Enya’s words fell, and the two of them held a long silence, staring into each other’s eyes. Enya couldn’t tell what Vivienne was thinking, because the information she had was just too little.
Vivienne hung her head, looking down at Enya lying on her back on the ground, meeting those pale golden pupils, yet she remained silent for a long time.
Enya shifted her body, her eyes hinting for Vivienne to let her up.
But Vivienne still showed no intention of getting up. She pressed Enya’s other hand down onto the polished stone tile floor.
The perfectly cut stone slabs reflected their blurred silhouettes.
Vivienne let out a soft sigh, then spoke.
“What does race matter?”
Enya’s originally struggling movements came to a stop after Vivienne’s words, and her hands stopped exerting force as well.
Vivienne narrowed her eyes slightly, continuing from where she’d left off.
“It’s like how in this era, women being together with women is already looked down upon, but what does gender matter?”
“I—I get it. So Vivienne, can you please not sit on me? I don’t like this, it’s really uncomfortable…”
Enya turned her head away, no longer looking into her eyes. After a moment, she muttered another line.
“Don’t change the subject. Can you go back to my earlier question?”
“What if I say no?”
Vivienne smiled once again, and after the smile came a sigh.
Enya also got up from the ground, her gaze following Vivienne’s back as she pulled open the curtains of the floor-to-ceiling window. She had gotten off Enya and was slowly walking toward it.
The soft morning sunlight streamed into the room, and the room’s original lighting slowly dimmed.
Vivienne took a distant look at the pleasant scenery of the garden within the castle, while Enya walked to about a yard or two behind her, asking with a trace of resentment.
“Why won’t you just tell me?”
Vivienne turned around to face Enya, about to speak, but suddenly closed her mouth.
Enya stiffly turned her head to look behind her. Just now, she had sensed a spatial fluctuation behind her back, and then an aura she knew all too well descended.
An ornate black gothic dress, with intricate ruffles adorned in black lace, decorated the entire garment into something extraordinarily magnificent and beautiful.
It didn’t look like a dress meant for a person, but rather an ornament meant for a doll, yet it was indeed worn by the petite witch with black hair and black eyes. Antiros wore it, hovering half a meter in the air.
Her legs were wrapped in black stockings, stepping in glossy little high heels with black bows tied at the heels. The Witch Lady moved those legs, crossing her left leg over her right.
Antiros expressionlessly looked at the two people before her, and the only hint of pink on her entire body—her little mouth—opened.
“Why did you stop talking?”
Both Vivienne and Enya fell silent.
The two of them were clearly more mature in stature; in comparison, Antiros was the one who looked like a little girl—the kind raised as a dress-up doll. They should have been standing in the position of guardians… but the reality was reversed.
Before the petite Witch Lady, it was Vivienne and Enya who seemed more like the ones being scolded and lectured.
After all, age couldn’t be judged by appearance alone. The Witch Lady’s lifespan, which could rival history itself, was something their hundred-year-old existences couldn’t possibly touch.
Vivienne avoided Antiros’s gaze, turning her head to the side and covering her mouth as she spoke.
“Teacher, I didn’t say anything either.”
Antiros narrowed her eyes slightly.
When Enya heard Vivienne call Antiros her teacher, she suddenly looked like she’d discovered something incredible.
Though she’d already guessed it long ago, she still feigned surprise and ran over to Antiros’s side, throwing her arms around her waist.
“Antiros, what’s going on here? When did you become Vivienne’s teacher? Didn’t you say I was the only one you had?”
Enya smiled and rubbed her cheek against Antiros’s delicate, adorable little face, only to receive a frigid response from Antiros.
“You’re not human.”
That was a response to what Enya had said earlier about being a dragon. Hearing it, Enya could only chuckle awkwardly.
“Aww~ Master, when exactly did you become Vivienne’s teacher?”
Antiros said nothing, instead reaching out her small hand to pinch Enya’s nose, keeping that rubbing face from pressing so tightly.
Vivienne watched Enya’s overly intimate behavior toward Antiros, feeling annoyed inside, yet not daring to show it in front of Antiros.
But it seemed Antiros had noticed anyway. The Witch Lady raised her head to look at Vivienne standing to the side, tilting her head slightly before speaking coolly.
“You feel upset?”
“No, Teacher.”
Vivienne quickly denied it, then turned her gaze toward Enya, who was hugging Antiros, lowering her eyes in thought for a moment.
Pressing her thin lips together, Vivienne spoke softly.
“Fifteen years ago, a trusted servant poisoned me. When I was on the verge of death, Teacher appeared before me.”
She stopped there, having no intention of telling Enya what happened afterward, since the other party involved was present. Vivienne didn’t have the right to speak of it alone.
Antiros hovering half a meter in the air seemed to be precisely so Enya could hold her. At this moment, she was cradled in Enya’s princess carry, watching as Vivienne lifted the veil off past events.
Facing Enya’s questioning gaze, Antiros neither confirmed nor denied, which counted as tacitly acknowledging that what Vivienne had said was indeed true.
The Vivienne of fifteen years ago and the Vivienne of fifteen years later were already two different people.
She had indeed been that sickly princess once, but the Vivienne of now already possessed the ability to realize what she held in her heart. At present, she held absolute sway over everything north of the Zephyr Empire!
There was no denying that Antiros’s investment had yielded enormous returns, as if she had foreseen the future in advance.
Enya thought of the legend about the witch, and that very legend had been pushed forward by Antiros’s hand. Those strokes that changed the world, painted in vivid color—Vivienne was one of them.
Now, the entire development of the Zephyr Empire was driven by Vivienne’s reforms, and those world-changing mana tools alone were enough to have Vivienne written about extensively in history.
Not to mention the power she now possessed was already the peak among peaks.
Enya could sense that Vivienne had stepped into the ninth-rank legendary realm; otherwise, when Enya was being ground into the floor, why wouldn’t she have fought back?
No, all of that was far from enough!
One more great event needed to occur to align with that witch legend, and the starting point of that great event was the Northern Mountains—that place where the moon falls, the resting place of the Goddess of Night.
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