Hate Me, Witch!-Chapter 146: Return of the Mourner

Year 1 of the Sacred Calendar, Month of Winter, Day 31.

Outer District, Aisgania Royal Capital.

"Three more hours until the coronation ceremony His Majesty promised, huh?"

"Yeah. From today on, this city beneath our feet will shed the old name given by that despicable Vile King, Futigon, and receive a new one—Holy City Camelot."

"My uncle, who's a reserve knight in the Knights of the Round Table, told me... The King—no, I guess we should call him His Majesty now..."

"They say His Majesty will name this brand-new nation the Fresta Empire..."

Laughter and excited chatter filled the streets as the townspeople shared their joy and anticipation.

The commoners still wore expressions of disbelief, as if they hadn’t fully accepted they’d survived the war.

After all, the battle that crushed Vile King Futigon and pinned him to his throne had happened only a year ago.

This land had just been freed from centuries of endless war. Peace had only just begun. The scorched earth, trampled by Abyssal Beasts, rebels, and bandits, was still in ruins. Every surviving refugee still remembered the chaos. Only time could heal those wounds.

And yet, even so, hopeful smiles still lit up their faces.

They were looking forward—toward the ideal nation their King had promised to build.

"A shame... Lord Kayin won't get to see it. The very thing he gave his life to create—"

"A country without famine, without refugees. A land where everyone can live in peace."

Someone muttered the words softly.

In that instant, the crowd, which had been buzzing with excitement for the coronation, fell into a quiet, wistful hush.

"Yeah..."

Someone pulled out a black cloak with red clouds and draped it over themselves, their eyes filled with remembrance and sorrow.

"He witnessed the darkest night. That’s why he longed for that blazing light so desperately."

At that moment, it had been several years since the final battle at the Valley of the End, since the Divine Judgment Spear pierced through the stars.

And yet, the name of Kayin, and of Xiao, had not faded in the slightest after his death.

In fact, thanks to the deliberate efforts of the Knight King and the allied forces, Kayin—and the ideals behind the so-called “Dawn that Changed the World”—had spread rapidly, reaching the ears of every citizen in Aisgania.

Even though the nation wasn’t yet rich in resources, nobles, knights, and even commoners alike had begun donning Xiao’s uniform. Many had become supporters of the cause.

As for Kayin, their founder—by now, the people no longer remembered him as a historical figure who had fallen in battle.

Through countless retellings and songs, his name had become a symbol.

A belief, even.

"Huh?"

Someone suddenly gasped, eyes fixed on the city gate.

There stood a boy who looked fairly young—black hair, black eyes, tall and lean, wearing a simple trench coat.

At his side was a black-haired girl in a black dress. Her eyes were veiled, shadowed by the night, a pair of black stockings under her skirt, and soft leather boots on her feet.

The two walked through the city gates and disappeared into the crowded street in a flash.

"What’s wrong?"

"Ah—nothing..."

He turned back around.

With the coronation approaching, waves of people from all over were arriving in the capital—some to relocate, some to witness history. It wasn’t unusual.

What really caught his attention was their hair.

This chapter is updat𝙚d by freeweɓnovel.cøm.

In Aisgania, brown or blonde hair was the norm. Black-haired people were rare, mostly found in the Northern Lands or Golden Plains.

Still, that wasn’t reason enough to raise alarm...

But according to the rumors circulating within the Round Table and the Oathbound Families—

Lord Kayin—the one who always wore a swirling mask—was said to have black hair.

And the boy’s build... it bore a strange resemblance to the statue in the Hall of Heroes, and to the figure sketched by Her Majesty the Empress herself in the painting Dawn, which depicted the battle at the Valley of the End—a lone back turned to the world.

He quickly shook his head, brushing off the absurd thought.

"Probably just a pair of siblings from the Northern Lands or Golden Plains. Travelers here for the coronation."

He muttered it offhandedly, gaze falling back on the Xiao cloak in his hands. The grief in his chest surged again.

Even if they looked alike. Even if the outfit matched.

That still couldn’t be Lord Kayin.

Lord Kayin had died—

Died on the darkest night before the dawn.

With a heavy heart, he spoke slowly, reverently.

"Lord Kayin... can you see this?"

"This prosperous age... it’s just like you wished."

“Can’t believe some random guy thought we were siblings. Talk about reversed roles.”

