Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic-Chapter 1446: Three Divination Cards
Shard didn’t understand why the atmosphere at afternoon tea suddenly turned strange. He looked at Luviya, only to find the purple-eyed girl watching him interact with the witches with great interest.
So Shard hesitated for a moment and looked at the ladies around the table:
"I actually have a request. It might seem abrupt, but please agree to it."
"Go ahead, as long as it’s not too excessive... Even if it is excessive, I believe we will still agree to it."
Miss Sylvia said with a smile, and all eyes at the table turned to Shard.
Shard coughed lightly:
"Oh, please be serious for a moment. I mean, if the Mad Guardian appears before I return from the Osenfort Estate, then you must delay him as much as possible... All arrangements and plans must follow Luviya’s lead, she knows what to do."
The purple-eyed girl was a bit surprised by Shard’s words, but the other four witches nodded together:
"No problem, but we still hope you can return as soon as possible."
"When I return doesn’t depend on me. But you don’t need to worry about me, I have plenty of means."
He still had a Time Key for one last chance, was prepared for summoning [Desire], and even had a drop of Divinity. Of course, until he obtained the Divinity of the Heart of the Earth, he would try to avoid using the remaining Divinity.
"You take our jewelry."
Miss Benanis said, as she took off her gold ring (right one), Miss Aphrola and Miss Sylvia also had rings, left one and left two respectively, and Miss Galina wore a necklace. However, Shard declined:
"That won’t be necessary, you need them too. Besides, when facing the Demon, it’s best for me to appear weaker."
Because it’s not about him fighting the Demon; it’s about summoning the doctor at the right moment.
The witches still needed to handle some matters in the basement, while Shard and Luviya headed to the third-floor office to wait for Miss Swift and Ciris’s return.
Once seated on the sofa, Luviya took out the last Relic [Wrath of the Thunder God] coin:
"You should only have one final [Emperor’s Banquet Coin] left too. How about it? Since the battle is imminent, don’t leave them unused."
"I’ll keep the one I have until I return from the Osenfort Estate; it might come in handy."
Shard said, and Luviya nodded:
"Alright then. Do you have anything you need to divine now with the one in my hand? How about the true location of the Chosen One Ceremony? Last time we didn’t complete the divination, but now there are enough clues. If we clarify the real location, many things can be arranged tonight."
"No, knowing the location now doesn’t have much significance."
Shard shook his head:
"What I hope you divine are other matters, clarifying other things is actually more important — first, whether we need to deal with the Guardian tonight, and how strong their power is once they go mad; second, the precise time of the first Randall Flower’s bloom, what exactly it is."
"You don’t want a location, but a timeline? That is indeed important, but I probably can’t get answers to both questions simultaneously. Choose which one seems more crucial."
Luviya tossed the coin, and the awakened Mia looked at it with great interest.
"Guardian."
"No problem."
She closed her eyes and, under the watchful gaze of Shard and Mia, threw the silver coin high. The divination went smoothly, as the coin developed mottled rust upon reaching its highest point, then quickly corroded as it fell, until it completely turned to dust. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶
"Yes, you need to confront the Guardian. The latter’s power when unleashed is stronger than in a normal state, meaning far surpassing a regular Thirteen Rings. Additionally, because he possesses the privilege to manipulate the earth and holds the fate of the Chosen One, confronting him won’t be any easier than facing any previous enemy."
Luviya opened her eyes, and Shard very much liked the purple within her eyes:
"He now possesses two distinctive Traits: first, as long as his feet stand on the earth, his power is inexhaustible; second, the entire Randall Valley will aid him. You can think of this as his luck being greatly enhanced, and as long as he’s within the Crazy Earth, he can almost be considered within his own Maze Lock."
Shard frowned slightly, and Luviya continued:
"Because the answer is too simple, I divined other matters. The region where the Guardian appears is uncertain, but won’t be within the city. The timing of the appearance, that is, the time of absolute madness, is about an hour and a half after the first Randall Flower blooms this spring. And the time of the first Randall Flower’s bloom can only be roughly estimated to be after 1:00 AM on Saturday morning."
"Therefore, I must try to resolve the Osenfort Estate issues and be back here before 1:00 AM. After all, the bloom signifies the total turmoil of the earth."
