Inside the villa, Theresa's group—
"That expression of mine back then really was like that. I never expected Natasha would be the final obstacle. Even if the last trial was me, or Theresa, I would've understood it better..."
Bronie crossed her legs and muttered with a hint of frustration.
She had gone through this exact trial herself.
And back then, she couldn't understand either—why Natasha would get involved in this murky mess. Clearly... Theresa was the one raised and trained by the Taixu Sect.
Natasha, strictly speaking, wasn't even considered part of the Taixu Sect.
Yet she came willingly.
How... troublesome!
"So, Boss, what you said earlier... might actually come true, right?"
Kiana's expression was strangely serious. The smile she had earlier vanished instantly.
She admitted it—maybe she'd laughed too loudly just now.
"..."
Luo Mo tilted his head, not answering. But his silence was an answer in itself.
Indeed, he had to thank the Queen of Luck Kiana for her selfless support.
As for what results would come from it... hopefully Kiana would be happy regardless.
She had helped Mei, not Luo Mo himself—so he felt no pressure or regret.
"Well, being able to help Mei is good enough,"
she said with a mix of grumbling and satisfaction.
----
Back in the game:
"Why?! Why is it her?!"
"She doesn't want you to get the Secret Key.
And I don't want you leaving Skyhold.
Having aligned intentions—that's all this is."
Raven waved her crimson claws calmly as she spoke.
"To deal with a little brat who hasn't improved at all over the past eight years, and only knows how to be a burden to others... What I'm doing now is more than enough."
She smirked, her tone cold and mocking—more like deliberate provocation.
"No! I've grown!"
Bronie shouted, stubbornly facing the person who had always treated her like a child.
She... wasn't going to change what she had to do, not for anything.
Even if it was Natasha —it still didn't matter.
Raven raised her blood-red claw, pointing directly at Bronie.
Bronie hesitated for a moment, then lifted her gun toward Cioara.
In the blink of an eye, electricity sparked and fire flashed.
They locked eyes.
Each understood the other—and steeled their hearts.
The claws tore through conjured illusions.
Drones lit up the entire training field with beamfire.
The ground trembled and cracked.
Both women darted through the chaos with agility—dodging, leaping, then clashing.
They were the same kind of person—neither willing to quietly settle for an ordinary life.
"Tch. Natasha... your combat skills haven't dulled one bit."
"the name Raven... is just a mask. You never really wanted to be the boss forever, did you? You were always still taking mercenary jobs in secret... right?"
"Ah—seems like we really are pretty alike... We're the type who need constant thrill and challenge to feel alive."
As they wrestled hand-to-hand, Bronie smirked coldly.
Raven blocked her with her clawed gauntlet.
Their faces were mere inches apart, strength clashing fiercely, neither backing down.
"So what if I am? That doesn't matter."
"You can still live freely in Skyhold City. You can stay with Raven's or choose to leave... but—"
Natasha's voice grew colder.
She hadn't relaxed at all.
Yet in her eyes, the pain was obvious—and Bronie saw all of it.
She didn't want things to be this way either.
But if this dragged on any further, there'd be no end.
Bronie's safety might become impossible to guarantee.
Bronie sneered, finishing her sentence for her:
"But leaving Skyhold... isn't part of that 'freedom' you speak of. Is it?"
"..."
Raven didn't answer.
Her silence said everything.
"But the Skyhold of today... to me...
It's just like the Taixu Sect of back then."
"Why can't it be different this time... Cioara...?"
Bronie's eyes filled with frustration.
She wanted Natasha to understand.
She wanted her support...
But the gap between them—was difficult to cross.
They had argued over this more times than she could count...
What she didn't expect was that at the Taixu Sect, Natasha would accept the mission to stop her.
Peace... had never been what Bronie truly wanted.
And freedom should never be something held in chains.
Natasha looked at her.
The blade in her hand glinted coldly under the light.
She was silent—as if recalling something from eight years ago...
She had once passed by the Taixu Sect, and a child had stood in her way—
"I want to leave this place. I want to explore the world outside the Taixu Sect. To meet more powerful people... to experience more amazing things..."
Little Bronie had said that.
And afterward, Natasha had paid the price to help her go.
At the time, Raven had thought, "Well, I suppose that technically counts as following mercenary rules."
She couldn't even remember why she had accepted that mission—maybe she'd just been out of it.
That arena battle behind the Taixu Sect with Bai Dang...
She probably came out on the losing end.
But now, the image of that young girl slowly overlapped with the Bronie standing before her—
those same eyes, that same stubborn resolve...
