Chapter 843: New Beginnings
It is often said that a person’s last words are their most profound…or their most foolish.
They can either be the most ironic way for them to say good bye to the mortal realm, or it can be the one thing anyone ever remembers them for.
Comedy or tragedy, it doesn’t matter.
What matters is whether or not anyone is around to hear them.
-The thought of a philosopher who once debated the meaning of death, to the reaper himself.
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[Daria… that was her name…it almost rhymes!,] •••• said in a laughing tone of voice that seemed far too lively for a ¥°¢= in their final moments.
At this point, Daria decided to keep quiet and allow her friend to say his bit in peace.
It had been many centuries since he could last talk to the one who created him, after all.
[Dahlia, little lady…I wish you could’ve met her. I think you two would’ve gotten along like flower and bees! She’s not as strong as you were, but she’s smart. Wicked smart! She took all my lessons to heart and even taught me a thing or two as well. Haha!,] ••• roared with joy.
At the sound of being praised by the ancient monster of a friend, Daria couldn’t help but to chuckle.
[But… she’s lonely like you too,] •• added in a sad time of voice.
‘Lonely…too?,’ Daria wondered. In the past, •• had told her that his creator always seemed to have a smile on her face that was as bright as the sun, that her eyes seemed to shine like the night sky and that both kaijin and mortal alike couldn’t help but consider her a friend.
Every time he told her these stories though, about her, Daria couldn’t help but to notice just how strangely sad he sounded. As if these memories weren’t being portrayed with complete accuracy…or rather, as if they wanted to hide a few details.
Daria never brought this observation up to him before, because she figured that he would tell her about this eventually.
She just didn’t think it would be in his last moments.
[You were happy when you were with us, when we fought and laughed together, but…there were days we could sense an emotion you normally kept hidden. An emotion we could never address because of how…different we were from you. How alien our thoughts and feeling we’re in comparison to your own,]• lamented. [I didn’t know what to say back then, when you were in the depths of loneliness…but I think I know what to say now.]
• was less than an eye now, but even so, Daria could feel as if he was staring directly at her, or perhaps more accurately, into her soul.
[Just because you’re lonely now, doesn’t mean it’ll last forever. Every swan finds their partner, every wolf finds their pack and every person eventually finds someone who will stand by their side even if the world rages against them. All it takes…is…time…and…trust…
With this final pearl of wisdom, Meteor Horn had disappeared from existence.
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“And that…was my first and last encounter with the kaijin and [Chaos]. Well…up until you crashed your own funeral with Nepherage all those months ago,” Daria said in an attempt to dispell the emotionally heavy atmosphere she had helped to create. “After that, I think you know the rest. The Nerriza clan assumed I was dead due to the sheer amount of collateral damage in the area and the fact that several of their elders were slaughtered like pigs, I changed my name and travelled through Stampeding Bison, learned some rather questionable skills that helped me survive in the long run, met your father, fell in love and the rest was history.”
“Huh.”
[Hmmm.]
Zhen Liu and Spring Brawler were both in rather contemplative moods as they did their best to process everything that Daria had told them. Granted, both were focusing on different details of Daria’s story.
Spring Brawler, due to his status as a proto-kaijin, focused more on how Meteor Horn faced his fated end. Instinctually, he knew that reaching such a state was less than ideal and should be avoided at all cost. Which basically boiled down to, keeping the ringmaster alive at any cost. Granted, he would need to figure out what kind of [Desire] to make his core in order to do that efficiently, but he felt like he was getting close.
As for Zhen Liu himself, he couldn’t help but find the entire situation to be incredibly weird.
After all, this was technically the third time that someone in Zhen Liu’s personal life had some inexplicable connection to [Chaos] and the kaijin.
Technically four if he counted his great grandaunt, but she didn’t know what either or was until he had to literally spell it out for her.
Regardless, what were the chances that he ended up inheriting this weird mantle of power that seemed to have a weirdly extensive influence on his entire bloodline on both sides?
Was it coincidence or by design that he became the Kaijin Lord?
This was a question he needed to ask Logos and Pathos, but he was still muted because of the snoring spirit body kaijin that was still developing while embedded in his soul!
Honestly, he was pretty certain this wasn’t healthy for him.
Eventually though, Zhen Liu managed to gather his thoughts together in a cohesive enough manner to ask a surprisingly simple question.
“Mother?”
“Yes, my child?”
“This is going to sound weird…but do you know why Meteor Horn was able to last long as he did? Or…why he was still able to speak to you? Because the curators told me that a broken down kaijn tends to be a little more than a feral beast of the most destructive kind. So…why was he able to say all that at the end?”
“That….hmmm…”
Daria was silent for a few moments as she tried to figure out the best way to answer her son’s philosophical quandary, until settling on something Meteor Horn told her a long, long time ago.
“Xiao Liu, I believe you are familiar with the nature of [Chaos], yes? That it’s the power of change, randomness and fate all at once?”
“Yes,” Zhen Liu nodded. “It’s also a power that is most influenced by strong desires, what about it?”
“Well, Meteor Horn once told me that one of the truest forms of [Chaos] was life. That the mere act of living was enough to introduce [Chaos] into the universe. Perhaps by virtue of me being the last one alive, it gave Meteor Horn a chance to recover and recall in a limited manner.”
“Huh…”
His mother’s words could best be summed up into the phrase, “life finds a way”, but there was some truth to that statement, given everything that happened up to this point.
That said, Zhen Liu didn’t know it at this time, but things were happening in the Library’s halls that would definitely hammer this thought right into his skull.
All due to the actions of a very unlikely trio.
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Meanwhile, in another part of the library…
After Paralust suddenly disappeared into Zhen Liu for some unknown reason, the zakos she had commandeered were all freed from her control and had gone back to being under the control of the library, the kaijin and Zhen Liu. Granted, Paralust’s influence had left them all as modified variant zakos that made them look like curvaceous monster women, but that was more of a boon than a detriment.
However, the portion of the Library that she had corrupted into being an indoor bath house had somehow not converted back to normal when she disappeared.
Was this due to this portion of the library being separated from the rest of it’s structure?
No.
Was Paralust’s power so unusually great that it allowed her to make permanent fixtures in the library against everyone’s wishes?
No.
Was it because Logos and Pathos were lazy and didn’t want to fix the issue?
Surprisingly, no.
The reason why the bathhouse hadn’t reverted back to normal quite yet was due to the fact that it being influenced by not one, not two, but three proto-kaijins that were similar in nature to the recently created Screamira.
These proto-kaijins, who had yet to be given names or figure one out for themselves, were the three zakos that Paralust had used to enflame the desires of Victor, Simos and Graff, no less than a few hours ago.
As for the reason why they had managed to reach this stage so sudden in their creation was due to the simple fact that since Paralust wasn’t around to make use of all the potent desire that they had worked so hard in producing, that they absorbed it into themselves.
However…due to the nature of this particular sourced [Desire], the proto-kaijin created were a little…off.
…
[So…I’m not the only zako who gained sentience after that fling with those adorable dummies, right?]
[Nope.]*2
[And I’m assuming you gals want to go and finish what was promised…right?]
[I mean…Paralust isn’t here to snatch away our prizes…]
[And I’m actively developing a libido that needs to be satisfied. So…let’s fucking go?]
[Lit.]
