Everyone had their eyes on her, especially those from the older generation, their gazes were especially piercing.
Freya opened her mouth slightly before closing it again. She hemmed and hawed, finally spitting out a few words.
"Mason, sound barrier."
"Done."
Freya clicked her tongue, this disciple is useless, can't he delay things a bit? She was prepared to explain everything, but it was a little hard to put it in words.
"As you have guessed, I let myself die deliberately."
She continued before they could ask, "Beasts of that caliber can't touch a single hair on me if I wasn't willing. I know all of you wanted to know why. "
Freya took a deep breath as her gaze turned serious, "It's to prevent the destruction of the demon realm."
The room went silent. None of them have expected that the reason behind her death...was something so serious.
"Can't you just make sure the reason doesn't happen like you always do?" Andrew furrowed his brows. "That butterfly effect thing you talk about frequently."
For the sake of the demon realm, she let a demonic beast tear her apart, they could only imagine how painful it was.
"That won't work. The cause was a person, not a reason." Freya smiled faintly.
"That person was you, wasn't it?" James clenched his fist.
Freya nodded nonchalantly, "That's why I had to die no matter what. About 5 or 6 years after my death, the demon realm was supposed to cease to exist."
"Why did you choose such a way to die?"
"Because it has the highest success rate from all the path I saw in preventing the annihilation of the demonkind."
"...carrying such a burden, why didn't you tell any of us?" Mason bit his lips, "Were we so untrustworthy?"
"What can you change if I told you?"
Freya's tone was blunt, holding neither anger nor sadness. She was stating the cold truth.
It was only after she said that that she realized it sounded a little cruel. She licked her dry lips before continuing,
"And it's not like I didn't trust any of you, or else I wouldn't leave Black Diamond in your hands. Plus, I won't be able to come back if I did, the ritual restricted me to only tell one individual."
"...the ritual?" Vivian caught onto her point.
"Of course, I planned my revival. Though the success rate wasn't high, there was no way I would sit back and do nothing." Freya raised her brow. "Or do I look like an idiot to you?"
She couldn't help shooting a mocking glare at her arctic fox, "It's a shame that a certain someone didn't have much faith in me and like a moth drawn to the flames, decided his own death."
The older generation all knew who she was referring to. Caiden inexplicably felt a chill down his spine, what did he do? His eyes turned black faintly faced with his beloved's rage.
"Who did you tell?" Arche led the conversation back on track.
Freya stared at her father and blinked twice, "You."
Arche paused in his movements, he had no recollection at all!
As though reading his thoughts, Freya shrugged, "It's normal to not remember. It erased your memories after your task was done."
"Task?"
"After my death, I transferred my soul into another dimension. Then after that, I had the spell transfer your soul into that dimension as well, albeit briefly. Your task was to kill me on my sixteenth birthday.
After you killed me and returned here, all your memories will be wiped clean. So you'd think I was dead."
Austin had question marks appearing all over his head, but he didn't have the courage to ask. Alistar's glanced at his twin, making sure he stayed quiet. With so many experts here, they should not ask anything unnecessary.
"There are three things that didn't go to plan though. First, the medium I chose was a novel that was placed in the magic circle in my office. Someone changed it, and it became the 18+ novel Vivian wrote." Her eyes narrowed.
The protagonist of the novel she originally chose had a leisure life and no stupid drama. She could've lived peacefully for sixteen years. But no, someone just had to ruin her plan.
"Ehehe...That would be me. I just wanted to play a prank...I didn't know it was for a ritual..." James's voice became smaller as he spoke.
"You should be glad I got dad to kill me before all those scenes happened or else you wouldn't be standing here right now." Her tone turned icy.
James quickly hid behind Luca, which was a smart move. Freya's eyes softened the moment they met with her cousin's.
She turned to Arche, "Though it was fifty-fifty, I never expected I would become a hybrid. Of course, I'm not blaming daddy, but it'll become a hassle in the future since other than healing, I'm practically useless."
In other words, she can't protect anyone since she can't use spells. Worst case scenario, she would need to be protected and become dead weight.
"...it's our turn to protect you." Vivian knelt on one knee, her eyes brimmed with loyalty. "Without you, we won't be here right now."
"As the leader and founder of Black Diamond, it was my duty to prevent the destruction of the demon realm, don't think too much of it." Freya brushed it off before things get cringy. "And third, I didn't expect an idiot would kill himself."
James corrected himself in his heart, Freya wasn't unfeeling towards Greed's suicide, she was enraged.
