Chapter 12: A New Awakening

Levi felt himself floating in a frigid, biting river of ice. Every inch of his body had grown numb with the cold.

This icy numbness gradually spread to his consciousness. His thoughts became hazy and indistinct.

His awareness drifted away, dispersing into an endless darkness. It threatened to vanish completely.

He knew he was dying.

Yet, a sudden warmth enveloped him, slowly permeating his being. His frozen body began to revive, much like a withered tree budding anew in the spring.

Instinctively, he yearned to embrace that warmth, to immerse himself entirely within its flow. It was the primal desire of an infant seeking nourishment.

He saw several shooting stars appear in the pitch-black night sky. They drifted gently, forming various constellations.

The stars accelerated, faster and faster, until they danced with glowing red tails. As the crimson trails intertwined repeatedly, a surge of heat seemed to rise from deep within his body.

Then, more shooting stars ascended one after another, forming an inverse meteor shower that adorned the firmament. This celestial symphony escalated to a crescendo.

The heat within him suddenly surged, like churning magma. It ceaselessly pushed upward and forward through his body.

He felt his body distend and swell, like an egg about to crack open. A new birth was imminent.

The heat finally broke through his physical limits, erupting from his body like a volcanic blast. In that moment, he felt utterly reborn, his entire being filled with the joy of liberation. No other experience in life could compare to the ecstasy of that instant.

Simultaneously, all the shooting stars burst forth like fireworks. Their brilliant colors illuminated the night sky, piercing through layers of darkness, as if celebrating this very moment.

Soon, everything settled into silence once more. Levi still felt himself floating in the river, but the once-frigid water now seemed warm. Fireflies, seeking their mates, danced above the surface like the earlier shooting stars, playing games on the tranquil river.

He lay contentedly, drifting with the current, flowing downstream.

****

Levi opened his eyes and awoke.

Before him was a rough, wooden ceiling. This sight pulled him from the depths of sleep back to reality.

“Why are you waking up *now*?!” a startled cry beside him instantly sharpened his hazy consciousness.

He instinctively tried to turn his head towards the source of the voice. However, he was promptly halted by a sharp command: “Don’t look over here! Turn your head the other way!”

He paused, startled, but complied nonetheless.

Turning his gaze, he saw a wall constructed from wooden stakes. He appeared to be inside a small wooden cabin.

He was currently lying on the ground, a fur pelt beneath his body, and a cotton blanket covering him.

The voice that had just shouted at him sounded familiar. It took him a few seconds to recall that it belonged to the Blood Red Queen.

He was alive, it seemed. The Blood Red Queen had apparently rescued him, leading him out of the dungeon.

However, he was still unclear about their current location, and more importantly… what exactly the Queen had done to him.

For some reason, he felt as though his body was a little strange.

He heard a rustling sound, like someone arranging clothes.

After a while, he heard the Queen’s voice: “Alright.”

He turned his head to see the Queen standing beside him, fully dressed, looking down at him.

The moment their eyes met, Levi noticed the Queen seemed to avert her gaze.

“How do you feel?” the Queen asked.

“Quite well,” Levi replied.

The words had barely left his mouth when he froze.

From his throat emerged a delicate, gentle feminine voice.

A moment later, a realization dawned on him, and he pulled back the blanket to examine his body.

With a single glance, he — or rather, *she* — covered herself back up. Her body’s feminine characteristics were unmistakably clear.

The reason she could see them so clearly was that she wore no clothes.

To her own surprise, she didn’t feel much shock. Her bizarre experiences in the Rabbit Hole Dungeon seemed to have heightened her immunity to such matters.

She cast an inquiring look towards the Blood Red Queen.

“The ritual was a success; you are now a girl,” the Blood Red Queen explained. “The situation was dire, and your body couldn’t have lasted much longer. I had no choice but to use the Conferral Ritual to transform you into a witch.”

“I became a witch?” Levi blinked.

“Yes, a witch. My divine nature allows me to use the Conferral Ritual to bestow power upon you, transforming ordinary people into ‘Witch’ class blessed ones. Males who receive this class will become female, and in this process, your body undergoes a complete reconstruction…” The Blood Red Queen paused her explanation, seeing Levi’s half-comprehending expression, and shook her head. “There’s too much to explain now, and you wouldn’t understand. I’ll elaborate later. For now, you just need to know I did this to save you.”

Though her mind was still reeling from waking, Levi generally grasped the situation after hearing the explanation.

She had become a witch… This fact, *she* accepted quite readily.

She had been on the verge of death, and to find life in such a desperate situation was already cause for immense gratitude. There was naturally nothing left for her to demand.

The ‘her’ of now, essentially, took everything in stride.

The Queen retrieved Levi’s clothes, which had been placed aside, and laid them beside her. “Put these on. I’ll go check the situation outside first.”

With that, the Queen turned and walked towards the cabin door.

“Alright…” Levi reached for her clothes, wondering if her old garments would still fit now that she was a girl.

Naturally, a question that should have arisen earlier suddenly popped into her mind. The words slipped out: “Speaking of which, why was I naked—”

Her voice abruptly cut off.

The Queen had whirled around fiercely halfway through her question, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. This intense reaction startled Levi.

The Queen glared at her, a blush spreading across her face. From that exquisite visage, Levi read a mixture of shame and indignation.

Though no words were spoken, she clearly discerned the message in the Queen’s eyes: ‘Dare to ask further, and you’re dead!’

Ultimately, she wisely swallowed the rest of her half-asked question. She simply nodded at the Queen.

Only then did the Queen turn her face away.

A moment later, she murmured softly, “It was merely necessary for the ritual. Ask no more!”

No reminder was needed; Levi no longer dared to pry. She had a premonition that if she continued to question, the Queen might truly eliminate her.

This, however, did not prevent her from speculating internally.

Recalling the bizarre dream she’d had while unconscious, and the state she and the Queen had been in when she first awoke…

‘No way…’ she thought, a mix of shock and uncertainty.

Yet, with the Queen now so tight-lipped, this suspicion would likely never receive a definitive answer.