Ethan POV
I started to slowly massage her back, hoping that it would help calm her down, but it proved useless. The more I tried to calm her down the harder her crying got.
[Ethan, when you get the chance, find out what happened. Her level is higher than yours right now. And there's…]
'We'll speak about that later, Ai.'
It took a while before she slightly released me from the tight hug and lifted her head to look into my eyes. She tried to smile, but her face betrayed her true emotions because her lower jaw kept trembling and tears didn't stop flowing down her cheeks.
Seeing her trying really hard to say something but being unable to, I brought one of my palms to her cheek and said in a soft voice: "Shh, you don't have to say anything. I understand."
She nodded before burying her head in my chest once again. The old man from before kept looking at us with an incredulous look. Eventually, he snapped out of his daze and said: "Saintess, who is this?"
Anna got startled by his voice and lifted her head from my chest. She cleaned the tears from her eyes using my robes and said: "Brenn, we'll speak about everything later. Can you give Ethan a bracelet?"
"As you wish." Brenn nodded and threw a bracelet towards me.
I caught it and Anna said: "Send us in. I'll be busy for quite a while so please take care of everything until I come back to you."
As Anna's words ended, I felt space bend around me. I allowed the teleportation to complete and appeared inside what looked like an underground city.
"Anna, this…" I wanted to ask her what this place was, why did the guy from outside called her saintess and many other questions, but she didn't give me the chance as she said: "Follow me. I'll explain everything once inside."
I nodded and followed her as she led me towards a big house not that far from the place we teleported to. Once we entered, a young woman came to ask Anna if she needs anything but Anna dismissed her right away and led me to one of the bedrooms in the house.
Once we were both seated on the bed, she buried her head in my chest one again as she hugged me strongly once again as she said: "I missed you."
I smiled as I hugged her back and replied: "I missed you too, but could you please explain what happened after we got separated inside that cave?".
"Let me hold you like this for a bit more. I missed you so much."
I nodded quietly and we both sat there in silence. Ai took the chance and said:
[Ethan her soul is no longer linked to her body.]
I frowned as I heard Ai's words and asked: 'What does that mean?'
[It means that this body she possesses now is probably an avatar, just like yours.]
'But how is that possible? And what happened to her real body?'
[The world's will must be the one who did it, but I don't know why. She's the only one who can create an avatar on this world besides the Nexus. With her soul now possessing and avatar, her real body is most probably dead.]
As I was chatting with Ai, Anna lifted her head and said: "Can you go first? I want to know more about how you've been since we got separated. Also, did you meet any other girls?"
I let out a sigh and started telling her everything that happened ever since we got separated, planning on leaving out only the stuff about Senna and Ai. She listened patiently while playing with the fingers on one of my hand and resting her head on my chest. She would sometimes chuckle, sometimes look at me worried, but mostly stayed silent as she listened to me. That was until I told her I slept with Anise. She raised her head with a pout and said: "Why didn't you want to do it with me as well when I asked you to? I wanted to be first."
Her question stumped me and I honestly didn't know how to answer. Seeing my conflicted face, she hung her head and asked: "Ethan, will you accept me as well?". I could feel her voice quivering and could tell that a rejection will probably break her heart, not that I planned to reject her anymore.
Sighing, I lifted her face and slowly approached her lips, she didn't push me back and closed her eyes as she also got closer. As out lips touched, I shuddered as the world around me disappeared as I appeared inside my soul space.
I looked at the sky confused and asked: "Ai? Why did you bring me here?"
Ai materialized in front of me and a bright golden ball of light floated out of her palm.
A weak but happy voice sounded from the ball of light: "We finally get to meet.."
"Who are you?" I asked, not understanding why Ai brought me here and what this ball of light was.
"I'm the spirit that controls the world's core. I think you must know me as this world's will. I've been trying to find a way to speak with you for a long time, outsider.."
"World will?" I said as I turned towards Ai with a questioning look. For as long I was here, Ai told me to stay away from the world's will and now she brought it inside my soul space. Ai nodded and said: "She was residing inside Anna's body and invaded your soul when the two of you kissed. I could have stopped her, but she begged me to let her in and I eventually agreed."
Hearing Ai's explanation, I tuned back towards the Will and asked: "You said you wanted to meet me. Why is that?"
