The world collapsed in a flash of blinding white light.

Lyra only remembered she had been attempting to construct an unprecedented runic circle, one capable of stabilizing a connection between two independent spatial quadrants. As the youngest Archon in the history of the Witch's Council, she was never content with the status quo, always yearning to explore magic's ultimate mysteries—the mysteries of the "world" itself. She thought she had calculated every variable, until the core of the array, a Source Stone condensed from pure creative force, buckled under the pressure of two colliding world-barriers and unleashed an energy far beyond her predictions.

The white light consumed everything.

Her body, or rather, her soul, was torn by an irresistible force and flung into a bizarre tunnel of light and color. Time and space lost all meaning. Countless fractured images, strange languages, and sharp fragments of emotion scraped against her consciousness like shards of glass. She felt like a drop of ink flung into a storm, about to be diluted, assimilated, and finally, dispersed into nothingness.

The instinct for survival made her curl her soul inward, wrapping her core consciousness in the innate protective magic she was born with. It was a shield of pure aether, a fragile skiff in a raging torrent of energy, yet miraculously, it did not capsize.

After an unknown eternity, when the tearing force finally exhausted itself, she fell.

The return to consciousness was slow and painful. First came touch: a cold, damp stone floor with a cloying, musty smell. Then hearing: distant, muffled shouts and footsteps, and a heavy, oppressive… silence, as close as a heartbeat.

Lyra struggled to open her eyes.

She found herself in a dark, subterranean passageway built of massive stone blocks. A single, dim oil lamp on the wall was the only light source, stretching her shadow long and thin. The air was thick with the taste of despair—not as a metaphor, but as a tangible entity she, as a witch, could directly perceive, condensed from countless negative emotions.

Her magical senses, like a radar, spread out and immediately pinpointed the source of this suffocating despair.

Just ahead, in a cell sealed by thick iron bars.

A young man sat on the edge of a cot, his hands shackled behind his back. His head was bowed, his long, dark brown hair obscuring his face. He wore a simple white prison uniform and was barefoot, heavy chains also locked around his ankles. He was motionless, like an abandoned statue.

Yet, within that still form, Lyra sensed a raging sea of sorrow, vast enough to drown the world.

Rage, hatred, resolve, loneliness, exhaustion… And at the center of that storm, a tiny but tenacious flame of desire burned—a near-fanatical yearning for "freedom."

The color of that flame was emerald green.

Lyra's heart was seized in a vise. She had never encountered a soul so contradictory, yet so pure. He was like a dormant volcano, its surface cold and hard, its core churning with world-ending magma. And that destructive impulse sprang from the purest, most primal desire to protect.

He wants to protect something. And to protect it, he is willing to burn himself, to burn the world.

In that moment, Lyra forgot where she was, forgot the dizziness and fear of trans-dimensional travel. Her gaze was fixed on the man. An unprecedented emotion, a mixture of pity, awe, and heartbreak, grew like a vine, instantly entwining her entire soul.

It was love at first sight.

Not the mundane affection between men and women based on looks or talent, but a deeper, magical soul-level resonance. She perceived his pain, understood his resolve, and her heart broke for the solitude that was so deeply misunderstood by the world.

She wanted to go to him, to tell him that she saw.

The man, as if sensing her gaze, slowly lifted his head.

When those emerald-green eyes pierced through the gloom and the cold iron bars to look directly at her, Lyra could barely breathe.

What kind of eyes were those? They held no light, only a dead, all-seeing abyss. In them were mountains of corpses, a collapsing world, shattered loved ones, and the deepest self-loathing.

These were not the eyes of a young man barely twenty years old.

"Who are you?" His voice was hoarse and cold, devoid of any emotion, like two stones grinding together. "A new trick from Marley?"

Marley? What was that?

Lyra shook her head. She took a few steps forward, stopping before the cell. She saw the wariness in his eyes spike, his body tensing like a cornered beast ready to strike.

She knew that any words would be powerless now. This man would not trust anyone.

So, Lyra extended her right hand, palm up. She closed her eyes, summoning the residual creative power of her world that remained within her. A gentle, moonlight-like magic gathered in her palm.

The next moment, a small flower of pure light bloomed in her hand. It had no physical form but radiated a warm, tranquil aura. With every unfurling of its petals, it seemed to brush away the coldness and despair in the air.

It was called an Anima-Bloom, a protective spell from Lyra's homeland used to soothe troubled souls.

Eren Yeager's pupils constricted violently.

He stared at the glowing flower floating outside his cell. Its soft light reflected in his dead green eyes, creating an almost imperceptible ripple.

This was not a scene from any of his memories. The appearance of this woman, the unheard-of power she wielded… she was the first, and only, unforeseeable variable on his path to hell, a path that had long been locked by the future.

He said nothing more, just watched the Anima-Bloom in silence.

Lyra did not move closer. She simply held the flower, standing quietly in the dark corridor, using all her gentleness to light a faint star in this cold prison.

To the New World — 第1章

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