While Rita was writing the World Sigh of Undead Wildfire's tiline, Undead Wildfire entered [Divine Instruction] and awakened her divine talent word: [Light and Shadow].
After recording countless World Sighs, Rita imdiately understood the deeper aning hidden within that talent word.
Light and shadow.
A divine talent word was shaped directly by a person's thoughts, desires, obsessions, and nature. So why light and shadow?
Was it because of herself?
It should not have been possible. A talent word should never be influenced so heavily by another person, even if that person was another version of yourself.
But monts later, Rita laughed softly.
Then again, maybe that assumption itself was wrong.
In Undead Wildfire's heart, who represented the light and who represented the shadow was not necessarily obvious.
What surprised Rita even more was what Undead Wildfire did afterward.
After the ga ended, Undead Wildfire returned to Dawn and inverted the entire world of Dawn itself, rging it into shadow.
After handling Dawn, she even began asking other worlds whether they wanted to attempt the sa thod. She offered to help them.
She was trying to save Starsea this way.
Rita could not help appearing directly in front of her.
"How did you do that?"
Undead Wildfire nearly jumped in fright before glaring furiously at her.
"Why are you always following around?!"
Rita replied calmly, "Talk back again and I'll freeze you in ti."
"..."
Undead Wildfire took a deep breath, forcing out an irritated smile. Then she stared directly into BS Rita's eyes and said pointedly,
"Light and shadow rotate endlessly. I can invert everything, including war techniques and the world skills I obtained in the Quiet Mountain ga."
Knowing that BS Rita had abandoned her own tiline to wander here, and rembering the strange statent she once made about "giving her ti," Undead Wildfire ended up saying more than she originally intended.
"Depending on the point in ti, an inverted skill changes in unusual ways. Like shadows stretched long or compressed short by different angles of light."
"At a certain phase, my world skill can be inverted into a Starsea skill. Combined with my Light and Shadow talent word, it can directly affect worlds themselves."
Rita found it difficult to tell whether she felt more sorrow or more pride.
They had both begun from similarly terrible circumstances. Yet after all the twists and turns, both she and Undead Wildfire had eventually chosen the path of saving Starsea.
The difference was that Rita still had BS.
Undead Wildfire could only pour her guilt and regrets into protecting the remaining worlds of Starsea.
Rita glanced toward Maple Syrup, Mistblade, and Cicada, who were watching her vigilantly from nearby.
Her awareness extended farther outward into Starsea itself. She could also sense Deceitful Bloom and Foolishness quietly observing this place from afar.
In the end, she simply stepped forward and brushed the dust from Undead Wildfire's shoulder with gentle movents before speaking softly.
"I'm honored."
Undead Wildfire frowned slightly.
"Honored by what?"
"Honored that you and I are the sa person."
"Honored that we beca each other's light and shadow."
After saying that, Rita smiled and left the tiline.
When all existence had been paused, nothing felt more like a single-player ga than this.
From ti to ti, she returned to Undead Wildfire's tiline to observe it.
The mont Undead Wildfire completed [Graveyard of Bones], Rita pressed pause on that tiline once again.
Dressed like a wandering bard in loose, comfortable robes, Rita traveled endlessly with the platinum-white storybook in hand.
Nivalis once asked whether she was searching for sothing.
She was.
Rita wanted to know whether this ga truly had a way to be broken.
She traveled through every corner of every tiline.
It beca an unimaginably long journey.
At first, B80 reported the ti once every day.
Later, once every month.
Eventually, once every year.
After being blessed by a dragon and transford into a Vineborne, Rita had already beco long-lived. On top of that, every ti she wrote within the World Sigh, the worlds themselves blessed her in return.
By now, lifespan had beco aningless to her.
Her appearance remained that of a young woman in her twenties.
But the aura around her and the look within her eyes carried the unmistakable weight of ti itself.
That was how Deputy Captain Calico described her.
Nivalis could not understand what "the scent of ti" was supposed to an.
To her, Rita now resembled an ancient artifact displayed inside the BS museum.
Even standing still, her hair, the direction of her gaze, and every flicker of emotion in her eyes felt like they were telling stories.
The platinum-white World Sigh grew brighter and brighter over ti.
But after Rita had traveled through one hundred worlds, its radiance gradually dimd again.
Only a few petals from Flower Crown Murder occasionally erged from between the pages before fading into translucent shadows.
Rita loved visiting familiar people across different tilines.
Nivalis, B80, and the deputy captains preferred studying the different versions of Rita that existed in each world.
The differences were enormous, like parallel universes.
In so tilines, Rita had drawn an S-rank talent early and joined Eclipse almost imdiately.
In another, she entered a dungeon by accident and t Nivalis ahead of schedule. Nivalis instantly took a liking to her, forcibly claid her as "her human," and eventually dragged her back to Eclipse for a stable position.
There was even one tiline where she cooperated with Zoey.
That one shocked Rita the most.
In that tiline, she had used [Acting] to impersonate Rick. Eventually, she beca one of BS's leaders alongside Zoey, Avery, and Shadow.Q.
Nivalis and B80 loved researching these alternate histories.
Whether BS still existed or not, the first thing they did upon entering a new tiline was connect to a world network and gather information about that tiline's BS Rita.
anwhile, Rita preferred revisiting places like Forest Sea, Snowland, Beacon, and Isolated Isle.
And after that, she always visited Graveyard of Bones to see You Are .
To see whether the Deceitful Bloom of that tiline had ever visited her.
Every ti Rita finished visiting a tiline's You Are , she collected a small pinch of Variational Quicksand from her and sealed it inside a fresh potion vial.
There were already more than a hundred such bottles.
Whenever she did this, the expression on her face beca unusually cold.
Nivalis had asked her long ago what she planned to do with them.
Rita's lips curved into a faint, delighted smile. Yet the coldness in her eyes made the expression strangely contradictory.
"I'm bringing them back to Beacon You Are ."
"I'll tell her to give up."
"I've visited every tiline."
"And in every single tiline, Deceitful Bloom never ca to see her."
That would absolutely drive You Are insane...
Nivalis muttered helplessly,
"...Didn't you say you no longer owed Deceitful Bloom anything? Then why are you helping her get revenge nonstop?"
Rita snorted softly.
"Adult matters. Stay out of them."
Nivalis could not understand Rita's rare urge to ddle in soone else's affairs.
Rita also enjoyed searching across tilines to see who possessed [Wrathful Moon], [Cat's Ideal], and [Foolishness Ga].
In short, she always had endless things to do.
At this mont, Rita sat atop a Mu tree in Forest Sea, gazing into the distance.
Forest Sea was beautiful.
In this tiline, Maple Syrup had succeeded.
She had rebuilt Forest Sea.
But it was still too late.
The bell was about to ring.
Maple Syrup did not possess a world skill.
What was she supposed to do now?
Rita's gaze shifted slightly forward, landing on another Mu tree nearby.
An oak owl rested among the shadows of its branches.
A hand holding an empty wine glass hung limply downward.
The red-haired oak owl stared silently at the sky.
Forest Sea had been reborn through ashes and fla.
But what ca next?
What was Forest Sea Maple Syrup supposed to do now?
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