1606 A Laugh, Bitter and Tinged With Despair...
In the vast, oppressive darkness of the void, where Felix and Nimo"s alter ego remained locked in their merging process, a sudden, subtle s.h.i.+ft occurred the moment Felix gave his confirmation.
From the background of the void, a pair of eyes opened — not just any eyes, but those of the Paragon Lilith.
They resembled two vast, s.h.i.+mmering pink galaxies, swirling with an otherworldly light that pierced through the encompa.s.sing darkness.
She seemed near, yet far, a close resemblance to her relations.h.i.+p with this situation...
The Paragon Lilith blinked once and in that brief moment of closing and reopening, her eyes vanished, leaving behind nothing but the void"s impenetrable darkness.
But her disappearance was not without effect.
Almost immediately, Felix"s body reacted...An ethereal presence, the soul of the Paragon Lilith had invaded him.
Now, it was confirmed that she was always near like she had predicted the end of the battle to occur in the void.
Meanwhile, no one seemed to have noticed the invasion.
The tenants" eyes were frozen in time as they stared at Felix"s crumbling soul barrier...The only one who noticed her entry was Lord Hades. Yet, he neither spoke nor acted to stop her.
Unlike the others, he was listening to Felix"s conversion with the paragon Lilith inside the subconscious s.p.a.ce.
"Was my theory wrong? I always knew that there can"t be two unigins with the same core and she had a ma.s.sive part in this, but was she the sole person responsible for all of this? I know how shrewd and intelligent she is, but still, this perfect "planning" seems a bit above her league."
Lord Hades thought to himself as he watched The paragon"s soul penetrate Asna"s core after Felix gave her access.
As the Paragon"s soul went inside Asna"s core, a power surge rippled through Felix.
It was a confluence of energies, both ancient and potent!
The core, already a beacon of strength and resilience, now pulsed with an added dimension of power.
"What"s that?!"
"You felt it too?"
"It felt like it came from the cores..."
This time, the tenants felt it and even Felix"s fading consciousness seemed to be rekindled from the power surge!
While his deadpan pupil seemed to have some life return to them, the paragon Lilith had manifested a celestial throne, an ethereal and magnificent seat that seemed to be crafted from the very fabric of the cosmos right in the center of Asna"s core.
Asna"s core was similar to Felix"s consciousness s.p.a.ce besides the fact the consciousness lake"s area was dried up completely and the entire s.p.a.ce seemed to be made out of milky white marble.
With an air of regal composure and a satisfied smile playing on her lips, the paragon Lilith slowly lowered herself onto the throne, her eyes fixed on the spectacle before her.
"At last, my patience has been rewarded..."
Lilith, sitting upon her celestial throne with the core, exuded a sense of triumph and contentment as if all the pieces of her intricate plan were falling into place.
"Enough celebration for now, I can"t have my sole ticket to freedom expire on its first day."
Her gaze, sharp and calculating, turned to Nimo"s alter ego, who seemed completely shocked after spotting Felix regaining his consciousness.
Then, with a voice that resonated with authority and finality, she declared, "That"s enough."
At her words, a profound s.h.i.+ft occurred...Nimo"s alter ego"s furious and hate-filled expression suddenly went blank, his features slackening as if the intense emotions that once drove him had been extinguished.
In the next instant, his face commenced to morph, his features reshaping to resemble a more serious and cold persona — one that mirrored none other than the Paragon of Sins, Lilith!
"..."
"..."
"..."
After the tenants saw this, none of them uttered a single word...They simply gazed at the paragon of sins with widened pupils and their souls freezing all over.
As for Felix? When he gazed through cloudy, muddled eyes at the metamorphosis of Nimo"s alter ego, the reality of the situation slowly seeped into his mind, filling him with despair and a growing sense of helplessness...
His mind, already teetering on the brink from the relentless a.s.sault and the strain of the merging process, struggled to accept this turn of events.
How did Nimo"s alter ego, whom he had locked for thousands of years and even helped hatch personally end up to be the paragon herself...?
