Chapter 63: Why Do You Want to Leave? Part 2

Meieruita teleported straight to the apprentice dormitory. It was empty, save for the letter on the table.

He didn’t look at the letter. Instead, he slammed his hand against the Wizard Tower’s wall, pouring in more soul aura. Closing his eyes, he sensed all existences within the tower’s energy range. The flood of information was overwhelming—too many living things, infuriating. Meieruita itched to slaughter them all but feared collateral damage and held back.

It couldn’t be.

He scanned existences within the Wizard Tower’s energy radius methodically, efficiently, without panic. Yet his heart sank deeper, shrouded in an ominous premonition.

The forest—no. Nearby villages—no. Solsen City—no.

How? In such a short time, how had An Luo vanished without a trace?

Meieruita staggered, collapsing against the wall, vision swimming. He pushed himself up and swiftly retrieved a lock of An Luo’s hair and a preserved drop of blood from his Spatial Wizard Artifact.

He had collected them after leaving the Wizard Tower with An Luo on the new recruit mission. A vague suspicion had lingered in his heart—foolish and unfounded, he thought, but his cautious nature prompted precaution.

Who could have foreseen…

Meieruita closed his eyes briefly.

He wasn’t proficient in curses or tracking witchcraft, but he knew the basics. A black strand of hair floated up, enveloped in thick blue witchcraft energy. He closed his eyes to sense—but found only void.

Nothing!

Meieruita heard his own teeth grinding with a crunching sound, and soon he tasted the flavor of blood. The metallic, bloody tang not only filled his mouth but seemed to transform into a scent that permeated the air.

He tried again, but it was still nothing but empty void—no trace to be found.

It was fine, it was fine. He simply wasn’t proficient enough in curse and tracking witchcraft yet, but that could be remedied soon enough.

Meieruita gathered every book in the Wizard Tower related to curses and tracking witchcraft. Various tomes were transported over via the runes engraved on the gray-black stone bricks, piling up into a thick stack beside him. The once-spacious dormitory suddenly became cramped and hard to navigate.

Meieruita urgently snatched a book from nearby and flipped through it hastily. When he realized it wasn’t what he wanted, he tossed it aside. The discarded book rolled a couple of times on the floor, kicking up a bit of fine dust.

One book after another was thrown away, his actions so savage that no wizard or wizard apprentice would ever do such a thing. Wizards and their apprentices always respected knowledge, and Meieruita had been the same—until now. He couldn’t afford to care anymore as he frantically searched the piles for his target.

Sometimes, when he found a suitable witchcraft book, the dormitory fell quiet, filled only with the rapid rustle of turning pages.

Meieruita repeated this cycle of searching for books, reading them, and throwing them away, paying no heed to the passage of time. Only when drowsiness hindered his focus did he close his eyes for a brief nap, still fully clothed. Likewise, only when hunger severely impaired his movements did he pull out some black bread he’d once stored but never eaten. He soaked it in cold water, and once enough time had passed, he fished it out and forced it down to placate his stomach.

As the cold food settled in his belly, Meieruita felt a moment of daze. How long had it been since he’d eaten something so rough and frigid?

When he was with An Luo, the food was always steaming hot, fragrant, and left his whole body feeling content after eating.

He blinked, quickly suppressing this unwelcome sentimentality, and refocused on the open pages before him.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when Meieruita finally gained a deeper understanding of curse and tracking witchcraft. He propped himself up on the desk, looking like a corpse freshly crawled from the grave—deathly pale with dark circles under his eyes. But those gray-green pupils gleamed with an unnatural light, like a hunter sighting prey.

Meieruita steadied his mind, closed his eyes, and stood quietly for a minute to adjust his state.

Finally, he opened his eyes again, his hands steady once more.

With utmost care, he took out that drop of blood. His fingertip traced through the air, splitting the red liquid in two. Meieruita stored half in a small glass vial and used the other half as a medium to cast the tracking spell.

This time, it worked. Meieruita’s spirits lifted, his eyes fixing ahead like a parched desert traveler beholding an oasis. The red line advanced through the air, and his senses followed it along the path.

His hopes swelled greater and greater, his very soul trembling with anticipation. But his rising joy was brutally severed—the red line snapped off the moment it left the Wizard Tower.

