Chapter 1: The Blue Witch’s Awakening and a Daughter’s Revelation

Initially, there was only a profound darkness, punctuated by shimmering points of light.

From the depths of a prolonged slumber, thoughts like drifting catkins began to coalesce, gradually re-weaving the hazy threads of Su Qingyao’s awareness.

Immediately thereafter, her final memories surged into her still-muddled and chaotic consciousness:

Su Qingyao, renowned as the ‘Blue Witch,’ had perished amidst a relentless siege.

The moments preceding her death unfurled before her mind’s eye.

Layers of chaos, unspeakable abominations, squeezed forth from a tidal wave of darkness, utterly engulfing her.

Her magic had dried up; her barrier had shattered.

Impatient fangs tore through the gaps in the thorny defenses, gnawing at her flesh, savoring the faint moan that escaped the girl’s lips.

Ecstatic whispers hissed in her ears, proclaiming to the girl the ‘truth’ that her comrades had abandoned her.

Sharp shadows pierced the girl’s heart, greedily siphoning her potent, sweet magic, injecting in its place a virulent poison of agony and torment.

Yet, in the girl’s dying moments—

A smile graced her lips.

****

Beginning in the flourishing millennium, an unimaginable catastrophe swept across the globe in the span of merely a year.

Whether they were grotesque aberrations, demonic beasts, or urban legends brought to life.

Countless monsters and natural disasters, city by city, relentlessly encroached upon the human world.

Firearms could only vanquish a handful of tangible monsters; more indescribable, great horrors even used armies as conduits to drag humanity further into the abyss.

For every monster defeated, three more aberrations would emerge.

For every rule of a paranormal tale uncovered, a surge of more intertwined and twisted rules would manifest.

Panic and despair permeated the hearts of people everywhere.

A significant portion of humanity even willingly surrendered themselves to certain sentient fears, trading the flesh and souls of their brethren for a fleeting corner of peace.

The human heart, succumbing to depravity after the collapse of order, only hastened the descent; in just the first year, seventy percent of the global population became fodder for the calamity.

The surviving humans could only barely hide among the ruins, praying that more palatable ‘food’ existed not far from them.

This year was subsequently dubbed the ‘Doomsday Hour’ by later generations.

However, much like the hope concealed at the bottom of Pandora’s Box, despair also birthed the first resister who transcended human limits.

The ‘Savior’.

This was the title survivors bestowed upon the resister, along with their companions and followers.

Over the next two years, the Savior’s ranks swelled.

More individuals, transcending human limits and calling themselves ‘Transcendents,’ emerged in a burst, evolving from a state of utter powerlessness to gradually establishing the first ‘safe zones,’ which would later be known as the ‘First City,’ a beacon of hope.

Whether they were Ascendants wielding advanced, epoch-defining technology, or those who stole power by consorting with fear, or even the ‘Magical Girls’ and enforcers born from fantasy, people ultimately realized: for every terrifying calamity, there was a corresponding method to seize transcendent power.

Thus, the Saviors embarked upon their long path of reclamation.

Another two years passed, meaning five years after the ‘Doomsday Hour’ began, when the true ‘final battle’ unfolded on a battlefield where Saviors and calamities intertwined.

Countless warriors advanced one after another into the meat grinder of a battlefield, falling in death beneath the banner of the Saviors.

Ultimately, the passage connecting Earth and the lands of calamity was largely severed, preventing any further global disasters, but at the cost of less than ten percent of the global population remaining, and ten of the original fifteen strongest leaders sacrificed their lives.

What followed were twenty-five years of counter-offensives and reconstruction—

Chen Qingfeng stood silently at the entrance of the hospital room, mentally reviewing the history etched into the minds of virtually every survivor.

His location was hidden deep within the Stasis Hall, a place where the bodies of the Savior’s heroes were interred, so secluded that even regular Stasis Hall personnel lacked the clearance to know of it, built solely for one unique patient.

In terms of hardware, this ward overwhelmingly surpassed any private collection an elder of the Supreme Council could possess:

Devices representing the pinnacle of technological advancement were arranged lavishly within the room; every facet of the Transcendent Triangle had exerted its utmost effort to incorporate all achievements related to the concept of ‘healing,’ and all contributors considered it an honor to be involved.

Daily, rigorously vetted cleaners performed deep sanitization within the ward, ensuring no vulnerabilities remained for ‘disease-related’ calamities to exploit…

Countless documents and meetings revolved around this very room.

