Chapter 30

In the previous life, in the original timeline, the blue-haired man standing before her had a deep-seated vendetta against her.

Ever since coming into contact with Winnie, Aesphyra has been vigilant, reminding herself not to let her guard down.

In fact, even nowadays, when Winnie’s temperament has drastically changed, Aesphyra still didn’t fully believe that Winnie in this timeline has reformed. In her eyes, Winnie still has a ‘criminal record.’

No matter what, whether it’s helping the orphanage, not dabbling in evil soul armaments, or the changes he’s made himself, these could all be a persona that Winnie has deliberately crafted to conceal his true intentions.

Perhaps it’s just that Winnie in this life is more sophisticated than in the previous one, that’s all.

It’s human nature; it’s impossible for her to fully trust a man who once killed her, especially since she inherently harbors a strong distrust of men.

So, she has been observing Winnie’s every move. But ever since entering the academy, Winnie’s behavior has been too normal, so normal that it seems like he has completely integrated into this persona.

There was even a period when Aesphyra began to think that ‘Winnie in this timeline is really different.’

Until recently, the crisis at Carillian Academy from the original timeline was about to occur.

As someone who experienced the original timeline, Aesphyra had summarized the incident of the Demon Pillar Cultists’ invasion upon her rebirth.

She realized that Winnie was very likely involved in this event.

Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain why his evil soul armament absorbed such powerful strength during the subsequent outbreak, causing her to be defeated by this villain she had always considered a clown.

Aesphyra speculated that during that catastrophe, Winnie must have taken advantage of the chaos to kill many isolated first-year students, absorbing their strength, which allowed his strength to advance by leaps and bounds.

The evil soul armament he used were a type of soul art that relied on absorbing the flesh and blood of others to achieve rapid improvement.

Among them, absorbing the flesh and blood of exceptionally talented transcendent beings had the best effect, with progress that could be described as a thousand miles a day.

Carillian Academy was a natural hunting ground for him, filled with high-quality prey.

Aesphyra didn’t know how Winnie in this life managed to conceal his evil soul armament, but as long as he harbored evil intentions, there would definitely be a time when he couldn’t hide them.

Time reveals a person’s heart; no one can wear a mask forever without taking it off, unless he wears it for a lifetime. But by then, he wouldn’t be able to take it off even if he wanted to.

In fact, as early as in Reiswyn, when Mirexia was attacked by Demon Pillar Cultists, Aesphyra began to suspect Winnie, because this segment did not happen in the original plot.

Aesphyra wasn’t on the scene and didn’t know exactly what happened, but according to the subsequent investigation report and Mirexia’s account, Winnie should have stumbled upon the scene by coincidence and then saved Mirexia.

This was obviously even stranger.

What ability did Winnie have? Why would Mirexia need Winnie to save her??

Even if Mirexia had been poisoned and her combat power greatly reduced, it wouldn’t be up to someone of Winnie’s level to save the day.

At that time, Aesphyra speculated that there were only two possibilities.

One was that both Winnie and Mirexia had concealed part of the facts and truth, but this possibility was very low.

Although they were childhood friends, their relationship wasn’t that close; it hadn’t reached the point where they could keep secrets for each other, and they had no reason to do so.

What could Mirexia possibly need to keep secret from her?

Aesphyra couldn’t figure it out.

Then the other possibility was very high, and that was that Winnie had private dealings with the [Bronze Blood].

This incident was jointly planned by Winnie and the [Bronze Blood] to gain Mirexia’s favor and trust.

Sure enough, after that, Mirexia’s favorability towards Winnie skyrocketed, to the point where every time Aesphyra entered the president’s office, she was likely to see Winnie there.

Moreover, their private interactions had become much more frequent.

Not to mention the issue of her ‘prey’ being tainted by a man of bad character, Aesphyra felt that someone like Mirexia was too prone to unconditionally trusting friends, especially those who had helped or even saved her.

Therefore, Aesphyra was quite concerned about Mirexia’s personal safety, suspecting that Mirexia had been deceived by Winnie and had let her guard down.

If her guess was correct, and Winnie had indeed colluded with the [Bronze Blood] behind the scenes to gain Mirexia’s trust and favor, Aesphyra would never let such a despicable, shameless, and opportunistic dangerous individual go.