The line ended abruptly within the gray-black stone wall, unable to extend outward.

After a brief daze, endless fear and rage surged through him. Hatred churned in his heart, and the seed buried there sprouted rapidly into a twisted, venom-dripping evil tree. Meieruita collapsed into the armchair, head bowed, his disheveled bangs falling over his brow and eyes.

All attempts had failed. Meieruita had no choice but to turn his gaze to the letter on the desk.

He’d refused to look at it before, wanting to find An Luo first and make him tear it to shreds himself. But now that he’d failed, now that he couldn’t find An Luo, he had to read it.

There was another reason Meieruita avoided the letter: a almost laughable notion that as long as he didn’t look, everything could still return to normal. Nothing had ended yet. But reading it would confirm his failure, An Luo’s departure as an unchangeable fact, leaving him powerless.

Yet now, there truly were no other options.

Meieruita rose from the chair and shuffled toward the desk, each step slower than the last, as if iron chains bound his ankles, dragging a solid iron ball like a prisoner.

The letter was pinned under a book. Meieruita glanced down at it, a mirthless curve tugging at his lips. This paper… or farewell note, rather… didn’t even bear An Luo’s handwriting. It was densely pasted with words clipped straight from a knight novel.

Good, very good. As expected of the Creator— so meticulous, seamless, without a single flaw.

【I’m very sorry, Meieruita. I didn’t mean to leave without saying goodbye…】

【…I don’t like this tumultuous life. We’re destined to part ways… Don’t worry, I won’t reveal any of your secrets. I pose no threat to you…】

【I hope you can stand at the pinnacle of the world and achieve brilliant success.】

【Wishing you all your heart desires, peace and happiness. I’ll miss you. Goodbye.】

Meieruita’s eyes locked onto the “words” on the paper. He stared expressionlessly for a long while before bursting into laughter—but there was no mirth in it, only a cold, piercing chill like a winter gale whistling through.

He read An Luo’s farewell letter again, but it revealed nothing about his whereabouts. Meieruita pored over the single page repeatedly until the words spun before his eyes, growing utterly alien. He leaned in to sniff it—only the inky scent of knight novel pages.

“All your heart desires?”

Meieruita repeated the closing line, each syllable forced through clenched teeth. A cold shiver coursed through him. He stood, glancing around. Everything suddenly felt profoundly unfamiliar, so much so that for a fleeting moment, he thought he was dreaming.

He hadn’t given up entirely. After a while, he headed for the door, flung it open, and rushed to where the red line had last appeared. The Wizard Tower’s interior was in chaos. The wizard apprentices, unsettled by the tower’s inexplicable earlier tremors and the bizarre disappearance of books, sensed disaster looming.

Some apprentices with connections scurried about inquiring what had happened, but they gleaned no solid information—only rumors spreading through the crowd. Meieruita’s erratic state should have drawn eyes, but amid the unusual circumstances, no one spared him a glance.

Meieruita ignored the wizard apprentices entirely. He groped along the gray-black stone wall in the corner, infusing it with his soul’s aura and probing through the runes for any clue at all—he wasn’t picky.

But in the end, nothing. An Luo had planned too thoroughly; Meieruita couldn’t grasp his trail.

An Luo had left nothing behind. Not a single item Meieruita had given him!

Nearly half a month passed, and all of Meieruita’s efforts ended in failure. He had to face reality. In just those ten-plus days, he looked as if he’d transformed from a grave-dweller into a specter.

His heart brimmed with hatred. He hated An Luo for leaving him, for shredding everything that had come before. Those seemingly beautiful memories now crawled with mottled mold.

Why did you leave?

Why, why, why, why, why?!

Once certain his current power couldn’t locate An Luo’s whereabouts, Meieruita thought: This is all because I’m still too weak. If I were stronger, like “Traveler Meieruita,” no matter where An Luo fled, he could find him in an instant.

Strength… it all came down to his lack of strength.

Meieruita glanced once more at An Luo’s farewell letter:

【I hope you can stand at the pinnacle of the world and achieve brilliant success.】

A twisted, eerie smile spread across his face. His voice was soft, yet spine-chilling:

“Good, my dear mother. As you wish.”