The Witch Hunter System
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chapter-843
After seeing the last notification from the system, Vaan was suddenly enlightened.
He had always felt something wasn't right when he received the horrible visions of himself slaughtering witches, including his close and loved ones.
In those visions, his other self was completely foreign to him and held great hatred towards the witches. In fact, that other him couldn't tolerate anyone or anything that slighted him.
It was clear that he had a terrible history for him to turn out that way.
Originally, he thought his Fourth Dimensional Sense had touched upon his alternate self from a parallel timeline.However, Vaan couldn't have been more wrong.
In reality, the other version of himself was still him all along. However, his memories and all of the events leading up to the present and future were all deleted from history.
Someone or something had reversed time to his eighteenth year and erased or sealed away all of his prior memories in this life. As a result, his memories of his previous life on Earth became the dominant thought, making him believe his soul had reincarnated into another body.
However, the truth of the matter was that his soul had reincarnated through the normal cycle of rebirth all along, not through body possession.
It all made sense to him.
After all, Vanitas's life and all of his million reincarnations had always entered the cycle of rebirth as a newborn.
Why would his current life be anything different?The answer was that it wasn't.
His first eighteen years of life and the original future timeline had all been erased by some powerful Temporal Law. Moreover, there were clues suggesting he had lived much longer in the lost timeline.
After all, his current chaosverse was already on the brink of collapse. Yet, it had barely started its integration with Chaos.
Even if Outer Beings sped up the destruction of his chaosverse, how could the chaosverse be so advanced in its destruction cycle, but the merging process with Chaos had only just begun?
Just thinking about that, Vaan estimated time must have been reversed by several thousands or even tens of thousands of years at the very least.
Moreover, the change brought about by the powerful Temporal Law only seemed to have been limited to Pangea and Gehenna.
Nevertheless, the power to cover such a large space and reverse its time by countless years wasn't the kind of power anyone could possess.
Even an Empyrean God like Empyrean Scarletsea might not have been capable of such a feat, even if she did specialize in the Temporal Law, not to mention there were more than the Temporal Laws involved.
After all, Vaan was at the center of this cosmic yet forgotten change.
'Every trial I have overcome was not easy, but they weren't despairingly impossible either. My fortuitous encounters were also far too good and coincidental. Now, there's this piece of information...'
'I knew someone or something had been secretly guiding my fate, but to actually find out it was true...' Vaan mused wryly.
There was only one person who could be so capable and would give him such attentive care - The Lord of Chaos.
It seemed that after nearly two chaos cycles, the Lord of Chaos had tracked down his big brother's soul.
However, the current reincarnation of Varuna at that time was not the kind of big brother he had hoped to see. Instead, what the Lord of Chaos found was a Second Asura in the making.
'Valefor Raphna...' Vaan thought as the name suddenly came to mind.
It seemed to be the name of the original him who had been erased or sealed away by the Lord of Chaos. Given the clues, he was more likely sealed than erased.
'After the Lord of Chaos found me, he must have been disappointed and saddened to see his big brother's reincarnation become an Asura and share no resemblance to the original Lord of the Boundless Seas and Skies...'
'However, he could neither bear to send me through reincarnation again nor risk losing track of my soul, even if he most likely wouldn't have. As such, he reversed time and sealed my memories...'
'That should be the case...' Vaan speculated.
The selective awakening of his past memories only further proved his speculation.
After all, why couldn't he awaken all of his past life memories at once? Why did he only
remember his deaths and not his growth, experiences, and knowledge?
The Lord of the Boundless Seas and Skies would have vast knowledge of everything under the heavens, including Beyond True Divinity-rank cultivation methods and godly arts.
Alas, he remembered none of them in their complete form!
Vaan could only assume it was another one of the Lord of Chaos's arrangements. The Lord of Chaos was honoring one of his big brother's wishes to surpass him.
The Lord of Boundless Seas and Skies wouldn't be able to surpass the Outerverse Originator Realm if he only re-cultivated what he already knew.