She would settle the score from both this life and the previous one.

Moreover, if Winnie really had cooperated with the [Bronze Blood], then this would also explain why his evil soul armament weren’t detected during the entrance examination.

With the help of the [Alchemy Demon God] Erunes, it would be too easy to conceal evil soul armament.

However, for some reason, Aesphyra felt that there was something odd about all this.

Perhaps, it wasn’t as she thought?

When this thought arose in her heart, she herself was surprised.

She didn’t understand why she would subconsciously defend Winnie in her heart, thinking that Winnie in this life was essentially different from Winnie in the previous life.

All of this could just be this man’s disguise. Isn’t that what these scoundrels are best at? It’s just that the Winnie from the previous life didn’t have the brains for it, and the one in this life might be much smarter.

Wasn’t that a good thing? She could take revenge without any psychological burden, and there would be one less fly around Mirexia trying to compete for her affection.

However, recalling Winnie’s bravery at the opening banquet and their usual bickering and quarrels.

Perhaps, without even realizing it herself, bickering with Winnie, making him angry and breaking his defenses, and finding joy in it had already become a part of her daily life.

Suddenly cutting off this part indeed felt somewhat uncomfortable.

Well, she had to admit that now she wasn’t so eager for revenge anymore. She even hoped that all of this was just her speculation, and that Winnie in this life was still a fool who was as he appeared.

She temporarily set aside her focus on Winnie and turned her attention to another matter: the upcoming Demon Pillar Cultists’ invasion.

After the invasion in the previous life, she learned through certain channels how the Demon Pillar Cultists communicated and coordinated their actions.

So she concealed her aura and waited in the old academy building that night.

As she expected, a black-robed man soon arrived, crouched in front of the big tree, and dug around its roots.

To avoid alerting them, Aesphyra chose not to catch him in the act.

What she wanted was to round up these scoundrels in one fell swoop.

So she chose a method that wouldn’t disturb these people but could still reveal the identity of the black-robed man.

She used the [Divine Blessing] of the ancient imperial family [Carillian] to stop time. Seizing this opportunity, she went over and lifted the black-robed man’s hood.

Under the moonlight, looking at the face under the hood, Aesphyra slightly closed her eyes.

Unexpected, yet within reason.

“You really, as always, you don’t let me ‘down,’ do you, Winnie?”

‘I thought you would change for the better, but it seems you’ve just changed your approach.’

After teasing him like this, the silver-haired girl walked away, then lifted the [Divine Blessing].

After that, Aesphyra surprisingly took the initiative to invite Winnie, to dinner, and even kept reminding and warning him during the meal.

Even Aesphyra herself didn’t know why she did this. She had already confirmed that Winnie had private dealings with the [Bronze Blood], and that Winnie in this life was just as much of a scoundrel as in the previous one, only smarter, more adept at disguising, and harder to deal with.

To pull out this hidden thorn in the flesh, she had to play the long game.

But even Aesphyra herself didn’t know why she didn’t just let nature take its course, let Winnie continue to dig his own grave, and then rightfully deal with him, settling the score from the previous life while also eliminating a competitor.

Instead, she reminded him during the meal, almost as if she didn’t want him to continue down this path.

After that, she even reminded Winnie many times. The reason she told Winnie that the wind blowing from the bell tower where the holy bell was located could sweep across the entire Carillian Academy was that in the original timeline, someone had taken advantage of the night to shatter a certain alchemical poison on that bell tower, allowing the poison to spread throughout Carillian Academy.

If the person who spread it was Winnie, then this would become the ‘loop’ she mentioned.

The holy bell, which was meant to bring blessings to people, later became the site where a Varelis family member who had converted to the Demon Pillar released poison.

Who knows what the goddesses and saintnesses would think if they saw this.

However, it was a pity that Winnie ignored her hints and chose to continue contacting the [Bronze Blood]. Every time, he was the one responsible for the liaison at the old academy building.

This was also why Aesphyra had previously said to Winnie, ‘Not even the goddesses and saintnesses can save you.’

However, this alchemical poison that could spread through the air had significant limitations.

