Nexus Awakened (An Isekai LitRPG Gender Bender Story)

733. A Star Is Where Light Emanates From

Beneath them was a bright void that hummed with energy, and in the great distance sat one of the most mesmerizing sights Frost had ever seen in this world. Beyond the spherical world, sitting in the center of everything in this fractured universe, sat a light where the bells emanated from.

She understood immediately that she was in a place where people would immediately drop to their knees out of reverence.

That light undoubtedly belonged to a Star.

“Then… The Red Wing will find a vessel. Iscario will be reunited with his sister. And you… will be wished out of existence once and for all!”

It was not just the Masterpiece and the Seeds this time. The thing that would power the Advent of Desire were these four wishes. Then, Uriel and Iscario would be able to use the Advent to make their wishes come true.

This was their master plan. But still, Frost had to wonder what the need for the Bellum Empire’s Towers was.

“So this Star… or this piece of it has nothing to do with you!” Frost briefly tried to check its stats. Nothing appeared, so she resumed her battle with the Red Baron.

[Inferno], [Double Punch], [Armor Piercing] – They were used in quick succession as they pushed towards where all the light emanated from.

“But it does! You will never understand how a collective call can be amplified by it! Our desires can all be amplified! The torment the people of this Empire will be broadcasted to this Gift, and it will broadcast their woes and desires to the Piece of the Fallen Star by tenfold!”

Suffering just to fuel their wish. But there’s more than that, isn’t there?

Just as she thought of this, the Red Baron continued:

“And did you believe that we didn’t expect the Nexus to interfere!? So long as it’s all within our grasp, then we will be protected by the Maestros and their light! How is a Color supposed to survive against a swarm of monsters? That is how. We will be incapable of death!”

Frost realized that the Sins likely didn’t have any allegiance outside of Wrath with Uriel. This meant that the Impuritas were just as susceptible to them as they were. This was why they required the Lumiares of the Masestro of Flesh – the light that could ward death and damage so long as their instruments were singing.

It explained the light above the towers as well.

In that light…

“Ha… Hah… Ahahaha…” Frost could not help but to laugh. Her faked, pained expression disappeared as delight replaced it.

“What are you laughing at!?”

“The Impuritas. They have no idea what they’re in for. If they think that the Sins will ignore them, then they’ll be in for a rude awakening.”

Finally, Frost had gathered everything she needed without lifting a finger. The Red Baron had easily given up, perhaps believing that he would defeat her in combat. Frost, after swiftly removing a glove, grasped onto his crown and crushed it with utter ease.

“You don’t understand who you are dealing with.” She said with a low voice. “It’s because you believed so much in namesakes that you were not able to realize the difference between us. You were oblivious.”

Frost then wrapped her waist with the belt. It clicked on, and her presence was instantly intensified fivefold.

“… how…? I was never oblivious. You are… just a destroyer. A devourer, by definition. The Amalgam.”

“No. I’m closer to a Star than you and anyone will ever be. I am Frost before I am the Amalgam.”

The bright emanations of light gave way to reveal what appeared to be a harp in the center of this world. Nothing of the place remained. They were in the domain of this Gift and were beholden to its nonsensical laws of physics.

But even those lights did not compare to the glow of Frost’s eyes, and the golden strands of hair that appeared as she took off her CognitO Filter.

Another hand pierced through his armor, skewering him effortlessly as he stared at her with invisible eyes. He only realized now that Frost had been holding back. If she had gone all out from the start, then he never would have had the chance to even contemplate his loss.

“… That light… Why is it… like the thing that granted me… this power…?”

“Are you only realizing that now as well?” Frost grinned.

The Red Baron’s body shuddered.

“… Not even Iscario could… How… how… Isn’t Iscario… a Nephilim? The son of an Angel?”

“What do you think that makes me then, if Iscario can’t even do this much?” Frost savored his despair.

She savored every moment of it.

She could almost taste the Nex he generated.

Frost hopped from platform to platform, carrying him by the chest as she let him simmer in his destructive thoughts. Mental turmoil had a better propensity for suffering than what could be physically done to him.

He was not going to be let off easily. The heads that were latched to her hips had not opened their mouths either.

Not Terrent, the Ankou, nor the Memory Bistro. The latter two were in the same state as the Red Baron. Denial was the first stage of grief, and Frost gave him all the time in the world to contemplate what led him here in the first place.

“Everything you’ve done. The suffering you endured. The people you crushed. This wish of yours is coming to an end. I could torment you a thousand different ways, but nothing will kill you slower than realizing that nothing mattered in the end. You were never the protagonist of your own story. I doubt you’ll even get a single blurb in history.”

Frost hummed, her voice harmonizing with the sound of the bell ahead.

“But that’s alright, isn’t it? Because I’ve decided this for you, as you have for so many others. That’s how the world works for you, right? You can’t complain. You can’t fight back. You can only accept it.”

She warped his armor purposefully, crushing him down till he was nothing but a tiny, hand-sized idol. His armor was so thin that this was all it amounted to.

It was all that the Red Baron was.

And as she said, the Red Baron did not deny this.

“… I am… degraded… I just wanted to be worthy. To rise. To keep people beneath me, so that I could stay worthy…”

Finally, Frost asked him a question that caused him to silently weep.

“Does that glory even matter when no one will remember you a thousand years from now?”

It was a simple question that the Red Baron never expected to be on the receiving end of. It was made even more horrible with his life now in the hands of Frost. What dismantled the mind of the Red Baron was but an afterthought to Frost.

She simply gazed at the Gift of the Star, following its light.

Eventually, and after minutes of travel, she realized that the strings of harps were in fact fleshy vocal cords. Lining each cord were a million eyes, and high above it was a contraption of interlocking bells.

They were silver. Everything was silver. Even what appeared to be flesh was silver, aside from their white sclera and black pupils. Those same eyes ran around the bells, which could also be argued to be more biological than they were man-made, yet there were clearly signs of human involvement.

“... Nav. You can sense what I’m seeing right now… right?”

“I can. Be not afraid Frost. A Gift of a Star cannot hurt you.”

“I want to believe you… but it really does feel like I’m in the presence of something we were never supposed to meet. It’s alive, Nav. The Gift of the Star… the Bellum Empire’s technology is alive.”

The Gift of the Star was not an inanimate object as she had expected.

Rather, it was a piece of an enormously large, ancient being.

//////// < EXTREME WARNING > ////////

< You are approaching a Gift of a Star >

“… Status…” Frost spoke with bated breath as she was greeted by a sudden bell.