Chapter 1214 (2/2)
OOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGG.
The Nether King’s terrible fury was a physical force, hitting the entire area and creating a huge fissure that ran directly through the center of the stone island. Gradually, those two halves began to slowly drift apart from each other.
Ileot had born the brunt of the Nether King’s attack and stumbled backward while hissing in pain. But the Nether Kind didn’t follow up on him. Instead, it surged forward past Ileot and leaped across the one-meter gap between the two halves of the island and to rush forward to Lady Iellaya.
Very quickly the confusion on Lord Miln’s face left as absolute panic took its place. Without much choice, the confrontation between Lady Iellaya and Lord Miln was tabled as even a Lady Iellaya apoplectic with rage had to admit that the Nether King was the more pressing foe. She quickly used her vast wings again to smash back the Nether Heralds and turned to face the charging Nether King with Lord Miln at her side.
And what poison it must have been to Lady Iellaya to be so near to the foe that had orchestrated placing them all in such danger and needing to work with him to survive. Another bleeding wound in her heart that the power-obsessed Vualla would use as leverage to manipulate her.
Ileot was torn, looking from the Nether King to Vualla. At this point, only Ileot Swacc and Vualla stood on this half of the sundered stone island, while all the others were all fighting on the other half. The distance between the two islands widened to two meters. When the darkness manipulated Vualla’s body to walk to the edge of the fissure, Ileot cautiously joined her.
For a few seconds, the two were silent, watching the fight. Honestly, it couldn’t even be called a fight. Although Lady Iellaya and Lord Miln were talented individuals, they were simply too young for their images to withstand the fury of a Nether King. Its every attack reverberated with that destructive emotion, forcing both of the Aether warriors to bleed from their eyes and mouth even with they dodged the attacks.
And when the attacks landed...
They could only give ground, helpless before the Nether King.
Ileot’s face slowly transformed into fury. “...you truly wish to create the same circumstances as the past? Even though I somehow missed the fact that you yet lived… it will not be enough. That Vualla, her life threatened by a Nether King. Do you expect me to be overwhelmed with emotion and help her like I did in the past? The reverence you give to karma is laughable. I will not follow your wishes. I will watch her die. I am not bound by the past. Your precious karma… doesn’t exist.”
Ignoring the most recent Vualla’s duplications subtle agreement with Ileot, the original Vualla manipulated this body to turn and regard Ileot solemnly. “So you will run away once more?”
Ileot’s face twisted immediately with hatred, but he was able to suppress that emotion. “Pah. Childish tricks are just as useless as karma. I will not intervene.”
“You don’t need to.” Vualla turned back to look toward the fight. Inside of her, the possessed Vualla released a wave of horror as she finally understood what was about to happen. Both watched as the Nether King swung its arm and shattered Lady Iellaya’s right arm from the elbow down.
“Do you truly think karma will compel me to act?” Ileot laughed derisively.
The original Vualla ignored him. Then she hopped across the fissure that had widened to three meters and crossed over the widening gulf that revealed the Great Rift waiting below them. When she landed, she ripped off the powerful veil that she had carefully woven on the walk over here to hide the object she held in her right hand. With a casual flick, she threw that object toward the Nether King’s back.
Immediately, Ileot was confused. This his expression transformed into bewilderment and then apprehension. “What…. Why…. That’s impossible! I specifically chose a life-core moment from Vualla after I had been at the war for years! My entire childhood was spent locked up in the library, we barely interacted. Then, with me fighting at the frontline for eight years…”
He truly is so tied up in his own little worlds that he misses so much… The darkness-Vualla said for the benefit of the most recent duplication. This is the cost of ignoring karma and believing you know better; you are so sure of yourself you overlook your own presence in your projection because you assumed you knew how important you were to the individual you used as a base for your projected world...
Meanwhile, Ileot began to pant. His voice was high and squeaky. “I wasn’t important enough to be included in that projection world! It was only when I went back and lived my life differently that I mattered to you!”
The original Vualla used this new body to smile sadly back at Ileot. “I was… never brave enough to write to you. Just like I was too cowardly to visit father before he died. But do you know how much it changed my life when you came back for Dalus’ funeral… and you brought me orange juice to try. A gift, just for me. At the time when father was withdrawing into the war effort, Mother locked herself in her room, and our third brother in had died… you gave me hope.
“Did you know, the reason I was driven to run away from home and go to the frontlines… was the letter that informed us you had been crippled in the fighting and were reassigned to the supply contingent. The day mother truly broke and refused to eat any longer. The day I couldn’t stand it anymore. Eliot… you always mattered to me.”
The recent duplication of Eliot, still unconscious, thrown by the original-Vualla controlling the most recently duplicated Vualla, collided with the Nether King’s back. The Nether King paused in its attack of Lady Iellaya long enough to twist and smack away the limp body with the respect as if it was swatting away a buzzing fly.
Eliot was smashed into the stone ground, immediately poised so directly on the boundary of life and death that even Vualla’s sharp senses couldn't determine his fate. And his intervention gave Lady Iellaya a desperately needed moment to open up some space and lash out at one of the harrying Nether Heralds, wounding it deeply and greatly lowering the pressure she faced.
For a split second, both sides gathered themselves. There was a strange fuzzy static in the air. Images of another time, another place, began to flicker over their current situation. The air was heavy with Nether, and the Nether remembered the distant past where this same situation had occurred.
This is karma, the original Vualla said again, more to herself than to anyone else. Then her focus went to the Vualla she was manipulating. And now… it’s time for a role that you cannot avoid. If you will not be the one that he saves… you will take my role. And I will overpower you so you finally take your brother’s life and drink it for strength.