Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic
Chapter 1064: Incomplete Witch Echo

Chapter 1064: Chapter 1064: Incomplete Witch Echo

Feeling his own emotions, Shard slightly lowered his head, then covered his face with both hands. As the stone wings curled up behind him appeared, Shard transformed entirely into an angel statue covering its face.

Miss Chloe looked at him worriedly from the tent entrance for a while before closing the tent again, leaving Shard alone standing outside in the blizzard.

Even though Shard, in the "Tranquil Stance" state, couldn’t move, his perception other than sight remained normal. He knew he hadn’t waited long before he heard the sound of shoes stamping on the snow’s surface.

The sound grew closer, and Shard also sensed traces of malice saturated with desecration and whisper elements.

He couldn’t see its essence, but "she" could observe:

[A black shadow in the form of Witch Chloe, made of dense blackness. It can be confirmed as a creature accumulated with the rich power of death. Of course, this death is far less potent than the power of true death.]

"That’s good."

The Shadow of Death did not notice the angel statue, abruptly standing outside the tent, already mostly covered in snow, as it approached the tent as before. Its true form was the black-colored Miss Chloe, but its disguised image was no longer Witch Wanda but the missing Witch Provence, mistress of Mrs. Marques.

Without Shard in the tent, Miss Chloe’s voice started to tremble again. She tried to drive the creature away with words as before, attempting to ward it off with threats, but without Shard by her side, her actions met with considerable difficulty.

This young witch’s state was bizarre, her trembling voice as if faced with an insurmountable fear, Shard even thought he hadn’t lost his composure so greatly when confronting the terror at Horror Fortress in the autumn.

"Is the effect of absorbing positive emotions so strong?"

In his statue state, Shard, through communication with "her," had already confirmed the enemy’s posture and position. When Miss Chloe, with a nearly pleading tone, made her last request for the shadow to leave, Shard lowered his arms covering his cheeks:

"Moonlight Slash!"

Without holding back, Shard used his strongest stance, transforming himself into a silver streak of moonlight, piercing through the shadow whose appearance he could not clearly discern.

He passed through the center of the shadow, but the anticipated coordinated attack from Miss Chloe inside the tent did not occur.

The shadow of death immediately entangled the panting Shard. The power of death corroded his body and soul, but it had no effect, as Shard, having returned from death twice, did not fear such power:

"Miss Chloe!"

He was tightly held by the shadow of death shaped like Miss Chloe, who clung to Shard like a spider, both of them falling to the snowy ground. Although it seemed like the shadow controlled Shard in the snowstorm, it could also count as Shard controlling the shadow.

"Come help!"

Shard called out loudly for Miss Chloe’s name, hoping the witch inside the tent would come out quickly, his mouth open so wide that he got a mouthful of blowing snow.

The voice penetrated the blizzard into the tent, and the witch inside, clearly emotionally abnormal, shivering, looked at the tent’s exit with her body too stiff to move.

"Meow~"

Only upon hearing Shard’s cat meow desperately did her body, petrified by the fear of death, seem to regain some warmth. The Sunfire gifted by Shard warmed her soul, and she finally reached out, opened the tent, and came into the blizzard of the Silver Mountains holding the cat.

The dim golden Eleventh-Level Steps appeared behind her against the blizzard. However, unlike those of any witch Shard had seen before, the steps were not only dull in color but also transparent to the point of appearing as fragile as glass.

The witch immediately saw Shard lying on the snow, "battling" against a black figure that looked exactly like her. Holding the cat with one hand, using Mia as a spellcasting medium, a witch’s secret art that Shard had never seen was unleashed:

"Thousand Cat Curse!"

"Meow~" "Meow~" "Meow~" "Meow~"...

Thousands of cat cries simultaneously appeared in the icy blizzard, following which, cats of various kinds—white, black, tabby, ginger—charged at the shadow together.

With the help of the cat swarm, Shard finally broke free, and the witch shouted:

"Quick, attack now!"

"Those cats..."

"They’re all illusionary summoned entities!"

"Thunder Spear!"

As silver thunder erupted in his hand, extending from the center of his palm to both ends, the silver-white Thunder Spear was hurled by Shard towards the shadow still being pounced on by the cats. At the same time, Miss Chloe snapped her fingers:

"Snap~"

With the sound, followed by a loud boom~, the swarm of cats exploded.

"Meow~"

Frightened, Mia broke free from Miss Chloe’s arms but didn’t sink deeply into the snow. Instead, it lightly treaded over to Shard’s feet. Without needing assistance, its paws gripped his pants, climbing to his chest, and eagerly burrowed inside his coat.

"Looks like it’s resolved... so, this time, I didn’t let you come along."

