Chapter 495: A Tale of two Little Souls

Max’s heart had only just begun to stir with hope when, without warning, a wave of heavy drowsiness swept over him. His eyes blurred, and his knees weakened.

‘What’s going on?’ he thought, panic rising. He tried to resist it—biting his lip, digging his nails into his palms, clenching his jaw—but nothing worked. The overwhelming force of sleep was like a tide dragging him under.

And then, just as his body collapsed, a bed floated silently beneath him, catching his fall as if it had been waiting.

Lucien, still standing nearby with a sharp glint in his eyes, broke the silence. “How did your mark appear on his body?” he asked, his tone curious. “I’m certain Max had never met you before today—so how did the Mark of the Witch Queen appear on his chest?”

The woman seated elegantly at the center of the strange domain smiled faintly, resting one arm over the edge of her chair.

“Well, aren’t you an inquisitive one, Little Lucien?” Her voice was soft, but every word seemed dipped in something older—something powerful. “Was it seven years ago? No… maybe eight. I don’t remember the exact timing. But one day, while passing through the frost-covered lands in the far north, I witnessed something strange. A boy and a girl suddenly fell from the sky.”

She leaned back, her green hair glowing faintly in the pink haze of her realm. “The girl was fine—sturdy and fierce despite her age—but the boy… he was dying. Too fast. His soul had already begun to unravel. Whatever force had sent them here hadn’t been kind to him.”

Her expression darkened slightly. “I only happened to pass through that region by chance. But what I saw… the little girl clutching his body, trying to pour her life into his, begging some unknown force to save him. It was heartbreaking.”

Her eyes drifted to Max’s unconscious form. “But it was also foolish. Her desperate efforts only worsened the damage. It was clear—he wouldn’t last another hour.”

She glanced toward Lucien, her tone steady but tinged with something deeper. “In the end, I took pity on them and brought them under my wings. At the time, I didn’t know who they were, only that they had fallen from somewhere—or something—far beyond this world. I checked the boy’s condition, hoping I could stabilize him, but what I discovered horrified me.”

Her eyes drifted to Max’s sleeping form, still resting in the bed that floated weightlessly in the domain. “The boy had just lost his Yin Soul. And let me tell you something interesting—whoever did it didn’t just take his Yin Soul. They took something else from him first, something deeper. Then, after whatever they extracted, they ripped away the Yin Soul and left him to die. That boy was meant to perish, Lucien—not survive.”

Lucien’s expression didn’t shift dramatically, but a flicker of surprise crept into his eyes, as if a hidden suspicion had just found roots.

She continued, her voice now low and slow, as if speaking more to herself than to him. “There was only one way I could think of to save him—and that was to find him a new Yin Soul. But that’s easier said than done. Back then, it was impossible. Even now, I can’t fabricate one from thin air. So, I did what I could. I used my Witch Seal to mark them both—the boy and the girl. A subtle, quiet connection formed between them, an echo of their life force.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, recalling. “For the girl, the mark worked perfectly. As long as she lived, the boy wouldn’t die easily. But the witch seal didn’t work as efficiently as I thought. His soul was incomplete, fractured. Yet something about him, something about his body and bloodline, made the seal hold even with his fractured half soul. Fragile at first, but it held. And that’s how he lived.”

She added slowly, her eyes fixed on Max’s unconscious body as if peering through time itself, “However, I knew from the beginning… the moment his strength would start to rise, the moment his body would begin to cross thresholds it was never meant to reach alone—his Yang Soul would begin to crumble. It was inevitable. The Witch Seal, after all, wasn’t made to carry the burden of growth. Its purpose was singular—to keep the boy from dying right then and there by linking his fragile life force to the girl’s.”

She added. “It was a tether, not a cure. It gave him time, nothing more. And when his Yang Soul finally gave out… when it collapsed under the strain of power far beyond its endurance, he would die. And no matter how strong the Witch Seal was, it would not save him at that point, because for it to work, a part of his original soul needed to exist. And without the Yin Soul… that balance was already broken. The seal would become useless the moment that last thread snapped.”

She sighed softly, her gaze distant as if recalling a burden she’d carried for years. “And if the boy dies… so will the girl. That is the cruel truth of the Witch Seal I used. The connection I created wasn’t a temporary link, but a binding of fate itself. Their life forces are intertwined. So long as he breathes, she will. But if he perishes… the seal will drag her with him into death and vice-versa. That’s the price of what I did.”

Her voice was calm, but there was a faint trace of guilt beneath her composed tone. “Max has survived all this time not because he was lucky, or because of some miracle. He survived because I made him survive—because my Witch Seal tied his fading life to the girl’s vitality. Without her, he would’ve crumbled to ash long ago.”

She glanced at Max again, her expression unreadable. “And now… the balance is slipping because the little boy has turned into a little genius.”

“So it was you who helped him back then… the reason he managed to live without a Yin Soul all this time,” Lucien said, his voice touched with genuine surprise. His eyes narrowed slightly, as if reevaluating everything he knew about Max’s past.

But before the weight of that realization could linger too long, the Witch of the North laughed lightly, a melodic yet slightly eerie sound that echoed strangely in the domain. “Oh, Little Lucien,” she said, eyes gleaming with amusement, “you’re smart, I’ll give you that, but you’ve never been good at hiding your curiosity—especially not from me.”

Her tone was teasing, but her words were sharp. “You have sensed the Witch Seal on the boy’s body way before, didn’t you? That’s why you brought him here. You weren’t just trying to help him—no, you also wanted to understand the seal, to confirm your suspicions. You knew I had something to do with it, and you wanted to see for yourself.”

Lucien merely shrugged in response, an innocent smile forming on his lips as he looked away, whistling softly like a boy caught sneaking sweets from the kitchen. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said nonchalantly, but the glint in his eyes and the twitch of his smirk betrayed the truth. He had indeed known more than he let on.

“And who is the little girl?” Lucien suddenly asked, his voice calm but his curiosity unmistakable.

Your gift is the motivation for my creation. Give me more motivation!