Chapter 464

Blood.

Fire.

Screams.

Pain...

Miriam woke up crying from her nightmare, tears streaming uncontrollably, blurring her vision of the person in front of her.

"Awake?" the person asked, handing something to her. "Drink this water. You're drenched in cold sweat and need to rehydrate."

Miriam was too frightened to move or even cry. Today, she had encountered more strangers than in her short life, and they all brought an incomprehensible fear.

Murphy sighed. She had been through too much.

Miriam had mentioned that Murphy had saved her when she was a child, and it turned out to be this moment.

To feign his own death and lower the gods' guard so they would use the magic net, Murphy had left a charred corpse after a battle with the gods of Danu and then initiated a time jump to escape.

Even though the gods might suspect the body, Murphy had completely vanished, and they would soon forget about him.

This time jump spanned less than a hundred years. Murphy intended to investigate the current state of the magic net but instead found himself witnessing an attempt to murder a child.

Naturally, he couldn't ignore such a situation, leading to the earlier scene.

After saving the girl, he noticed her hair color and realized she might be Miriam.

The randomness of time jumps was high. Although Murphy could roughly control the duration, he couldn't pinpoint a specific day or location. The coincidence of appearing at the execution site at such a critical moment seemed fortuitous.

However, considering that Miriam had told him about her rescue, this event felt like a destined inevitability.

From an ordinary person's perspective, the paradoxes involved could be maddening, but Murphy, having traversed time multiple times, had grown accustomed to such occurrences.

Time was continuous and unified; the past, present, and future didn't truly exist separately—they all existed simultaneously.

People, due to limited perception and coexisting within the same general time flow, had the illusion of time moving steadily forward.

In Miriam's timeline, Murphy had saved her first, allowing her to later tell Murphy about the rescue, aligning with common logic.

In Murphy's timeline, he felt that Miriam's telling him about the rescue came first, leading to the actual event—like a prophecy fulfilling itself or a destined event.

This was why Miriam could become a prophet using information from Sophia.

However, Miriam's current state was concerning.

Such trauma could destroy a child's spirit.

Murphy considered this and extended a hand to her. "Altering someone's memory is a bit unethical, but think of it as a form of psychological therapy."

He then used his magic to read and modify Miriam's memories, blurring today's events and reducing the emotional intensity associated with them. She would remember the basic facts but forget most of the painful details.

Murphy then teleported with the now-sleeping Miriam to a forest in Cornwall.

The small wooden hut he remembered was still there, looking much newer, as if recently built.

This was the place Miriam had referred to as her "grandfather's" residence.

Murphy had many things to attend to and couldn't care for a child, so he thought of the grandfather who had raised Miriam.

As Murphy approached the hut with Miriam, he heard a low shout, "Stop! This is my place. Leave now!"

By a large tree in the forest stood a hunter with long hair and a beard, looking like a wild man. He had drawn his longbow and was aiming at Murphy.

"Hello, Martin."

Murphy's magic instantly penetrated the old hunter's memories, revealing his life.

He had once served as a longbowman for a lord, but after the lord's castle was captured, he sought a new life. His wife and two children had died from the plague, leading him to live as a recluse in the mountains.

Having seen the hunter's life, Murphy knew he was inherently kind and, being a recluse, would be ideal for keeping Miriam's magic from causing trouble.

Ignoring the hunter's bow, Murphy stepped forward, provoking Martin to shout another warning, "Stop, or you'll get hurt!"

Still, Murphy did not stop. Martin adjusted his aim and shot an arrow at a tree next to Murphy.

Martin only intended to scare him away. Even if Murphy didn't dodge, the arrow wouldn't harm him.

But to Martin's astonishment, the arrow stopped a meter before Murphy, slowly turning around and flying back towards him.

Startled, Martin instinctively tried to dodge, but the arrow was already there, stopping just two handbreadths from his forehead, quivering as if ready to pierce his skull.

Faced with this surreal scene, Martin sensibly dropped his bow and raised his hands.

Murphy approached, handing the girl to the bewildered hunter, who took her reflexively.

"Take care of her," Murphy said succinctly.

Martin looked at the sleeping girl, still confused. He saw Murphy turn to leave and wanted to follow, but the arrow hovering in front of him deterred him. He watched as Murphy vanished in a swirl of distortion.

At the same time, the arrow stopped quivering, turning into pure gold from the tip down, eventually falling heavily to the ground.

A distant voice from the mysterious man reached him, "This is your reward."

Murphy couldn't yet directly transform other materials into gold—it involved atomic-level conversions beyond his current magical precision. Forcing it would require immense power and wouldn't be as effortless.

However, he possessed a pelt that produced gold consistently. Using a sleight of hand to swap the arrow with a golden one was simple.

Weighing over a pound, the arrow was ample compensation for raising a child.

As a precaution, Murphy planted a mental seed in Martin's mind but didn't activate it.

He trusted Martin's inherent kindness to take care of the girl, with the mental seed as insurance against extreme situations.

Having arranged for Miriam's care, Murphy recited a spell, but nothing happened.

As expected, there was no magic net coverage nearby.

Despite being close to Camelot, where he had set the first magic net node, he couldn't sense it.

This wasn't surprising, as he hadn't felt the magic net's presence when first appearing in Camelot.

Could the gods have discovered and destroyed the magic net's trap?

It seemed unlikely.

To confirm, Murphy knew it wouldn't be difficult. As the creator of the magic net nodes, he had left numerous backdoors. He could access the magic net through unconventional means.

Adjusting his magical frequencies to a high and narrow range, he scanned the area, quickly locking onto a direction.

There, he connected to a magic net node.

Calculating the distance, Murphy knew where it was.

London.

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