Divine Advent
“Illusion?” I frowned. I hadn’t expected that.
But my voice was normal now, no longer the hoarse, broken sound from before.
“I have reshaped your body. You can now recall the true image of what you saw,” the mysterious young woman said.
“I saw…”
I searched my memory, and a gruesome, nauseating image appeared.
A formless mass of flesh, its skin flayed, organs haphazardly embedded in it, a device sword and a pen sticking out at odd angles, a grotesque, standing figure…
“That… that was me?”
Although I had seen far more disgusting monsters in the lab, the thought that this mass of flesh had been me… I felt an overwhelming urge to vomit.
It seemed the endless pain, the hoarse voice, had been because of that.
Even my eyes had been malfunctioning, my brain processing the horrifying image into a normal one.
Or perhaps it was a self-preservation instinct, my brain trying to shield me from the trauma.
“I’m curious. How did you get here?” the mysterious young woman asked, her voice low as she noticed me avoiding her gaze. “Look at me. Answer.”
“Your eyes…” I whispered. A single glance had almost shattered my soul. I didn’t dare to look again.
“I was unaware of your fragility before. I didn’t restrain myself,” she said. “Now, look at me.”
Although her tone was not harsh, it held an undeniable authority.
So, I looked up, and I saw her.
Her dark-gold vertical pupils were still bright, but they no longer held that terrifying power.
And with my attention diverted from her eyes, I could finally appreciate her beauty.
She looked to be around fifteen or sixteen, her features exquisitely beautiful, a perfect balance of allure and innocence.
She just… looked at me, her expression indifferent.
“Answer,” she said, her lips barely moving, but in that instant, I felt an immense pressure, almost forcing me to my knees.
“I… I don’t know,” I stammered, my mind a blank. I had no memory of how I had arrived here.
The last thing I remembered was being in the Dawn Laboratory, recording experimental data.
“You don’t know…”
She frowned, then said, “But when I found you, you were already in the depths of the Place of Divine Advent. If not, I wouldn’t have been able to save you.”
“Why?” I blurted out.
“Because this is the depths of the Place of Divine Advent. So far, no living being has ever reached this place,” she said, her voice a low murmur. “And I… have been trapped here for countless eons. You are the first living being I have encountered in all that time.”
She paused, then snorted. “Such a weak creature. In the past, I wouldn’t have even bothered to look at you.”
She sounded a bit… tsundere.
But I knew she was powerful. A single touch had healed my shattered body, had even reshaped it.
Such power… not even the Abyssal Demon Realm, with all its might, could possess such a being.
And I, though a top-tier device technician, was weaker than an ordinary adult.
My sister, Nisha, was at least a Sixth-Order Knight… I was ashamed.
“How should I address you?” I asked.
“Address me? Hmph… my true name has long been erased,” she said, a hint of bitterness in her voice. “But you can call me ‘Bai.’ It’s my designation.”
“Bai…”
A strange name. Based on a color.
Well, her skin was white, not a pale, sickly white, but a delicate, translucent white that would make any woman jealous.
“You seem to have a way out,” “Bai” said, her gaze fixed on me.
“A way out…? I do?”
My heart stopped.
I didn’t even know how I had gotten here. How could I know how to leave?
And “Bai,” with all her power, had been trapped here for eons. How could a “fragile creature” like me possibly have a way out…?
But her words filled me with a sense of dread.
“Could it be that I really do have a way out, but I just don’t know it, and she wants to steal it from me?”
As the thought crossed my mind, “Bai” snorted again.
“Such a pathetic, frail body. I have no desire to possess it.”
“If you can leave, it is your good fortune. I have not fallen so low as to steal another’s opportunity.”
“I… I see…”
I wiped the cold sweat from my brow, relieved.
It seemed she had a certain… pride, a code of honor, even willing to forsake a chance at freedom.
“However…”
“Bai’s” voice faltered slightly. “I want you to take something with you.”
“What is it?” I asked curiously.
She was silent for a moment, then she produced a white, cylindrical container, like a test tube, and handed it to me.
“This is…”
I looked at it, confused, but then she sent a flood of memories into my mind.
And at the same time, I felt my body begin to dissolve, to turn to ash, my consciousness fading.
“It seems your time here is short,” “Bai” said, her expression unreadable.
But I still had so many questions…
“This is the Place of Divine Advent… what is this place? Who are you… why have you been trapped here for so long? And what is the meaning of this thing you’ve given me?”
I asked, my voice a desperate whisper, as my consciousness and my body faded away.
“Bai’s” expression softened, a flicker of sadness in her eyes. She turned away.
“This… is a world that has been destroyed…”
“Some call me a traitor, some a savior.”
“I don’t know.”
“But I know… some things require sacrifice, a price to be paid, to be held in one’s own hands.”
With that, my consciousness vanished.
…
On the final battlefield of Saint Noyes, I looked at Bai, the girl “Bai” had entrusted to me, her dark-gold vertical pupils as terrifying as “Bai’s,” her face almost identical.
The only difference was the silver-white hair.
“Yes, such a terrifying being, yet she left behind a cute, innocent Bai, a Bai who is willing to face everything…”
“How could I not believe in Bai…”
I finally understood “Bai’s” last words in the Place of Divine Advent.
“This is a predetermined fate, an unavoidable end.”
“But I hope… to give the power of choice back to you, Bai.”
I opened my arms, and gently embraced her.
“Do whatever you want. Sister Neily is… content…”