Xia Ya strolled through a city that felt both strange and familiar, Augustina walking beside him. The murmurs of the townspeople drifted on the breeze into his ears.

Even after a thousand years, this was still Camelot.

The buildings may have changed, but the main roads and layout were just as he remembered.

This time, Xia Ya wasn’t wearing a mask. He walked openly, face bare—

After all, when he was using the Kayin identity in this world, he’d always worn a mask. No one had ever seen his real face.

He glanced at Augustina next to him—more specifically, her black stockings beneath the black dress.

"You sure that outfit fits your Queen of the Night image?"

He’d realized Augustina had some weird ability to switch freely between her “Queen of the Night” mature woman persona and the “Princess Black Princess” teenage girl version.

And for some reason, she seemed to prefer showing off the youthful side in public. You’d never guess she was some ancient being who had lived since the Second Era.

And not only did she act young, she dressed like it too—always keeping up with modern fashion. In the Camelot of a thousand years ago, she stuck out like a sore thumb.

The other old ladies—uh, wives—he knew, like Sylvia or Hathaway, were at least a bit more traditional when it came to clothes.

He definitely couldn’t picture Sylvia or his gold elf instructor wearing black stockings. That mental image would’ve never crossed his mind until now.

He cleared his throat and forcefully focused his mental energy, trying to shut down that particular train of thought.

Not that he wasn’t curious about whether he’d get the chance to turn that fantasy into reality... Well, Sylvia might be fair game, but if he ever asked his teacher to wear black stockings, even a flashback stopwatch probably couldn’t save his life.

"Using your words—you’re looking at the biggest information broker on the entire Western Continent."

Augustina tapped a finger in the air. Shadows swirled midair and formed a sleek black mini top hat on her head.

“Researching the latest human fashion trends is naturally part of intel gathering too.”

“Human race?”

Xia Ya latched onto the key point. “Wait a sec, before you became a True Ancestor, your original race wasn’t human, was it?”

“You’re a long-lived species, right? I mean, surviving all the way from the Second Era and all.”

“My teacher once said you two go way back—so are you, like her, a High Elf?”

He tilted his head slightly, trying to sneak a peek at Augustina’s ears between her dark strands of hair, but the veil of night made it hard to see clearly.

“You’ve been a regular at my shop long enough, Xia Ya. You should know how things work.”

Augustina chuckled softly.

“Trying to pry into the origin race of someone at the Throne Tier... that’s a Judgment Edict-level deal. And since you’re asking about the Shadow Council Leader, the price bumps up even higher—Prometheus Tier.”

“So, have you figured out how you’re going to pay for it? Info of a Fire Thief-level has to be traded for a Divine Relic… or…”

Her golden-red eyes twinkled with amusement as she looked at Xia Ya. “You could offer yourself.”

“Can’t afford it. I’m out.”

Xia Ya shook his head immediately.

What a f***ing joke. Back when he was still low-tier, he hadn’t realized it, but now he knew exactly how insane the term Divine Relic really was.

Those were treasures that touched the domain of Law-based Abilities. Not even ordinary True Gods could craft them… Sure, there were dud-tier ones like the Knowledge Grail that diluted the standard, but the power of the Holy Sword and Holy Spear? He’d experienced it firsthand.

Pure, unfiltered cheats.

Of course, Xia Ya also understood Augustina was just dodging the question in her own way. Otherwise, why would she have shared so many secrets about the Old Era back in the City of a Thousand Years without charging him?

The two of them continued walking side by side through Camelot.

Until the noonday sun dipped ever so slightly.

DONG——

A deep, far-reaching chime echoed from the royal palace in the Inner District, ringing across the entire city.

And with that toll, the Outer District erupted in cheers.

Waves of people surged toward the Inner District, toward the palace.

Everyone knew—

This was the declaration:

The Founding Ceremony was about to begin.

In the packed, shoulder-to-shoulder crowd, only Xia Ya and Augustina remained still.

The raucous tide of people flowed past them, yet whenever someone came close to bumping into them, they instinctively veered away.

They stood on the same streets, in the same city—

But it was like they existed in completely separate worlds.

“You see it too?”

Augustina’s crimson-gold eyes gazed out over the masses. Her voice, cold and detached, reached Xia Ya’s ears.

“Yeah.”

Xia Ya just nodded silently.

He could hear the breath and heartbeat of Camelot’s citizens.

But in his Starrealm Vision—

What he saw was a city devoid of life.