Was she always there ever since he hatched Nimo?
Was Nimo"s cute version also part of her plans?
Was his relations.h.i.+p with Nimo a lie, a mere ploy to fulfill her agendas?
"Was..a..ll...of..this a mere...lie? Ha...h a..ha..ha.."
The thought was inconceivable, a twist in the tale that not even Felix, with all his experience and knowledge, could have antic.i.p.ated..
As these thoughts swirled chaotically in his mind, something within Felix snapped.
A single tear fell down his cheek after his entire collection of memories with Nimo shattered right before his eyes...And then.
"Ha..Ha..Ha...Wel..l..Pla..yed..Ha...Ha...Y..ou..won..Y..ou..Ha..ve...complet
e..y..won."
A laugh, bitter and tinged with despair, erupted from him.
It was a sound that resonated with the absurdity of the situation and the overwhelming sense of futility that enveloped him.
This laugh was not one of amus.e.m.e.nt but a release of all the pent-up tension, disbelief, and ridicule he felt at this bewildering ending...
But as quickly as the laugh came, it faded.
The mental exertion of processing this revelation, on top of the physical and emotional toll of the battle, was too much for Felix to bear...His strength, both mental and physical, ebbed away, leaving him teetering on the edge of consciousness.
And then, with a final flicker of awareness, Felix succ.u.mbed to the darkness. His eyes, once a window to his determined soul, clouded over completely as he slipped back into the void of unconsciousness.
The last image that haunted his mind before the blackness claimed him was the paragon of sins" in Nimo"s body, giving him her usual charming but deadly sinister smile...
"I can"t have you die on me now..."
When Lilith saw this scene, she snapped her finger with a casual flick of her wrist and Nimo"s alter ego"s core, which had been resisting the merge with every fiber of its being, suddenly ceased its struggle like an obedient little boy.
Instead, it began to welcome the merge, embracing it openly and fully.
The speed of the merging process accelerated dramatically, increasing a hundredfold as Asna"s core devoured it whole.
The instant the process ended, Felix"s body, battered and floating aimlessly, commenced to show the first signs of recovery.
Felix"s soul, which had been on the brink of eternal darkness, commenced to recover at an astonis.h.i.+ng rate!
It was as if the universe itself had blessed him, breathing new life into his very essence!
The soul"s luminous barrier, once dim and cracked, now pulsed with renewed vigor and brightness!
Each pulse was stronger than the last, rapidly restoring Felix to his former vitality and beyond.
Simultaneously, Felix"s physical form underwent a subtle yet profound transformation.
As his body slowly regenerated, his crimson hair grew longer, flowing down his back like a river of blood.
His skin took on a slightly tanner hue, the color of ancient, sun-kissed earth, speaking of endurance and resilience.
Most remarkably, the royal gemstones that had once adorned his body commenced to meld within his skin, dissolving into his very being.
In place of the gemstones, an intricate tattoo emerged across his chest.
The tattoo was a masterpiece of design and symbolism, featuring the seven sins" symbols inked beneath a complex pattern that declared of power, struggle, and betrayal...
Each symbol of the sins was rendered with exquisite detail, a permanent reminder of the struggle he had endured and the forces he had confronted. n()/--)-.(//)I)(n
Yet, even when his soul and form were healed, Felix"s consciousness was nowhere to be seen.
He remained floating amidst nothingness akin to a broken doll...
Meanwhile, the once fiercely independent and destructive core of the paragon had settled, transforming into a pitch-black star amidst the celestial landscape of Asna"s core.
It was a striking image, the dark star a stark contrast to the vibrant energy surrounding it, yet somehow in harmony.
Sitting on her celestial throne, the main orchestrator of this cosmic drama dusted her smooth palms and leaned against the throne with a relaxed smile.
Suddenly, she chuckled as she created a red apple and bit a big chunk of it, leaving its juices seeping down her plump violet lips and sharp chin.
"And with that, my fate has been decided and those old fogies are going to hate me with every fiber of their being...Hehehe, I so dearly wish to be there."