Shard smiled and patted his chest, and sure enough, Mia wriggled a little.

As the sound of exploding cats continued to spread, a muffled roar emanated from the snow mountain. Miss Chloe tugged on Shard’s arm and then pointed towards the distant peak of the mountain.

The mountain at the summit seemed as if it was about to collapse, layer by layer peeling off with the rumbling noise, and that’s when Shard realized what was happening:

"Avalanche?"

The power of nature was not something a Four-Ring Sorcerer like him could stop. But fortunately, before he even had time to feel the impending doom, the avalanche was halted.

At the high ridge several hundred steps away, the deity barefoot with a staff appeared once again. The ancient God of Winter raised its long staff, causing the avalanche to cease, and the tumbling layers of snow and ice returned to their original positions as if time had reversed.

Just like last time, the deity only helped them. When a snowflake obscured Shard’s eyes and flew away, the deity vanished.

"Oh, I must be out of my mind to dare use such secret arts."

Miss Chloe held her forehead and groaned softly, while Shard sighed in relief, having been scared by the avalanche just now:

"It’s alright, let’s go see if that shadow was truly eliminated."

The snow surface was blasted open by the Thunder Spear and the exploding cats, creating a deep pit, with wisps of blue smoke rising from the sunken snow layers.

Miss Chloe and Shard descended into the post-explosion pit to check the situation. In the exposed snow pit, almost nothing was left. However, after careful searching, Miss Chloe still found some black granular substances.

While she examined and collected those black granules, Shard, who was interested in how the snow layer was heated, reached out to touch the smoking snow.

"She" whispered softly in Shard’s ear:

[Outlander, you have obtained ’Witch Echo: Chloe.’]

"What?"

For a moment, Shard thought "she" was joking. But the Echo Spirit Rune had gathered echoes, and the unique knowledge and power contained within the echoes indeed surged into Shard’s soul.

"But, the Witch Echo, unless intentionally left by a witch, isn’t it only found at the death site of a voting witch?"

He straightened up, eyes wide, looking towards Miss Chloe beside him, who noticed Shard’s stare and embarrassingly said:

"Shall we head back to the tent now? I’ve collected just about enough, and these black granules are quite interesting."

"Alright, let’s go back now."

Shard nodded and then took the hand of the young witch with silver-white hair and red eyes, who was a bit short. Her face blushed slightly but she didn’t pull away.

[She is indeed a living, normal witch, and what you just defeated certainly wasn’t a living being.]

"Then, why encounter an echo at the place of that shadow’s death... Furthermore, Miss Chloe is only Eleventh Rank, how could she have voting rights?"

The latter part was the key issue. Miss Feliana and Miss Violetta have proven that as long as a witch is strong enough, the "Echo" doesn’t have to be left at death. But the point about "having voting rights in the Witch Council" cannot be ignored, otherwise the echoes Shard obtained couldn’t possibly increase his voting power.

Miss Galina had clearly mentioned before that even if history is lost in the transition of eras, she was sure that all formal members of the Witch Council in the Fifth Era were of Thirteenth Rank. Even if, at some point, there weren’t thirteen Thirteenth Rank witches, the Council would rather leave the seats vacant than let witches below the rank fill them.

So, for an Eleventh Rank Miss Chloe to have the right to leave echoes, it just doesn’t make sense any way you look at it.

Carrying enormous doubts, the two returned to the tent, where Mrs. Marques softly welcomed them, and the timid man remained silent.

"So, what exactly is going on..."

"Take a brief rest, we’ll set out again soon."

The witch, whose hand was held by Shard, instructed her two companions. Shard also started to bring out the supplies he prepared, while Mrs. Marques began to cook vegetable soup again.

Thinking carefully, this time’s time adventure seems off in every way. Not to mention the deity that refused to get close—among the three human companions, Miss Chloe’s mental state was noticeably off when facing that shadow, while the other two had a remarkably low presence.

In past adventures, even ordinary people were equivalent in status to witches in Shard’s memory and perception. But this time, he instinctively forgot and ignored Mrs. Marques and the man, and upon returning to his space-time, he didn’t even mention them to anyone.

Upon closer consideration, these two ordinary people being able to reach this point in such extreme cold, lacking food, was already quite unbelievable. They took silence to the extreme; Shard’s impression of them was just "soup-cooking woman" and "silent man," and he couldn’t recall them doing anything else.

[Compared to the ’Witch Echo: Founder of the Academy Feliana’ and the ’Witch Echo: Empress Violetta’ you obtained before, this echo isn’t complete. The Witch Echo itself is your Echo Spirit Rune, traces or deliberately left marks of a mighty witch absorbed through Space-Time resonance, but this time, you only obtained partial knowledge.]

"The questions on this trip just keep piling up."