Chapter 217: A Risky Gamble
Elena was certain that the angelic figure was this same woman who had brought them there, and she couldn’t help but wonder whether this woman they’d been interacting with this whole time hadn’t actually been a ghost, or something else entirely, maybe a shapeshifting monster.
It was hard not to think the worst, not when they were in a place where unnatural, terrifying things seemed to be the order of the day.
The creatures beyond that violet mist were proof enough. They had encountered several different kinds during their time in this place, and knowing that many of them possessed strange abilities had taught her to stay on guard whenever something unusual happened.
Now, seeing this chained female figure so similar to the woman standing in front of her, Elena couldn’t help but feel that things were getting more complicated by the second.
Seraphine, the main cause of Elena’s current state of mind, didn’t seem the least bit concerned about any of it. She simply walked over to join Venom, who had already reached the knees of the giant figure, staring up at it with a complicated expression.
Seeing her like that, Seraphine couldn’t resist poking at her a little.
"Oh? Is that worry I see? My, I didn’t realize you cared about me this much. I’m almost touched," she said, her voice teasing, successfully provoking the girl.
"Hmph, as if. The only thing that actually bothers me about all this is that the Master had to spend a huge chunk of his power sealing an ungrateful woman like you here, instead of just letting you rot under the consequences of your own actions," she shot back, wasting no time.
"Tch, cruel as always," Seraphine said, but didn’t push further, there was something more important to deal with now.
"Anyway, it’s time you got moving. Let’s get this done quickly, so he will be able to come back," she said.
Unlike Venom, who believed Silas was coming back, Seraphine, who had followed Evan throughout this entire time, knew that Silas’s fragment of divinity was now part of him. Which meant the cocoon almost certainly held Evan. As for why he was in there, she could only think of one explanation.
’He’s fully assimilating with his concept of Death,’ she thought.
She knew Evan had been using his clones as vessels to carry his divinities, and she knew he wouldn’t be able to keep doing that forever. That was simply how it worked, eventually, he would have to integrate with them directly, though she didn’t know exactly how that process would unfold.
That was the exact problem that person had told her he’d found a way to deal with, and she was more and more certain that Evan himself was the result of whatever solution he’d come up with.
That person had never told her precisely how it would all work, only the important parts, most of which she could no longer remember. Not because she’d forgotten them, but because the majority of her soul, her thoughts, and her memories resided in her physical body, the very one before her now.
That body was a fusion of the Laws of Life and Death, containing void energy that had become a ticking time bomb, ready to detonate the moment it found the chance to unleash itself.
That sword was the only thing keeping it from doing exactly that, and it was also the reason Venom had been so incredulous about her proposal, and likely wouldn’t have let her go through with something like this at all, if not for the fact that the sword, steeped in an enormous quantity of the Laws of Death, was part of Silas’s complete remains, in other words, part of what Evan needed to complete his integration with his Concept of Death.
She didn’t know why, but for some reason she felt certain this was the only way to guarantee the process Evan was undergoing would succeed.
She wasn’t sure why he had entered that state right after eliminating that Abyss God’s avatar, but she knew there wasn’t much else she could do at the moment, so she’d decided to try this, hoping everything would go well.
’I really hope you succeed, because if you don’t, then we won’t ever have the chance to see each other again,’ she thought, silently wishing Evan success, because his success could guarantee her survival and perhaps even give her a chance to return to her former strength.
It was an incredibly risky bet. But one she was ready to take.
’I wonder how she’ll react,’ she thought as she looked toward Venom, who, after nodding at her earlier words, prepared to pull out the sword.
Seraphine wondered whether Venom would be able to accept the fact that Silas was now only a part of Evan, rather than the individual she had known in the past.
If this had happened before, such a thing might have worried her, because Venom was, after all, a Demigod, and she would have been anything but pleased about it. But if Evan succeeded in what he was attempting, Seraphine was certain that the boost in strength he would gain would give him enough power to withstand her.
’Haa... let’s hope everything goes well,’ she thought, exasperated by the situation.
She might not show it, but the weight of every cycle, every event that had happened across all the previous cycles, and the current one, was pressing down on her far more heavily than she wanted to admit.
If it weren’t for the small flicker of hope she still held onto, the hope of seeing that person again, and maybe finally winning against the Abyss, she would have given up trying a long time ago.
Venom wasted no time. Her adorable earlier appearance dissolved into violet mist, before condensing once more, this time growing in size until it became a long, serpentine dragon.
It was only a fraction of her true size, but it was enough for the task at hand.
And so, under Elena’s trembling gaze, as she struggled to make sense of everything happening before her, Venom surrounded the sword with her mana and began pulling it from the enormous chained figure.
The instant the sword began to tremble, the blade seemed to resist, as if warning whoever was pulling it to stop.
But despite the trembling, there was no real resistance or obstruction, only that initial, silent warning. Eventually, it began to slide free, slowly, inch by inch.
Though nothing had visibly happened yet, all three of them felt the tension in the hall begin to rise, growing heavier with every passing second.