Chapter 989: From Heart-to-heart to Fusing Hearts…sort of.
“But that is neither here nor there, because it’s been a little over several centuries,” Zhen Liu eventually declared, in order to break the tension in the room.
Shortly after Zhen Liu had revealed he had been using Blazejudicator to determine Cornelius’s guilt the whole time, he ordered Logos and Pathos to release his neck. While they both felt as if mercy was off the table and that they should continue choking Cornelius, they were still spirits meant to obey the Kaijin Lord.
That and they didn’t have any justification to continue choking the man anyways.
<=Hmph.=>
Thud.
“Ow.”
They still weren’t happy about the situation though and proceeded to drop the man like he was a sack of potatoes.
“Thank you.”
<=We still don't like it.=>
“I’m aware…wait, didn’t you guys say a part of the library suddenly opened up when this guy showed up?,” Zhen Liu asked the curators spirits.
=That stated, we can’t remotely access it yet due to it being “new”.=
“Okay, then can you guys go and check on what this new section entails exactly? Also, make sure that the kaijin don’t get any weird ideas from the place, just in case.”
=As you wish…=
Logos and Pathos proceeded to disappear from the room, leaving Zhen Liu and Blazejudicator alone with a man who was more intricately woven with Zhen Liu’s predecessors than he ever anticipated.
The aformentioned man though wasn’t exactly in the mood to talk or even stand at the moment. Right now, he was sitting against the wall of the padded room with a remorseful expression on his face.
Evidently, this trip down memory lane has dug up a lot of old feelings that were probably never shared before. This must’ve been the first time Cornelius had a chance to confront them. How tragic.
Zhen Liu stared at the grieving fellow for a few more moments in silence before making his way to the door in order to leave. He could tell when someone didn’t want physical help…or emotional advice.
Didn’t mean he couldn’t leave without at least asking if he did though.
“Are you going to be okay here? Rooms padded if you need to bang your head against a wall.”
“I’m…I’m fine. Just didn’t expect my first few moments being a new instance would involve me remember so much from a previous one,” Cornelius replied. “It’s funny, I figured I would’ve gotten over these feelings by now. It’s been…centuries.”
Zhen Liu stared at the man who cultivated [Time] for a few moments more, reminded of an old show he used to watch about someone similar. Then again, that character’s problems came with a big blue box.
“Well…if there’s anything that seems to be a multiversal constant, it’s that love can be a tragedy. And tragedies are the flames that can forge a man into a hero, a villain or something broken.”
“…”
“Look, there must’ve been a reason why my predecessor, Mia, left her child in your care, only to leave it with my clan. Now, there must be a reason why I have managed to find you again after all these years,” Zhen Liu said as he opens the door to leave the padded room and Cornelius to his sadness. “Then again, maybe I’m just saying things to fill the silence.”
*Click*
“Huh…”
After Zhen Liu had left, Cornelius proceeded to simply stare into the empty space that was above his head.
This was the most he ever had to think about his past lives than in any of his other iterations…which was weird because this was also his newest.
“Perhaps…perhaps this is a sign,” Cornelius told himself. “I always told I would need to account for my sins one day…is this it?”
As Cornelius mused on his karma, a faint aura of [Time] began to stir around him. “Huh…haven’t felt that kind of movement since…”
________________________________________
‘Alright, with that out of the way, let’s get back to book keeping.’
[Of course, Executor.]
While this moment with Cornelius was eye-opening to Zhen Liu, it was technically a complete accident that interrupted his main task for the day.
Should he have just ended the day here, gone home and emotionally digest this moment in order to grow as a person?
Maybe.
But he had set out this day to do something important, and he needed to address it, so…here we are.
Zhen Liu plan for the day was going to consist of filtering through all of the desire cores he had gathered up till now and see what could be fused, what could be used and what could be…well…absorbed.
It took a couple of minutes walking, but Zhen Liu eventually returned to the door of a room that Logos and Pathos had called the…[Core] Room.
It was neither clever, nor magical, but the title was apt at least.
‘Okay, looks like nothing had happened while I gone. Neat.’
The aformentioned room was established a little after Blazejudicator was born. Once Logos and Pathos had learned how the spirit body kaijin was able to affect [Cores], namely that she could assist in the fusion process, they decided a dedicated room was needed.
Which was why Zhen Liu was now standing in a strange, circular room that had several different pipes filled with glowing [Desire Cores] that all fed into two glass containers, that were sitting in the middle of a giant [Chaos] array.
Supposedly, this was how he saw the fusion process, and that anybody else who attempted to watch him would just see him manipulating a weird magic ball of formulas, runes and threads of reality like some kind of demented creator deity. Then again, that could’ve just been Logos and Pathos blowing smoke up his ass.
Either way, he had work to do.
“What cores are currently on the board?”
[I think they’re from those assassins from the main clan? These one are marked as…Fanatic Loyalty and Dogmatic Survival? Weird names.]
“Desires are weird and varies. Alright. Let’s do this.”
The fusing process was actually relatively simple on Zhen Liu’s end, all he had to do was channel [Chaos] into the array and it would do the rest.
This process would normally just strengthen one core at the cost of the other being destoryed, however, there was a chance of a new core being created as well. This was under normal circumstances.
With Blazejudicator’s presence though…things could get very interesting.
“Alright, Blaze. Do what you think is best.”
[Survival…Loyalty…let’s see how Humility can contribute…open your mouth, Executor.]
“Right. Bleh!”
From Zhen Liu’s mouth a ball of white flames that glowed with a dim heat, flew towards the center of the [Chaos] array.
It’s presence seemed to cause the two [Cores] to resonate with each other and itself, a good sign if there ever was one. Once everything was set, Zhen Liu clapped his hands in preparation.
“Alright…let’s fuse. Ha!”
Pushing his hands forward, Zhen Liu released a stream of [Chaos] that caused the array before him to stir to life.
As it did, the cores in the center of array began to slowly revolve around the ball of white flames in the middle, gaining speed as Zhen Liu poured more and more [Chaos] into the array.
Eventually, the array reached a maximum limit of [Chaos] it could use at any one time and Zhen Liu had to stop.
“Damn…this is still pretty hypnotic to watch.”
As the cores continued to revolve, their physical forms began to breakdown, forming into a multicolored ring that surrounded the burning white ball of flames, before getting absorbed into the flames itself.
Zhen Liu could see a new core beginning to form inside of the flames…meaning it was now time for him to take cover.
“Three…two…one!”
KA-BOOM!
Zhen Liu ducked his head down in time as the array finished the fusing process by releasing an explosion of light and energy that would blind most people if they stared directly at it.
Once the explosion and light had died down, Zhen Liu popped his head from his cover to look at the newly formed core.
Because of its unusual nature, the core glowed with a pale white light, while three colored stripes wrapped around it. The damn thing looked like a candy, all things considered.
[Looks like it worked.]
“Cool…”
In Zhen Liu’s eyes, the core was identified as being [-Shining- Core of the Ascetic Zealot].
‘Hmmm. I guess whatever kaijin I make from this is probably gonna end up acting like a guru or a monk,’ Zhen Liu figured as he stared at the newly minted core. ‘The hell kind of materials do I even use for something like this?’
As Zhen Liu attempted to wrap his head around on what to use this core for though, two kaijin contacted him at the same time…with very different reports.
[Director, I got my hands on some meaningful items.]
‘Sweet.’
[Minn jarl, I brought back a child.]
‘Wait, what?’
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS
Mizako
I really need to make a wiki at some point.
