The Cornflower Witch Chapter 72

Chapter 72: A Strange World

The two trekked through the mountains, searching for the place where Hylial remembered awakening.

As they journeyed, Hylial felt an increasing sense of familiarity. She could even smell the faint scent of withered leaves in the air.

“There should be a wolf carcass here,” Hylial stopped and looked at the clearing under the trees.

Unfortunately, there was no wolf carcass, not even skeletal remains.

Had other animals carried it away? the girl wondered, then slowly walked towards the clearing.

At that moment, a peculiar sensation seemed to draw her in. As Hylial moved forward, she felt as if she were walking underwater, everything around her shaking and distorting. Yet the sensation under her feet and the tree trunks beside her still told her that the earth was not shaking, and nothing unusual was happening.

…

It was a cloudy afternoon with no snow. Talil followed Hylial, watching her walk towards the clearing.

Suddenly, a strange tremor made Talil wonder if her eyes were playing tricks on her. She rubbed them, but when she opened them again, Hylial, who had been in front of her, was gone.

On the other side, Hylial walked through the clearing, following the pull of that strange sensation, continuing step by step into the forest.

Unbeknownst to her, Talil called out from behind, but only movements were visible, no sound, as if they were in different worlds.

Hylial continued forward. As she passed through the clearing in the woods, it was as if she had reached a shore. The swaying and twisting in her vision instantly disappeared, and her mind cleared. She looked around, realizing that the entire world had changed.

Above her was an exceptionally dim world. The clouds in the sky seemed to press down on the ground, extraordinarily low and thick. Through the gaps in the clouds, a small amount of light faintly penetrated, falling into this gray-and-white world.

Indeed, this world was almost entirely gray and white, devoid of vibrant colors, featuring only black, white, and gray.

At this point, Hylial pulled down her hood, placed a hand on a nearby tree trunk, and slowly turned, observing her surroundings.

Was this still the same mountain forest she had just been in? She looked at the drastically changed scenery.

Although the slopes were similar, the trees in the forest were distorted to varying degrees, appearing unusually eerie and strange. And on the ground, at the base of the trees, she saw many rare, even supposedly extinct, mushrooms.

Some were deep purple with white snowflake patterns, others resembled layers of wrinkled red umbrellas, opening in tiers, and some were a mysterious blue, their bodies flickering like dim starlight.

Even without getting close, she perceived the ‘Aspect’ power emanating from these mushrooms. Some even had a fully condensed ‘Tier 1’ Aspect.

‘Nightmare’ Aspect, she murmured, gazing at the deep purple mushroom with snowflake patterns, then shifting her attention to the next.

‘Blood Discipline’ Aspect. She actually saw the ‘Blood Discipline’ Aspect on a mushroom. Could a mushroom’s Aspect be so inclusive and arbitrary?

Right, these mushrooms had ‘color,’ which was a significant difference from everything else.

Where she stood now, the topography of the surrounding area was the same as when she arrived, but the trees on the mountain were completely different, the soil underfoot, the grass, and even the sky above had entirely changed, as if…

Different periods of the same land!

Hylial’s mind was filled with numerous questions, but now was not the time to ponder the causes. She needed to find a way to return to Talil, to the normal world she had been in before.

This was a world with extraordinary phenomena, a world of various legends. When Hylial found herself in this eerie and different environment, she immediately thought of the rumors

from those stories.

Children lost in the mountains on a snowy night, the fairy garden reached by stepping through a certain gate, strange banquets seen in dreams.

In various fairy tales, worlds different from reality have been depicted. Perhaps those places truly exist, but ordinary people cannot comprehend them, just like the witch Talil mentioned not long ago. Probably, some power separates such strange worlds from reality, and she had inadvertently crossed that boundary.

Leaning against a tree, Hylial sorted her thoughts, slowly calming her earlier anxiety and regaining her composure.

She lightly touched her brow and then focused her attention on her eyes, gazing into the distance.

At this moment, her vision seemed to penetrate the gray-and-white forest before her, seeing much farther.

Yes… it was a gray-and-white world, but not entirely.

In this gray-and-white world, discrete areas of “color” were scattered like colorful bubbles. Where there were “bubbles,” the plants were more vibrant and “distorted” in form.

“Let’s try walking,” she told herself.

Drawing the short sword from beneath her cloak and gripping it, Hylial slowly stepped forward, preparing to leave the “colorful bubble” she was currently in and enter the gray-and-white world.

However, as soon as she stepped into the gray-and-white world, a strange twisting sensation shot up from her toes, as if her left foot had been caught in the machinery of a running factory, about to be shredded and crushed.

Intense pain instantly spread throughout her body. At that moment, she almost instinctively activated the ‘Jade Nectar’ Aspect within her, attempting to break free.

The ‘Jade Nectar’ Aspect spread and covered her entire body. By the time it reached her ankle, the twisting force was corrected, and the pain gradually subsided.

Pulling her foot back, Hylial bent down, cradling her left foot to alleviate the pain, and anxiously pressed and stroked it, fearing that she had twisted her ankle and wouldn’t be able to walk.

But it was all like an illusion; the intense pain she had felt earlier had left no injury on her foot. Even when she examined herself with her [Identification Eye] ability, she appeared perfectly healthy and intact.

With a little less worry, Hylial stood up again.

This time, she learned her lesson. She wrapped her fingers in the power of the ‘Jade Nectar’ Aspect and cautiously touched the gray-and-white world. As her fingertips entered that gray-and-white domain, a strange phenomenon occurred: the ‘Jade Nectar’s’ color and the world’s ‘gray-and-whiteness’ canceled each other out, and a peculiar coolness spread.

In other words, when she used the ‘Jade Nectar’ Aspect, she could nullify the pain of entering the gray-and-white world and traverse it relatively safely.

But this nullification consumed the power of the ‘Jade Nectar’ Aspect. If she couldn’t reach the next ‘colorful bubble’ before it was depleted, would she be twisted and crushed by this gray-and-white world?

After pondering this, Hylial retreated, scanning her surroundings until she found the closest colorful bubble, only 50 meters away.

Fifty meters, could she make it? No, she needed to do an experiment first.

Over the next half hour, Hylial successively tried inserting her entire arm into the gray-and-white world, then half her body, and finally, her whole body.

Once fully inside the gray-and-white world, the sensation was entirely different, like being at the bottom of perfectly still water. All sounds receded, and her perceptions were difficult to extend and spread. Moreover, as long as she remained still, the ‘Jade Nectar’ Aspect within her would not be consumed.

This scenario once again reminded her of painting, brushes, and pigments.

The world was like a blank canvas, and she was the brush. The Aspect power she wielded was like pigment. Moving the brush inevitably consumed pigment, leaving traces on the blank canvas, but if the brush remained still, the pigment would not be consumed.

After clarifying the preliminary rules of this world, Hylial gradually calmed down and began her true exploration.

(End of this chapter)