Here, it was silent.
Peaceful.
Fresh air flowed through the forest, drifting between the countless trees. The scent of pine, earth, and living wood lingered in the air, mingling with the faint presence of magical constructs.
Stone and trees blended together in perfect harmony with magic.
Everything was pristine.
Just like the otherworldly beautiful people who lived here.
Long ago, when the Demon Lord of Domination had first stepped onto this continent, even he had been awed by its beauty.
Sylvia knew that story.
Knowledge like this was right up her alley.
Then again, all knowledge was.
After all, she possessed the avenue to infinite knowledge.
Yet even so...
She was sad.
Her beautiful expression never revealed it. The sorrow was hidden deep within her quiet grey eyes.
Her long white hair glittered faintly as it flowed past her waist and spilled across the floor behind her.
A delicate silver crown rested upon her head.
She wore a long dress with green sleeves that trailed across the ground.
Sylvia sat alone at a large reading desk.
Before her lay a single book.
It was the sa book she had been reading for months.
With every page she turned, it revealed answers to questions she had never asked.
Sotis even answers to questions she never realized she needed.
After reaching her Fourth Class Advancent, she had finally gained the ability to use the book with fewer restrictions.
Now it revealed far more.
Knowledge of many things.
Sotis even events that had yet to happen.
Though most of it was useless to her.
For example, it might tell her that an old beggar on the Sky Continent would soon die.
Or that the cow of a farr in Soltheon was about to give birth.
Small things.
aningless happenings scattered across the world.
Learning them cost her nothing.
Sotis it showed her the past.
Like the truth behind how the king of a small kingdom had actually been poisoned by his own son.
Other tis...
It revealed things she would rather not know.
Like how a nobleman’s father had secretly arranged his own son’s death just so he could steal the son’s wife.
The more she learned, the more twisted the world appeared.
And yet...
At tis, it was also strangely beautiful.
Other pages revealed knowledge from other worlds entirely.
New languages.
New systems of writing.
Foreign philosophies.
But whenever Sylvia tried to peer into the lives of her friends beyond trivial details...
The book demanded a price.
And the more valuable the knowledge was...
The worse the price beca.
Once, while she was still in Lysithara, the book had offered to reveal a simple city map.
The price had been her womb.
She would lose the ability to have children forever.
So prices were simply too steep.
Other tis the answers ca only as riddles.
Sylvia rested her head against the open pages of the book and smiled faintly.
She possessed infinite knowledge.
Just not the price needed to claim it.
The most terrifying realization, however, was sothing else entirely.
Sylvia could not change many of the things she saw.
So fates were simply fixed.
Even though the master of this book had once told her that choice was an option.
"Choice is an illusion," Sylvia muttered quietly.
Perhaps she was speaking to herself.
Or perhaps she was speaking to the Unknown God who had given her the book.
She had tried to change the things it showed her.
Once the book revealed that a tree in the nearby forest would be cut down.
Sylvia went there herself and guarded it.
Yet in the end...
The one who cut it down was Sylvia herself.
She had not ant to.
But it had still happened.
Another vision showed a young elf boy who would one day be executed for a cri he never committed.
To save him, Sylvia personally went to invite him to live under her protection.
He would be safe with her.
But the mont he tried to step into her carriage...
Her knights killed him.
On her father’s orders.
Again and again she tried.
Again and again she failed.
Eventually she ca to understand a single truth.
The Unknown God had once told her:
"Fate is a choice. What we call fate is rely the collection of our actions and decisions that lead to an outco. The choices we make, and the choices made for us, shape the future we despise."
Sylvia stared at the book with a bleak expression.
"I was wrong..." she whispered.
"We were wrong, Damon."
All this ti they had believed the Unknown God ant that fate could be changed.
But that was not what "choice" ant.
The aning was far more sinister.
One person’s choices alone cannot move the heavens.
Others make choices as well.
Their decisions beco part of the sa outco.
No single will can overco the collective.
And so fate is ford.
Fate is a choice.
Just not yours.
"Haha..."
Sylvia chuckled softly.
Her smile was calm, almost self-mocking.
Even the Unknown God could make a choice.
So could the other gods.
So could demons.
When no single will is powerful enough to move the heavens...
Then everyone becos trapped within the outco created by countless choices.
That was fate.
That was despair.
And the sooner Sylvia accepted it...
The better.
Slowly, tears slid down her cheeks.
There was nothing.
Absolutely nothing she could do to change what was coming.
If fate was a choice...
Then whose choice had created this one?
Her gaze drifted back toward the book.
On the open page was an image.
A young man with dark eyes and long black hair.
A sword had been driven straight through his heart.
His blood fell across the ground.
But what froze Sylvia’s breath was the look in his eyes.
He looked broken.
Utterly broken.
As though he had just witnessed sothing he never believed he would see.
The man was Damon.
Sylvia had never asked the book to show her this.
The book revealed it only after she had fully accepted that fate could not be changed.
That every attempt to defy prophecy would only lead to its fulfillnt.
Beneath the image were words.
Words Sylvia herself had once spoken to Damon back in Lysithara when she read the fortunes of her friends.
She read them again now.
"I offer a gentle warning... a caution."
"Beware. Your peril has only begun."
"That, I guarantee."
Her fingers trembled slightly.
Below that were the final lines.
"The truth is a steel horse."
"Your lies will be broken. Your truths will be revealed."
"And when they are..."
"You will be betrayed by one you cherish."
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