Chapter 833
Chapter 833
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 833
Chapter Title: Diagnosis (6)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1.
When he came to, his condition was beyond description.
Blood gushing from both nostrils like waterfalls.
A swelling pressure in his brain, as if every blood vessel had ballooned.
His pulse thundering fiercely between his temples, searing across his skull.
He reflexively checked his astral form and concluded no attack had occurred.
He had simply glimpsed wisdom no human should touch, triggering a temporary overload.
"Ptooey."
Siu spat out the boiling red phlegm from his throat and realized he was alone in the prophecy organ.
The Witch of Silence had vanished, as if she had been a mere phantom from the start.
"What... the hell...?"
The witch from the past.
Too blurry and fleeting to identify properly.
A momentary lapse in focus would have flung him straight back to reality.
"That was... Keter, right?"
Keter Duke had saved Siu's life, but she had also woven some inscrutable scheme.
Was she the daughter of the Witch of Creation?
After repeated failures, she had recognized her limits and purged the impurities.
The being born from that process was Lilith Keter—the Whispering Witch.
'I shall heal you. Bring the child.'
But even that had not been enough, so she had done something.
Healed someone.
He hadn't seen exactly who.
From the circumstances, though, it had to be Siu—followed by all sorts of machinations, much like the Soul Witch's examination.
He shook off the dizziness clouding his head.
Too much information in a single day.
But one thing was certain.
This was far too grave a tangle to keep secret under the excuse of sparing his lovers worry.
2.
When Siu reemerged into the corridor,
his waiting lovers all jolted in surprise.
He looked half out of it, far more haggard than when he had entered.
"Siu, what happened?"
"Nothing. Well, something did..."
Sharon's eyes brimmed with tears as she asked, worried sick.
He was the type to brush off concerns—even superficial ones—with platitudes, so his trailing off only amplified their anxiety.
"Anyplace nearby we can sit and talk? This'll take a while."
In the end, they relocated.
They claimed an empty log cabin nearby and gathered around the table.
"Where even to start..."
Siu began with what he had just learned of Keter Duke's past.
Keter Duke referred to the Witch of Creation as her mother, with an intimate connection.
The Whispering Witch's true name was Lilith Keter, originally split from Keter Duke herself.
Having realized her limits, she now dreamed of transcendence through Siu as the conduit.
"No way... Is that true?"
"Can't say for sure, but... yeah, seems like it. The Witch of Silence pointed it out specifically."
Every fact Siu revealed was a bombshell truth that could rock witch society to its core.
Yet chewing them over one by one, they made a twisted sort of sense.
Lilith repeatedly shattering Keter's order.
Yet Keter never slaying Lilith.
Her strangely intense interest in Siu, laced with countless arrangements.
These clues alone couldn't confirm the truth.
If he had spouted this to strangers, they would have dismissed it as nonsense.
But every witch gathered here trusted Siu implicitly.
"Why would Keter..."
"Because he's a male witch?"
"Our Siu's one-of-a-kind~ Makes sense she'd look elsewhere after failing for millennia."
The hottest topic was what Keter wanted from Siu.
Lilith's identity was shocking enough, but Siu was the pressing concern right now.
"There's more on that front."
Next came his current condition, as diagnosed by the Soul Witch today.
With the atmosphere already heavy, it sank deeper with every word.
Shocked expressions all around.
"Lady Amelia, no need to apologize. My arm's already healed, and it let us get the diagnosis faster."
"But... but..."
"Amelia, calm down."
Sharon and Siu soothed Amelia as she sobbed, tears splashing down.
Truth be told, up to this point, Siu might have brushed it off as just another mishap.
His life had always been a whirlwind of incidents—no calm days in the wind.
If the stigma's replication strengthened the Black Knight, he just wouldn't add more partners.
He knew developing his current spells could match his master's output, so all he needed was careful, relentless honing of his power.
But the visions from the prophecy?
Those were wake-up-call material.
This was the real crux.
"Now for the futures I saw. Master, mind if I ask something first?"
"Anything."
"What's the realization rate for the prophecy organ's visions?"
Eloa pondered long before speaking.
Her voice trembled with dread.
"...The timing's fuzzy, but treat them as near-certainties."