Only the Blood Moon’s glow under the darkened sky lingered as Camelot’s eternal backdrop.

“These people, and everything in Camelot…”

“They’re all just echoes—phantoms of the past locked within the Imaginary Belt, aren’t they?”

Xia Ya raised a hand. A multicolored butterfly landed gently on his fingertip, fluttered its wings, then flew off again.

But he simply closed his eyes.

That butterfly, and those people—they were alive. Made of real flesh and blood.

But as beings isolated within the Imaginary Belt, cut off from space and time—they had been stripped of their future.

No future. No possibilities.

They existed only as illusions of the past, suspended in this realm beyond causality.

Controlled by the Blood Moon, and by the master of the Imaginary Belt—

Like marionettes, repeating the same fated cycle.

This was a dead city.

A divine kingdom trapped in eternity, where countless souls severed from fate wandered in an endless loop, reliving fragments of history.

“The saddest part…” Xia Ya muttered, looking at those smiling faces, “is them.”

“They’re already dead. Just phantoms with no destiny, no future… yet they still believe they’re alive. That they can choose their own path.”

He slowly closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, his outfit had silently changed.

Gone was the plain trench coat.

In its place was a black robe embroidered with crimson clouds.

A swirling mask covered his soft, handsome features, leaving only a forehead protector etched with a scar and a wind chime-adorned hat.

A few passing pedestrians gave him curious looks, but no one lingered.

After years of cultural spread, most of Camelot’s citizens now supported Xiao.

Plenty of people dressed like Kayin.

But few could replicate it with this level of precision.

Xia Ya simply raised his arms slightly. Within the swirl of his mask, alchemical runes spun faintly in his eyes.

Undying Metal formed in the void beneath him.

It carried the slender figure cloaked in black-and-red clouds—

rising steadily into the sky.

“Alright then, Augustina…”

“Let’s begin.”

Camelot, Inner District.

At the peak of the royal palace, between the twin thrones.

A lone figure stood between the two thrones, perched atop a silver-blue seat.

She looked down at the plaza below, where people from all directions flooded in—joyful, eager, pressing close together.

This was supposed to be a day of celebration.

But as the lead figure of the founding ceremony, her crimson eyes held no joy—only a piercing, frigid indifference.

At length, she turned her body slightly.

And gazed down at the Round Table, where knights stood one by one.

“Speak. What do you intend to do?”

“Your Majesty! You once said you would build a nation where the people stood strong on their own—where there would be no place for gods. You even refused the Church of Dawn’s offer of support for that ideal.”

“But now look at what you’ve done!”

A knight clad in silver armor, strong and radiant like the sun, shot to his feet.

“The Seven Gods worshipped by the Church of Dawn—they’re still True Gods! Even if they’re divine, they still follow some semblance of Order—”

“But Your Majesty, you’re choosing to cooperate with an Abyssal Ancient God—even going so far as to turn Camelot into Their Divine Kingdom? To convert the citizens of the Empire into followers of the Crimson Moon?”

Gawain paused, then shouted again.

“Please, deny it! Tell me this is all some wild delusion I’ve conjured up!”

“Tell me Merlin was bewitched by the Crimson Moon before his death, that he tried to sow discord between the King and the Knights of the Round Table—that his death was all part of a twisted scheme to divide and destroy us! That the wounds on his body weren’t from the Holy Sword, but were faked by the Crimson Moon!”

“Tell me… Tell me you never meant to do this. That you never planned to work with the Crimson Moon!”

He looked up at the solitary figure atop the throne, full of hope and desperation.

But what answered Gawain wasn’t a stern reprimand or denial.

Instead, it was a cold, lifeless voice, void of emotion.

Silver hair fluttered gently, revealing the delicate face of a young girl.

But Gawain could no longer find even a hint of that once-familiar presence—

The girl who had once disguised herself as a boy and gone by the name Artoris.

“Sir Gawain, your intelligence is accurate.”

“Merlin was indeed slain by the Holy Sword.”

Her indifferent voice echoed through the throne chamber.

“The Dawn Gods couldn’t give me what I wanted. But the Crimson Moon can.”

“Time erases all things.”

“No matter how deep your grief for the dead may be in this moment… After hundreds of years and dozens of generations, it will all fade. Forgotten by the world. Reduced to nothing more than a footnote in a history book.”

