She didn't know what she was expecting.
The sky… what could possibly be different about the sky? Wasn't it still the same suffocating cage, sealed beneath that heavy, eerie green barrier?
She didn't even understand what she was feeling anymore…
Allen had called her Enid again…
The messenger bird had just flown off—and returned immediately. That meant Allen must be nearby!
Allen was nearby?!
How could he be here? Was he… here for me?
No… how could he come for me?
There are wraiths and necromancers everywhere outside—he'll die out there!
-----------------------------------
Joy, surprise, excitement, anxiety, fear—
All these emotions clashed violently in her chest, her heartbeat pounding so hard it nearly choked her. Francesca Findabair burst out of the cave before she even remembered to look up at the sky.
She glanced around in desperation, scanning every direction—but the streets were empty. Everyone had either gone to the front lines or gathered with Simlas and Sadia, preparing for the breakout.
In front of the cave, under the yew tree, beside the glow-grass, past the wooden fence—
Nowhere could she find the figure she longed to see: the man with two swords on his back, leather armor on his chest, and those cold, piercing blue cat eyes.
"Enid! What are you doing?!"
Kariya burst out of the cave in a panic, clutching a dark-golden breastplate. When she saw Francesca standing still in the middle of the street instead of running toward the battlefield, she let out a shaky sigh of relief.
She walked up to Francesca, reaching out to grab her arm—to stop her from doing anything reckless.
But as she drew near, her gaze was drawn to the glimmering crystal bird perched delicately on Francesca's fingertips.
That same alchemical trinket had flown in moments ago—and it was that which had thrown Francesca into such emotional turmoil.
The elegant craftsmanship, so distinctly elven in style, made Kariya recognize it at once.
The crystal messenger bird of Ida Emean—a beautiful artifact with an equally beautiful love story attached. Magical items with such romantic histories were hard to forget.
"Ida Emean's messenger bird…" Kariya narrowed her eyes, suspicion stirring. "No, wait. That bird was given to the Scarlet Fox long ago. Enid, whose message is this?"
Before Francesca could answer, a name flashed in Kariya's mind.
"It's that witcher, isn't it? What did he sa—"
Her words caught in her throat. Both she and Francesca froze, instinctively lifting their heads at the same time.
The next instant—
The wind stopped. The howls of the dead and the war cries of the mountain folk fell silent.
Crack!
A sharp sound echoed—not in their ears, but in their minds. The sound of something shattering.
The crystal hadn't broken—
It was the sky.
The sickly green, oppressive sky above them split open, as if a giant from beyond the world had struck it with a colossal hammer, cracking the heavens themselves.
Francesca and Kariya froze at the same time, staring blankly at the shocking vision unfolding in the sky.
They had no idea what it meant.
The same stunned silence spread across the blood-soaked valley—among the mountain folk who were still locked in brutal combat with the undead.
"What is that?" one of the warriors muttered warily, stepping back a few paces. He eyed the undead who had suddenly halted their attack, all of them raising their heads toward the heavens as if in worship. "Is it one of those vile human sorcerers' new rituals?"
"I don't know. Stay alert," his comrade growled, standing back-to-back with him, his body covered in claw marks. "Our children are just behind us. Don't let your guard down!"
Crack… crack… crack…
The sound of breaking grew more frequent, the fractures in the green sky spreading faster and faster.
Within seconds, the entire firmament was veined with glowing emerald fissures—a sight both magnificent and terrifying.
Then—
Crack!
A final, deafening snap.
The sky collapsed.
Countless fragments shattered midair, dissolving into a rain of green light that drifted down like falling stars, revealing the true night sky behind it.
The black smoke rising from the ground vanished instantly, as if it had never been there at all.
"The barrier… it's gone…"
The elven sorcerers—those skilled in spatial magic—were the first to feel it. The ritual's hold over space and elements had disappeared completely.
Several shimmering portals spiraled open across the valley, summoned at once to test the theory.
Not far from the gorge's mouth, on a white ship surrounded by elven children, Ida Emean stared in astonishment. She instinctively met the gaze of Simlas Finn aep Dabairr, who had been discussing the escape plan beside her.
Without hesitation, Ida stepped off the ship and conjured two blazing orange portals beside it.
But before she could call the children through—
Every portal flickered, twisted violently, and burst apart like soap bubbles, vanishing in a flash.
"Ugh—!"
A chorus of pained grunts echoed as every elven mage—including Ida Emean and Simlas Finn aep Dabairr—staggered back, blood spilling from their lips.
"What happened?! Why did the spatial weave distort so violently? It's like… a sudden tsunami of space itself!"
