The Cornflower Witch Chapter 104

## Chapter 104: Eclipse of the Black Sun

At the foot of the mountain under the night sky, several braziers burned in the camp, illuminating three figures in the open space.

A witch in a black long dress sat with a teacup, conversing with Viscount Xuefeng and Scholar Hyde beside her.

“Time flies so fast. It’s been fifty years since I last visited Burntstone City.” Her slender fingers had black-purple nails, outlined like snakeheads, as she held the teacup.

“Senior Sister Melinsa, you still look as youthful as ever, with little change in your appearance,” Scholar Hyde exclaimed with a sigh.

Although her temperament had completely changed, her appearance remained largely the same as before, which was why he recognized her at a glance.

“Forty years ago, I entered the third-order and officially joined the Night Dream Tea Party. At that time, the organization gave me a bottle of ‘Still-Image Potion,’ which could prevent my body from aging and maintain my appearance for nearly thirty years.”

“If there’s a side effect, it’s probably the unconscious ‘shadowing’ of the body.” She tapped her fingers.

“If you had successfully entered the third-order at that time, you would also have received the benefits of being a formal member of Candlefort. With years of contributions, you could have exchanged them for a bottle of ‘Eldering Potion,’ which would stop your body’s aging at seventy years old and prevent further decay. Compared to the ‘Still-Image Potion,’ ‘Eldering Potion’ has very few side effects.”

“Ha ha, Senior Sister is right, but those are all things of the past. Now, I don’t think about them too much,” Scholar Hyde shook his head. After all these years, he had become more accepting of life and death, no longer as concerned as he was in his youth.

“Since you have no major regrets, I won’t try to persuade you,” Melinsa’s gaze shifted slightly towards the distant mountains.

“This time, as the representative of the forest, I’ve come here to assess the new students. I’ve passed through twenty-nine cities, and only one new student has shown excellent aptitude and completed three objectives.”

“Initially, I thought Burntstone City would be the same as previous records, without much surprise, but this time, it’s different.”

“Oh, has a student already completed the third objective?” Scholar Hyde was surprised.

Even though Iona and Hylial had high天赋 and performed well, Scholar Hyde didn’t have much hope for them to complete the third objective.

“The good news is, someone indeed has completed it.” Melinsa seemed to want to tease her longtime junior, intentionally creating suspense.

“The bad news is, the two who completed the objective still inevitably fought each other, and a final winner needs to be decided.”

“This…” Scholar Hyde stroked his beard for a moment, sighing helplessly.

Both were his students, and he couldn’t show favoritism, so he could only pray that both would emerge alive.

“Are there still students who can compete with Iona?” Viscount Xuefeng was somewhat surprised. He had previously shown favor to Hylial purely out of respect for Madame Faran, never imagining that the girl possessed such strength.

“Yes, my lord Viscount.” Melinsa gently tapped her teacup with a fingertip, her other hand resting lightly on her chin, revealing a playful smile.

Golden Honey Bloodline? It’s a bit rare, but such a faint bloodline isn’t noteworthy. However, that girl is quite interesting.

In the forest, the two combatants stood opposite each other, temporarily ceasing their battle.

Iona held one hand over her eyes, leaning on her sword with the other, her body trembling slightly as if enduring immense pain.

Seeing Iona acting strangely not far away, Hylial paused.

“Are you alright?”

However, she was met not with an answer, but with a dazed murmur.

“No, no, I won’t lose, I won’t lose…” as if sleep-talking, Iona swayed.

Unfortunately, no matter how unwilling she was, her body had reached its limit. Standing now was incredibly difficult, much less launching another attack.

Given her extremely unstable state, Hylial cautiously kept her distance, watching from a few meters away, waiting for her to calm down.

Alas, things did not unfold as smoothly as Hylial had imagined.

Perhaps due to extreme unwillingness, or perhaps her complete inability to accept her future life, Iona slowly reached for her neck, where a golden pendant hung.

She opened the pendant, revealing miniature portraits of her family. In one, she appeared to be around ten years old, smiling exceptionally brightly, with two elegantly dressed figures, likely her parents, standing beside her.

However, Iona’s intention did not seem to be to look back at this small portrait. Her fingernails directly crushed the figures in the portrait, tearing it open to reveal a hidden black-purple gem.

As she took out this black-purple gem, Hylial felt a peculiar and familiar fluctuation.

That was… the power of the [Distortion] affinity.

[Black Calamity Gem] (Second-Order · Distortion): A special gem formed in the abyss, containing the ‘distortion’ affinity, usable for certain rituals and experiments.

As this gem was taken out, the sound of wings flapping echoed through the forest. Thirteen night birds appeared on the branches, seven of which were owls, and five were unknown birds.

These night birds stared intently at Iona below, their eyes glowing with a faint purple-red, as if monitoring something, and did not interfere.

The black-purple gem was picked up by Iona. Her chaotic scarlet eyes peeked from beneath her bangs, looking at the gem, and then slowly pressed it into her eye.

At this moment, the night birds in the forest started chirping together, emitting chilling sounds, and an invisible whisper spread.

The black-purple gem slowly melted upon contact with Iona’s eye, scattering strange threads. These black-purple smoke threads condensed without dispersing, drifting like tentacles.

*Thump*

Hylial was about to step forward when a peculiar pulse spread from Iona, like the heartbeat of an invisible entity, twisting the surrounding world.

Whispers began to echo in her ears, as if many people were talking around her, but at this moment, there was no one else in the forest besides her and Iona.

The surrounding trees also began to twist unnaturally, and her perception of her surroundings became strange. The soil beneath her feet seemed to churn and undulate, yet upon closer inspection, nothing had changed.

Despite being in reality, it felt as if she were in a nightmare.

And unknowingly, the black-purple threads dancing around Iona’s eyes had vanished, but her formerly scarlet eyes were now completely black, with no discernible change in her pupils.

The once blazing sun now twisted strangely in Hylial’s eyes.

This is…

Hylial inexplicably recalled the history Scholar Hyde had once taught her.

[Degradation Ritual – Eclipse of the Black Sun] (Blazing Sun · Distortion · Nightmare)

“In the twilight years of the Golden Honey Dynasty, facing the Corona Dragon that had once again ascended to the ‘Blazing Sun’ position, the entire dynasty set up tens of thousands of colossal magic circles across the continent. They communicated with the endless abyss at the bottom of the Twilight Sea, using ‘distortion’ as a catalyst, striving to replace the newly born Blazing Sun with the shadows in the abyss, plunging the Blazing Sun into the abyss and raising a new black sun instead.”

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Conditions: This ritual targets a ‘Blazing Sun’ individual, requires an environment with the ‘Nightmare’ affinity, and a ‘distortion’ affinity as a catalyst. The more aligned the setup and historical legends are with the Golden Honey Dynasty’s final years, the stronger the effect.

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Summary: After this ritual is initiated, it will summon the vengeful spirits of the ‘Golden Honey Dynasty’ from history. They will call upon that grand, unfulfilled feat, murmuring the ancient Golden Honey Dynasty’s prayers. A descendant of the ‘Golden Honey Dynasty’血脉 must participate in the process. The ‘distortion’ affinity used as a catalyst must not be lower than the ‘Blazing Sun’ rank of the target. The stronger the ‘Nightmare’ affinity in the surrounding environment, the smoother the ritual will proceed.

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Effect: Transforms the target’s ‘Blazing Sun’ affinity into ‘Nightmare.’ However, due to the incompleteness of the legend and the side effects of the distortion affinity, reversing the affinity will cause unknown an unknown mutation in the target.

(End of Chapter)