for her to justify herself.


    "They came asking for a safe passage out of the town, as they want to leave with all their yers, their guild intact, and have your word not to pursue them for one whole year," she slowly said, and the more she spoke, the more I knew something very bad was waiting for me at the end.


    "And why didn''t you just kill them? Or do you want me to do it?" I asked.


    "No princess, wait," she hurriedly called to stop me, as she knew my temper right. "What? Just tell me everything!" I bellowed at her, with impatience. Since when did I need anyone to care about me like this? Since when I was so fragile to hear some simple threats?


    "They are threatening to attack your own kingdom in the real world" she paused, and suddenly I felt a squeezing hand grabbing my heart with unseen brutality. I motioned her to continue, silently, as she added, "they said if you didn''tply, they will send their private armies and the armies of their subordinates topletely destroy and kill every single one of your kingdom, including your family."


    She paused slightly before saying thest words of their threats. I suddenly felt like my whole world turned upside down, and I started to feel the whole ground and sky were starting to vibrate in front of my eyes.


    I didn''t know what to even think about until I took my breaths finally after a long pause; I gasped, with much pain and hurt inside me that I never felt alike from before.


    My family, my father, my mother, my little sister, my uncles, my cousins, my friends, my army, my people, my past, and my future all were about to get destroyed suddenly here because of a simple stupid game!


    Suddenly I asked myself, is it worth it? I knew I was the witch''s descendant, for sure hell I was, and I knew for sure my enemies were heartless, relentless, and wouldn''t stop at anything dirty to do in order to destroy me!


    However, I never imagined they would target my family!!


    I felt another hand grabbing my heart, and at this moment I felt like all the air in the universe had been sucked dry. I gasped, didn''t know that the fruit of knowledge I had acquired from before had gotten itself out from my inventory, entered my mouth, and got dissipated at once into smaller parts.


    And I swallowed it, in a reflex, feeling this strange warm wave that invaded my body, making me want to rest, close my eyes, and leave all this mess and chaos behind.


    "Wake up!"


    Suddenly this strange calling came to disturb my peace! I was greatly annoyed by it, and I decided to ignore it, enjoy my moment of peace again.


    "Wake up!"


    Another shout, and another angry wave erupted inside me. I opened my eyes and shouted back: "Who is it?!" to be met with extreme darkness around me.


    I wasn''t anywhere familiar, I wasn''t at any ce at all, I was literally in oblivion!


    "Wake up!"


    This voice came again, just when I started to feel panicked. Its appearance produced soft ribbles that started to dissipate the darkness around, but in the next moment, everything vanished, and darkness prevailed.


    "Wake up!"


    Another calling, and this time I was feeling some hope, tried to concentrate, see what was causing this light, and try to reach it.


    A thought, a mere thought of mine, changed everything!


    I stretched out my hand, involuntarily, in a reflex move, and a warmness suddenly grabbed it, followed my arm, and shielded me from any darkness, as I turned into a light, a warming source of light myself.


    "Wake up!"


    This time, the sound seemed so clear, as if it was just adjacent to my ears. I opened my eyes, for real this time, and found myself sitting on grassy grounds, with a small hill in the distance. The sky was pure, the sun was warm, and I was sitting there surrounded by thousands of faces, all were mine!


    "Wake up!"


    This wasn''t a single face speaking to me, but all the thousands speaking in one tone, making the word seem more strange when heard like that.


    "Who are you?" I asked, as I stood from the ground, looked around the ce in confusion, before I finally realized where I was!


    "The witch''s grave!" I softly muttered, as this was the witch''s grave after I killed every enemy of mine, acquired the fruit of knowledge from the tree up there, and then all the world ushered into avish green and vitality.


    "Yes, wee home, my future self," the sound came from all the faces floating in the air. It was really weird, seeing faces like mine speaking in my own voice, that was really awkward.


    "Am I dead?" I asked, as this was the only exnation I had.


    "No, no, you are the opposite, totally and perfectly alive," the faces replied, as they were roaming around me, like flower petals floating on the surface of a pureke.


    "Then why am I here? What just happened to me? What is that darkness I just saw right now?" I asked, as I didn''t have any possible exnation for any of that. I then paused, as I added, "and who are you?"


    "We are you, the previous you, the past you, the Agathas who failed to survive, failed to conquer our enemies, and now we are here to push you a step forward, so you won''t be defeated in the future, like part of us."


    Their response was weird, illogical, but I had a resonance inside me which came from a distant memory of mine, a memory of Shin''s words to me. "Was I really in a time loop?" I asked.


    "Yes, and you are about to pass through it, provided that you make the necessary sacrifice," the faces replied.


    "Anything, just tell me what I should do and I will do it," I instantly replied.


    "It''s not easy, Agatha, and you have already failed such a trial before," the faces calmly said, with a brief moment of hesitation.


    I suddenly started to gain some insights about what was going to be offered to me. "My family? My kingdom? My people? That can''t be true," I shook my head, as I couldn''t believe the price I had to pay was to use others'' lives, not even mine, to redeem myself. "I can never ept something like that!" I blurted out loud, expressing my discontent to these unjust conditions.


    "They are really unjust, but we all were born with the same prophecy, the same curse, do you recall it?" the faces calmly asked, as they spoke of my birth prophecy. "I can''t recall it, I never heard it ever in my life," I shook my head, while showing extreme sadness towards this.


    My own family, my dear father never told me anything regarding this prophecy! Always considering it as a taboo, not wanting anyone to tell it to me, or even speak about it loudly in any ce of the kingdom.


    "Your father is a wise man, as he once tried to tell you the whole prophecy when you were one year old, and a protective spell was triggered, left by the witch, and with some good luck your life and his were saved.


    Your father decided that from that day onward, no one should tell you the whole prophecy, fearing that you might hurt someone, and live with that burden for the rest of your life."


    I looked with some weirdness towards all of them, as I never had such a memory about that in my mind. If they were right, and they should be, then this happened when I was one year in age, and thus I couldn''t recollect anything from that time.


    "Sorry, but I can''t recall any of that," I simply replied.


    "Then we will sing it for you," the faces suddenly got stirred up as they started to move rapidly, forming long lines, intersecting between each other, changing the whole shape of the world around me. "A long casted kingdom, a doomed house, a princess will be born, a witch wille out. Life isn''t just, with sacrifice she must, abandon her home behind, go to the prince exiled. From ashes to dust, the witch will be recast, a life will be tested, a loving home will be cursed. One save should be done, a kingdom or a witch shall be gone. A newborn princess will be cursed, a savior and destroyer she will be called, only future can tell, whether she will save or kill."