Chapter 1314: Say It Again, But Louder
Chapter 1314: Say It Again, But Louder
"This is Uyuniya, A fellow sister in Voided Death, freshly made Divine by me."
Skullius gaped. The tall creature, Uyuniya, as she was apparently called, guffawed at his reaction once again and for the second time, Skullius couldn't have cared for it. He gave a disbelieving gaze to Elita. His phantoms helped him process the chaos in his mind, but even then, the frustration leaked on his face.
All of a sudden, some of the things (on top of what she had already reminded him of) Elita had said and done earlier started making sense.
"Do you consider me, a Voided Deathform, your enemy?" she had asked him after confronting him about his distrust in the Empyrean Hatcher.
"You're going to have to deal with them. I still haven't recovered all my Voided Death Essence," she had said when the Cavern had attacked them right after they reappeared in Aigas. This had been her excuse whenever else there was a battle along the way, except with Fulgardt.
Skullius couldn't help but wonder, as he saw how battle-ready Elita was right now.
'Was she saving her essence for this moment?' he thought, baffled. Did Elita really mean to fight him over this?
Right then, the repulsive pillar of human flesh made out of the bodies of the nine - or rather, the eight cried out:
"ELITA! SAY IT LOUDER! SAY IT TRUE! THIS WAS YOUR DOING?!"
Elita didn't pay them any attention whatsoever. Instead, she kept her eyes on Skullius.
"So, all that about the injustice of Cursed Bloods was a lie too? You never gave a flesh about them, did you?" he said, his senses scouring over the presences of several dozens of Cursed Bloods. "I had thought you meant to save them, not include them in this scheme of yours. How could you declare yourself a Paladin Champion with all this blood on your hands?"
Elita flared but she quickly soaked in her rage. Skullius could tell he touched a nerve, but not in the way he thought he had.
"I beg of you. Don't speak to me of Cursed Bloods as if you truly understand them, skullius," she said warningly. Skullius was taken aback. "I did them all a favour. You want to know why they are privileged with living inside the Purity Headquarters? It's because they are weak and frail. The Purity only kept them... us, close in order to give a benevolent front to the Purity Knights and Paladin Champions - to gain their favour. As if they cared and were keeping the legacy of fallen vessels from long ago intact. When I alone arose as a strong Cursed Blood capable of joining the ranks of Knights, they took the chance to promote their 'kindness'." Elita looked livid.
"ELITA!" the nine cried from below. She ignored.
"Most Cursed Bloods are always bedridden. Some delirious. Some in indefinite comas. What I did allowed them to be released from this hell," she said.
Skullius wasn't convinced at all. He wasn't sure Elita was convinced by her own words either. An instant later, his attention was stolen by a breeze that whipped from his left. A soul was leaving a body. Revia had finally tasted true death after so many months since being killed.
With a thought, Skullius conjured a beam of purple-gold light that thundered down on Revia's body. He used Maximum Catalyst's Reversion to draw back in her soul and then doubled down on Reversion's output, reverting Revia's body to a state from before she was altered by the masked man with Undeath!
The silver-haired Spirit Warden gasped in a long breath, her eyes shooting wide open.
Skullius was a little surprised it worked so well, but he didn't dwell on that. Instead...
"Don't get me wrong, Elita. When I think about this rationally, maybe it's not as insane as it appears, apart from the fact that you hid it all from me, knowing full well how I'd react in the end. I can't imagine we talked about trusting each other when you hid something like this from me. However, I do wonder... were you training with void all these months, or was she reshaping how you think?"n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om
Elita was gaping. She couldn't have given an honest answer to Skullius with Revia mirroring her expression, completely dumbfounded.
"Elita..." Revia shuddered as she spoke the name. "You...you're here... You're alive..."
Revia barely spared Skullius so much as a glance. She stood up, ignoring the fact that she was somehow alive, and in the natural sense. Her Blessing was thrumming in her body, but not because her flesh had learned it from her soul. Her body was healthy - in peak condition - but she hardly paid it any attention at all.
She began to cry bitterly.
"I came here looking for you! I-I was so convinced you were...! You're here!" Revia made to dash towards Elita to embrace her, but Skullius froze her legs with Maximum Frost before she even made the motion.
Revia was shocked. With a tear-streaked face, she finally turned to look at Skullius, but he remained focused on Elita.
"I wonder, Elita. Would you claim you're on the right path, that you're still the same person as before at your core, in front of this sister of yours? Tell me what you just said again, but this time, make sure she hears it all," he said. "Sure, I might not know about Cursed Bloods, but what about the Purity Knights and Champions you implicated? Was that part of your design as well?"
Elita was struggling, straining. She gritted her teeth and her eyes glistened.
"That wasn't supposed to happen! I didn't think they would stick with the nine after learning how corrupt and selfish they were! The Champions and Knights follow the Purity out of loyalty to the doctrine of the Deities, not because the nine have the power to restrain them! I thought... I thought those like me would leave..." It was as though Elita's face belonged to some aggrieved old woman.
Revia was stricken aghast by what she said. The colour on her pretty face seemed to drain
slightly.
What allegations was Elita defending herself against?
Skullius scoffed.
He turned to the Spirit Warden.
"Perhaps you can talk some sense into your sister," he said to her. Revia didn't understand what he meant, but she did get the reassuring feeling that Skullius wasn't her enemy.
"Elita," she said as she turned to the woman, "what's happening?"
Elita didn't answer. She hid her face with her mask again.
Uyuniya placed a hand on her shoulder, and pointed her great sword at Skullius with a harsh look. She then said something else that Skullius couldn't understand. The sneer gave away the
intent of her words, however.
Unfortunately for Uyuniya, Skullius had just about had enough of her snark.
Before anyone could comprehend the 'how', the naked Voided Deathform had vanished, sent flying through the wall by some furious blow unseen!