Chapter 830

Chapter 63 Memory Disconnection

When the dense pine branches overhead suddenly became sparse and the green color receded to the sides of my vision, warm sunlight poured down from the blue sky in the west. The undulating hills covered in blue-green vegetation suddenly appeared in the distance.

It’s so glaring.

Under the bright spring sun, I stood at the end of the southern path, on the edge of the pine forest, gazing at the vast, desolate wilderness ahead. I couldn’t help but raise my hand to shield my eyes.

Far below the large hill, the ancient, majestic white castle that I remembered suddenly appeared, quietly sitting at the center of the wilderness. The clear lake nearby shimmered with the wind, reflecting ripples of light. At first glance, it still looked like an immortal landscape from another world.

I stared at the scene, stopping in my tracks.

In a daze, it felt like I heard singing again.

[A silver moon hung over the azure lake, hot charcoal warming cold tea.]

The singing sounded like a chorus of knights, or like a young girl dancing on a terrace, singing alone with a distant echo, her voice mingling with the sound of a woman’s shrill scream. For a few seconds, it lingered in my mind.

“Danger.”

Only when I heard the low voice of the female swordsman did I snap out of the ethereal singing and memories. “Something’s off.”

I turned my head and saw Anacelis, who was carrying a bundle of deer skin, walk up to me. Her eyes were fixed on the distant castle as she murmured, “Compared to before, the feeling is stronger—like being watched.”

“Mm.”

I nodded thoughtfully. My head ached.

The headache that I hadn’t felt for a long time seemed to return faintly as she spoke. It only lasted for a moment.

I couldn’t help but rub my forehead.

Although I wasn’t sure what the female swordsman meant by her feeling, I did sense the strange and eerie atmosphere. After gathering myself, I looked back at the castle.

From here, I could vaguely see the familiar outer walls. In my memory, the blue and white flags that once fluttered in the wind were now gone.

Instead, there were the sacred church’s cross banners. Several gold and white flags stood tall, but some had fallen. The walls were empty, and from afar, it seemed no one was there. There were no white birds in the sky either. It didn’t look like the heavily guarded fortress that Reckt had described, where even flying in would be impossible.

This clearly didn’t make sense.

And it wasn’t just the castle. The surroundings were also odd.

I remembered that this area used to be a vast wilderness, with our circular pine forest beyond it, and nothing else. But now, around the castle, there were clusters of barracks on the grassland. Outside the barracks were more scattered tents, arranged haphazardly in every shape and form, as if hastily erected without any plan, forming a temporary campsite around the castle.

Such a massive camp should have been bustling with people, but it was eerily quiet, not even the hint of anyone.

Inside and outside the city, it was all silent.

I

I didn’t see a single person. “Hey, Sword Ghost.”

I called out softly to the female swordsman beside me, feeling an indescribable, ominous sensation rising in my heart. “Hmm?”

“When did you last come here?” “About half a month ago.”

The female swordsman frowned, straining to think, but her eyes gradually showed confusion. Two seconds later, she turned to look at me, puzzled. “Maybe half a month ago, or maybe a month ago. I don’t know what happened, but it seems like I can’t quite remember…”

I looked at her, opened my mouth.

I wanted to curse, but in the end, I said nothing.

“Say it out loud. Could you really forget something like this?”

“What kind of head do you have?”

I was truly getting fed up with her: “Then you should remember what the surroundings of the castle were like when you arrived, right? It couldn’t have been as quiet and still as it is now, could it?”

…

The female swordsman looked towards the castle again.

She seemed to be pondering something, and after a moment, she replied, “At that time, there were still many people in the settlements outside the city. Those monks and refugees occasionally encountered knight patrols coming out from the castle. Although there was an indescribable atmosphere that always made me feel something wasn’t quite right, they were all still there.”

“Are you sure?” I narrowed my eyes.

“Yes, I remember,” the female swordsman nodded confidently.

But then, her face showed doubt once more, as if she wanted to say something but hesitated. “Just say it out loud.” I scratched my face impatiently.

“Oh.”

She hesitated for a while before finally speaking honestly: “I just thought about it, and suddenly realized that I can’t remember where I stayed before.”

“What kind of forgetfulness is this?” I frowned.

“I can’t recall the place I stayed temporarily outside the castle,” the female swordsman’s expression was very strange. Her childish face seemed to be squeezed by great confusion, almost wrinkling into a bun-like shape. “Many things now seem hazy and unreal, like a dream.”

Her words left me equally puzzled: “So, you can’t remember how you spent your time outside the castle, or which direction your camp was in? East of the castle? West of the castle?”

“It’s both.”

The female swordsman seemed to be in deep confusion. Her brain capacity obviously wasn’t enough, and when she answered me, she seemed distracted, almost talking to herself: “I was probably staying in an old man’s tent. He was a refugee who came alone, his children died on the way to the northern region. He didn’t have a tent, so he let me stay with him. Then…”

“What happened next? Oh, yes, one night, the old man took out his only bottle of wine. He said I reminded him of his granddaughter. He also said he had seen divine manifestations on the walls of the Silent Castle. I originally wanted to go into the city to check it out, but found I couldn’t enter. How many days did I spend outside the castle? And when did I leave?”

“The old man told me his name, but what was it?”

She said this, her eyes revealing a hint of unease and fear: “I really can’t remember.”

I looked at the side profile of the female swordsman, listening to her muttering words, the impatience in my heart quickly dissipated, replaced by a chilling feeling creeping up my spine.

I realized it.

It wasn’t because of confusion, nor was it because of stupidity; the memory of the sword ghost was truly problematic.

She had forgotten many things that happened outside the castle, not even remembering when she arrived or when she left, who she had contact with, how long she had stayed here. Many experiences that normal people would not easily forget, just within a month, or even half a month,

she couldn’t remember them at all.

The memory of the sword ghost clearly had gaps, but she wasn’t crazy.

Apart from being somewhat dull, not liking to talk, and not being good at interacting with others, she didn’t seem to have symptoms of amnesia.

The sword ghost was a person with a normal mind.

A person with a normal mind wouldn’t forget so many things that happened recently unless

unless something had disturbed, even erased, her memories to some extent, causing her to completely forget those events.

In some unknown way that left no trace.

And, right here.