"How did you find this out?" The woman with long white hair sat at a table within a cubic room. In front of her, another woman with a deathly look in her eyes seemed tired of everything, like a doll sitting there, just waiting to be moved.
The room had nothing, or almost nothing: just a bed and a desk, no windows, doors, or sounds, only her, a table, and study papers, many of them.
"I just found out, mother," she said. However, Alice couldn't understand anymore what all this was about, why her daughter suddenly became like this.
It had been ten years already; Morgana was like this, like an empty shell, a doll. She did nothing, said nothing, ate nothing; just studied. Every day, she studied all the books that appeared.
"Morgana," Alice said, staring into Morgana's dead golden eyes. For a second, she bit her tongue. Despite not being the best of mothers, she loved Morgana very much. She was her first daughter, all she had. Unlike her other two daughters, Morgana was special.
"Are you telling me you just found out how the magic core works and don't want to tell me how?" Alice questioned, and Morgana nodded.
"If you're so interested, bring Dante back to life," Morgana said. Despite knowing her mother was powerful, she wouldn't submit to this woman until Dante reappeared.
"He's dead, Morgana. It's been ten years," Alice said, in a somber tone. Of course, she had tried to revive Dante several times, so many times that she didn't even know what to do anymore. She had researched in every way, every method, contacted friends, partners, and even primal entities of spirits.
She had spoken with elves, dwarves, vampires; she had even tried to make Vlad reveal the secrets of souls, but she had not succeeded.
"I've tried everything..." Alice said as she held her own head. She was tired. Her life had become a living hell when Dante died. Seeing her daughter in this state only made her feel more guilty. Her daughter was dying, not on the outside, but on the inside.
With each visit, Morgana became more and more distant. Each of Morgana's discoveries made Alice question if she was the queen of the witches or Morgana.
In those ten years, Morgana had delved into all the witchcraft. She had read all the books in the sacred library of Avalon, reviewed all the theory of magic, and even created a new one, merging Eastern and Western teachings. She had unraveled the core, created new spells, and complete magical fusion; she had learned about runes and how they could affect the world.
She had all the knowledge of Avalon in her head. And yet, after all this, all these years of constant despair, completely reliving her life and teachings, having the worst dreams she could have every day, seeing Dante die every time, she simply couldn't bring him back to life.
Morgana Arcano, currently the smartest witch who ever lived, surpassing even the queen of the witches in just ten years, was unable to bring the dead back to life, no matter how hard she tried.
"Daughter, it's time for you to leave," Alice said, looking at her daughter with teary eyes. "Please, my daughter, I can't bear to see you like this anymore." For the first time in two hundred years, the Witch Queen cried for something. A sad, melancholic, and lonely feeling.
Alice couldn't bear it anymore. Her lungs and chest ached whenever she saw her daughter. Her years of coldness were completely gone. Not even Morgana expected this. She watched as the woman collapsed onto the table, crying. She could hear Alice's heavy breathing, and for a moment, just a moment, she thought she could accept that Dante was gone.
But she couldn't. She couldn't give up like that. Even if the world led her to death to find him again, she would bring him back to life, whether by fair means or foul.
"I'm sorry for being a bad daughter, my mother," Morgana said, and Alice's small sobs disappeared as she stood up, her makeup smudged and her eyes teary, letting small drops of water fall.
"I'm the terrible mother," Alice said, also letting small droplets fall onto her skin.
Morgana couldn't empathize with this. She had been through similar scenes, crying in front of her mother for attention, but Alice had belittled her to continue her research. Truly, for Morgana, Alice had been a terrible mother... But at the same time, she could be an amazing mother if she wanted to. Morgana stood up from her chair and hugged her mother. She didn't say anything, she didn't need to.
Her mother already knew the answer she would give.
"I still can't believe he's gone. In fact, the feeling that he's still here gets stronger and stronger... especially in the past few weeks, his presence has been haunting me," Morgana recounted as she stroked her mother's hair.
Morgana thought for a moment about various things in her life, many good and bad moments, especially with her late half-brother. Her life had been relived a total of 3698 times. Every time she got tired, she slept, and a new cycle began. When she woke up, a cycle ended. This was the sealing curse, something Alice had done to try to help Morgana overcome, but it was in vain.
Every time she relived Dante's last moment, she woke up. Each cycle she lived.
"I can't forget him, mother. He's a part of me, he's my love, only mine, my man, my husband, my very existence, he's everything," Morgana commented. Her eyes were round abysses that made Alice recoil. Alice already knew that; after all, she too had loved a man in the same way Morgana loved Dante.
