Death… And Me

Chapter 4572: Fragments

[Alright, you have a total of 718 Orb Points after receiving the latest rewards.]

”That’s quite a lot,” Rean said with a smile. ”How about we buy the second level of the Soul Connection Range? It gives us a range of 10,000 kilometers, and now that we have access to the Great Void, we need to remain within range if we want to enter and leave it.”

”That’s a good idea,” Roan agreed. ”But first...”

Roan walked toward Luxa, who was standing in the center of the room. ”It’s time to give it a try.”

Immediately, the sound of the system echoed through their minds. Well, technically, it was Sister Orb imitating the system’s voice.

[History Echo - 50 Orb Points.]

[Confirm Purchase?]

Rean’s eyes lit up. ”Right! I almost forgot we acquired this system ability back then.”

Rean approached Luxa as well, and together with Roan, they confirmed the purchase.

”Yes!”

*Zul!*

Immediately, everything went dark! No, that wasn’t quite correct. Their surroundings hadn’t actually disappeared. Rather, the twins’ minds had been brought into a separate space that existed within the Orb System, while their physical bodies hadn’t moved at all.

Inside that strange mental space, Rean and Roan’s projected forms looked at each other for a moment before they noticed their surroundings beginning to change. Various images—or knowledge, to be more precise—started flooding into their minds and filling that mysterious location.

They saw what appeared to be some kind of research facility. However, it wasn’t located inside any Universe. Instead, it was somewhere within the Great Void, extremely far away from any Universe in Goslau.

At the most important location within that facility stood several enormous glass cylinders filled with a strange green liquid. Inside each cylinder was a small object, more or less round and soft. Rean and Roan immediately recognized the shape, as it looked almost exactly like the Wombs where they had found Luxa and Lunelle.

Of course, the History Echo was focused on Luxa, so what they were seeing was related to her history. Well, not entirely. The system wasn’t showing them everything. It was only presenting fragments, but those fragments seemed to be the most important ones.

In the background, they saw that many of the Wombs inside the other glass cylinders were repeatedly replaced, likely because they had died during the experiments. Eventually, only one Womb remained inside the facility. At first, the twins wondered whether it was Luxa’s Womb, but they soon realized that couldn’t be the case. The system was showing them a history related to Luxa, not necessarily Luxa herself.

The remaining Womb continued to grow, taking many years to develop little by little. Eventually, it had become even larger than Luxa’s Womb, allowing Rean and Roan to confirm that it couldn’t possibly have been the one they had found.

The images and knowledge changed again, and this time, the Eternal Day Fox was born.

It had only one tail, but the moment it emerged, the entire facility in the middle of the Great Void was illuminated. It was a strange phenomenon, as even places where there shouldn’t have been any light whatsoever suddenly became incredibly bright, as though an entire sun had appeared inside the facility.

Rean and Roan weren’t idiots. That was obviously the power of the Eternal Day Fox. However, it also raised another question: Why didn’t Luxa seem to cause the same effect in the Celestial Plane? Of course, it might have been due to the restrictions of the Celestial Plane itself. Luxa’s current condition was also completely different from what they were seeing in these fragments.

The images changed again, and the Fox grew rapidly. Its number of tails increased from one to two, then three, and finally four. However, by the time the fourth tail appeared, it looked as though countless years had passed. The Fox had become increasingly frail, and the daylight caused by its presence seemed to have disappeared.

That was when the images changed to a Raven, this one possessing four special tail feathers. The Fox and Raven were together in the same facility. Not much information was shown in this fragment, but Rean and Roan could tell that something unusual was happening between them. At first, it seemed as though the Raven and Fox were simply nullifying each other’s powers.

No, that wasn’t quite right.

They worked more like Rean and Roan’s Light and Dark.

They complemented each other instead. The Raven’s presence prevented the Fox’s special constitution from turning everything around it into eternal day, while the Fox prevented the Raven from plunging everything into eternal night. When both were present in the same location, the days passed normally, and that wasn’t limited to the facility. It apparently applied to entire Universes as well.

Rean and Roan couldn’t tell for certain, but in the fragments they were seeing, many important cultivators of the Thousand-Script Race seemed to always be present around the two beasts.

There were even images of powerful cultivators cultivating in the same room where the Raven and Fox existed, suggesting that the two creatures were not simply isolated experimental subjects. They seemed to have become a regular part of the lives of some of the Thousand-Script Race’s most important members.

The images changed again, and this time, the same cylinders appeared. From the looks of it, the experiments had continued, with the researchers attempting to create another Eternal Day Fox. As for the Raven, that was probably something being created in another facility.

Then, without warning, everything turned red.

Large-scale destruction spread throughout the facility. Glass cylinders shattered, structures collapsed, and the researchers were caught in what appeared to be some kind of catastrophe. In the middle of the chaos, the cylinder Rean and Roan had been watching was suddenly snatched away by none other than the old Eternal Day Fox.

The images cut to a pursuit that brought the Fox somewhere else. By then, that Fox had joined together with the Raven, who was carrying a small navy-blue womb. Finally, Rean and Roan saw something different. The old Fox and old Raven seemed to be capable of manipulating the Goslau Great Void’s Echo, albeit to a much lesser extent than what the twins could accomplish in Vinx.

The images cut again, and this time, the Fox and Raven were in terrible condition. Their bodies were covered in injuries, and they had clearly gone through an intense battle. They seemed to have left their pursuers behind, but they weren’t relaxed. Rean narrowed his eyes and finally noticed some runes swirling around both the Fox’s and Raven’s bodies.

Tracking Runes!

Another cut showed the Fox and Raven in front of a Black Hole. Their enemies surrounded them from every direction, leaving them with nowhere left to run. Yet the old Fox and Raven seemed to have made a decision. The little bit of Goslau Great Void Echo they could control gathered around their bodies, and together, they launched themselves into the Black Hole!

The images cut once more.

The old Fox and Raven were gone.

Instead, the Womb that the Fox had been carrying was now falling from the skies. It smashed into the ruins of a long-destroyed city, yet the impact didn’t destroy it. Instead, the Womb quickly began taking root amid the ruins.

Many years passed, and slowly, the Womb began to grow hotter. Lava lakes gradually formed throughout the surrounding region, transforming the area into the dangerous environment the twins would encounter later. The Drakes eventually discovered the place and made it their home, unaware of the strange history buried beneath the ruins.

And that was where the History Echo ended.

The twins’ minds were suddenly brought back to reality. Their projected forms disappeared from the mental space, and their consciousness returned to their bodies exactly where they had been before activating the History Echo.

Neither of them spoke for a moment.

They already knew what the final fragment represented.

That ancient, ruined city, the growing lava lakes, and the Drakes that eventually settled there were the exact place where they had found Luxa’s Womb.