Nine absentmindedly stroked the core. She quickly realized that even if she wasn't paying it much attention, the being inside never seemed to notice as long as she put her hands on it.
By now, she had realized that the being inside had no senses other than using magic, which was an unexpected boon to her. That meant that she could flirt whenever she wanted with Nocturne without the unknown being inside realizing.
Nine was currently standing on the Cosmos City's outer wall, staring down into nothing as she whiled the time away. Although she looked blank, she was actually thinking and piecing together various pieces of information that Mephisto's minions had gathered.
There were various pieces of the puzzle that fit together, forming a larger picture than what she had originally imagined. The scale of 'Darkness Uprising' was unimaginably large.
Unfortunately, she had yet to meet another Elf other than Misha. Even as she met Misha, she had to take information from her with a grain of salt. After all, she had noticed that the Elf wasn't completely all there.
It wasn't very apparent to those who interacted with her for only a short period of time, but Nine had spent an extensive amount of time studying the Elf as she stayed next to her and Nocturne.
No matter what Nocturne felt about the Elf, Nine was after all responsible for her well-being since she had been the one who experimented on her. Of course, she could just discard her like others were likely to do, but that didn't sit right with Nine, so she had never considered the option.
Even now, Misha was glaring at the core in her hands enviously, and her eyes seemed to say, 'How is that worthy of being in Master's hands?'. Nine ignored her.
The core had been doing nothing but sucking up her excess amounts of magic. Compared to when it had unwittingly drawn her into her own brand of Charm, it seemed almost lazy, or like it was reaching its saturation point.
[Veritas] told her that it was the latter.
What would happen once the being inside reached the complete saturation of light elements? Would the being somehow break out of the core? Like an egg? Was that what this was?
Unfortunately, Nine had little to no experience dealing with these kind of things. She wasn't an expert in biology or anything even remotely similar to it, and none of the books that the previous Nine had left in her room left her with any explanations.
Think about it. Do you think that no one else was able to discover that something was off with the Elves? This was a world full of magic. The inhabitants of this world constantly said goodbye to physics every day. They weren't all fools. There had to be someone or something else that was part of this conspiracy as well. Whether or not the Elves had any idea about this was something else altogether.
Even their reason for starting this whole fiasco reeked to her. Misha said that they were working towards 'a cure for the world', but how viable was what she heard from an orphaned Elf, who was practically brainwashed into the plan?
In what way was practically obliterating other species and races considered 'curing the world'? Those who still walked on the planet were the ones who made it thrive! You couldn't just live in a stasis where one took out everything else other than the things they wanted.
As she was piecing more thoughts together, there was an ominous cracking sound from the core that she had been clutching harder and harder in her hands.
Nine immediately let go, but the damage was done. The core had been fractured, and the fractures were rapidly spreading.
Nine did not panic. She was the epitome of calmness.
Nine panicked. She reflexively threw more magic on it in a last-ditch hope that the magic would be able to be consumed by whatever being inside there so that it could repair the damage that she had unwittingly caused the core, but to no avail.
Misha, who had been staring hard at the core, realized that her Master was gripping the core hard, but never said a word because she lowkey wanted for the core to be shattered the pieces. The only thing that would have been better was if she could shatter it herself, but obviously, that was never going to happen.
When the hairline fractures first appeared, the Elf's eyes all but glowed. She almost held her breath when the fractures became bigger. A quick glance at her Master proved that he never realized anything was out of place.
The bright glow of the core dimmed and shuttered, looking like a lonely, flickering bulb in the middle of an apartment at night. Nine's hopes dropped and as Misha was about to celebrate, the core glowed brighter than ever, the radiance emitting from the core could have blinded, had it not died down moments later.
Misha frowned, staring at the core apprehensively.
A blinding being burst out of the two halves of the core, and Misha reflexively shielded her eyes.
Nine, on the other hand, stared hard at the being that had emerged. Barely the size of her palm, there was a small, softly glowing being that looked like a miniature version of herself. With six pairs of white, feathery wings attached to the being's back, it floated in the sky, hovering around Nine. That is, a miniature version of her real, with a slightly more genderless appearance. With wings.
"Nine!" came Nocturne's voice. There was a barely detectable trace of the frantic worry he must have been feeling.
Nine nodded at her Nox's appearance, and as the being made another round, she reached out and grabbed the being's wings, causing it to make a squeaky, indignant sound. Nine squinted at the little being, slowly coming to a conclusion.
"It's a fairy. A newly born one, that is."
Her statement caused Nocturne to frown. "A fairy? As in, an Elemental?"
Nine nodded.
"That's impossible! Elementals can't be born!" Nocturne said, before pausing. "Can they?"
Nine ignored the struggling of the newly born light elemental. "Why not? If it came from the Undead Titan's core, then it would have been born from a place filled with the purest of darkness elements. In this case, light born from the darkest of places. Isn't it quite fitting? Light from darkness, dark from light. The more extreme something is, the more chance there is for something to grow. This has always been a universal truth that existed in magic, which is why two contrasting elements create such an explosive effect."
Nocturne felt like his world had been overturned. The discovery that Elementals could have been 'born' instead of 'coming into existence' contained many hidden truths that had been lost in the knowledge known in today's world.
The implications of this knowledge presented a grim scenario. While it remained unclear whether or not the Elves knew that they could foster Elementals this way, they were bound to find out sooner or later.
The Elemental that had just been born was only a Low Light Elemental, so it still had a way to go before it became truly strong.
As Nocturne's mind was rapidly working over the various implications, he spotted something that almost made his heart stop beating.
Nine was feeding the newly born Elemental her blood.
@#)(&)!@&# Nocturne wanted to swear, but his upbringing prevented him from voicing them out loud.
Nine watched in morbid fascination as the Low Light Elemental drank the drop of her blood from her index finger. The Elemental shivered as it lost its mobility, swooning and collapsing onto her palm like a drunk.
[Low Light Elemental (Mutation in Progress) Tamed]
Nine's eyes flashed when she realized that it worked. She was not overly surprised, but she greatly suspected that she was different from the average Vampire. How else did it explain how Mephisto had survived her Vampiric transformation when all of the other Vampire's attempts failed?
One might argue that it was a fluke, but hadn't Nine just disproved that? There were still secrets in her blood that she had not yet unlocked.
While it might have been reckless to feed the Elemental her blood, reality proved that she had been right, and her actions had paid off.
"Anya."
[Anya (Vampiric Elemental)]
[Status: Healthy, Newly born (Hungry)]
[Titles: Nine's Childe, Nine's Familiar, Friend of the Light, Friend of the Darkness, Charm Master]
Anya shared two titles with Mephisto, which she had already expected, and Friend of the Light was due to her previous species, then Friend of the Darkness was because Nine had somewhat sadistically kept feeding the core darkness elements instead of light elements?
Nine coughed, ignoring the last title.
Anya completed her transformation quickly, waking up. The little being rubbed her eyes and yawned cutely, completely gluing Nocturne and Misha's eyes onto her appearance.
They almost had a heart attack at how cute the Elemental looked, mainly because of their devotion to Nine, but it didn't matter.
Misha cooed for a short while before going back to her normal self, but Nocturne remained starry-eyed over Anya. It reached the point where she was suspicious whether or not he was under Anya's Charm.
"Nine, it's like a mini you! She's so cute! I want a familiar that looks like you too!"
Never mind, he was fine.
She couldn't help but feel a spike of jealousy over her new familiar.
"Who do you like more? Her? Or me?"
Nocturne froze.
Nine's lips curled gently. She actually just liked to see his flustered face.