A nearby elven mage cried out, panic in his eyes as he looked to Simlas and Ida for answers. But the two remaining scholars among the mountain folk did not respond. Their gazes turned upward—stunned, horrified.
At some unknown moment, the clouds had scattered, the mist cleared—
And an ominous crimson moon hung high in the heavens.
The wind was gone. Utterly still.
"What… is that?" the two mountain warriors asked, trembling as they pointed skyward.
Under the blood-red glow, countless black dots appeared against the night.
Every elven sorcerer could feel it—a raging tide of magic surging across the land. The dark sky flickered with ribbons of aurora, streaks of green and violet, red and blue weaving together in violent beauty.
BOOM!
The ground trembled so fiercely it felt as though the world itself would split apart.
ROOOAAARR!
A cacophony of guttural screams rose with the quake.
Ghouls poured out of those black holes in the sky, falling like torrential rain, crashing into the withered forest not far from where the mountain folk had taken refuge.
"Careful! Those are Ghouls! Fall back—fall back!"
The commander of the mountain warriors bellowed the order. Those who had charged ahead turned immediately, retreating to seal off the narrow pass leading into the gorge.
Thankfully, the undead's attention seemed drawn to the creatures falling from the heavens.
Otherwise, that one backward maneuver would have spelled the end of what few mountain folk remained alive.
But when all the warriors had retreated to the last trench and calmed themselves after the terrifying spectacle, they suddenly noticed something—
The black holes from which those endless swarms of corpse-eating monsters poured forth… none of them appeared over the valley.
Every single one was far beyond the gorge.
And after a rough estimate, they realized— the center of those scattered voids was right in the heart of the Withered Forest.
Their suspicions were confirmed when a massive black hole, at least five meters wide, opened there.
For a moment—
The mountain folk could only stand frozen, listening to the deafening roars of monsters echoing through the air. None of them knew what to do.
Keep fighting the undead?
But they couldn't just ignore that rain of Ghouls falling in the distance.
Retreat? Impossible.
Their families—the future of their people—were right behind them.
And the spatial field was still unstable; the portals couldn't be opened…
So the mountain folk stood there helplessly, looking at one another in confusion and fear.
No—
Not all of them were helpless.
Deep in the gorge, Kariya glanced up at the gaping black hole in the sky, its depths swallowing light, and then at the rain of monsters clearly unconnected to this battlefield. Her gaze turned to the crystal bird in Francesca's hand.
The seasoned warrior's fingers trembled as she raised them, about to point toward Francesca's shoulder.
"Enid… that's his—"
"It's not!" Francesca snapped, her voice sharp. The disbelief in her eyes as she stared at the heavens vanished instantly as she turned toward Kariya. "No one sent me any message. I only came out here because I was worried about the front lines."
"This is just a simple crystal ornament."
Without betraying emotion, she carefully tucked the messenger bird against her chest.
"But… I saw it…" Kariya started to protest, only to freeze when she met Francesca's gem-like blue eyes—eyes that now carried a cold, guarded warning.
"Kariya, you must've imagined it," Francesca said softly but firmly.
Kariya stood silent for a long time. She recalled the unassuming witcher boy she'd once met at Kaer Morhen—Allen—and her expression grew complicated as she stared at Francesca.
"Enid, do you know what this means?" she finally said.
"That's a Conjunction of the Spheres. Only such an event could summon that many necrophages from another world."
"A witcher capable of manipulating the Conjunction itself—"
"We are allies with the School of the Wolf," Francesca interrupted again. She didn't avert her gaze, standing protectively like a mother doe shielding her fawn. "He… he is my… my friend. No mountain folk would ever stoop so low as to betray an ally—or a friend."
A faint flush rose to her cheeks when she said friend, her voice trembling just slightly.
"The mountain folk indeed wouldn't," Kariya murmured after a pause, sighing softly. "We're not as deceitful and fickle as humans."
Though she was known as Francesca's handmaiden, in truth, she had cared for Francesca since the elf was a little girl.
Because of Simlas's constant duties, she had spent more time tending to Francesca than even her own parents.
Especially during the years when Sadia went missing — her body long weakened by old battle wounds that left her unable to bear children — she had raised Francesca as though she were her own daughter.
And when a child earnestly pleaded with her, what mother could ignore or refuse?
"So you agreed?" Francesca pressed nervously.
"Agreed to what?" Kariya tilted her head in confusion. "I'm already three hundred and sixty-two years old, Enid. I just had a moment of dizziness — I didn't see anything at all."
Francesca blinked, unsure whether to laugh or sigh.