"Ah..."
Raven let out a nearly invisible smile.
Looking back now, that mission from eight years ago... maybe it wasn't a failure after all.
Bronie summoned a series of light cannons nearby, unloading a barrage of bullets toward Raven.
She couldn't fully defend against the onslaught—some struck her flexible armor and scattered across the ground.
The battle between them continued.
But the bet—had already succeeded.
No matter who won or lost this fight, Raven believed she had still helped Bronie.
And that was enough.
----
On the training field, smoke and fire still filled the air.
The two continued to clash.
The player was controlling Bronie, and the direction of the battle clearly leaned in her favor—until a victor emerged.
[The Bronie of eight years ago and the Bronie of today… they're the same.]
[Indeed, Skyhold City now feels exactly like the Taixu Sect did back then—no different.]
[Raven really is the good guy here, isn't she?]
-----
Back in the villa–
Bronie herself had been the one controlling her character during the game, and she still found the adorable rabbit-girl role quite fun.
"Ah, in this game of mine, I've actually gone through it twice now," she said while stretching.
Her slim waist looked even more graceful under the room's lighting.
The indoor heating made it comfortable—explaining why she was dressed so lightly.
"So... why are you wearing the same outfit as your in-game avatar? It's super weird,"
Theresa said with a hint of embarrassment.
Wearing the exact same costume as your character in the game just felt strange.
Like someone had walked straight out of a screen—
That kind of uncanny, too-real experience wasn't exactly comfortable.
"Because... dressing like this is just really fun?"
Bronie replied casually, a mischievous glint flashing in her eyes.
Her gaze drifted toward Bronya.
Even though she had lost her bet against her and accepted defeat, she still refused to call her "big sister."
She was just trying to exploit a technicality.
"Freedom... thrill-seeking... yep, you're totally the opposite of Bronya,"
Bronya observed, frowning slightly.
"I don't think that's your true nature," she continued.
"From those game events we played, you clearly have a personality very similar to your in-game character. That old experiment only suppressed your rationality and emotions."
"Kind of like... we both love games and have decent hacking skills. Doesn't that prove my point?"
Bronie grinned, tossing the comment out lightly.
"..."
Bronya fell silent, staring at her. She had no real comeback.
(T/C: I know one Bronya who's different)
"Raven's still the same mercenary she always was. Hasn't changed one bit... You're both really stubborn,"
Luo Mo said, nodding thoughtfully with a smile.
"Why does it always have to end in a fight? Were you two never close?"
Kiana asked.
"And hey! This time the event doesn't even include me or Mei, Boss!"
"You really want to appear that badly?"
Luo Mo said, slightly dizzy from how eagerly Kiana had just shaken his arm.
She was nothing like Raven, who always seemed to want to run away at the mere sight of him—
as if he were some kind of wanted criminal.
But how could that be?
"Uhhh..."
Kiana hesitated for a moment.
She probably didn't actually mean it like that.
What she really wanted was a moment to shine—not to mess up on screen.
But in this event... did she really have a spotlight moment?
...
Inside the Company
"If one of those children wants to run away from home like this, what would you do?"
Su Lu asked curiously.
"Ah, I wouldn't go making trouble for myself. Who wants to take in some troublesome little brat?"
Raven pouted.
"But I get it now—why she looked at me so strangely the first time we met."
Though her tone was indifferent, there wasn't any real annoyance in her eyes— She just calmly watched the events on the screen, as if they had nothing to do with her.
----
The battle soon came to an end—Bronie emerged victorious.
Natasha had been knocked to the ground.
During the fight, Natasha gradually sensed something deeper behind all this, making her feel even more uneasy.
But what confused her most was—
There was nothing to gain from this for Fu Hua or the Taixu Sect.
Unless...
As expected, once the battle was over, Fu Hua approached her, stopped just a step in front of her, and said:
"The barrier around Skyhold City today is no different from the rules that once trapped the Taixu Sect."
"Back then, you were the key that opened one of Taixu's gates. Now, you too can become the key to unlocking Skyhold."
"You might not know this, but after you left, many others took you as an example. They chose to leave the Taixu Sect and step into the arena... Just like you."
"Natasha persuaded me because of this."
"Because among them... there could be a second, a third, even countless more Bronies."
"I have no reason to stop them."
Fu Hua, the leader of the Taixu Sect, spoke sincerely.
Her eyes flickered—was it agreement, or reluctant acceptance of reality?
No rule or boundary can truly bind the will of the people.