From the throne, the Empress’s gaze fell slowly—

Landing on the massive painting in the Hall of Heroes, where a lone figure stood with his back to the world.

“He once said—‘A person truly dies when the last one who remembers them forgets.’”

“But I refuse to let that happen. I won’t let him be forgotten.”

“I want to witness, with my own eyes… the moment his Heroic Spirit returns.”

“And if that is my goal—then I must seek eternity.”

“By using the power of the Crimson Moon and the Holy Sword, I will freeze Camelot, this Holy City, within the Imaginary World. Preserve it as a timeless, undying eternity.”

“That… is the choice I’ve made.”

The Knight King’s icy declaration shattered the last hope Gawain clung to.

“I know full well this path I’ve chosen goes against the very creed that you, as knights, have sworn to uphold.”

“So whether you choose to stay, leave, or band together and try to bring me down—it doesn’t matter.”

“I’ll give you five minutes to decide.”

Five minutes passed in a flash.

Some of the Knights of the Round Table chose to follow and submit—out of loyalty to the sovereign they had sworn to serve, or simply because they recognized the sheer difference in power, or perhaps because they’d never cared much for knightly ideals in the first place.

Their mental energy was branded with a crimson sigil by the blood-hued moonlight, becoming part of the so-called “eternity” of this Divine Kingdom.

But more knights chose to rebel.

“Your Majesty, no!”

“Artoris!”

Gawain’s eyes were bloodshot as he let out a desperate roar.

“If Lord Kayin… If he were still alive, he would never want you to do this!”

“I swear it—if Kayin could see what you’ve become now, this twisted shadow of who you once were, he would hate you. He’d be utterly disgusted!”

In that moment—just as Gawain cried out in anguish—

A faint ripple stirred in Isadella’s crimson eyes.

But it was swiftly drowned out by the overwhelming glow of the blood moon.

She simply looked down in silence at those former comrades—knights who had once fought at her side, now drawing their swords against her.

CLANG—

With a clear metallic chime, the Holy Sword was drawn, its blade gleaming with a deadly, icy light.

Unlike the low-tier nobles or minor Transcendents, or the ordinary citizens—who remained blissfully unaware they were nothing but phantoms in the Crimson Moon’s Divine Kingdom—

Many of the Knights of the Round Table were Legendary-tier.

Legend-tier powerhouses could, to a degree, perceive the flow of the River of Time.

They could sense when the Imaginary Belt was being manipulated.

Which meant—this battle, this internal clash among the Round Table knights, was inevitable from the start.

And within the Crimson Imaginary Belt, a space detached from time, this brutal, bloody conflict had already been played out countless times before.

As for the outcome?

It was never in doubt.

No matter how many Legends stood against her, they were merely mortal.

How could they defeat a Throne-tier monarch who wielded both the Holy Sword and the backing of an Ancient God?

Moments later—

In the throne chamber, the final spray of blood burst into the air.

The crimson moonlight fell, swallowing every trace of filth and impurity, leaving nothing behind.

Those who chose submission were fully assimilated by the Crimson Moon—

Becoming citizens of the Divine Kingdom, forever marked as part of the Blood Clan.

Those who resisted?

They were erased—

Their very existence wiped clean, their fates stripped away, reduced to phantoms in the Imaginary Belt, forever locked in a loop of history with no future.

CLANG—

The Holy Sword slid back into its sheath.

Isadella turned away from the thrones and began to walk.

She stepped toward the plaza where the people had gathered—toward the ceremony.

This was the Founding Rite.

And it was also the beginning of what she called “eternity.”

A fixed piece of history within the Imaginary Belt.

She had rewritten and refined it countless times.

To Isadella, it was second nature by now.

And yet—in the very next moment—

Her steps faltered.

Something unexpected had occurred. Something outside her control.

Beyond the towering window, the joyous celebration had suddenly fallen silent.

What she heard instead were tens of thousands of gasps.

Then, her pupils contracted slightly.

In her line of sight—

A figure in a black cloak embroidered with crimson clouds.

A swirling mask covering their face.

Slowly, steadily—

That figure was rising into the sky.

The crimson-clouded cloak flapped wildly in the high-altitude winds.

The soft chime of windbells echoed with the sway of the straw hat.

At last, the slender black-haired silhouette came to a stop.

Suspended a thousand meters above—

Level with the highest point of the Holy City: the Throne Room.

Looking down on the world below.