That had to be why his past memories were filtered-to open up a new possibility. One that didn't rely upon past life knowledge to reach the current known apex of cultivation.
At the same time, the Lord of Chaos carefully selected such memories to prepare his mind. 'Valefor's memories must be unimaginably traumatic and awful if you had to go through all the troubles of arranging my past life memories like this, my little brother...' Vaan smiled ruefully.
'However, since I have reached this step, it must mean that I am ready to remember Valefor's past, right?'
Although there was no one to answer his question, he was clear on what to do. As such, there was no longer a reason to fear his mind getting consumed by Valefor's rage and malice.
After all, these negative feelings didn't belong to someone else; they were originally his. Thus, it shouldn't corrupt or break him.
'I have already experienced the glorious highest height and the despairing lowest low of all my past lives, and that did not twist or break my mind. So, how can the memories of a single life will?' Vaan thought.
Shortly after, he resumed his blood cultivation with the Everlasting Blood Refining Art.
The divine blood from Abaddon's left arm was extracted and refined at an even quicker pace
than before.
He had to make up for the lost time, but he was also fully capable of increasing his cultivation speed risk-free. Due to his unfamiliarity and various unknown factors, he had only been cultivating conservatively until now.
Ding!
<You have assimilated a drop of Vampire Lord Origin Blood>
<Your Divine-rank vampire Bloodline has been strengthened>
<You have gained further insights into the Blood Law>
...
As Vaan continued to raise his comprehension of the Blood Law, Valefor's rage and malice grew stronger within his heart. Evidently, increasing his understanding of the Blood Law weakened the seal of Valefor's memories.
If the Lord of Chaos never intended for him to remember his life as Valefor, Vaan didn't believe he would have left behind such obvious flaws.
After all, how could the system know he had acquired Blood Authority before but not have any
records of it?
If the time was properly reversed for the system as well, such an event should have been
treated as if it had never happened. As such, it was more likely to be an obvious flaw left behind by the Lord of Chaos to help him figure out his past.
Ding!
<You have assimilated a drop of Vampire Lord Origin Blood>
<Your Divine-rank Vampire Bloodline has been strengthened>
<You have gained further insights into the Blood Law>
Ding!
<An unknown powerful seal has been discovered in your sea of consciousness>
<Beginning to analyze the unknown powerful seal...>
...
Ding!
<The unknown powerful seal is deemed to be unbreakable by any known power below Beyond
True Divinity rank. However, it has a fixed condition for its automatic unsealing>
<The unknown powerful seal is estimated to be fully unsealed once your comprehension of
the Blood Law reaches the first stage of the Divine rank>
<Current comprehension of the Blood Law: Middle-stage Demigod rank>
...
As Vaan continued to loosen the seal with his increasing understanding of the Blood Law, even the seal's existence could no longer remain hidden in his sea of consciousness. Out of curiosity, Vaan peaked into his sea of consciousness with Fourth Dimensional Sense.
His sea of consciousness was like a universe filled with countless stars and boundless space. Each star contained vast amounts of information and knowledge, including his memories. At the same time, the stars were interconnected with each other by the light they shone and illuminated through the darkness of his sea of consciousness.
In fact, the starlight might just be information transferring at lightspeed. Nevertheless, his soul core, the essence of his being, was situated right at the very center of it
all.
Moreover, not far away from his soul core, a blood-red star had appeared, flickering with ominous and gloomy crimson light. He didn't doubt that the blood-red star had always been
in that particular spot.
It was just that up until now, all traces of his existence had been hidden and sealed away. Just by observing the blood-red star, Vaan could almost sense an incomparably thick scent of blood exuding from it. However, this sense of smell was only an illusion created by its bloody
aura.
He was silently surprised as it gave him a slight glimpse into how much blood had been
spilled in Valefor's
life.
'Even if I killed everyone in Pangea and Gehenna, I wouldn't carry such a bloody aura, right?'
Vaan wondered.
It seemed like there were a lot of secrets locked away in Valefor's memories.