Chapter 1莉莉's First Memories

Lili's first memory of this life began in a cold, snowy winter.

She could no longer remember the name of the place, the location of the mountain forest, or even which country she was in at the time, nor could she recall what the people who adopted her looked like. She only remembered waking up next to a small house deep in a mountain forest, and that it was a very cold year.

In the dead of winter, the mountains were covered in snow, and the white snow bent the branches of ancient trees that were hundreds of years old. The traces of sleds and carriages on the snow were blurred by the north wind overnight, and she woke up in a doghouse covered with felt blankets and grass mats, roused by a gust of cold wind.

Around her were a nest of squirming, fluffy little puppies.

In Lili's earliest thoughts, she knew that those puppies were her siblings, but soon, these vague ideas disappeared as her mental world continued to reshape itself. The "human" part of her personality completely expelled the "animal" part within seconds of her first opening her eyes. In the many years that followed, she went from firmly believing that she was human to firmly believing that she was a werewolf, but she couldn't remember ever huddling together with a group of fluffy little huskies on the same blanket.

An old couple – the owners of the small house in the forest – were awakened by the commotion of the dogs. They discovered the little girl crawling out of the doghouse, and were immediately astonished. Then they realized that this was a gift from God.

Lili's thoughts drifted through those fragments of time that were about to be forgotten.

She rarely mentioned to anyone that her early memories were just as bad as Vivian's. The cold, remote village and the endless forests outside the village remained a blur in her mind. When she was very young, her mental world was fragile and unstable, as if it were constantly undergoing reconstruction and remodeling. Frequent fainting and memory loss, as well as a sluggish response to external stimuli, even led the old couple who adopted her to believe that she was mentally handicapped – they believed that this was the reason she was "abandoned." Lili didn't speak until she was five years old, and she still couldn't communicate well with the other children in the village until she was nearly ten. She spent more time with the sled dogs – her adoptive parents lived in the forest a little distance from the village, and a large team of sled dogs was an important asset to the family. Lili spent far more time with these dogs than she did communicating with other people.

When she tried to squeeze in with the dogs and put the sled rope on herself, her adoptive parents finally realized that the child's eccentricity did not seem to be intellectual. They remembered the little husky that had gone missing from the kennel years ago.

And when Lili accidentally ran into the forest and got lost one time, and grew ears and a tail in her anxiety and panic, she also realized that she was different from ordinary people.

Under Mimir's guidance, Lili's memory continued to drift. She saw herself fighting wild animals in the mountains and forests, saw herself slowly learning to interact with people and hide her special nature, saw the villagers showing horror at her ageless appearance and great strength, saw herself leaving the village to venture far away. She saw the small towns on the Russian border, the smoke from the houses in Heilongjiang, saw war, saw chaos, saw warlords, saw gentry, saw a country full of life in the midst of turmoil, saw its imperial city collapse, saw its new city rise…

Mimir's voice suddenly rang out in the depths of her mind: "...Little girl, you're going the wrong way. It's not modern times, I'm asking you to look forward!"

Lili was stunned for a moment before realizing what she was doing, so she quickly grabbed her wandering thoughts and returned to the starting point of this life.

On that cold winter morning, in that small doghouse, her mind was guided by Mimir to continue tracing back, directly skipping the barrier of "the beginning of this life." Lili suddenly felt extremely relaxed, and she found that she had lost her form and was floating over the boundless ice plains of Siberia.

Time continued to go backwards. She floated past Siberia, floated past the Arctic Circle, and drifted in a world shrouded in aurora borealis, watching the ice crystal bunkers in the cold wind. Some intermittent memories finally surfaced.

"...There's a curse. Vivian's name has been erased. That sword must be afraid of her. I probably won't live much longer, but Vivian will definitely come back one day. I want to leave something behind."

"It's over, it's all over. We should have listened to her advice... That sword is cursed, it's all over..."

