I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1159: Vengeance Of Madness

Northern fell silent after Kryos’s last words. He knew there was more—there had to be more to this cosmology. Right now, he still felt like there was more, so much more to what Kryos was telling him.

But what Kryos had just spilled now had been the closest he’d ever gotten to the truth. At the same time, after being subjected to lies and manipulation over and over again, Northern had become too cynical not to take Kryos’s words with a grain of salt.

Yet he wasn’t stupid enough to dismiss everything the Origin was saying. If Kryos had deliberately entered the prison because it was the only way to slip into the feeding field that the First Origins had created—which sadly was his own world...

Northern looked at him with quiet disbelief.

”How come it took a superior being like you such drastic measures to enter this world when elves and other beings from the underworld just slip through somehow?”

Kryos chuckled dryly.

”What would long-eared dolls do to the authority of the Origins, let alone the Firsts themselves?”

Northern looked down for a moment.

’That makes sense.’

He was boiling with hundreds—no, thousands—of questions. There was so much he wanted to know that he was beginning to think of undoing the Erasure Touch, but the moment he did that, Kryos would break free and worse, he could try to run away.

This was the only way, but like this... his questions were limited. He didn’t know if Kryos was capable of dying from Erasure Touch. He doubted it. But the Origin might not be in any position to answer his questions anymore.

Even right now, the mark had spread over the right side of his body and was beginning to creep toward his left.

Northern exhaled and asked the question that had been building up inside him.

”What happens to the First Origins if you succeed? If you destroy their feeding system?”

Kryos responded with a strain, his voice losing its texture.

”They starve. Then we watch what happens when they starve, what will crumble if they don’t get the essence feed that motivated them to build an entire civilization. Or maybe they’ll be forced to emerge from hiding while still wounded, and in that state...”

Kryos grinned viciously, silver blood streaming between his teeth.

”In that state, I’m going to enjoy destroying them or die trying.”

The implication hung in the air between them.

Northern looked at the spreading corruption on Kryos’s body, then back at the Origin’s face.

He thought about the fact that the void was corrupted and something was happening. Granted, he had wielded the void before and had never felt like it was corrupted in any way.

”There’s something you’re not telling me. About the corrupted Void. What exactly does this corruption mean, and what happens when the system falls?”

Kryos’s expression became unreadable.

”Very perceptive. Yes, there’s more. But that knowledge...”

He paused.

”That knowledge is what the First Origins killed Andra to protect. What Anki died trying to prove. What I’m willing to let consume me to reveal.”

”Tell me.”

Kryos shook his head.

”No.”

Northern suppressed the urge to slap him again. Not everything needed to be resolved through violence. Instead, he gave Kryos a calm look.

”What would it take for you to tell me?”

Kryos raised his head, looking at Northern sternly.

”What are you?”

Northern went blank for a moment, just blinking. Then he suddenly laughed.

His laugh made Kryos frown darkly.

”Well, well, must’ve been shocking, right? I can understand, I guess. But who am I? I’m just a boy who wants to protect his life and his parents.”

His gaze sharpened.

”It so happens that we’re all livestock to the First Origins, but in this livestock field, I have people I want to protect—a life I want to protect too.”

Kryos shook his head in disappointment.

”This is why it’s never logical to reason with humans. Bound by finite emotions, sentimental toward bonds that won’t matter. What you call pride is what sustains my sense of worth—you humans have none of it. You’ll live shackled because of flimsy excuses like bonds and sentimentalism. They’re all finite. If you’re a nomad by nature and you reach a new settlement, will you not meet new people? New bonds? After making them, will you refuse to follow your nomadic nature because of the bonds you’ve made, because of pointless sentiments?”

Northern gave him a hand chop on his forehead, like a father scolding a child.

”This is different. Some bonds are irreplaceable.”

For a moment, Northern paused and internally examined himself.

’I can’t believe I’m the one saying this right now...’

Northern thought back to what Roma had said—that fighting for people doesn’t make you any less weak. Power without direction is weakness. Although he wasn’t conclusive about the latter, he loved to believe power is power, even in its directionlessness.

He brought his attention back to Kryos.

”You’re hypocritical, do you know that? You didn’t mind staying seven thousand years in a prison just to get here. You’re willing to burn my entire world to the ground just to avenge someone you love, and yet you call me sentimental for trying to protect my world? Remove the log of dirt from your own eye.”

Kryos’s voice sharpened.

”This is more than just sentiments!”

He coughed immediately after, his voice sounding hoarse.

”This... they’ve exploited the world. They created a civilization solely for the purpose of their own replenishment, after fighting a war that was purely hinged on their own pride, dragging their mother into it and now the entirety of the Realm—both greater and lesser fragments—stands at the risk of corruption, and they’ll do nothing about it! This is righting the wrongs of the world.

”Not only am I avenging them, my vengeance will destroy both fragments of the world and leave them with nothing. This is how to right the wrongs they’ve committed.”

Northern looked at the Origin with a mixture of disbelief for a few seconds.

”You... are mad.”