novelsite Chapter 1719 Bast's Past
Chapter 1719 Bast's Past
Chapter 1719 Bast's Past
No one is born noble, a belief that Bastet has always held.
Bastet was born in the Holy Jackal Empire, which is Egypt in the conventional sense, at the end of the 16th century.
At that time, the Holy Jackal Empire was suffering the worst riots and invasions in centuries, with war raging everywhere and the people in misery.
In this environment, Bastet's parents died when she was three years old in a war that was commonplace in the Holy Jackal Empire.
Bast became an orphan.
And so, a three-year-old girl began to struggle for survival amidst the flames of war and piles of mud.
As the years went by, Bastet gradually became aware of her differences. She was stronger, more agile, and had more stamina than other children, and her night vision was better than her daytime vision.
Even the older children and adults couldn't do anything about her, and by the time she was fourteen, Buster had become a saintess of a secret cult in the Holy Jackal Empire.
This secret order arose during a time of war, embodying the hopes and fantasies of many suffering people. They claimed to be servants of the Lord of Night, walking the earth.
Bastet was found by these cultists in a dilapidated shack amidst the ruins. At that time, she had led a large group of homeless orphans to occupy the ruins of a village abandoned by war and had driven away the ill-intentioned adults.
The believers came to this place and witnessed firsthand that the rumors were true; the girl was indeed the darling of the night.
She moved through the darkness like an incredibly agile cat, her eyes even gleaming like jewels in the darkness. The creatures of the night submitted to her; bats gathered fruit for her, jackals hunted small animals for her, and even venomous snakes willingly became the loyal guardians of this dilapidated shack.
The followers knelt and pleaded with Pastor, promising to take good care of all the homeless orphans under her protection. Pastor then oversaw the followers sending the children to good families for adoption or to the church, and she also thoroughly investigated the nature of the church and finally determined that it was indeed actively doing good. Therefore, she agreed to become the saint of this secret church.
The name of this secret cult is "Eternal Night Cat," which is also the name of Bast's ultimate conceptual entity in the distant future.
Under Bastet's leadership, the Night Cats grew rapidly, constantly recruiting the impoverished people they had helped into the order or making them their strong support.
Several more years passed, and the rulers of the Holy Jackal Empire and the surrounding invading countries gradually took notice of the existence of the Eternal Night Cat and Bastet.
At first, these nobles scoffed at the miracle, believing it to be nothing more than a bunch of peasants concocting a scam to swindle money. But as the spies provided increasingly detailed accounts, and even as some spies defected and joined the Eternal Night Cats, these nobles finally realized that the miracle existed in the soil and darkness buried by war in the Holy Jackal Empire.
Despite being invaded for many years, the Holy Jackal Empire, which still retained its strength, immediately set its sights on the ever-growing Eternal Night Cat.
That year, Bastet was seventeen years old.
That day, the sun blazed high in the sky.
The army completely surrounded the headquarters of the Eternal Night Cat Cult. Arrows rained down from the sky, and catapults hurled flaming stones at the houses. The cultists and the poor people they had taken in were engulfed in flames as they screamed and fled, leaving charred corpses everywhere.
The nobles admired the pleasing scenery, chatting and laughing among themselves, and planning how they would use and train the beautiful saintess after they captured her, making her a medal of honor for the royal family of the Holy Jackal Empire.
Foolish as they are, they don't even realize that the sky, which was originally bright red by the flames and the blazing sun, is being rapidly shrouded in darkness.
The soldiers found the catapult stuck and were about to check when they discovered that they were also unable to move.
The darkness in the sky spread rapidly like thick ink, staining the heavens and earth black.
Subsequently, the soldiers and the elites discovered that the 'shadow' that had accompanied them since birth had betrayed them.
The shadows acted autonomously, but this time the intruders found themselves becoming 'shadows,' forced to move like puppets, following the shadows' every move.
The invaders were forced to take up arms and charge at the unapproachable nobles and royalty.
The catapult changed direction, and the projectiles were no longer wreathed in flames but in thick black shadows.