For one, its toxicity couldn’t be too strong. Therefore, the poison’s effect was merely to cause flu-like symptoms and make it difficult to distinguish the color of water.

Aesphyra knew that the target of this poison was students with very low water elemental affinity.

After all, if a flu spread throughout the entire school, it would inevitably alert the school authorities.

Therefore, the poison they developed only attacked a small portion of the students, further reducing their water elemental affinity so they couldn’t correctly identify the color of liquids, allowing them to proceed smoothly with their next plan. This was what they wanted.

However, this plan was no longer feasible. In recent days, the alchemical potions Aesphyra had been brewing were meant to counter the poison they would use in their next crucial plan.

To have a legitimate reason to catch these scoundrels in the act and bring them to justice, Aesphyra couldn’t alert them; she had to play the long game.

She had already made many preparations in secret to ensure that this catastrophe wouldn’t cause casualties or losses.

What needed to be done next was to secretly follow Winnie tonight and observe his every move.

To see if Winnie would, like in the previous life, take advantage of the chaos to kill other students to nourish his evil soul armament, then later pin the crimes on the [Bronze Blood].

At the banquet, Aesphyra, who was fully focused on Winnie, didn’t notice where the explosion came from.

This was clearly completely different from what had happened in the previous life.

She only knew that after the incident at the holy church, Winnie didn’t take advantage of the chaos to sneak away, nor did he panic and flee like the others. Instead, he immediately ducked under the table.

Just as she was wondering what he was doing, he split the table and stood up, holding the silver-haired elf who seemed to be his roommate.

This made Aesphyra even more puzzled. With the next step of the plan with the [Bronze Blood] about to be carried out, was there any point in maintaining his persona at this moment??

When the statue was about to hit the two of them, she secretly intervened and saved them.

After leaving the church, Winnie, for some reason, rushed out and followed a male student all the way to the Radiance dormitory, unaware that Aesphyra had been secretly following him all along.

After saying those words to the other party, Winnie immediately got into a fight with him.

Aesphyra who was hidden in the shadows, shook her head.

No matter what she thought in her heart, this time, she had to personally eliminate this threat.

As her long-awaited revenge was about to be realized, she couldn’t tell whether she was more happy or disappointed at this moment.

However, just as she was about to take action to stop Winnie, the male student appeared.

The male student, who she had previously considered not suspicious, instead attacked this foolishly naive male student, while Winnie, whom she had already deemed an irredeemable Demon Pillar Cultist, stepped forward and saved the male student.

At this moment, Aesphyra, hidden in the shadows, was stunned.

She hadn’t expected that the selfish, shameless villain from her previous life would choose to give up at such a crucial moment and instead save a stranger.

If helping the orphanage could still be a mask he wore, a persona he deliberately crafted for others to see, then in a situation where no one would notice, he still chose to abandon the best opportunity to defeat his opponent and risk his life to save someone, then this absolutely couldn’t be a disguise.

At this moment, Aesphyra’s lingering stereotypical impression of Winnie from her previous life completely shattered.

After that, she saw the male student whom Winnie had been harassing transform into a Demon Pillar follower.

At this point, things had completely exceeded Aesphyra’s expectations. In her imagination, Winnie should no longer be concealing his evil soul armament here, but the reality was exactly the opposite.

It was exactly as Winnie had said; the male student before them was a Demon Pillar follower, and this wasn’t an excuse Winnie had made up to offer living sacrifices to his evil soul armament.

Moreover, Winnie’s previous actions had also confirmed this. What Demon Pillar Cultist would go to such lengths to save a human??

The situation had completely reversed.

Aesphyra then realized that she, the one who was supposed to be in the know, had actually been kept in the dark the entire time.

Seeing that Winnie was no match for the [Fanatic], Aesphyra, even if she still didn’t understand what Winnie was planning, knew that he definitely wasn’t a Demon Pillar Cultist and didn’t possess evil soul armament.

Now, Aesphyra was certain that Winnie in this life was truly a normal person.

So she stepped out from the shadows, standing between Winnie and the [Fanatic], and sent the [Fanatic], who was charging at them like a slingshot, flying back, standing on the hilt of the holy sword.