Chen Qingfeng’s gaze fell upon the patient in the bed—

A woman with waist-length hair, or rather, a maiden poised on the cusp between youthful innocence and emerging maturity.

Twenty-five years had been reluctant to leave even a trace of blemish upon her, instead using gentle and meticulous methods, baking in sweetness bit by bit.

Ever since the council’s collectively compiled notes had been handed to her to learn history, the maiden had maintained her posture, with her back to Chen Qingfeng.

Throughout her prolonged silence, she remained lost in contemplation.

It was hard to imagine that Chen Qingfeng, the respected master of the Stasis Hall and a twenty-one-year-old young six-tier Transcendent, would stand by the door in such a humble posture.

Simply hearing the occasional rustle of turning pages would cause a faint expression of contentment to surface on Chen Qingfeng’s stern face.

For the one seated before him was none other than one of the fifteen leaders renowned worldwide as the ‘Blue Witch.’

After a long wait, a voice, husky yet undeniably gentle, reached his ears:

“Mr. Chen, as you mentioned, all my comrades ‘retired’ twenty years ago, correct?”

Chen Qingfeng’s body stiffened; he quickly took two steps forward, leaning close to the bedside, responding in a hushed, almost reserved tone:

“That is correct, Your Excellency, the Blue Witch.”

“After the ‘final battle,’ all five surviving leaders were severely wounded, forcing them to retreat to the second line of the counter-offensive.

Once their injuries healed, three leaders dedicated themselves to the reconstruction and maintenance of order in the rear, before, for reasons unknown, announcing their retirement five years later.

At that same time, Lord Hero and Lady Saintess, who were still fighting on the front lines, also simultaneously declared their withdrawal.”

“At the collective request of the five leaders, the Supreme Council unanimously approved the retirement plan, simultaneously destroying all personal records to allow the leaders to live under new identities in the new world.”

“…”

Chen Qingfeng immersed himself in recollection, striving to extract every shred of his knowledge to better answer the patient’s questions.

In the end, it was the Blue Witch, the one who had posed the questions, who halted his overly detailed explanation.

“Mr. Chen, please relax a little.” Once the hoarseness faded, the maiden’s voice was left with only a pleasant, instinctively calming gentleness.

The patient, still facing away from Chen Qingfeng, seemed to have collected the turbulent thoughts swirling in her mind, speaking softly:

“After all, I am not a demanding person.”

Her words held a hint of vexation, “So, just call me Su Qingyao, or Miss Su.”

Chen Qingfeng, who had been looking down, noticed the rustle of fabric ahead of him.

He raised his head to see the maiden, who had been facing the window with her back to him, now turning around, her soft hands resting on the side facing Chen Qingfeng.

The Blue Witch, who called herself Su Qingyao, was now adorned with a serene smile.

For a fleeting moment, Chen Qingfeng seemed to glimpse in that smile the thread of ‘gentle’ maternal affection he had seen on his mother’s lips when he looked up at her as a child.

Yet, in the next instant, that illusion vanished without a trace, as if it had never existed.

“Understood.”

Chen Qingfeng, regaining his composure, quickly nodded in affirmation.

“Hmm, let me think… Oh, right.”

Su Qingyao displayed a page from the notebook in her hand: “Next, let us discuss what happened to ‘me’.”

“From what I remember,”

“I believe I was successfully decapitated by the calamity during a ‘beheading operation’ before the final battle, while my comrades were deploying on the battlefield, sacrificing myself twenty-five years ago.

Is that correct?”

“That is correct, at least according to council records.

After your sacrifice, your remains were initially claimed by the calamity, but were eventually recovered personally by Lord Hero and placed within the Stasis Hall.”

“However, five years after the final battle that severed the passage concluded—that is, when the remaining five leaders collectively retired—the then-director of the Stasis Hall noticed that your remains were undergoing self-repair.”

“Consequently, the Supreme Council immediately began arranging your current ward and designated your remains as top secret, publicly announcing that Lord Hero had taken your body for burial.”

“Of course, this was a plan personally decided by Lord Hero.”

“Ah, then I should thank whoever prepared me for burial for not stuffing me with spices.”

“…”

“They didn’t stuff me with spices, right?”

Chen Qingfeng and Su Qingyao stared at each other in silence.

After a few choked seconds, the former couldn’t hold back a cough, deftly sidestepping the topic:

“In any case, thanks to your own miraculous self-healing abilities and the council’s concerted efforts, you regained a stable and healthy heartbeat ten years ago.”

“However, for some unknown reason, despite all your bodily indicators reaching healthy levels, you remained in a state of slumber.”

