Illyana had a warm smile on her face, waiting for Liam's answer.
"Alright," Liam said, truly happy that Illyana felt like she belonged here.
'It really feels like she is the only one who could truly understand me,' Liam thought. When he was around her, he really felt free and at ease.
Illyana was so similar to him in everything: their not-so-human appearances, magic, circumstances, etc. Both of them even had a higher mental age than their physical age—Illyana due to being trapped in the Limbo realm and Liam because of his previous life.
'It really makes me feel like I can tell her everything,' he thought. Always having to tiptoe around other people, careful about what he could and couldn't say, was extremely exhausting for him.
'Then there's also her personality and beauty,' he thought. Truth be told, he already knew he had fallen for her.
Liam wanted to wait before asking her for a while. First of all, he needed to focus on setting up the organization. Secondly, he knew Illyana herself wasn't ready. She didn't want to hurt anyone by accident because of the influence of her Dark Chylde persona and was extremely scared that she would.
'I'll wait until she is more confident in herself and has more control over her powers,' Liam decided. 'That'll give me some time to get myself ready as well.'
"I'll talk to you about it later once I'm a little further in planning," Liam said, opening the door.
Illyana nodded, smiling.
Liam turned around and started walking towards his own room. But before he could, arms wrapped tightly around him from behind.
"Thank you so much for everything," he heard her whisper in his ear. The arms quickly pulled away, and the door closed behind him.
Liam stood still for a few moments before walking away with a large smile on his face.
As he got back to his room, Liam decided to move onto the next task at hand.
'The previous users,' Liam thought. 'They managed to give me energy when I needed it.'
'But why now? How? And what are they even?' he questioned.
"I guess there's only one way to find out," Liam muttered, opening a white rift in front of him.
Jumping through, he reappeared in the massive dome-like structure. Compared to last time, some things had changed.
'What happened here?' Liam thought. Two of the stone statues were completely broken, stone shards scattered everywhere on the ground.
'I remember this statue,' Liam thought. 'It was the old man who prevented me from reaching for the crystal ball on top of the altar.'
Liam walked closer to the rubble on the ground and crouched down, brushing the rubble away from the pedestal. The teardrop-like structures had turned completely grey on the first statue he checked. Moving on to the second, Liam crouched down again and pushed the rubble away.
This statue had the exact same condition as the last one. Both statues had only two colored teardrops in them before, and now both had turned grey.
As Liam stood up again, he felt a hand on his shoulder. He spun around and found himself looking at a man in spirit form, seemingly around the age of 30.
"Hello," the man said, waving his hand.
"Hello?" Liam said in a questioning tone.
The man smiled. "I know it can be a little confusing, but please stay calm."
"No, it's alright," Liam said calmly,
'I've really gotten way too used to weird things happening to me.' He thought.
"Can you explain to me what you are and what exactly this place is?" Liam continued. He wanted to get as many answers to his questions as possible.
"I was going to get to that," the man said. "We have quite some time. I'll start with your first question."
"I am Alaric Draven, commander of the first rebellion within the great empire," Alaric introduced himself. "As for what I am now? I'm in my soul form. When my physical body died, this was what was sucked into Incursio."
"As for the great empire? You are standing inside the ruins of it right now—or rather, some kind of projection of it," he continued.
Liam paid close attention to what Alaric said, absorbing as much new information as possible.
'So this is him, the guy who started the first revolution 500 years before the anime happened,' Liam thought.
He had seen his statue before. It was the only one outside of Tatsumi that had four teardrops embedded in the pedestal.
"Where are the other old users?" he asked. Since one of them could talk, Liam assumed all of them could. That's why he wanted to know why they weren't here.
"I was chosen to welcome you, most of the others are resting and trying to regenerate all the energy they lost before," the man said.
Liam nodded, accepting the answer. He didn't want to stay on it for too long since he had more important questions he wanted to ask.
'I'll ask more about this toward the end,' Liam thought, opening his mouth to ask his next question.
"What about this dome? What is it?" Liam asked, wanting to get one of his main questions out of the way.
"Aha, this dome," Alaric started. "It's kind of like a center point of this dimension, and also the gathering place where all of our souls are being kept."
"Being kept?" Liam asked.
"Yeah, but don't worry about that yet," Alaric said, shrugging it off. "That's something for the far future."
"Are you sure?" Liam asked, in disbelief at how nonchalant this man was. "That sounded rather important to me."
"Yeah, it's fine for now," he said. "Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to tell you."
"Well... okay. Can I know what happened to these two statues then?" Liam asked.
"Yeah, sure. These people were previous users of Incursio. They were very satisfied with your behavior and your willingness to help ordinary people, so they decided to give you all their remaining energy," Alaric said, in a somber tone. "It really was a shame; they were nice people."
Liam grit his teeth, obviously understanding what Alaric was implying.
Although Alaric didn't exactly say what had happened to them, Liam could take that guess with ease.
'If all the energy leaves their soul, it will dissipate. Meaning permanent death,' he thought. 'And if all the theories from fellow mages are right, that means no chance of rebirth or reincarnation. Just permanently gone.'
Liam hated the feeling he had, knowing other people died for your cause was one painful feeling.
Calming himself, Liam decided to switch the topic, remembering something else he needed to ask about.
"Can you read the scriptures on the pedestals?" Liam asked.
"Yes, in fact, everyone here can," Alaric said. "You need to supply Incursio's energy to your eyes while having gone through the second evolution."
"I've already done that," Liam said. "But it doesn't do anything."
"It needs to be purely Incursio's energy," Alaric said. "It is a rather difficult process everyone has to go through. Controlling Incursio's energy and keeping the energy from your dimension separate is quite the task, after all."
Liam nodded, making a mental note. He had thought about this solution before but hadn't been able to accomplish it yet.
'Having reassurance that it's correct is always nice,' Liam thought.
"I have one final important question," Liam said. "It's about the dreams I've been getting."