He turned slightly to look at the misty window outside. Those eerie gray snowflakes were still falling, likely continuing into tonight and becoming the first spring snow of the year 1854 in the Randall Valley during the Sixth Era.
"Did Long-Haired Luviya see this type of scenery too when making that difficult decision?"
Shard asked softly in his heart, but nobody could answer his question. Luviya didn’t know what Shard was contemplating at that moment, nor was she aware that Shard was thinking about another her; Luviya simply had a very ominous premonition.
And such premonition had not occurred in previous major events where Shard participated.
"Just like before, draw a card."
So Luviya took out her deck of divination cards, arranged and shuffled them before handing them to Shard:
"Draw three cards."
This time, Shard didn’t pick the top three cards, but instead chose the third card from the top, the fifth card from the top, and the first card from the bottom.
Luviya arranged the three cards and placed them parallel in front of her:
"About the enemy you will face."
She turned over a divination card, and the card showed a venomous snake. There was no problem with this; it simply represented Shard’s enemy being insidious and cunning.
"About the danger you are about to face."
She turned over a divination card, and the card showed two crossed longswords. This divination card is generally called "Duel," and Luviya believed it meant that Shard had the power to confront danger.
"About your outcome."
Luviya flipped over the last card and saw a man holding a dagger on a stage-like spotlight, plunging the dagger into his own heart, surrounded by fallen warhorses and knights.
Seeing this image, Luviya, who had just breathed a sigh of relief, turned pale:
"Sacrifice?! How could this be? The results of the previous two cards were clearly not bad, Shard, you..."
"You also said not to rely too heavily on and believe in divination, or you’ll surely be led astray by fate."
Shard said, putting the last card back into the deck of divination cards, then spreading those cards out on the coffee table, and gently picking up Mia:
"Come, pick a card."
The cat might not understand what Shard meant, but it was more than willing to extend its paw to bat at unfamiliar things. So the cat’s paw hit a card, and Shard turned it over:
"Feast. This represents a huge reward without risk."
He showed the card to Luviya:
"I’ll be staying with Mia tonight, and since its outcome is positive, I’m unlikely to encounter anything bad. Feast, perhaps it means tonight’s operation will be smooth, so I rewarded this cat with a feast. And sacrifice can be interpreted in other ways. If you drew this card, Ciris, then you should worry."
Luviya forced a smile, but before she could say anything more, there was a knock on the door outside.
Shard got up to open the door and then saw Ciris really standing there at the doorway:
"Back from the Council? We were just talking about you."
Shard said with a smile, as the golden-haired girl walked in:
"Just got back. Miss Swift went to the basement to report to the Grand Witches. What were you saying about me?"
"The matter of divination. Come, draw a card."
The young girl didn’t know what they’d been discussing earlier, so she casually picked a divination card:
"Let me see... Severed Rope."
Among the one hundred and eight divination cards, this card has a very low probability of appearing. Shard looked at Luviya, and Luviya softly explained:
"It signifies that you will soon sever an important relationship, or... lose someone important."
"As long as it isn’t sacrifice."
Shard said, then encouraged Luviya to perform a divination for herself as well. The purple-eyed girl in a bit of turmoil also picked a card, and her outcome was "Audience". Shard understood Luviya’s feelings, as she had shown even more concern in their past confrontations with The Chosen One than she did this time.
He knew it was out of care for him. Although he also felt some worry, he still promised Luviya:
"I will return safely tomorrow morning."
It was getting late, and Shard had promised to accompany Ciris to the Church of the Forgotten once more today. Now that she had returned, the two of them planned to set off, leaving Mia in Luviya’s care.
In fact, besides accompanying Ciris to the Church of the Forgotten, Shard could also choose to spend the remaining time before evening assisting Miss Aphrola in activating the ceremony left by the Speaker of the Witch Council, helping Luviya set up a more detailed divination ritual at the Wilder Opera House, gathering new information from the local black market, or simply chatting with the girls to boost morale.
Unfortunately, he could only choose one thing to do, and he had initially agreed to accompany Ciris.
During the day, there had been two minor earthquakes in the city, and combined with the thick fog and eerie gray snow throughout the city, the streets remained empty by afternoon.
The snow on the roads made the carriage slow, so Shard and Ciris did not take a carriage but chose to walk to the church alone.
