Read Novel Full Chapter 511: Leaving For Iron Height [II]
Chapter 511: Leaving For Iron Height [II]
Lily, both hands still on her knees and chest slightly heaving, looked up at me weirdly. “When did you change your looks? Did you ever even have a heartbreak?”
“Of course not,” I snickered, like such mundane inconveniences were beneath me. “I never got my heart broken. But I’ve broken many hearts myself. Fair maidens have cried buckets over my terrible commitment issues. This heavy burden of carrying so much beauty… I’m envious that you’ll never know it, Lily.”
“Are… are you calling me…” Lily pulled herself straight, lips scrunching up into a scowl. “Are you calling me ugly? You bastard!”
“Whoa, whoa! Put those venomous thoughts away, missy.” I held up my hands, though couldn’t stop a smug grin from slipping out. “I never said that. I simply pointed out that my level of aesthetic perfection is like a solitary mountain peak. It’s lonely up here, but someone’s gotta sit on the throne. Believe me, if I could shed this handsome face and tone down some of this irresistible sex appeal of mine, I would! But alas, the universe has cursed me with unbearable beauty. I’m a victim, really.”
Lily looked unsure of what to say in response.
I could claim the poor girl was probably awestruck by me, but it seemed more like she was torn between wanting to slap my grin off and just walking away from here.
In the end, she simply pinched the bridge of her nose — a gesture so similar to Vereshia’s earlier reaction that I started to wonder if the women in my life were secretly running some kind of coping group behind my back.
“I ran across three entire terminal platforms because I heard you were leaving early,” she mumbled, irritated. “I wanted to say goodbye. And this is the goodbye I get.”
I laughed and approached her, reaching out to lightly tap the side of her shoulder. “Okay, okay. My bad. In all honesty, I appreciate you running across half the airport just for little old me.”
The angry edge in her scowl softened as she crossed her arms. “You’re so insufferable.”
“I’m told that’s part of my charm,” I replied smoothly. “So, how are you? The last time I saw you, you were… uhh…” I trailed off, unable to find the right words.
“Unraveling?” Lily helped, raising an eyebrow. She ran a hand through the freshly cropped layers of her hair, tossing them out of her face.
“I was going to say ‘a complete emotional wreck,’ but, yeah, let’s go with your version. It sounds classier.”
“Thanks.” She gave a dry chuckle. “Yeah, I’m… better. At first I was just lying in my bed and eating ice cream while watching mindless dramas, thinking my world had ended. But then I realized crying so much was just a terrible waste of my mascara.”
“And your time,” I added. “Though the mascara is a close second. Good ones are weirdly expensive.”
Don’t ask me how or why I knew that.
“Exactly! So I threw all that negative energy into working out. I’m working out a lot these days.”
“You go, girl! Get those gains!”
Lily let out an airy laugh. Then she fixed me with a serious look. “Anyway, did Alex already give you a lecture on how stupid you’re being?”
I rolled my eyes. Hard. “Oh! For the love of Monarchs, don’t you too start preaching to me. Yes, she has already chewed my ear off about this. Multiple times, in fact.”
“And you still didn’t listen to her?”
“Listen to her? Lily, I am a free spirit. A wild stallion roaming the open plains. You can’t cage a stallion with things like ‘common sense’ or ‘basic self-preservation.’ That’s not how greatness works.”
“No, that’s just how stupidity works.” She rolled her eyes back at me, sighing a wistful sigh. “Sam. In the Noctveil Wilds, after we exited the Caldera of the Moon Eater, I promised I wouldn’t let your death prophecy come true. But I—”
“Hey, look, if you’re blaming yourself—”
“I’m not.” She shook her head. “I failed. You died. You… really died. It happened because I couldn’t see the Sleeping God coming for us in time. This is not me blaming myself. It’s just me accepting my failure. But the point is, Sam… you’ve tempted fate. And fate will push back. Are you sure you should be putting yourself in such compromising positions?”
My eyebrows raised slightly. “What do you mean it will push back?”
The violet-eyed girl took a moment to gather her answer. “Imagine the entire grand tapestry of fate as a web of interconnected strings. When you pull one string, you’re also pulling virtually every other string attached to it. That’s why breaking fate is impossible. It’s literally you against the world.”
“Okaaay?” I drawled. “And how do you know so much about fate?”
She gave me a look. “Because I’m a seer? Also, I’ve been reading a lot of other seers’ journals recently. Most of them read like ramblings of mad men and women. I guess I shouldn’t feel so bad about my mental breakdown if going insane is in the job description.”
I huffed.
I wasn’t doubting her. I knew she was right.
Asmodeus had told me something very similar once on one of our many dates. He (or was he a she at that time? I don’t remember…) had said that fate pulls you back harder if you try to pull away.
But the thing was…
“I’ve already died, Lily,” I said. “I fulfilled the prophecy. According to Vaeghar, my Loom—” I backtracked, realizing she might not know what that term meant. “—Uh… my fate strings were fraying. When I died, those strings should’ve snapped. Right?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“So now I have escaped fate. Right?”
“Yes.”
“Good! Problem solved.”
“No,” she cut in. “That is the problem, actually. Since your fate strings broke, you’re not in the tapestry anymore. That makes you a mistake.”
My blood ran cold all of a sudden.
Asmodeus’ voice, just as haunting as I remembered it to be, echoed in my ears. ‘Gods hate mistakes.’
After coming back, I had tried not to think much about the Demon Prince of Temptations and his forewarnings. But it was hard not to let my mind wander when his words were thrown back in my face.
Unbeknownst to my unsettling thoughts, Lily continued, “In both the myths of old and the history of man, every person who ever cheated death ended up with a fate far worse than what was originally written for them. The world always finds some way to correct its mistakes, Sam. You might have escaped your fate, but the others around you haven’t. Their strings will pull tight around you. You’ll be tangled. Freakish accidents, unfortunate coincidences, and unfair odds would follow you everywhere. So should you really be tempting fate right now?”
I had no answer ready on the spot. The wind whipped my golden locks across my forehead, and I kept standing there cluelessly.
I tried to think of a joke, but for once, my usual quick-witted retorts failed me.
Deep down, in that dark, pragmatic corner of my mind I usually preferred to ignore, I knew what she was saying made sense.
I had reached some of those conclusions myself.
At first, I wasn’t very sure what it meant for me if my Loom of Fate had already collapsed. But recalling Asmodeus’ daunting warning helped.
It was obvious. If Gods hated mistakes, then obviously the Gods would try to fix them. Made sense.
But what didn’t make sense was… why? Why would they do that?
The Gods weren’t above fate, and fate had declared that the Spirit King would reign supreme over them.
The Gods were afraid of the Spirit King. But instead of trying to forsake fate or find a way to break it, they still enforced it.
That was the reason for the whole mess that resulted in Asmodeus’ daughter dying and him turning over to the False God’s side.
So why the fuck were the Gods clinging so desperately to a system designed to destroy them?