Yarra’s Adventure Notes
Chapter 1144 - 256: From Joy to Despair

Chapter 1144: Chapter 256: From Joy to Despair

Everything happened in just three seconds.

Upon hearing Pannis’s shout, Vivian’s body contracted and her legs bent. Her next action was to spring forward, to get away from her original position immediately. However, just as she was about to spring out, the girl’s movement suddenly halted. A twisted arm had already touched her body from behind and was even penetrating deeper into her soul.

Before her consciousness slipped into chaos, the young Mage saw Pannis breaking through the air at top speed heading straight for her, and also Lina, whose hands were gathering Sacred Power. But Vivian knew it was already too late. The Twisted Soul at her back was infiltrating her body at a terrifying speed. Once it overlapped with her body, she feared there would be no way to escape, and she could only watch herself being assimilated by it. Only then did the girl truly understand Pannis’s previous description—these Twisted Souls were indeed far too dangerous. Even knowing their weaknesses, often there were no strategies available.

"Is it all over?" Vivian suddenly regretted having dispersed the ready-to-cast Psychic Shock just moments ago. If the Psychic Shock had still been active, perhaps it could have bought her some time, delaying just enough for her teammates to arrive and rescue her. But now she couldn’t manage that. With the distance Pannis was at, even if he truly transformed into a bolt of lightning, he couldn’t move her from the spot in time, and Lina’s Divine Spell wasn’t stimulated yet. Perhaps it was only a second’s difference, but that second often decided life or death.

"I’m not willing to accept this. I just got a healthy body, my life had just begun anew, I’m not willing to die here meaninglessly." A strong will to survive was the last thought of the girl before a Twisted Creature truly touched her soul. But the very next moment, Vivian realized that she was not experiencing the confusion and madness as Pannis had described before. Instead, she heard a few clear sounds of bones breaking and felt a massive force coming from behind and to the side. Her frail body was thrown by the impact like a kite with its string cut, flying up and rolling through the air towards Pannis, who was rushing towards her at top speed. During her roll, when the girl’s line of sight shifted back to her original position, what she saw almost drove her mad.

At the spot where the girl had been standing, a black-haired girl clad in scale armor had taken her place, remaining there, while the Twisted Soul that was about to merge into her body was now embracing the black-haired girl, infiltrating her body bit by bit.

The Mage girl in the air no longer had time to think about any other issues, including how many bones she might have broken or if she would crash into Pannis. These thoughts were cast aside by Vivian, her fingers frantically playing, and within several rolls, Psychic Shock was ready. However, she suddenly realized she couldn’t release her magic because, in a fleeting glimpse, most of the Twisted Souls’ body had already merged with Catherine’s. If she released the Psychic Shock now, it would only harm Catherine, who bore the Twisted Souls for her, rather than the real enemy.

Pannis knew he couldn’t make it in time. As a warrior fully aware of his speed and limits, he knew right from the start of his high-speed rush that he couldn’t make it in time to rescue anyone. His current reactions were merely instinctual. At this moment, it was as if Pannis had traveled through time’s barrier back to a hundred years ago, to the place where the nightmare began. Once again, he saw the black-haired knight charging fearlessly at death, and all he could do was watch helplessly, only able to let regret and self-reproach consume his soul in a corner. At that moment, he once again saw that look from the eyes of his beloved—lingering, reluctant, sad, yet with a hint of pity, that final look.

No, it wasn’t as if, it was the real gaze, almost identical in emotion to that of the knight from a century ago. Watching this gaze, while catching Vivian, Pannis’ mind was blank, and he could only numbly move his legs, utterly unaware of what he was doing.

Lina’s Divine Spell was on the brink of being unleashed, with just a casual gesture ready to summon a holy Rain of Light to descend upon Catherine. However, just as the girl pointed her finger, her motion suddenly paused—perhaps for less than half a second, but this half-second was fatally critical.

The priestess girl didn’t pause intentionally. Just as she was about to utter the last syllable of her prayer, she suddenly saw it—she saw the head of the Twisted Souls, which had merged into Catherine’s body, coincidentally lifting up. Normally, no matter what she saw, Lina would not hesitate to release the Divine Spell. Yet this time, she hesitated, because the Twisted Souls appeared to be growing out of Catherine, its face emerging from her body, insane and hideous. Despite the distorted and wrinkled appearance, it was still faintly recognizable as bearing a six or seven-tenths resemblance to Catherine’s face. Under the distortion, it seemed as though Catherine’s soul was being drawn out of her body.

