Soul Realm：Fate Change

Chapter 10 - The Aftermath and the Search for Answers

As the last flicker of flame died out, the surroundings returned to silence. I had no idea what had happened while I was unconscious, nor could I fully process the things Yuka had said before his demise. However, I didn’t dwell on it for too long. Since I had woken up and Yuka and his son had turned to ash, did that mean we had survived this crisis?

“Can we… leave now?” Seeing that Celeste still hadn’t turned around, I couldn’t help but take a few steps forward, reaching a point where I could almost touch him. But for some reason, the Celeste before me felt unfamiliar, and I stopped in my tracks.

“They shouldn’t come back to life, right?” Unsure of what had happened during my unconsciousness, I was hesitant about the current situation. “But since Yumoya is dead, does that mean the** about my soul fragments are lost?”

“Though I seem to be fine now.”

I flexed my fingers. The stiffness and near-death feeling I had before losing consciousness were completely gone. I was now agile and free, though I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing.

Finally, Celeste reacted to my words. He slowly turned around, and I could see what he had been through while I was unconscious.

His hair was no longer silver but a wild, dark black, matted with blood. His black robes were gone, revealing a chest covered in old and new scars. Golden runes flickered across his skin, appearing and disappearing rapidly, like chains binding his entire body.

Celeste walked toward me, his pale, slender fingers gently touching my cheek. He murmured softly, as if confirming my existence: “You’re still alive.”

“Yes…” I looked into his slightly dazed eyes, feeling a wave of nervousness. The Celeste before me seemed different, and the aura he emitted felt foreign and terrifying.

He was no longer the distant yet gentle Guardian I had known.

“Are you hurt? Should we leave here?” I cautiously suggested, but he seemed to completely ignore my words.

“You’re really alive,” he said, leaning closer until his breath mingled with mine. His cold fingertips traced from behind my ear down to my jaw and neck, leaving a trail of goosebumps in their wake.

I felt his movements and leaned back slightly to create some distance. This seemed to anger him. Suddenly, his pale, slender fingers tightened around my neck like ghostly shadows, mercilessly squeezing.

Celeste’s eyes were bloodshot, as if he didn’t recognize me. His once pale blue eyes had turned dark, with heavy shadows swirling in their depths. “But you were supposed to die! How are you still alive?”

“Who are you?”

In an instant, a fierce wind rose around us. In his other hand, a fully bloomed lotus floated, its petals adorned with strange symbols, fresh blood dripping from them. As Celeste tightened his grip, violent flames erupted around us, white tongues of fire l*****g at everything in sight, burning with a surreal blue-purple hue.

The flames climbed up my spine, reaching the crown of my head. I felt something being torn from my body, the intense pain making me want to curl up. But Celeste’s grip forced my bones to stretch open.

Was this fire Celeste’s making? Could he use his Spirit Artifact now? What had happened to him while I was unconscious? How had he become like this?!

Countless thoughts swirled in my mind, but Celeste soon gave me no time to dwell on them. His grip tightened, and my throat made a gurgling sound. He really seemed intent on killing me!

“Celeste, it’s… me…!” Tears welled up in my eyes as I struggled to reason with him. My hands clawed at his wrists, my nails digging into his skin as I tried to break free from his grasp.

“Who are you?” His voice was icy, devoid of any trace of the gentleness he once had. His eyelashes lowered as if he were looking down at a mere insect.

In that moment, I realized he was a god.

Seeing me stunned and silent, Celeste gripped my chin, forcing me to look into his eyes. “That person said all of this happened because of you… Why?”

That person? Was it Yuka? And what did he mean by “all of this”? Did Celeste think that the sudden appearance of the Guardian, the spread and collection of Dark Twilight, were all because of me?!

Celeste ignored the anger burning in my eyes and continued his interrogation. He pried open my mouth with two fingers, his cold fingertips brushing against my teeth before pinching my tongue. “Or is it that you planned all of this? Do you have another purpose?”