That night, the Holy Jackal Empire was nearly destroyed.
At that moment, Buster awakened to her concept—[Shadow].
The survivors of the Holy Jackal Empire trembled inside the house after the disaster, only daring to open the door when the sun rose.
Before the palace gates, where the stench of blood permeated the air, all the members of the Holy Jackal Empire's royal family knelt in a row on the ground, their bodies mutilated and lifeless.
On this day, the Holy Jackal Empire collapsed, the Eternal Night Cat Order was destroyed, and Saint Bastet died.
When history becomes a story, when a story becomes a legend, and when a legend becomes a myth, the destruction of the Holy Jackal Empire in one night four hundred years ago becomes a myth circulating among the people.
The saint in the story shares the same name as Bastet, the cat goddess in mythology, but in the end, not even her body could be found.
Some say that before she died, she prayed to the Lord of Darkness to bring down calamity and punish the royal family and army of the Holy Jackal Empire.
Some say she didn't actually die, but instead lived in anonymity, wandering the world until she finally died of old age in a remote village.
In fact, Bastet lived in anonymity in human society for more than four hundred years.
From the moment she awakened to the concept, her appearance was fixed at what she looked like at seventeen. She hid herself, occasionally performing good deeds without leaving a trace, and became increasingly adept at using her own concept.
But Bastet's world could no longer contain her existence, just as a small wine glass could not hold the water of an entire lake.
So, at the invitation of the organizers, she left her hometown and embarked on a journey of games for outsiders.
No one is more noble than anyone else; this has always been Bastet's belief, and she has always lived by it.
Bastet's concept of shadow could have forcibly seized and copied the target's shadow, but she imposed restrictions on herself, only allowing herself to copy the target's shadow with the target's permission, and never attempting to forcibly seize someone else's shadow even at the cost of death.
In every world she arrives in, she savors the beauty and punishes the darkness and evil. When she encounters strangers in distress, she spares no effort to help them, even though many of these strangers reveal their evil and chaotic nature after being rescued and even turn against their benefactor. But Buster always firmly believes in the inherent goodness of humanity and stays true to herself.
Even the natives of the world, whom many outsiders disregard, are carefully protected by Buster. If any outsider dares to torture or kill a native in front of her, Buster will show them what the strength of a top-tier lone wolf outsider truly means.
During a battle with foreign lands, Buster was forced to fight the invincible Cosmer in order to protect a weak outsider. She was severely injured by him, while the outsider she was protecting escaped in the chaos, completely disregarding her life or death.
Even the usually ruthless Cosmer showed mercy to a fool like Bastet, allowing her to escape her current world.
Later, during a mission, Buster encountered Heather, who had lost control of her divinity. She used up the incomparably precious Netherworld Ring that Osiris had given her, just to save this little girl who had never met her before and had not even awakened to the concept of divinity.
Later, Buster and Cosmo met again. This time, in order to protect the nearly destroyed world of Heroes of Might and Magic III from Cosmo's clutches, she had no choice but to confront him head-on. This time, she gained the world's approval and seized the Life Tool Dark Veil from Cosmo, thus beginning a long and arduous journey of pursuit and escape.
If Heather hadn't accidentally encountered the Little Prince and killed him to help Buster and become an enemy of the Spiral, Buster might not have been able to escape Cosmer's pursuit.
Much later, when Buster and Heather reunite, they discover that her, Heather's, and Spiral's fates have long been intertwined.
Bastet made a decision: she would make Heather the ultimate champion.
Therefore, she changed her usual style and began to painstakingly train the lethality of her concept, willing to kill other outsiders for Heather's sake. Captain Dragonfly was one of her victims.
In the world just before the final battle with the Spiral, Buster encounters the greatest opportunity and crisis she has faced since the start of the Outsider's Game.
She unexpectedly encounters Maxim, the holder of the concept of death, and a deadly battle unfolds, unknown to outsiders.
It was during this war in a foreign land that Buster found her divine artifact.
And now, at this very moment, Alice the Singer of Destiny will be the first outsider to witness Her!
(End of this chapter)