"So now…" Kariya lifted her armor, her tone serious again. "You still intend to head for the front line?"
"Of course," Francesca said, turning her gaze toward the withered woods beneath the blood-red moon. "The battle… is far from over."
-----------------------------------
At the valley front.
"Could this be… those sorcerers misfiring their spells?"
One of the mountain folk turned to their leader and prophet, Simlas Finn aep Dabairr, his voice uncertain.
Simlas's eyes flickered; he lowered his head in thought, giving no reply.
The ordinary mountain folk might not understand, but the learned Simlas — a scholar and prophet — could not possibly be ignorant of what these black rifts signified.
Blood moon, earthquakes, void rifts, spatial tides, alien beasts…
Every sign perfectly matched the ancient records of the Conjunction of the Spheres — a catastrophic event where different dimensions collided, fusing worlds together and allowing creatures to pass between them.
And the Conjunction was not a power that sorcerers — nor even gods — could command. It could not simply be explained away as a "spell gone wrong."
If sorcerers truly possessed such might, Ban Ard would never have resorted to necromancy — that vile and forbidden art denounced by both mortal kings and supernatural orders alike.
Moreover…
Anyone could see that this vast and violent Conjunction had, in fact, saved the mountain folk from destruction.
But for that very reason — since neither mages nor gods could control such a force — could anyone truly believe that some benevolent being would cause such a world-shaking calamity merely to help them?
Unlikely.
For beings capable of triggering a Conjunction, there were far simpler and more efficient ways to intervene — not something so destructive or chaotic.
Or perhaps…
Was it all coincidence?
Had they merely stumbled into the first Conjunction to occur in over fifteen hundred years? Could it really be that convenient?
Sadia stepped down from the white ship and glanced at the necromancers who stood motionless, their eyes fixed on the celestial chaos.
"Simlas, Ida — what do we do now?" she asked quietly.
Simlas instinctively looked to Ida Emean, the other sage of the Free Elves, only to find her still dazed — as though entranced by the sheer might of the phenomenon.
Wait…
Simlas narrowed his eyes.
The Conjunction of the Spheres had supposedly vanished from history over fifteen centuries ago…
But just a few months earlier, one had reportedly occurred in Ban Ard.
And at that time, Ida Emean had been there — because of Sadia and Francesca.
If she had already witnessed it once… why did she still look so shocked now?
"Ida," Simlas asked softly, "what's your take on this? The Conjunction that happened in Ban Ard — was it the same… as this one?"
Ida Emean stirred from her trance as though waking from a long dream.
She didn't answer Simlas's question right away. Instead, her gaze swept around the battlefield—past the restless undead—searching deeper into the darkness of the withered woods.
"What are you looking for?" Simlas asked.
Ida blinked, then met his eyes calmly. "I'm looking for Enid. Why hasn't she arrived yet?"
Following her line of sight, Simlas glanced toward the shadowy forest. "Kariya went to find her. She should be here soon—"
Before he could finish, two figures appeared from behind the white ship.
It was Kariya and Francesca.
Simlas's furrowed brow eased for a moment, and he was just about to scold them when his words caught in his throat.
It wasn't Francesca's ill-fitting armor that stopped him—it was their bearing.
Both Kariya and Francesca wore solemn expressions, yet their steps were light, far too calm and relaxed compared to the other tense mountain warriors.
At that moment, Ida Emean stepped forward eagerly to meet them, while Sadia remained rooted where she stood, unmoving.
When Kariya's eyes briefly met Simlas's, she quickly looked away.
They're hiding something from me…
The realization struck Simlas Finn aep Dabairr instantly.
But before he could pursue the thought—
A thunderous roar echoed across the valley.
Amid the monstrous shrieks of the carrion creatures, the black rifts in the sky began to seal shut one by one.
The blood-red moon faded, replaced by a pale, silvery light that once again bathed the land. The undead stirred anew—yet this time, many of them had been drawn away toward the withered woods, chasing the swarms of corpse-eating monsters there.
Barely two-thirds of their original numbers remained.
Simlas Finn aep Dabairr cast one last long look at the three women, then drew his longsword from his waist.
He raised it high and roared to the warriors of the mountain folk: "Counterattack, descendants of the White Ship's riders!"
"Drive those filthy undead from our homeland!"
.......
📢Advanced chapters on p@treaon📢
For advance chapters: [email protected]/Uchiha_Itachi007 (replace @ with a)
1. 20 advanced chapters of The Witcher: Wolf School's Hunting Notes.
2. 30 advanced chapters of What year is this? You're still writing a traditional diary?.