Morgana was no longer just a simple woman in love, a woman obsessed with her love, a love so strong that it would make her give up the whole world for him. Then, finally, something stirred within her, when she thought of her worried mother and Dante.
"Alright," Morgana said, raising her arms. A magical cycle emerged, a different magical cycle that Alice had never seen before, a unique cycle formation with six layers, unlike anything she had ever seen.
Morgana uttered something akin to a command, and the cube world began to shatter. Everything started to crumble, and Alice realized that the artifact began to have its mana altered, a different mana. A sort of shutdown chain began to happen, and when she looked, she saw Morgana's Mental World. After ten years, for the first time, she accessed her daughter's mental world.
But her mental world... was inert. Thousands of magic circles in the skies formed the landscape, various strange things, magics being created and shaped, modes of production, different magic circles. The entire world was replaced by magic circles, as if she were a galaxy and the magic circles were the worlds inhabiting it.
And in a second, everything shattered like a mirror, and the normal world, her office, was seen in a new light. She could see new sources of mana; the very existences generated mana. The world, in itself, was just mana.
"I'm showing you how I see now," Morgana said beside her mother. "This is how advanced I've become in mana perception."
"When I explored mana, I thought, why do we have cores if they aren't properly strengthened? Why are we strong yet weak at the same time? Why does the Mana blessing seem nothing compared to a Vampire born with a strong core?"
"The limitation of this world was broken at some point, and all this became possible, the core's growth during complete absorption. In the past, we only absorbed mana and stored it, refined it, and used it, correct?"
"But what would you do if I told you we can create more cores? If these cores could level up like an ascension?"
"The problem has always been the scarcity of mana; our world wasn't really mana-rich before, but recently, at least for the past ten years, a lot has changed, don't you think?" Morgana questioned, and Alice fell silent. Morgana now seemed alive, it seemed like she returned to who she was from one moment to the next.
Alice couldn't be happier seeing her daughter explaining to her again how the world worked. She chose to ignore her thoughts and listen to her.
"What do you mean by change?" she questioned.
"The skies of Nighsphere are clearer, days pass slower, new beasts have appeared, and world power as a whole has grown almost four times. We, however, remain stronger, don't we?"
"Still, no Witch has advanced to the next realm. They all remain stagnant, simply because they don't understand what to do."
"The Mana Core Cultivation you taught," Alice said, and Morgana agreed. "When I taught that, I wasn't sure if it was correct, but it seems it worked, right? You're stronger," Morgana said, and Alice agreed.
"So, why are you-"
"For Dante. I believe I can only revive him when I reach a sufficient level to ascend or cultivate. I think we can evolve the world level, with complete improvement. Maybe it's possible to bring-"
"So, all of this was to bring Dante back? What do I do with you... What did this boy do to you?" Alice said as she massaged her temple. She thought her daughter was explaining something sensibly, but no, it was just an excuse to talk about Dante again. She couldn't stand her daughter doing this anymore, every time she did this!
"I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" Alice screamed, and the magicless and partially broken cube exploded.
"NOW GO FIND SOMETHING TO DO! YOU DON'T COME BACK TO YOUR SEALING! I CAN'T TAKE YOU IN MY LIFE ANYMORE! UNBEARABLE DAUGHTER! GO FIND SOMETHING TO DO!!" She yelled so loudly that everyone in Avalon's castle could hear. Not only from the castle, but part of the city surrounding the castle heard too.
"Well, at least now she leaves me alone," Morgana said sighing and turned to her mother's desk. "I still can't sit here, I have a Vampire to revive. Just because Avalon doesn't have such knowledge doesn't mean the world around doesn't," Morgana said and left through the door, without altering her appearance or anything.
Of course, she didn't know that her mother was also researching how to bring Dante back, but she would do it even if they didn't ask, after all,
Morgana was Dante's, and Dante was Morgana's. She never allowed Dante to die, and unlike Valentina, who couldn't overcome grief and trained mentally to erase the world, Morgana was completely determined.
And if being political would bring knowledge to reincarnate or resurrect her husband, she would do it at all costs.
"Oh, it feels good to smell the world again. Now, let's try to find a small piece of trash that colluded with my husband's death."
"HEY, YOU BITCHES! I, YOUR MOTHER, MORGANA SCARLET, AM BACK! COME BOW TO ME!"
The cry echoed throughout the witches' city in a great burst of magic, so powerful that many confused it with the Queen's own, a deep cry of pure anger.
Morgana Scarlet. This was the name she took, completely abandoning the Arcano surname and being, even after death, only of one man: Dante Scarlet.