Great! Although I didn’t know what information Celeste had gotten from Yuka while I was unconscious, it seemed that in his eyes, I had willingly given a part of my soul to Yumoya, lured him to the Mortal Realm, and thrown away my life!

“Not talking? It doesn’t matter. I have my ways to uncover your true nature.”

Celeste sneered, the lotus in his hand no longer red but a dark, viscous black. As the lotus bloomed, a tearing sensation erupted within me, and a disk appeared in the air.

I had seen this disk before. A few years ago, Ning Qianqian had been obsessed with divination and studied this. She called it a star chart, a record of one’s destiny.

“Let me see what you really are.”

The disk solidified in the air, but instead of stars, it was shrouded in mist.

Celeste seemed unable to believe this result. His expression twisted, and the look in his eyes changed completely, no longer resembling the Guardian he once was. “I should have realized it earlier. Just by helping you purify Dark Twilight twice, I was able to break through my long-stagnant cultivation limit. What makes you so different?”

Screw this!

There was no joy in surviving a disaster, no happiness of being reborn. At that moment, I was filled with endless frustration and anger. The daily misfortunes replayed in my mind: suddenly entering the Soul Realm, learning I was going to die, being led around by my missing soul fragments. What kind of fate-defying journey was this? From start to finish, I had been played by fate, and now someone was accusing me of orchestrating it all?!

Just because of some ridiculous cult, because of the accusations of a dying man, because I had been lucky enough to escape a certain death!

My body trembled, and I clenched my teeth, biting down hard on Celeste’s knuckles. The taste of blood filled my mouth, and the pain made him release his grip.

“Slap!” I slapped Celeste across the face.

Taking advantage of his stunned state, I stepped back and spat blood on the ground. “What’s wrong with you? You’re the one who told me I was missing a part of my soul! You’re the one who made me return to the Mortal Realm to find it! Your Pathfinder Bird led me here! You chose to follow me!”

“Before all of this, I knew nothing about Dark Twilight, Guardians, or the Soul Realm!” Tears of anger streamed down my face. “What kind of scheme could I possibly have? I’m just an unlucky wretch who suddenly found out I was going to die at 25!”

Why me? Why was I so unlucky? Why did I have to go through all of this? Why was this my fate?

“Raina…” Celeste’s eyes widened. The shadows in his eyes receded, and his gaze cleared. The lotus stopped blooming, and the flames gradually died down.

Only his hair remained black.

But I didn’t care about the color of his hair. Black, silver, long, short—it was still Celeste, wasn’t it?

“Do you remember who I am now?” I sneered, wiping the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hand.

“How could I…” He hesitated, looking at his hands as if he couldn’t believe what he had just done.

Amnesia? I found it laughable. Even I could see through such a clumsy excuse.

“Celeste, Dark Twilight, the Guardian, and all of this have nothing to do with me,” I interrupted his shock, looking deeply into his eyes. A mix of pity and confusion crossed my mind. “If you don’t trust me, then let’s not stay in contact.”

From this moment on, I will believe in no gods.

---

“So… you just said goodbye to him like that?” Ning Qianqian hugged Francis Fat Tiger, her big eyes blinking at me.

Seeing my silence, Ning Qianqian sighed and leaned back on the bamboo couch. “I never would have thought… He seemed so respectable, but he turned out to be such a fraud.”

“I didn’t say he was a fraud. He did help me a lot,” I muttered, continuing to search for the book I needed on Grandma’s bookshelf.

“Come on, Raina,” Ning Qianqian sat up abruptly, causing Francis Fat Tiger to tumble out of her arms. “Don’t let his good looks cloud your judgment! You can’t seriously believe all that stuff about missing soul fragments and abnormal fate, can you? And that cult uses Dark Twilight to control people’s minds—it’s just brainwashing. You’ve heard of that before, right?”

“As for that Celeste guy, maybe he was in cahoots with Yuka!”

“And that Dark Twilight stuff,” Ning Qianqian pondered for a moment, “it must have been your imagination.”

“And the Soul Realm? There’s no such place! If there were, I, Ning Qianqian, would never make money from my shop!”