“Until yesterday.”

Su Qingyao concluded Chen Qingfeng’s answer for him.

He nodded, “It is safe to say that, on every conceivable level, this is nothing short of an absolute miracle.”

“Then I understand.” Su Qingyao’s index finger habitually twirled a strand of blue hair by her cheek, winding it around her finger.

“No wonder I woke up here.”

Su Qingyao, before him, spoke with a hint of emotion, while Chen Qingfeng noticed a fleeting melancholy and a touch of bewilderment on the maiden’s face.

Soon, the maiden’s next topic captured Chen Qingfeng’s attention:

“Now, let’s discuss the next topic.”

“Oh, that would be my ‘daughter,’ wouldn’t it?”

Chen Qingfeng realized that, for some reason, Su Qingyao had deliberately emphasized the word ‘daughter.’

‘Daughter.’

Su Qingyao savored the subtle word, one that brought a sense of distortion to her heart.

It was a secret kept among a select few companions.

Before Su Qingyao obtained the spirit attire that transformed her into the ‘Blue Witch,’ they were actually just a high school boy who had just entered.

Compared to the common virtues of magical girls, such as enthusiasm and kindness, what manifested more prominently in him was the flaw known as ‘social anxiety.’

Initially, his social anxiety made her incoherent when facing the public, unable to utter a complete syllable.

However, in those darkest moments, the ‘Blue Witch,’ as the focal point of attention, could not possibly remain silent—

Thus, Su Qingyao could only smile.

She replaced words with a polite and as gentle as possible smile, using the inherent ‘gentle’ aura of the Blue Witch to mask her own internal trembling.

This also laid the groundwork for her subtly ‘maternal’ aura later on.

By the time Su Qingyao’s social anxiety gradually healed, having become numb from constant scrutiny.

Su Qingyao not only found her unable to shake off the ‘maternal’ role label, but her talent for healing magic even counteracted upon her, causing her personality to inevitably race headlong in that direction.

So much so that outside of combat, Su Qingyao often had to maintain his male physical form to prevent his mind from being sculpted into an entirely different shape—

Before his death in battle, whether in his male or female form, Su Qingyao remained utterly inexperienced, immersed in saving the world, unaware of what emotions truly were.

Therefore, Su Qingyao had an extra daughter upon his resurrection.

‘How could I possibly have a daughter!’

Hidden beneath Su Qingyao’s smile was, in reality, the lingering outcry of his masculine psyche.

“That’s right.”

Chen Qingfeng, standing before her, was utterly unaware of Su Qingyao’s internal turmoil.

The man, with his eyes obscured by her halo, continued to answer Su Qingyao’s questions with profound respect:

“When the restoration project reached its fifth year, which was also ten years after Your Excellency’s sacrifice, all superficial wounds on your remains had been fully repaired.”

“Consequently, the Stasis Hall’s director at the time decided to conduct a simple examination of your remains.

It was during this examination that we discovered—”

Chen Qingfeng’s voice caught midway, as if searching for a polite, appropriate way to phrase it.

“I was pregnant, correct?”

Su Qingyao took the words right out of his mouth.

A corpse, yet bearing a lively, bouncing embryo.

From an outsider’s perspective, it was undeniably a deeply unsettling revelation.

‘Just kidding, it’s terrifying to me too.’

“According to this timeline, my… daughter must have been born eight years after the discovery of the pregnancy, then?”

Her formerly gentle words were inevitably tinged with an incongruous stiffness and a subtle aversion.

The first possible answer Su Qingyao’s mind leaped to upon hearing this news was that after her death, when her body fell into enemy hands, it had been defiled by some calamity resembling a ‘cuckoo parasite.’

Indeed, this was the most probable, and perhaps the only, possibility.

In the face of such a possibility, the resistance stemming from Su Qingyao’s former masculine psyche was merely a minor concern.

“A C-section.”

Chen Qingfeng, utterly unaware, could only indirectly agree with Su Qingyao’s conjecture.

Though he detected an odd undertone in Su Qingyao’s words.

However, in his perception, Her Excellency the Blue Witch, renowned for her maternal nature, was likely merely experiencing a faint nervousness about a child she had never met.

‘How truly gentle, Lady Blue Witch!’

Chen Qingfeng offered praise while also speaking a few kind words about the sensible child to Su Qingyao, hoping to provide her some comfort.

Unbeknownst to him, those very compliments only caused the shadows in Su Qingyao’s eyes to deepen and spread.