Eventually, she personally abolished that restriction—
the rule that no one could enter or leave the Taixu Sect freely.
She placed her hope in Bronie, just like before.
The rent she gave Raven was, in fact, one of the secret keys.
And now, all three secret keys had fallen into Bronie's hands.
In this city sealed under the dome of the sky, no one was willing to break the old ways.
So, everyone simply passed the task to a child who chased freedom.
It was an almost comical situation—yet it really happened.
The mighty powers didn't want to do the hard work.
In the end, it was the rebellious little hacker who completed the mission.
----
At Theresa's Villa
"Huh? So Taixu Sect and Serpent Eye basically just gave her the secret keys? That easy?"
Theresa sounded surprised.
She had expected an intense emotional showdown between the two, but it turned out Fu Hua already had this intention.
She just went along with it.
And Natasha
She wasn't even faking a fight... but something still felt off.
"No no no," Bronie said, wagging her finger.
"Even Divine City Technologies was thinking the same. Otherwise, after that chaos, they wouldn't have let me go so easily."
"And seriously—how could they not realize the secret keys had been switched out for so long?"
Bronie gave a light chuckle.
"Natasha wasn't wrong. In the end, the affairs of the powerful all fell onto me, a small fry.
If I hadn't been dragged back to that world and seen how miserable the outsiders were, I'd probably still be complaining about it."
"That's why no organization wants to do things that require effort with no reward,"
she said with a nod, clearly understanding the logic now.
"Without some overpowered ninja like in the fantasy stories, real-world problems are just simpler to solve."
"So, all three of those obstacles were actually pushing you to finish the job, and none of them said it outright?"
Kallen looked stunned, then gave a helpless smile.
"Totally possible, isn't it? No one wants to be the one held responsible."
"..."
Kallen didn't say anything more.
But judging from the way she gently stroked Theresa's head, she clearly wasn't at peace inside.
"Exactly," Luo Mo added.
"All three organizations had the same idea—they just made the same decision separately: hand the secret keys to Bronie. Shows how much everyone trusts her.
She's basically the Schicksal heroine now!"
"Staring at me like that—if you're going to praise me, do it properly,"
Bronie huffed, pouting.
"Otherwise, I'll file a report on you later."
She'd report that Luna, Luo Mo and someone else had "done something suspicious."
And then she'd report that Luna, he and another person (Kongming) had also done something...
As for Irene?
That one she still couldn't figure out.
And Theresa?
Well, considering someone else shared the same name as her, she'd let it slide.
Anyway, she didn't really expect to win this one.
...
On the final part of her journey, she walked alongside Theresa. Together, they took a stroll, sharing their final farewell.
"Will you go look at the sky beyond the curtain of the starry void for me?" Theresa asked seriously, her gaze fixed on the distant stars, on the barrier of shimmering light... and tears couldn't help but fall.
She had clearly agreed, clearly wanted to leave as well, yet she stopped here…
It wasn't that she feared the dangers ahead—
It was the fear that…
Beyond that celestial curtain, there might not even be such a starry sky waiting at all.
"Mm, I promise you. I will go and see the world beyond that barrier… and then…"
"I'll take you with me to see the sky beyond the starry void."
"I also know… I'll help take care of Raven and Natasha for you…"
"Cough, cough—hey, brat, I don't need you to take care of me,"
Raven's voice suddenly rang out.
Before either of them had noticed, she had already pushed herself up, leaning on her head, eyes twinkling with amusement as she looked at Bronie and Theresa.
She wasn't so old that she couldn't still move.
For a long moment, when one is face-to-face with those they know best, silence takes over instead of words.
In the end, she still couldn't give Natasha a perfect goodbye. The lingering regret between them turned into shared smiles.
"Then go, brat. Don't worry about me. I haven't fallen so far that I need you to look after me."
She watched Bronie walk away—
Like a parent watching a child leave home, leave the place she once called home…
Until even her silhouette disappeared from sight.
Bronie didn't look back.
She only raised a single thumb behind her, giving a silent sign of praise.
She was about to leave Celestial Dome City, leave the barrier, leave this place once called "home"…
To venture beneath a whole new starry sky.
___
(T/N: quick warning or attention.
If you like reading this fanfic, then I suggest you Fast, Full, finsih Reading it until the end.
Why? Fear this Translated fanfic get copyright or something like that (despair or gone.)
I don't know honestly, but my friend told me it can... happen?. Anyway, I'm saying this just in case. I feel sorry for those how couldn't finish reading it.