As a priest, Lina could purify any harmful soul without hesitation—it was her duty. However, the one thing she couldn’t bring herself to harm was Catherine, who she regarded as her own elder sister. The priestess girl would rather lose everything, be it her soul or her life, than launch any form of attack at Catherine. Hence upon seeing that face, Lina’s spellcasting involuntarily halted. Although she recovered and resumed casting in the blink of an eye, that half-second delay was enough to change too many things. So, when the holy Rain of Light finally fell upon Catherine, only a faint black mist rose from her body, and the Twisted Souls had already burrowed into her, tightly entangling with her soul.

Lina’s eyes were wide open, nearly splitting at the corners, as she frantically cast divine spells on Catherine, but they almost had no effect. The Twisted Souls stubbornly clung onto Catherine’s body, and Catherine, already kneeling on the ground with a vacant gaze, remained motionless.

"Stop." Lina’s hand, continuously casting Divine Spells, was suddenly grabbed, and Pannis’s hoarse voice rose from beside her ear, "If you keep going, the only one you’ll harm is Catherine."

"How is that possible, you..." Lina, face full of anger and about to say something, suddenly felt the trembling in Pannis’s hand. Turning to look, Pannis’s face was as deathly pale as when they had first seen the temple deep in the plains, his gaze void of any spark, his eyes dull, just staring blankly at the knight girl kneeling on the ground. The girl opened her mouth, the fury brought by the thwarted action vanishing in an instant, and said in a hoarse voice, "How is that possible? My sister has a normal soul; how could she be harmed by Divine Spells?"

Pannis didn’t answer, nor did his expression change; he just stared blankly at Catherine. Indeed, no explanation was necessary. Including the inquiring Lina herself, everyone could already tell; the knight girl’s body was beginning to emit a faint light, and the edges of her form were starting to become unstable, clearly a sign of excessive distortion.

"Don’t go over there." Even in a dazed state, Pannis still grabbed Vivian who wanted to rush over, and turning his head slowly, he said in a voice like a sleep talker, "Anyone who touches her now will be assimilated with her, there’s no other possibility."

"There must be a way," Vivian clenched her teeth tightly. The girl had never felt such immense hatred toward herself, all because of her momentary negligence, all because she wanted to record some additional knowledge, and had put her most beloved sister in such a dangerous state. The girl had forgotten the pain of her broken bones, clutching Pannis’s hem, her knuckles turning pale blue as she stammered, "There must, there must, there must be a way."

Pannis fell silent once more, shaking his head weakly.

"You must be joking, Pannis," Lina looked at Pannis with pleading eyes, forcing a smile and said, "It’s just a Twisted Soul. After all the dangers we’ve faced along the way, how could a Twisted Soul really harm my sister? You must be trying to scare everyone. My sister will wake up soon, right? Right? This joke isn’t funny at all, haha, haha, haha."

However, Pannis didn’t laugh; he just kept staring at her, with only the girl’s laughter sounding hoarse and dry, like a desperate cry in the night, echoing further and further away in the silent world, growing weaker and weaker.

"Huh." The desperate laughter finally stopped, and Lina’s almost crazed expression returned to normal in the blink of an eye. She wiped her blood-red, tearless eyes, her voice as cold as the fierce ice storms on the Perpetual Icefield, "Is there really no other way?"

"Maya and the others said that no one has found a solution to this yet," Pannis was silent still, the answer came from the scorpion-tailed lion behind him, Dillie, who watched like a bystander the shift from joy to sorrow in less than two minutes, sighed and muttered to himself, "History is always strikingly similar. Is tragedy going to repeat itself? Oh, Kyle."

"I understand." Lina nodded, looking around at the girls like Catherine, "Does anyone else have any ideas? Ava, do the goblins have any technology that can help?"

The expressionless artificial girl shook her head. Facing the edge of death with Catherine, who had been sincerely caring for her since she left the lab, nobody knew what she was thinking at this moment. Actually, her mind, always hiding her emotions, was blank. All logical analysis and system controls had left her; now, all she saw was a haze.

"Alright, it seems there’s no way then." Lina walked heavily towards the kneeling Catherine, bent down to pick up the one-handed sword that had fallen beside the knight girl, her gaze tender as she looked into the eyes of her most revered sister, her closest friend, her lips curling into a forlorn smile.