"Because you, as someone with a soul strong enough to survive the journey between words, might be the only one who can save my children. As I glimpsed into every soul that resides inside my world's future, I became aware of the end that awaited all of us. Initially, I hoped that fate will bring a chosen and save my world like before, but this time, it didn't happen. As I felt myself slowly getting consumed by those demons and my power fading, I eventually resigned myself to my fate."
"That was until, one day, I noticed a being appeared inside my world whose future I couldn't read, whose fate was a complete mystery. I hoped that you were maybe the fate's chosen, but as I saw you spend your time stuck in that mountain while I was slowly dying, I understood that was probably not the case. With fate's guidance there was no way you would have spent so much time in one place."
"Seeing you arrive in those ruins, I knew that if you ended up inside the northern continent you will probably die before I even got the chance to speak to you so I had to stop that from happening. I went against my own laws and controlled that golem for a moment to destroy the teleportation device so that you will get stuck inside the void. After that, I connected the summoning spell of that magician girl to the void in the hopes of you answering her summon and reaching a zone close to one of my prophets. Since it was the first time I ever broke one my laws, I didn't expect the backlash I received to be so serious. Even communicating with my own prophet was now harder than I expected."
"Since I couldn't speak with you through my prophet, I let some instructions for him and created my own avatar, but I was too weak to even control it. Hoping that you will return to meet up with her, I modeled my avatar in Anna's appearance, swapped it with her dead body after she died since it would lessen the backlash from the laws and brought her soul back so that she could control the avatar while I laid in slumber inside and waited for you to return to her."
I was enraged to find out that I was played around with by this world's will but I kept my emotions in check and asked: "Why did you do all this? Why did you want to speak to me that badly?"
"Because I need you to consume me. I need you to absorb my soul and evolve yours."
"Huh?"
"That is the only way my children can ever be safe. The demons have received help from beings from outside, Spirits who are too strong for any children of my world to go against. I've observed your character through the people around you and I know for sure that you wish for the demon's destruction as much as I do. Absorbing my soul is the only way you'll even be able to face against those Spirits."
Hearing her explanation, I couldn't even stay mad at the fact she separated Anna from me and I asked: "But, wouldn't that mean you will die?"
"This me of now yes, but it's not the death you are imagining. In the beginning, after this world was created by the universe itself, it had no consciousness and was simply a floating object in space. One day, a small soul bound by laws appeared inside the world's core and fused with it, giving birth to a consciousness. That consciousness was me. After I became aware of myself, I started slowly observing the world while enforcing the laws that were so deeply ingrained inside my soul. If you consume my soul, the world will not be affected but simply revert back to the way it was before. I will still exist, it's just that I won't be a conscious soul anymore."
"That's still no different from death…"
"Maybe, but it's what I must do to save the world and all the children living inside it. If the demons continue consuming the core, I'm dead either way."
"Ai?" I turned towards Ai, waiting to hear her opinion.
"Consuming her will allow your soul to evolve, but I can't make this decision in your stead."
"What will happen to Anna? Wasn't her avatar created by the world's will? " Since the avatar was created by the world's will, I feared what would happen to it if I were to consume the will itself.
"The avatar was created by the world's will, but it's still a part of this world now. She'll be all right." Answered Ai.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before asking the world's will: "Are you sure?"
"Yes. I've already resigned myself to my fate." Responded the world will: "Please save my children, outsider."
I nodded and said: "I promise I will take care of the demons and save your world." I then turned towards Ai and asked: "How do I go about absorbing her soul?"
Ai waved her hand and the golden ball dissipated into golden specks of light that floated towards all the corners of my soul space before getting absorbed into it. Once that was done, Ai said: "Your soul will need to go into slumber for a while to complete the evolution."
"Wait, I want to speak with Anna first. If I go into slumber now she'll be worried." I was a little surprised about everything happening so fast.
"All right, I'll send you back. Just let me know when you are ready to evolve, but keep in mind that I can't delay the process for longer than two days."
After I agreed, I appeared back on the bed inside Anna's room. Seeing that Anna also appears to be asleep, I asked Ai: 'Is she all right?'
[She's fine. The Will made her fall asleep when she came to your soul space. She should wake up any moment now.]
Before Ai's words ended, Anna's eyes opened and she looked at me with a confused look: "What happened?"
"Nothing. I think that maybe you were too tired and fell asleep."
She nodded and said while blushing slightly: "Tell me what happened next. Your story got interrupted halfway through."
I then proceeded in telling her the rest of my story after the first night I spent together with Anise. Once my story ended, Anna hugged me closely and said: "I wish I could have been there to help you as well."
