At the echo of a clicking metallic sound, the black box opened with a hiss, causing the sea of milk-white fog to quiver and churn restlessly.

The flaming pale eyes of both Push and Pull focused on the contents of the box.

It was all black, like the black of a bottomless pit, showing nothing except nothingness.

The sight of it sent a surge of tension through the twins.

Slowly, Pull turned his head, staring at Push, his twin.

"No going back, Push. No going back." Pull said, his voice heavy with an undercurrent of worry, "Our actions will be sensed by some."

"Matter not! Matter not!" Push shook her head vehemently, her eyes resolute.

Then, with unyielding courage, she stretched her right hand and plunged it deep inside the box.

Her hand disappeared inside, as if swallowed by emptiness. Instantly, a pain sharp like the tip of a spear pierced her hand, then coursed through her whole body.

Push groaned, suppressing the instinctive urge to pull her hand out. Doing so would cause her more damage than what she could handle.

Providence was a petty being.

All around, the hidden realm of the Twins of Luck breathed strenuously, the sound like the sigh of a man on his last leg.

Everything except the Flaming Wheel was restless. And one could feel their emotions steaming out from them.

Push shot a hard glare at Pull. "There is no time to waste in doubt, Pull. You were wrong! Wrong, I say! This is not the time to pull, but to push!"

She bit her lower lip, trying to hold back the strange sensation igniting viciously inside her body.

It was always disgusting to use the Deck of Providence.

Pull clicked his tongue, reluctantly stretched his left hand, then sank it deep into the black void of the box.

The trembling increased, and he cursed Providence under his breath as the wrenching pain assaulted him.

It continued like this for an untold amount of time, before suddenly the Twins of Luck were sent flying backward with blistering speed, their bodies pale blurs.

The fog rose skyward — looking like a being had just grasped it and pulled it upward with yanking strength — then transmuted into a soft wall behind the twins just in time to catch them.

They slammed into it, bounced once, twice, and around the third impact they managed to steady themselves, staring at the glowing Deck of Providence.

Their noses were bleeding.

Feeling the blood blooming from their noses, they raised their hands to wipe it away, only to pause, staring at their hands.

Push had her right hand charred black, cut all over by small silvery-white strings that were still visible, going in and out of her hand.

Pull had his left hand burned with a blistering immaculate white color, the same strings waving around it.

They looked at each other briefly, cursed in unison, and flicked their hands.

Fog erupted and wrapped around them.

Soon, one could already see their healing abilities quicken, mending the wounds smoothly.

Their flaming eyes were now transfixed on the process, watching with rapt attention as the glow of the box receded until it completely disappeared.

After that, the box spat out dozens of cards that neatly arranged themselves in the air in front of them.

The cards were all black, each one glowing with a different kind of color.

The breathing of the twins quickened, their chests tightening in apprehension. They watched, straining their eyes to see the cards corresponding to their needs.

Each one of them hated using the Deck.

Using it not only meant allowing Fate — or even Providence — to know their moves, but also accepting a sort of inevitability in everything they were about to do.

So they prayed, prayed that the cards they would be dealt would not be against their favor.

Because they had their own plans. Yet Fate always had its own. And most of the time — if not every time — its plans went against them.

But soon, Push and Pull halted their thoughts as two of the dozens of cards shifted, revealing their contents.

The first card depicted the wide smiling face of a being with no other facial features.

Everything except the unsettling smile was shrouded in pale light that churned, churned, churned.

Between the gap of the smile, a trained eye could glimpse something constantly shifting inside, going from beasts to random animals, or even humans and other unknown races.

At the lower end of the card was the title.

The White Apostle.

The twins forgot to breathe, their eyes mechanically gliding toward the second card.

There, they saw a deep, unfathomable snow-white furred wolf with patches of purple in its fur. Pillars of jagged black spears impaled it to the ground.

The two eyes of the wolf were closed, a deep scar sliding horizontally across its face, touching both eyes, blinding it.

Its jaw was cracked open. And even without hearing it, one could sense the mournful howl escaping through the bounds of its stretched soul.

At the lower end of the card was the title.

The Blind Wolf.

After seeing both cards, the twins' bodies jerked, their eyes bulging as a vision flashed through their minds, fast as light.

It vanished as quickly as it came.

They gasped, regaining their senses, beads of sweat slipping down their temples.

The cards disappeared. The black box followed suit.

With heavy, shallow breathing, Push and Pull heaved themselves up, sitting on one knee, staring at each other.

Slowly, a smile crept to the edges of their lips in perfect unison.

"He will do," Pull said, wiping the sweat, then shook his head. "No… they will do."

"Yes, yes," Push nodded.

The two suddenly snapped their heads toward the Flaming Wheel.

Faster. Faster. Faster.

The Wheel was turning faster now.

The twins' smiles widened, though a hint of apprehension and the poison of fear lingered within them.

They had done it.

But they didn't know what they had done.

…

Inside the Dungeon of the Harvester, Vaela, sitting cross-legged on her personal training ground, surrounded by wisps of crimson starlight, suddenly snapped her eyes wide open.

Her crimson gaze lifted to the ceiling of the room, went past the barrier of stone, and even past the barrier of the dungeon before finally settling on the blue sky of Fokay.

She fixed it intensely, her face frowning deeper and deeper the more time passed.

The Crimson Seer observed the alignments of the stars, impossible to be seen through naked normal eyes.

A shift had been made, she realized, suppressing a curse.

The stars were no longer aligned in the way she had predicted.

Her eyes focused even more, glowing brighter. A faint trembling of her lips could be seen as she pushed past her limits to see the reasons for such a shift.

A storm of energy began to rise from the ground, swirling continuously and growing after each completed rotation.

The walls shook, the ground withered like a dying man, and blood began to trickle down from Vaela's nose.

"A god." She rasped, feeling the horrendous power veiling her eyes from seeing more than she wished.

A god had interfered in her plans, and she didn't know how or why.

Vaela sank her teeth into her lips, irritated and angry beyond understanding.

Her body was shaking, her eyes growing colder and colder as the realization sank in.

The only thing she managed to catch with her heavy scrutiny was a sound.

The sound of a Wheel turning and turning and turning.

She blinked, and all the power that had been raging wrathfully inside the room — and even beyond — settled down like a calm ocean after a stormy night.

Vaela sighed then lowered her head, lifting her right hand to her nose, her fingers brushing against the warmth blood.

BAAM!

The door of the training ground flew open, the hard steel creaked then bended inward from the strength used on it.

Anthropologist appeared, standing at the doorstep, eyes darting worriedly around the training ground.

When his brown, stony eyes settled on the nose-bleeding Vaela, they froze in momentary disbelief.

"What happened?" Anthropologist asked as his feet moved, striding toward Vaela, covering two steps in one.

Vaela, until now, didn't react. Her eyes were still on her fingers tainted with blood.

"Tell me, Anthropologist," the Crimson Seer finally said, her voice so cold that Anthropologist halted mid-step, watching her.

His breath caught in his throat without knowing why. The historian steadied himself and answered his leader,

"Yes, Seer."

"A god is too close to my affairs," she said, still looking at her blood, "close in a way that would cause us more danger than what we are already exposed to. Something I cannot allow."

Anthropologist grew serious.

"So tell me…"

Finally, Vaela turned her head to look at her subordinate, and his rocky heart jumped at the crimson, murderous eyes fixed on him.

"Tell me how one can create their own unique Divinity Pathway."

—End of Chapter 395—

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