Chapter 80: Fragmented Sea
[Next Day.]
[Eight o’clock.]
[Dining Room.]
The morning sun cast a warm glow through the fortified glass of the villa, a stark contrast to the blood soaked into the streets of the city from the previous night.
"You are already awake?"
Juliana walked down the stairs, staring at Asher, who was in the kitchen, preparing breakfast. She moved towards the chair and sat down. Her posture lacked the timid hesitation of her usual self; instead, she carried the bold, unapologetic swagger of a street boss claiming her territory.
"Well, it’s good you’re awake, I want to ask you something very important." Juliana added, a frown appearing on her face.
Asher listened, already figuring the gangster Queen was still active. The demanding tone and lack of morning pleasantries were dead giveaways.
"Okay, what is it?" He asked, looking up at her.
"All the equipment you gave me yesterday, where did you keep them?" She asked. Her mind was entirely fixated on the unparalleled arsenal she had seen, hungry for the power it represented.
"You can’t use any of those things with your low rank..." He said, and continued with his cooking.
"Once you reached the required rank, I will give you Divine-Tier Skill books, and Equipment."
"Really?!!" Juliana’s eyes instantly snapped open, even jumping to her feet. The promise of such god-like items was intoxicating enough to break her tough exterior.
Asher smiled inwardly at her response, and nodded his head. It was far easier to manipulate this defensive, greedy persona.
"Yes, but first you need to take a pill, and after that, we will attack a dungeon." He said, looking up at her.
"Attack a dungeon? Take a pill?" Juliana was confused, tilting her head to the side. The sudden leap from receiving gear to fighting monsters threw her off balance.
’I need to deal with many things, but Juliana... She not only needs the cure, but also needs to unlock her physique. If I help her with dungeons, we can complete this faster by killing weak monsters, while I keep the higher stones.’ He thought, and nodded his head.
"Yes, the Pill will make you stronger." He added.
Gangster Juliana will never agree to the fact that she was ill, and as for her power-hungry brain, saying the pill will boost her powers is the best excuse. It framed the cure not as a treatment for weakness, but as a shortcut to absolute dominance.
"Wow!! Where is the Pill?!!" She yelled, her eyes sparkled, her smile bright.
Asher stopped what he was doing, and took a cup of tea, walking out of the kitchen: "I hope you brushed your teeth?" He asked.
"Come on, do I look like a kid?! Of course, I did that before coming out!" Juliana said, but her gaze was fixed on the cup.
"I mixed the Pill with your morning medicine... If you want to get stronger, drink everything in one go." He said with a smile, stretching the tea to her.
"Because, it is--"
WHOOSH!
He blinked, staring at his empty hand, then at Juliana, who gulped everything down her throat. Her desperation for strength completely overrode any sense of caution.
"...Hot." He completed his words, stunned.
"Mmm... This tastes different." Juliana muttered as her eyes rolled back, and she fell backward, the cup shattering on the ground. The pill energy acted like a sledgehammer to her consciousness, forcing a brutal, immediate reboot.
Asher moved, and caught her, wrapping his arm around her waist before she could touch the ground. He stared at her, and the next moment, numbers appeared above her head. The system interface glowed with a menacing, blood-red hue.
{First Cure Duration: 2 Months.}
{Master should give wife Juliana the other Fragments before Timer runs out.}
{If Master fails, Wife Juliana will never be cured, even with the three fragments.}
’Two months? You didn’t mention this yesterday!!’ He snapped at the system, gently picked her up, and walked towards the sitting room, gently placing her on the couch. The system’s cruel habit of hiding catastrophic failure conditions behind massive rewards was infuriating. If he failed to clear the specific dungeon in time, Juliana’s mind would be permanently shattered beyond repair.
’I hope she is alright.’ He thought, turning to the kitchen: ’I haven’t started cooking, so it’s alright.’
___
[Juliana’s Soul Sea.]
The internal landscape of an Awakened was supposed to be a vibrant, flowing galaxy of starlight and elemental energy. Instead, this place was a suffocating, fractured abyss.
"Where am I?"
Juliana slowly opened her eyes, moving her gaze all over the dark void, she blinked, floating in the dark space. There was no up or down, only an endless stretch of oppressive shadow.
"Where is this?" She asked again.
"I think we are in our soul sea, in short, our core."
She turned around, seeing her second hovering before her with a smile on her face. The physical manifestation of the gangster persona possessed sharper eyes and a confident, relaxed posture that defied the gravityless void.
"Who are you? Why do you sound and look like me?" The second asked, moving back in shock. Encountering one’s own fractured psyche face-to-face was a jarring experience that defied all logical comprehension.
The gangster Juliana sighed: "Gosh, you are so naive, and meek, sometimes I wonder if you’re me." She said with a sigh.
"Huh?" The meek Juliana was speechless.
"Okay, listen up." The gangster Juliana crossed her arms, taking on the role of an older, much tougher sister.
"As I said, we are in our core, the body is out there, our souls are the only thing here... At the moment, our souls are divided into three parts." She explained, turning her head to the side, as a holographic square screen appeared before them, illuminating the place. It functioned like a system window, projecting memories.
On the screen was Juliana trapped in a dark place, forced by her family to make pills, and use her powers continuously. She was surrounded by glowing cauldrons and harsh masters. In the ruthless hierarchy of Awakened families, a support-class talent like an Alchemist was often treated as nothing more than a biological battery, bled dry for the profit of the combatants.
"What we faced in the past caused this, and what happened with the other families caused a deep mental damage... To survive that, our powers were forcibly sealed away, which resulted in the separation of our souls." She explained. The trauma was so absolute that the human mind simply compartmentalized to prevent a total shutdown, birthing a defender who could handle the cruelty the original host could not, which was them.
"Wait, you kept mentioning three? Where is the Third one?" Juliana asked in confusion, scanning the dark void for another version of herself.
"The third one..."