Chapter 289: The manipulator
Axel stood on the balcony of his apartment, gazing out towards the beautiful, glittering blue sea, as more thoughts about what had just happened to him and Sophia passed through his head, as his initial excitement of meeting her had died down.
What an Irony it was, now that he thought about it with a bit more clarity, Prime Nexus made her kill all of humanity back on earth, maybe it was an alternate earth, or perhaps it was a duplicated timeline, yet in this world, she was summoned as the great savior of humanity. The destroyer was chosen as a savior. But this fact fermented the guess he had in his mind with even more assurance that Prime Nexus and the World Will of the Eldarion continent were not only different entities, but they perhaps stood against each other.
Working in different ways for their own purposes, Prime Nexus allowed the continent’s denizens to grow stronger and assisted them on their path to further development. While the world Will blocked and hampered that path. One was the native original force of the world itself, while Prime Nexus was something entirely Alien. Who or what was this enigmatic entity? What was it capable of? Was it just a simple program, or something alive, or like a semi-conscious artificial lifeform?
The notification Prime showed him when he was finally able to kill the remnant influence of the original Axel. It didn’t feel like a mere automated program or process at that moment. In those few rare moments, it almost felt like it was indeed alive. But perhaps in a hibernated state. There was no answer to these questions, but the questions still popped into his head continuously. They always stayed on his mind.
Why did Prime put Sophia through such a harrowing trial? Just why? Or did all the valkyries have to go through such a disgusting trial, and what was it that Sophia had wished for? He did not know. He could never know until he was sufficiently strong.
In the original story, what if the valkyrie never wanted to save the world? He was pretty sure that Sophia didn’t care about the humans of this world. Even the guilt she felt for killing billions was because it was on Earth. And technically, all these sufferings she had to go through were because of the very humans of the Eldarion continent, who, in their right mind, would still have sympathy for humans? Did Prime Nexus want exactly that, perhaps? To divert her from the original purpose for which she was summoned here in the first place.
Even if he did assume that the valkyrie of the story wasn’t Sophia, he would think that she had definitely gone through the very same trial she had. How had Prime Nexus erased Sophia’s memories of what she wished for? Suspicious, too suspicious. What if this very thing that was allowing the beings of this world to grow stronger was a catalyst behind Eldarion’s destruction as well?
Perhaps the Valkyries were never human in the first place. The way Sophia referred to herself and the way she expressed hatred towards "Humans" was evident that she never saw herself as the same as them. He knew Sophia was definitely hiding some things from him, or maybe even a lot of things, because of the summoning brand on her soul, which would not let her divulge specific information.
Just as he himself had not shared the fact that they had reincarnated both within a story, nor had he shared with her that he had been killed on the original Earth and then found himself reincarnated here. He only expressed that he found himself in the body of Axel, suddenly one day, just like how she herself was summoned. He was keeping these secrets not because he didn’t trust her, but because he didn’t trust the summoning brand within Sophia’s soul. What if the king had ways to get all the information from Sophia through that?
Though he was 90% sure that the king did not have such extreme control over her, he had to be cautious just in case. It’s always best to be careful. Especially, since he couldn’t trust the part of the original story he had read.
***
"Sorry, Tyler. For not telling you the truth," uttered Sophia on her bed, gazing towards the ceiling as she thought back to what truly happened in her last few reincarnations.
460th reincarnation -
A pink-haired, beautiful girl with bloody red eyes living in a luxuriously decorated room inhaled deeply as she saw the news on her phone, and she sighed with a heavy weight on her chest. Today, by this time, the news of his parents’ deaths must have reached Tyler.
She rushed outside, going towards his home, his house that was in the same area, but just a few minutes away, before he would move into his uncle’s house in the future. But her heart continued to beat faster and faster. She eventually started running after a certain point; she huffed loudly, slightly out of breath. She was happy that from the very beginning of this reincarnation, she had remembered everything—the reason why she had been able to avoid the kidnapping incident that had happened to her when she was even younger.
In her original life, she never thought that she would live through this as well. Reincarnated as her original self, she had never imagined that she would meet him again, like this. Just when she was about to knock on the door, an ethereal phantom appeared right in front of the door, stopping her abruptly.
Pitch black hair, pristine white skin, and an otherworldly beautiful but cold face, and bloody red eyes. The phantom gave her an almost disgusted look and said in a tone of warning, "Don’t do this. This is your last chance."
"If you stop now and don’t comfort him, he will never become obsessed with you; he will live a happy, good life, as you can move away from him. When he has lived a fulfilling life and is no longer living in this world, you can end humanity."
"If you truly love him, with all of your heart, you should think of how he would be happy, not make him cling to you. Don’t be the selfish bitch you always were. Just don’t... You will regret it far in the future."
Sophia’s expression turned ugly as she glared at the figure, whom she presumed was Prime Nexus, trying to mess with her head, but the words it spoke weren’t false; it was the truth, and that’s what she hated the most, but it didn’t matter; she knew what she would do. She knew what she wanted; she knew what she wished for.
She knocked on the door, ignoring the warnings, crossing the phantom ethereal figure, and she struck again a few more times. After a minute or so, a 10-year-old boy opened the door, tears all over his face, despair evident in his eyes. He had a lifeless look all over his face, and his body was trembling in grief.
He stated in a choked voice, "So.... Sophia?"
"What? What happened? Why are you crying? Tyler? Tell me?" she asked in a panicked voice.
Then Tyler broke down in more tears, barely managing to convey that both of his parents had died in a plane crash. Tyler cried more than he had ever cried in his entire life. Sophia was there with him the whole day, comforting him every way she could and not leaving his side even for once. She even stayed the night with him as he fell asleep in her lap, since he was tired from crying constantly.
Her gaze remained fixed on his baby face and innocent sleeping figure. The phantom spoke again, souring her mood, "Manipulative bitch, you don’t even care in the slightest how sad he is, you only used his vulnerable state to your advantage to make him attached to you, for the rest of his life. Now he won’t be able to think about anyone else but you ever again. Do you feel happy? A 100,000-year-old bitch fooling a little boy like that. Your possessiveness is revolting."
Sophia’s face turned cold as she looked at the visage of the Prime Nexus taking on her post-summoned appearance. "Don’t bullshit me, you’re the one who made me kill humans for the past 100,000 years, and now you’re acting like a fucking saint. You’re the only revolting one here."
But the figure only chuckled, "You’re wrong, Sophia Turner. It was your choice to take on that mission; you wanted to transmigrate him to that world. So, for that purpose, the life force of more than 10 billion humans is necessary. Not only that, you wanted him to have the ability to grow stronger and reincarnate with all of his memories intact, which demands even more sacrifice. You also wanted to have the highest evaluation ever possible on the first trial."
"You’re requirements are all too high, which is why you have to go through such a hard trial. You could have given up at any given moment; you always had that option. So, I never forced you to do anything. It was always you’re own choice, it has always been so."
"Just like how the story was always written by your own hand. No matter how tragic it was. It was always you who was behind it all. It has always been."