"I would have loved that too. Can you tell me what happened to you? How did you that shy little girl I knew ended up becoming the leader of the entire Blessed Battalion?"
Anna nodded and started recounting her story. How she died of hunger while waiting in those ruins, how she came back to life and saw an image of the world getting devoured by the demons, her efforts in breaking the demon's mind control and so on. I was surprised that everything she had to go through was no less difficult than what happened to me.
After listening quietly to her entire story, I hugged her tighter as she started crying once again and said: "It's all right now. You are no longer alone. I'll make sure you won't have to go trough any of those hardships again and I'm going to make that Vannoth pay for everything he did to both of us."
She surprising me by squirming out of my hug and saying with a serious face: "If you plan on taking on the demons on your own, I won't agree. I'll also come with you. We'll fight together from now on."
Seeing her look that left no room for further discussion, I sighed and nodded: "Fine. We'll both face the demons together."
Seeing me acquiescence, she plastered a sad smile on her face and said: "Want to go with me so I can introduce you to mother? A man I released from the demon's control told me that the entire time he was brainwashed he was aware of everything that was happening around him. I'm sure mother will be happy to meet you."
"Sure." I agreed and she stood up before she cleaned the tears from her face and led me outside. After walking through the door across from hers, I saw a middle aged woman who bare an uncanny resemblance to Anna laying down sleeping on a soft bed.
Anna led me by hand towards her mother and said: "Mom, this is Ethan. The one I kept telling you about…" She then proceeded to tell her mother that I finally returned to her and that it won't be long before we'll free her from the demon's control.
'Ai, how is she?'
[Her soul is in the same state as all the other brainwashed people. You don't have a way of helping her.]
I let out a sigh and listened quietly as Anna kept speaking with her mother about what happened today while doing her best not to cry. After she was done she grabbed my hand and we both walked out. Once outside, she took a deep breath and said: "Thank you for agreeing to meet her."
I nodded and said: "I'm sorry, Anna."
"It's all right. She's get better once we kill Mezienne. I know it."
"Mezienne?" I asked confused, not familiar with the name from her story.
Anna didn't immediately reply as she led me towards an office filled with documents. She searched through a stack of papers and chose one before passing it to me with a serious expression. Curious, I picked up the document and started reading through it. It contained information about Demon General Mezienne. After reading the whole document, I put it back on the desk and asked: "So you think that if we kill her, since she's responsible for all the brainwashing, the people will return back to normal?"
She nodded and started showing me more documents one after the other. They contained informations about the other three demon generals and also information about the demon movements in both the north and south. Honestly, the amount of information inside the Blessed Battalion was amazing.
"I still can't believe you are in charge of this whole place." I said with amazement as I looked at a document titled: 'Grand Duke Onwell. Soul harvest??'. The document contained information by the Battalions spies according to which the Grand Duke has made a deal with the demons. The details of the deal were unknown but it was still a disturbing piece of information.
"The former leader was better at it. I'm only the leader now because there was no one else that could do it. I wanted to keep the Battalion strong so that I could help you in your fight against the demons."
I out the file about the duke back on the desk and grabbed her hand while saying: "Let's speak about serious business another day. Today I just want to spend it with you and don't think about anything else."
She blushed and said: "I have some duties I need to take care of first. Do you mind waiting for a bit?"
"No problem."
"Okay. I'll go let Brenn know about everything and also tell give my aides some instructions and come right back. You can wait for me in my room."
I smiled at her blushing face and nodded in agreement. Seeing me agree, she rushed out the door and I slowly followed her outside the office.
After reaching her room, I stepped inside and laid down on the bed while waiting for Anna to come back.
[You've completed the quest 'Mysterious cave'.]
'I forgot about that quest. 100 system points seems like more of a joke right now..'
[The quest's purpose was to lead you to that cave and eventually here into the north, not the points themselves.]
'I guess. How long will my soul evolution take?'
[I don't know. Usually it doesn't take that long, but your situation is a little special.]
'How so?'
[Since we know that there is another dimension outside your soul space, as your soul evolves and expands in size, it will slowly start digging into that dimension.]
'Isn't that dangerous?'
[I don't know what will happen, but you'll still have to do it eventually.]
As I was about to continue the conversation, I heard rushed footsteps from outside and said in my mind.
'I'll speak to you later, Ai. I want to spend some time fully focused on Anna. She deserves it.'
Ai didn't reply as the door to the room opened and Anna stepped inside.