Chương 150: New Clues to the Mad Sage, Charles

In that long period of memory.

The last thing Xia En saw was a boy picking up a black hoodie from the ground and putting it on amidst a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.

He glanced at Minus one last time, pulled up his hood, turned, and walked without hesitation toward the city gate, disappearing into the flames.

Minus, with a sword embedded in her chest, collapsed to her knees in agony.

Unwillingness and obsession consumed all her reason, turning her originally clear light blue eyes into a scarlet red as she struggled to stop the boy.

But it was all in vain.

The girl fell into the hell she had created.

He slowly lost consciousness.

The leaves of the golden tree fluttered down, scattering across the ground and turning into a golden snow that covered everything in Rivendell.

Xia En withdrew his gaze from the past.

My emotions are still hard to calm down.

The magic circle that Minus used to sacrifice Rivendell was all too familiar, so familiar that he almost thought he had returned to the basement of the Ghost Bunker—to the testing grounds of the Mad Sage, Charles— He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

Could that boy be the later Madman?

But how could an ordinary human mage from 2, 800 years ago have lived for 2, 800 years?

Xia En felt a slight throbbing in his head.

A distant, resonant chime rang in my ears.

Wearing a long, flowing gold dress, Minus smiled, a sweet dimple appearing at the corner of her mouth.

"I told you, this story must have a happy ending."

As she spoke, the girl took Xia En's hand, stood on tiptoe with a happy expression, and wanted to kiss him.

In the gentle spring breeze, the branches of the golden tree above their heads swayed softly, making a pleasant rustling sound.

Xia En watched the girl's performance, which she was completely absorbed in.

A sense of melancholy welled up inside me.

He has the "Brain Lockdown" stat, meaning his resistance to mental magic is maxed out. No amount of illusion or brainwashing can fool him.

Even if he falls into a trap briefly, he will quickly recover. All of Minus's methods are clumsy to him.

"Stop, Minus."

"No, perhaps I should call you 'Golden Tree'?"

The words fell.

The wind stopped.

Minus stopped moving, and the smile on her face gradually disappeared.

How did you know that?

Shane did not answer the question.

He looked at the golden tree above their heads and said, "After thousands of years of companionship, I think you two must have already reached a deep understanding."

"I just never expected that a mere [Tree Spirit] could recreate a city, and even make the inhabitants look so lifelike."

Minus denied it, "I don't know what you're talking about."

2 Xia En didn't care and continued, "If I'm not mistaken, you weren't very interested in us at first. You just wanted to settle us as residents so we wouldn't cause trouble."

"But why did you change your mind and suddenly want to play this self-deceiving 'engagement game'? You—"

"What do you want to do?"

Upon hearing this, Minus scoffed.

"What do you want to do? Ha, didn't you see it all? They deserved a happy ending; that's how the story was supposed to end."

Shaun bluntly pointed out, "But Minus refused."

"Minus didn't understand at the time!"

"And she regretted it. She gave everything! She sacrificed everything! They could have gone back to the way things were! Started over!"

The elven girl was emotionally agitated.

His eyes, just as Xia En remembered, gradually changed from a clear light blue to a scarlet red.

She desperately tried to explain, tears streaming down her face.

Minus is dead.

"No!"

"You saw it with your own eyes."

"7

"No!"

The elven girl covered her ears and shook her head frantically.

"No, Minus is not dead! I am Minus! I am Minus!"

"If we start over! The ending will change! Everything will be different, everything will be the same—" Xia En looked into those scarlet eyes.

For no reason at all, I thought of Frillie.

For a race like elves with such long lifespans, ignorance and regret are often intertwined.

Their innate indifference and slowness in dealing with emotions meant that they spent most of their long lives in solitude.

Anyone or anything that intrudes into their lives will vanish into thin air before they even have a chance to truly notice them.

In an attempt to make up for the regret, they were ultimately consumed by it.

He looked at Minus in front of him, his tone tinged with pity.

Some things, once missed, are missed forever.

"What do you know, you mere human!"

Obsession made the girl's scarlet eyes even more terrifying.

She wasn't unaware that it was all in vain.

But she still allowed herself to indulge in false illusions; she was—self-loathing.

The "perfect outcome" she failed to achieve became a mirror, hanging in her subsequent life, coldly reflecting "another version of herself" for a long time.

A girl who was never able to become "her".

Xia En looked at the city in the distance, where the people were no different from those in the real world. This showed that real time never stopped, but the girl's time had stopped.

