Chapter 28: Epiphyllum
"Fei Bai! Activate the life center reconstruction device!!"
Xiaxue placed his hand on the golden sphere and roared at Feibai with a ferocious look.
Beichen, who was a step late, looked at the change in expression. He watched the light on the golden sphere getting brighter and brighter, not knowing what to do for a moment.
Attack? What would happen if the device that created a new body for Wan Zu was destroyed?
No attack? Who knows what's in the Xiaxue Gourd? Is he going to replace Xiangying and create a new Wanzu himself? ... Impossible?
And just when Beichen hesitated for a few seconds, Xiang Ying suddenly left Beichen's hand and rushed towards Feibai - yes, if he couldn't stop Xiaxue, he could stop Feibai!
However, Xiang Ying was a step too late. Fei Bai stopped the operation and pressed the last red button.
The whole room roared, and the light ball became brighter and brighter. The wires and pipes connected to it flickered on and off as if they had life. In the center of the light ball, the large piece of Protoss ore slowly emitted a dazzling light, and that light slowly flowed through the wires connecting the light ball and converged at a certain point - the huge machine standing in front of Fei Bai.
It was a trapezoidal body about two people tall, with countless light slots and instrument panels, as well as many buttons. A large red indicator light was right above it, which was constantly beating because of the energy that was gathering.
"Ha ha ha ha……!!"
Xiaxue put his hand on the ball of light and laughed with a confused look on his face.
"Yes, this device can indeed recreate Wan Zu's body, but it also has another function—"
Beichen's expression changed when she heard that, and then she suddenly put away her anxious look, rushed forward and slammed into it, knocking Xiaxue away from the ball of light - but even so, the huge device that had already been activated did not seem to show any signs of stopping immediately.
Xiang Ying, who rushed to Feibai, was also stunned after seeing Feibai's expression.
He was looking up at the device in front of him with a strange sneer in his eyes. After a few seconds, the huge device suddenly made a huge roar, and then there was a click, and a peeling sound was made at a certain intersection, and a puff of white smoke slowly floated out from the gap.
Seeing this scene, Xiaxue, whose face was originally pale, looked up in ecstasy, completely ignoring Beichen beside him, and not caring about his own injuries, and strode towards the device, leaving a trail of bloody footprints.
The light ball finally dimmed, but the door to the device had already fully opened. Several metal plates slowly lowered, revealing the scene beyond.
──That was a woman sleeping in a red transparent liquid.
Beichen's eyes suddenly widened - she had seen her before, in the long video records in the Holy Book of the Tomb of God.
"Theresa Oulica..."
She looked at the body of the woman who was obviously still alive with an expression of disbelief and shook her head.
"...You put the device for recreating Wanzu together with the device for preserving Theresa's remains? Xiaxue, are you crazy? You want to use the power of so many war machines in the world to wake her up?"
"No... This is just a branch of my plan. If destroying the era fails, I want her to become a part of the new Wanzu. If she becomes a four-dimensional creature, then the powerful thinking carrier may reactivate her dead brain—"
As Xiaxue spoke, he slowly approached the huge culture tank with a dazed look in his eyes. Liquid soaked in red star spiritual power was flowing in it, and a few bubbles would emerge from time to time. The elegant-looking woman was floating in the liquid with her eyes closed, as if she would open her eyes and wake up at any time.
"...I thought I'd failed... Hahahaha! I didn't expect it would only take this little power to activate her brain activity?! See? Her brain is active, and that red light is flashing—that means she's experiencing fluctuations in consciousness—I succeeded! I succeeded!"
Laughing wildly and incoherently, Xiaxue walked up to the culture tank covered in blood and stood still, extending his hand to the woman inside.
"Olka, little Olka, wake up. You've been sleeping for so long. It's time to come back and stay with me..."
He made a trembling sound, not knowing whether he was crying or laughing.
“Oulika,…Teresa Oulika!!”
As if responding to Xiaxue's anticipation, the red light flickered faster and faster, finally becoming a solid light. A creaking sound emanated from the bottom of the culture tank, and a puff of air erupted. Then, the red liquid began to be drawn out, causing the water level to drop rapidly until it disappeared at the bottom of the tank. Simultaneously, the glass door of the culture tank slowly opened.
The long eyelashes covered with water droplets trembled, and then the tightly closed lips moved slightly, and a small breath was exhaled.
The four people present simultaneously held their breath involuntarily and stared at the culture tank - as if they were waiting for something to happen.
Then, Theresa Oulica finally and slowly opened her eyes.
Those were a pair of bottomless deep blue eyes, as if they contained all the sorrow and sin in the world, and even the light could swallow them up. Joy, happiness, and happiness - all words that symbolize positive emotions would be easily isolated and cut apart when encountering such eyes.