"You killed yourself to avoid the destruction of the demon realm, transferred your soul into a novel, had his majesty go in and kill you at the same time of your death, got reborn again as the princess of the north although as a hybrid. Did I get that right?" Mason summarised.
"That's right."
He pinched the bridge of his nose and asked, "How is that even possible?"
The others had the same question in their minds, her coming back is great and all but...this defies the 'rule'.
"It's impossible for any of you, but it's possible for me. Who do you think I am?" Freya glanced at him lazily.
Though Caiden hasn't spoken the whole time, he was listening carefully. "Does it have to do with your ability?"
"Bingo, very smart." Freya kneaded his ears playfully, making them turn pink. Caiden endured and endured but she didn't let go until he whispered helplessly, "This isn't the time for this."
Having teased him, Freya's mood turned for the better as a mischievous grin appeared on her face. Caiden didn't know whether he should laugh or cry.
"...isn't your ability to see the future?" Mason knitted his brows.
Freya blinked at him before realization struck her, "I haven't told you guys?"
All of her disciples shot her a look, 'speechless' written all over their faces. She innocently scratched her head and stuck out her tongue.
"Looking into the future is just a perk, my real ability is soul manipulation."
"...what's that?"
"Hmm~ I can do some fun tricks with my soul. By transferring my consciousness to a point in the future, I can look into the future. I can't control what the vessel a.k.a the future me does but I can watch it unfold like a movie.
It's not limited to that, I can also see futures, pasts, presents of parallel worlds, different dimensions. As long as the vessels have a connection with my soul, I can shift my consciousness among them at my will.
Of course, there's a limit. I can only peek once a day, and one hour at a time within the chosen timeline. Other than that, I can split my souls, transfer them to other vessels and whatnot.
That's the gist of it. Honestly, I have never grasped the theory behind my ability. I'm not really sure myself how it works."
Her demeanor showed that she was very relaxed, like someone who was having a casual chat during afternoon tea.
"Transferring my soul into another dimension was a new thing so I wasn't sure if I would succeed. Although the book I originally chose was better, the compatibility between Vivian's novel and my soul wasn't bad, or else it would've failed no doubt."
James averted his gaze subconsciously. Freya was stepping on his tail purposefully, but it was only for fun. There's no point in crying over spilled milk.
"After learning that the obliteration of the demon realm will happen, I shifted to many parallel worlds where I made different choices, in the end, I realized I was the problem."
And during that time, she realized that her father might be killed by the summoned hero.
She made a lot of precautions. She wrote a flimsy novel to remind herself and a system just in case the novel wasn't read.
That stallion novel was undoubtedly the future in one of the parallel worlds that she happened to come across by chance.
Albeit in that world, she was blinded by revenge and killed the hero. After that, she received divine punishment. But that's a story for another day.
"Though now, I can only split my souls. It may be the consequences of reincarnating, my ability has been weakened, it almost the same as not having it." She sighed regretfully, "I did put a butterfly in each of you but I'm not sure what will happen in the future so, please take care of yourselves."
She looked at her disciples, "I'll put one in each of you after my condition improves as well. Better safe than sorry."
Not being able to see the future was very normal, but for Freya who had gotten used to the omnipotence, she couldn't help but feel anxious.
"Eh~ Your ability is such a cheat." James pouted.
Freya smiled and said nothing, such an ability...naturally came with a cost.
In her first life, she had a body weaker than a human that needed regular maintenance, though thanks to her abundant amount of mana...she managed somehow. Although, there were times where illnesses flared up out of the blue.
"How were you sure that...you would become my daughter again?"
"Oh, I don't." Freya beamed making the room silent again. "It's a wager. It was my first time trying out the spell, you don't die every day do you?"
Freya glanced at their disbelieved countenance and pouted, "Don't look at me like that, I've been researching about reincarnation for a while."
"You're not hiding anything else from us, are you?" Caiden eyes swept at her like a hawk.
Freya gulped, as sharp as always. Her cold sweat from waking up in pain glimmered under the light.
Her complexion was pale but her smile was brighter than the sun, her marble-like eyes stared straight into his, "Of course not!"
Caiden noted in his heart, she was definitely hiding something.
"I'm sorry but I need to discuss some things with my dear disciples. Thank you everyone for attending my 'funeral'."
Arche patted her head gently, his daughter was still holding a grudge because of the coffin.
The three 'dear disciples' shuddered instinctively...will they live to see the light of another day?
"It's lunchtime, isn't it? We'll join after we have a few words." She smiled menacingly at the three. Freya's eyes scanned the crowd and stopped at the two figures,
"Caiden, Brother Luca, you two stay."
[A/N: Phew, a long chap QVQ]