She stood stubbornly in place, constantly looking at the fork in the road in the mirror that she hadn't taken.

There was all the light she had imagined.

Those lights, in fact, only served to highlight the darkness beneath the girl's feet.

Xia En's expression grew increasingly solemn as he watched the golden tree before them, its light about to fade. The female prisoner had imprisoned him, and was about to imprison them as well.

He held the girl's shoulder, his tone more solemn than ever before.

"Life, whether long or short, is destined to be irreversible. Missing out means losing it forever, not just a temporary regret."

Regret and reminiscence will not bring you any compensation; on the contrary, they will turn that regret into an unhealable scar.

"Keep moving forward, don't let your time linger here."

Xia En spoke slowly and in a deep voice. He activated the [Charm] skill. If the truth couldn't bring the other party to their senses, then he would use their own methods against them.

As the evening breeze picked up again, these words, with an irresistible magic, slowly flowed into Minus's heart.

The turbulent red in those tearful eyes slowly subsided and faded, gradually reflecting Xia En's face.

The girl's emotions, which were about to explode, were calmed down.

Xia En cupped the girl's face in his hands, wiping away the tear stains with his thumb, and gently reminded her, "It's been long enough, it's time to say goodbye."

This statement is like a pebble breaking the surface of a calm lake.

Memories flooded back to Minus like a tidal wave.

She lost all strength, collapsed to her knees, and tears streamed down her face.

Yes.

There has been enough time.

It went on for so long that she actually believed she was [Minus].

She cried and trembled, gradually transforming into the image of the flower girl on the red carpet.

That's how she originally looked.

"But I—but I—" The flower girl choked back tears, sobbing, "I really want them to have a happy ending—" Xia En looked down at the child in front of him, who looked no more than seven or eight years old.

There is no right or wrong, good or evil in a child's world.

She didn't understand why Minus sacrificed the entire city's population just to save her beloved's life, only for him to turn his blade against the overjoyed elf after his resurrection—she simply hoped that their love could have a fairytale ending.

However, in the adult world, love and choices are never simple issues.

Xia En knelt down, looked into the flower girl's eyes, and said earnestly, "Life is not a script. Not every story has a happy ending. Even if there is regret, it is still unique."

"I am not that boy, and you are not Minus. We don't know why they made that decision back then."

"But we don't have to repeat their choices."

The flower girl looked into Shane's eyes.

Tears fell in a steady stream.

After a long while, the little girl finally nodded.

As she moved, the entire Rivendell, like an oil painting being soaked in water, began to slowly melt away.

Countless magical points of light converged from all directions and returned to the branches of the Golden Tree.

Xia En was startled.

Oh no, Frillie and the others!!

As if reading Xia En's mind, the flower girl wiped away her tears and said, "Don't worry, I didn't hurt your companions."

Xia En looked at the flower girl's eyes, which had regained their clarity.

Relax a little.

"Uncle, could you please grant me a request?"

uncle---- Xia En choked for a moment.

Is it reasonable for a seven or eight-year-old child to call someone who looks eighteen or nineteen "uncle"?

The flower girl was oblivious to Xia En's inner turmoil.

With a wave of her small hand, all the leaves of the golden tree began to fall softly.

"I can offer these leaves as payment for this request."

The golden leaves fell on Xia En's head, making a sound like metal striking stone.

Xia En picked it up and took a look.

Each leaf is pure gold.

He looked around in shock. The ground was covered with a thick layer of debris, and it was still falling.

The little flower girl stood amidst the golden fallen leaves and said, "I sprouted at the edge of the continent, Endai, which you humans call the 'place where souls rest.' I took root here, yet I miss my homeland every moment."

"Minus is my only connection to my hometown, and now that she's gone, I don't want to stay in this sad place any longer."

"Uncle, can you take me home?"

"able."

Shane's answer was straightforward and without any hesitation.

The flower girl choked back her tears.

It seemed that they hadn't expected Shane to accept the request so readily.

Xia En pulled out his large-capacity backpack, jokingly, "Look at all this gold on the ground." He wouldn't hesitate for even a second; that would be disrespectful to money.

"What, you don't want to go back anymore?"

"No----"

"I just think you're really handsome, and what you just said was quite philosophical, but why—" Xia En naturally understood what the flower girl hadn't finished saying.

Kids are just being dramatic.

Xia Enke is an honest person.

With so much gold, they could roam freely on the northern plateau.

>