Seeing such a pair of eyes, the sympathy that Beichen felt for her in his heart...the thought that "it's actually good that she's alive" completely disappeared at this moment.
But Xiaxue doesn't think so.
He walked up to Theresa and trembled in silence, saying some syllables that did not form any words at all. He stretched out his hand to touch her, but was afraid of breaking her, so he did not touch her body for a long time.
"...You're finally back."
He finally said this in an excited voice.
Theresa raised her head, stepped out of the culture tank, stared at him with empty eyes for a few seconds, stayed still for a long time, then tilted her head slightly, and raised the corners of her mouth without any warmth.
"You are, Sirencrad?"
"Yes! Did you recognize me?! I'm Selenkrad! I'm here to pick you up! Oerika, you—"
But Theresa interrupted his ecstasy:
"What time is it now?"
"Now……"
Xiaxue looked a little hesitant, but Beichen replied softly:
"It is now ten thousand years later, Ancestor Theresa."
"...Ten thousand years from now?"
Those cold and dark blue eyes turned to Beichen.
"...You call me ancestor—are you my descendant?"
"Yes, I am. The protagonist of the prophecy you set—the Red Moon Priestess—is also me."
Theresa's eyebrows moved slightly.
"You have read the sacred book of the God's Tomb that I left behind."
"Yes."
"Have you fulfilled your mission as a miko?"
"If the mission you're talking about is being Wan Zu's scapegoat, I'm not doing that. If the mission you're talking about is breaking the current deadlock, I'm working on it."
"...In other words, the current world still exists."
"Yeah."
Beichen nodded firmly.
"...Would you like to go see the world outside? ...It's a very beautiful world."
"No. If you see it, you'll probably be nostalgic for it."
Theresa continued to smile without any warmth and shook her head.
Upon hearing these words, Xiaxue's expression changed immediately.
"...Nostalgia? Oulika, what do you mean...you..."
"Selenkrad, kill me."
"What are you talking about?! Do you know how much effort I put in, how long I waited before──!!"
"Don't want to do it? Never mind... Anyway..."
Theresa smiled as she spoke, slowly raising her right hand. With this movement, her joints emitted a terrifying sound of bones rubbing against each other, and then—
Click, click.
Just as if her skin had turned into extremely brittle thin paper and her bones had become fragile objects that would break at the slightest bend, half of her arm fell off her body and hit the ground. Then, a burst of red gas emanated from the broken arm, and the broken arm immediately weathered into a pile of white powder.
“Theresa──!!!”
Xiaxue roared hysterically at Theresa, but the latter just smiled disapprovingly.
"What does ten thousand years mean? The Red Box stopped functioning properly after my brain died, so I've long since lost the last remaining method of preserving my body. While red star energy can prevent the body from aging... if it were simply a constant temperature solution soaked in star energy, the fact that it's been able to keep my body together until now is already a stroke of luck."
As she spoke, she reached out to tidy up her messy hair. Then, with this movement, her left hand fell off and turned into a pile of ash.
"That's good. Even though it's only a few minutes, I actually get the chance to see my offspring."
As she spoke, she took a few steps towards Beichen, then one of her legs fell off, and she lost her balance and fell forward - and was caught in Xiaxue's arms in a flash - because of the collision, the shoulder part began to turn gray.
The former Red Moon Priestess smiled weakly in Xiaxue's arms.
"My descendant, I want to personally apologize to you. ...And thank you. Thank you for not being as cowardly as I was and causing an irreversible situation again."
"No, you're not timid or cowardly at all. . . . You're a truly remarkable person."
Beichen squatted in front of Theresa and looked into her eyes.
"Do you have any other wishes? I will try my best to fulfill them for you."
"A wish—"
Theresa shook her head—and with that movement, gray sand began to fall from her ears and hair.
"My wish is about to come true. ...It's eternal sleep."
“──”
Xiaxue could no longer maintain the domineering and noble air of the imperial-level weapon. He lowered his head, like a helpless child, and let out a broken whimper from his throat, his shoulders twitching slightly.
"Selenkrad, it's been ten thousand years. It's time for you to graduate from this fledgling complex."
Theresa, whose body was only intact above the chest, squinted her eyes with difficulty and looked at Xiaxue who was hugging her.
"You still have a long way to go. As a satellite of Senagard, you should protect him well. Don't waste your time and energy on meaningless things."
“No, no, no!!”
Xiaxue shook his head wildly, not knowing what he was denying.
"Thank you... for staying with me when I was in the most pain, but now... please, please let me be free. Forget me and walk the path that truly belongs to you."