Raou—Francis Fat Tiger—sat quietly at the side, his beady eyes shifting between Ning Qianqian and me.

I didn’t expect Ning Qianqian to accept any of this. After all, since leaving Yuka’s house and returning to Lianxia Village, I had slept for a couple of days, and everything that had happened felt like a dream.

If Ning Qianqian hadn’t heard the news and brought Francis Fat Tiger back to Lianxia Village to find me, I wouldn’t have had any proof of the Soul Realm’s existence.

“You shouldn’t make such vows,” I glanced at Francis Fat Tiger—living proof of the Soul Realm—and kindly reminded Ning Qianqian. After all, if she really couldn’t make money, she’d go crazy.

“Besides, Grandma was the one who told me about the Soul Realm and my fate. She wouldn’t lie to me.” I scanned the bookshelf and found the book I was looking for on the top shelf.

“Your grandma is just a folk healer,” Ning Qianqian stood up to help me reach the book, still chattering. “She knows how to treat illnesses, not how to divine or read fates.”

“And didn’t I read your star chart earlier? It was completely ordinary, nothing special.” She handed me the book. “Here.”

“I remember you needed my birthdate and place to create that star chart,” I brushed the dust off the book. “Ning Qianqian, I’m an orphan with no known origins.”

She was momentarily speechless, then clung to my arm, squeezing close to me. “I don’t care! You’re just the ordinary Raina, no different from anyone else in this world.”

“By the way, you’ve been reading books nonstop these past few days. What are you looking for? You’ve already read all the books here when you were a kid.”

She craned her neck to see the title of the book, “The Chronicles of Lianxia Village? Why are you reading this?”

“Don’t worry about it,” I waved her off. “Go call Grandma back for dinner. Let me have some peace.”

“Using me and then pushing me away,” Ning Qianqian grumbled as she left. “What a heartless woman.”

With Ning Qianqian gone, the room finally quieted down, and I could focus on sorting through everything that had happened.

Since the day I parted ways with Celeste, I had returned directly to Lianxia Village. I hadn’t been able to contact Grandma before, and when I got back, I found out that the cold weather had been making the elderly in the village sick. Grandma had been too busy to talk.

Though I had many questions for her, I had to put them aside.

When Grandma finally had time, we sat on the bamboo couch, and I told her everything that had happened. From the day I received her package to the moment I parted ways with Celeste at that strange altar, I recounted every detail.

To my surprise, Grandma didn’t comment much on these events. Instead, from the moment I mentioned the Soul Realm, she seemed lost in thought.

When I finished, she finally spoke, gently stroking my head. “Raina, it’s my fault for not taking better care of you.”

“What does this have to do with you, Grandma?” I held her hand and rested my head on her shoulder. “Grandma… do people really have to believe in fate?”

“You can believe it, or not. Fate has too many possibilities.”

“Fate has many possibilities?”

“A person’s fate isn’t a book that’s already been written. It’s a tree that’s still growing. We nurture our own trees, and how they grow, what flowers they bloom, and what fruits they bear—it’s all up to us.”

Grandma patted my hand and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Raina, your tree is very sick, but it’s not incurable.”

What medicine could heal my tree…

“Human! Flower!” Francis Fat Tiger, who had been quiet, suddenly brought me a small flower and placed it in my hand. I rubbed his head, my thoughts returning to the present. I opened *The Chronicles of Lianxia Village* to the page I was looking for, my fingers tracing a name.

The Ninth Lake.

The lake that appeared in the Soul Realm, said to connect the Mortal Realm and the Soul Realm. The name I had first heard from Celeste, which had sounded so familiar.

I finally remembered where I had seen it before.

Perhaps it was the key, the guide to finding the medicine that could heal my tree.

I took a deep breath. Why did Grandma know about the Soul Realm? Why was The Ninth Lake, the lake connecting the Soul Realm and the Mortal Realm, mentioned in the chronicles of Lianxia Village?

I felt like I had finally grasped a thread in the fog. For the first time, I felt like I had some control over my own fate.