Her fear stemmed from Siu's guess: if the prophecies were rosy, he wouldn't have bothered asking.
"If you see two, does the order they appear relate to their timelines?"
"...Not that I know."
"Got it."
"Siu, what did you see...?"
Even Lurye—whose energy usually pierced the heavens—asked in a somber tone.
Her ever-defiant brows had pitifully knit together.
Siu recounted the prophecies.
In the end: a future where his unconscious seized his body, worshipped as the Witch King.
His other self, cradling an apprentice witch lovingly, coaxing her with affection.
The latter Siu wore a happy expression, at least—but from his current vantage, good outcomes felt remote.
Either way, the successor had to die.
Siu would raise the apprentice with love, eventually entrust her the stigma, and depart.
He had lived more years as a human than as a witch.
To him, a witch's "succession" felt less like noble sacrifice and more like tragic farewell.
He had no answer for why that version of himself would choose succession.
Perhaps a glimpse of some impossibly distant tomorrow.
His lovers' reactions were unequivocal.
"We see Keter right now."
"Is Keter the root of all evil? She'll pay dearly for toying with my subject."
"......"
Eloa, Lurye, and Linne seethed with rage.
Keen hostility toward Keter for trying to steal their lover on a whim.
"No...! How could this be! And an apprentice witch...?"
"Did I... ask Duke Keter to look after Siu...?"
Sharon and Amelia dissolved into floods of tears, as if Siu were already gone.
"......"
Dorothy was the outlier.
Normally, she would corral the others with a timely quip—but now she gnawed her finger, unable to hide her anxiety.
"It's fine. Calm down. Nothing's set in stone yet."
Truth was, it wasn't fine.
Both futures reeked of doom.
He had clawed through countless desperations just to survive—now forced to stew over how fate's inscrutable verdict would kill him?
His stomach churned; picturing his lovers' grief welled tears in his eyes.
But he had a vow to steady his heart.
To become a man worthy of such overflowing love.
"Could be centuries from now, and you all know my rotten luck's tougher than nails."
The uproar quieted at his steady voice.
And he had the track record to back it.
Feats in under a decade that outstripped lifetimes for other witches.
Scraping through mortal perils time and again.
A novice witch still, but with a hint of hard-earned gravitas.
"And no proof, but something feels off."
"What?"
"The Witch of Prophecy said she was waiting for me. If it was just unchangeable past and inescapable future, why wait for me—or send a dream revelation?"
It could be a desperate ploy amid crisis, spitting out her desires.
But if even a sliver of hope remained, Siu had no intention of yielding.
For his grieving lovers' sake, if nothing else.
"Let's devise countermeasures."
3.
Regrettably, the trip ended here.
Eloa, Linne, and Dorothy would head to the Tokyo Waypoint branch as planned.
Under the banner of the punishment unit, lending aid to stabilize the present world.
That wasn't their sole aim.
Gehenna held vast troves of intel, true—but the present world dwarfed it by orders of magnitude.
Leveraging the Waypoint intel network, they might encounter a witch or homunculus to break the impasse.
The rest would scour Gehenna's archives for leads.
Divergent paths meant goodbyes first—to his two masters and Dorothy.
"Husband."
Linne enveloped Siu in a tight embrace, arms wide.
"I'll save you, no matter what. Just like you did for me."
"Don't push too hard."
Eloa slipped in slyly between them.
"Siu, I'll send Teacher Sua soon. Sorry I can't stay with you now."
"It's fine. Sua Branch Chief, though?"
"She'll be a big help."
Dorothy sidled up last.
Her sudden fierce hug crushed soft pressure against his chest.
"Lady Dorothy?"
"Don't get hurt. It'd break my heart if something happened to you."
A gentle, low, misty voice.
"Lady Dorothy..."
Just as he thought asking if she was crying would be tactless,
Dorothy gave his chest a light shove and turned away with stylish flair.
"Anyway~ Just wait nicely. Your big sisters will bring back a killer solution."
"Yes, please take care, Lady Dorothy. See you soon."
Siu, Amelia, Sharon, and Lurye plunged straight into the lake.
"Feel free."
Eloa offered a handkerchief to Dorothy's turned back.