"Theresa!!!!!! Theresa ahh ...
The last gentle yet cruel words, along with Xiaxue's desperate cry, disappeared into the air.
The black-haired, golden-eyed Star Vein remained half-kneeling, hugging someone with his arms around him. He lowered his head, and through his drooping bangs, one could see crystal liquid continuously flowing down his cheeks. However, there was nothing left in his arms, and even the remaining gray sand was slipping through his fingers.
"Theresa────why did you abandon me──"
He murmured helplessly in a hoarse crying voice.
"Senagarde is so big, and the time ahead is so long, and there's no one—no one who can stay with me?!"
"It's not that there isn't one, it's just that you haven't looked for it."
Beichen stood beside Xiaxue, looking at his trembling body with a complicated expression.
"Theresa is gone now. If you can't stand it anymore, commit suicide. If you don't have the courage to end your own life or you're unwilling to accept it, then go and look for it. Until you find your true home, Elytheon can be your temporary home. But if you continue to do stupid things that want to destroy the world order, forget it. If you want to be a villain, at least find a more plausible reason. It's childish to go around raging because no one is there for you."
Xiaxue's body shook violently when he heard this, then he looked up angrily, staring with his bloodshot golden eyes, and wanted to open his mouth to refute, but was interrupted by Beichen again.
——Because, she squatted down again, hugged Xiaxue's head, and gently pressed his head in her arms.
"I don't have much time left. You only have three minutes left to vent your anger. If you want to cry, go ahead and cry. After you're done crying, be more conscientious and write a letter of apology!"
Xiaxue struggled a few times, but didn't really use any strength - a few seconds later, he put his arms around Beichen's waist, clutching the fabric of his clothes - and then let out a soft sob, but one filled with great grief.
"So that's it."
More than ten meters away, Xiang Ying looked at the voices and shadows of the two people and spoke to Fei Bai on the side.
"Your boss has finally been dealt with. What about you? What are you going to do? Are you going to fight again?"
“…”
Fei Bai just sighed silently, and it was impossible to tell what he was thinking from his expression.
“Actually, I’ve always been weird.”
Xiang Ying turned his head and looked at Fei Bai steadily.
"...You were born from me. Atlas said we're 97% similar. Even if the remaining % is filled with evil, you wouldn't be that utterly evil, would you? Are you really against us, Feibai?"
Fei Bai remained silent.
"You said you wanted to erase our existence for your own sake—"
Xiang Ying scratched his head as he spoke, and smiled foolishly as if he didn't know how to express himself.
"But I feel like this is just... a bit of a tantrum. The more you insist you want to forget, the more you're just calling attention to yourself. If you truly want nothing to do with us, you should find a country far away from Elytheon and completely cut off all contact with us."
Fei Bai's eyebrows moved, and then a slightly sarcastic chuckle came out of his throat.
"Perhaps. There's a strange resonance between us, and my feelings might not be hidden from you. But that doesn't mean I'll succumb to your gentle advances like Xiaxue did. If he's defeated, I can always seek out other forces hostile to you. The world crisis is only the most superficial crisis; people are the most terrifying."
"Fei Bai..."
"Don't think you can convince all your enemies... and don't think you can move all your opponents—I won't buy it."
After saying that, regardless of Xiang Ying's attempts to keep him, he walked past Beichen and Xiaxue, strode towards the exit, opened the door, and then disappeared outside.
Xiang Ying looked at the direction where he disappeared, was stunned for a while, then turned to look at the place where Fei Bai had just stood.
He walked forward and looked at the buttons on the console.
Then, after a few seconds of silence, he smiled bitterly and shook his head.
"That red button is the stop button."
The First Warrior looked at the instructions under the button and breathed a sigh of relief.
On the other side, Xiaxue had finished venting her wounds and was helped aside by Beichen to heal her wounds, while Beichen quickly walked to Xiang Ying.
"Xiang Ying, where's Fei Bai?"
"Let's go. I guess we'll meet again on other battlefields in the future."
Xiang Ying said this and took Beichen's hand.
"Master, should we hurry over to everyone's place?"
"Well, we're five minutes earlier than expected. Let's go!!"
“Yes, Master!!”
As they talked, they also walked towards the exit.
"By the way, Master, do you think I'm a tsundere?"
"Huh? How is that possible? Xiang Ying is the most outspoken type, right?"
"Is that so? It's really like that... That's strange... Why does Feibai, who was born because of me, have such a tsundere character..."
"ah?"
On the battlefield leading to the final battle, conversations were heard that did not contain much sense of crisis.
Perhaps this is because the two have made up their minds to seize the final victory.
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