"...It's dangerous for you to do this! I don't think this sword is a good thing. Looking at it makes me feel uneasy. There are so many good things in this ruin, why are you so interested in a strange sword..."

"There are treasures everywhere here! Chieftain, this is a large group of ruins! We can not only spend the winter here, but also settle down here permanently! Food is a problem, but it can be transported from outside! At least it's safe here..."

Lili's memory traveled through these mixed voices. She could hear that these words were spoken by different people at different times, and that they were arranged in reverse chronological order.

Finally, her thoughts traced back to the "original starting point" known by Mimir, which was the earliest memory that Mimir could lead her to. It was a cold morning, just as cold as the morning when she was "born" as "Werewolf Lili" in the kennel.

Vivian Ansesaata was sitting in front of her, the great vampire holding a bowl of hot soup in her hands, her face full of pleasant contentment after a full meal: "The ice giants are coming again? You can't beat them... Oh, right, I know a place. It's very safe there, and it's not cold inside! You can go there for the winter! I call it 'Corpus'. I accidentally discovered it when I was chasing the lights in the sky the other day..."

Accompanied by a crisp sound like glass breaking, the runic characters in the secret room fell one after another. Mimir and Lili woke up from their trance almost simultaneously.

"Did you find anything?"

Everyone who was nervously watching the ritual process asked almost in unison, and even Izhaks was quite concerned about this matter.

Mimir blinked: "This little girl is indeed the First Saint, but she is very different from ordinary reincarnation or rebirth."

"What's the difference?" This time, it was Hao Ren and Vivian who spoke in unison.

"As I said before, the First Saint was severely injured under the red moon of Vivian, and eventually died from her injuries," Mimir's eyes turned to Vivian, "The light of the red moon tore her soul apart, and this is the key. After the First Saint died, her soul was torn into pieces, but it did not perish. Instead, it stabilized with the help of the space-time distortion power of the Spirit Realm Clock Tower. Part of the soul wandered in this tower and became the so-called 'Holy Spirit Echo', and the other part..."

"Floated outside?" Vivian interrupted Mimir before he could finish speaking.

"That's right, this part of the soul wandered in the Arctic region for many years, becoming weaker and weaker, but it never really dissipated," Mimir blinked in lieu of nodding, "As the connection between the remnant soul and the Ice Fortress became weaker and weaker, she broke free from this place and floated to somewhere between Europe and Asia. Finally... um, finally..."

Mimir suddenly hesitated, and Hao Ren couldn't help but become anxious: "What happened in the end?"

"I don't know how it happened, but in the end, the soul of the First Saint drilled into the body of a husky that had just been born."

Everyone: "..."

The scene was a bit cold, but after thinking about it, Hao Ren didn't think there was anything wrong: "It's quite normal. Lili was originally a husky. Anyway, I'm used to it. At most, I just found out where her race came from..."

Lili bared her teeth at Hao Ren in protest, but her cute appearance with her big tail wagging had no deterrent effect at all.

"Then why doesn't she know any of these things?" Izhaks stroked his chin. "Soul rebirth is the best method of rebirth. Even if it's just a wisp of remnant soul, it's enough to retain most of the memories, right?"

This time, even the knowledgeable Mimir couldn't figure out the reason. Several experts in soul science and mysticism gathered together and discussed it for a long time without reaching a conclusion. In the end, Hao Ren clapped his hands: "Hey, isn't this simple – her dog brain can't handle it!"

Everyone: "..."

Hao Ren shrugged: "Even if the First Saint has great wisdom, stuffing her into a husky's head would be a disaster. I reckon that after the First Saint merged with the husky, she first went through a thorough transformation. A saint, a husky, the average of these two is that both the saint and the dog are gone, leaving only Lili..."

"Although your imagination is amazing, Hao Ren, I actually think it makes sense," Vivian gave Hao Ren a strange look, and then inconspicuously pointed at Lili next to Hao Ren, "Also, be careful, she's preparing to..."

"Awoo!"

"...bite you."