Everyone stayed completely silent after Eve’s words. Probably because no one really understood what she was saying. It was like she had just dropped a string of disconnected words, thrown out into the air with no context.
But despite the chaotic appearance, her sentences weren’t random. I can’t say they held the whole truth either — there was sothing enigmatic about them. In the end, the only certainty I had was that Eve knew exactly what she was talking about.
Still, contradicting all her own words, the next mont Eve shrugged and, with a playful smile on her face, said: “Well... that’s at least how I interpret immortality. The truth is probably a lot darker than that. Immortality can an different things to different people. After all, not all of us see life the sa way”
The very mont she said that, my golden eyes carefully scanned every nuance of her expression. It was curious... no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t see any trace of that lancholic, dark woman I t at the start.
The darkness in her eyes, the silent sadness at the corner of her lips — all of that had vanished like smoke in the wind. Well, the slightly psychopathic traits were still there, subtle but unmistakable. But other than that, she seed dangerously... normal. And maybe it was exactly that artificial normalcy that made her even more abnormal.
Putting that aside for now, the main question still hung in the air: what exactly was I supposed to be doing here? From the mont my Alter Ego intervened abruptly, sothing beca clear to — inside that sphere, there was a good chance another Virtue was asleep, waiting for the right mont to awaken. But the real mystery was sothing else: what does my Alter Ego expect to do about it? What role does he think I’m supposed to play right now?.
To be honest, aside from Nekra and Althea, my mories of the other Virtues were still completely blank. But there was sothing I’d been thinking about the last few days — more specifically, about the new anomalous ability I gained on the last mission.
I hadn’t had many chances to use it since then, and the only ti it showed up was pure coincidence. That made question not only how it worked but also why it appeared at that exact mont.
Anyway, the question remains: with this ability, can I force my mories to co back? I don’t really understand how it works, nor do I know its limits... but one thing’s for sure — now it’s part of , intertwined with who I am.
If that’s the case, I should be able to control it, shape it to my will, right? At least, that’s what I choose to believe. Because in the end, believing that might be all I’ve got left.
That said, there was another important detail — this anomalous power only activates on a liquid surface, like water, for example — but that probably wasn’t a problem, since there was a lake right in front of .
Still, one uncertainty bothered : the lake itself was an anomalous phenonon, and I couldn’t be sure if it would work the sa way. But it wasn’t like I had anything to lose by trying.
With that thought in mind, I started walking toward the lake. Adam had already let go of my shirt — his eyes fixed on Eve, seemingly intrigued and curious about what she’d said. My feet sank softly into the fluffy snow, making a muffled crack that echoed in the silence around us, catching everyone’s attention.
Under the group’s watchful eyes, I moved forward until I stopped right at the edge of the lake. Of course, I wasn’t going in. I had already understood very well what could happen if I got too close to that mysterious sphere.
The next mont, I looked down. My golden, shining eyes reflected on the lake’s dark surface, creating a strange and almost hypnotic contrast. It was a sign — quiet but clear — that it was ti to begin. In an instant, the vivid gold in my irises started to dissolve, giving way to a soft bluish tone. A subtle, almost ethereal glow flickered in my eyes for a brief second, changing them almost imperceptibly.
Imdiately after, the lake’s surface underwent an unexpected transformation. The dark, opaque color of the water gradually gave way to a crystal-clear blue, so clean it seed to promise a direct view to the bottom. However, even with this new transparency, the bottom remained unseen.
What happened basically was that the lake’s surface took on a crystal-clear, almost translucent blue tone, while the darkness — now more like a dense, shadowy mist — retreated to the deeper layers. Besides that, I didn’t notice any major differences; honestly, I wasn’t sure if that could be called a goal achieved or not.
However, sothing caught my attention inside that darkness that separated from the surface. It wasn’t exactly darkness — I an, there was still an absence of light, but not the usual kind you’d expect. There was sothing... different, a kind of subtle presence, almost tangible, that made that space unsettlingly strange.
Anyway, now ca the hardest part of my plan: trying to connect the lake to my mories. The problem was, I didn’t exactly have mories of my past — except for those I shared with Nekra and Althea. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much I could do about that. But it wasn’t like I was acting without any plan or hope. Even without those mories, I knew soone else might have kept them safe.
With that thought, I slowly lifted my gaze and looked straight into my Alter Ego’s eyes, who was staring at with an almost unsettling intensity. That was really just a bet — I had no concrete proof that he carried the sa mories as I did. But if you consider everything that happened since his ergence, especially how he reacted to Nekra and Althea, there was no doubt: he definitely wasn’t just an ordinary clone of .
So, in the next mont, all I did was close my eyes for a brief second, feeling my breathing calm before I leapt toward the lake. This ti, my Alter Ego stayed still, didn’t react, just watched with an unnerving calmness. Soon, I felt the cold water surround , my body starting to sink slowly.
When I opened my eyes again, my senses were overtaken by a strange and fascinating sight: I was exactly at the dividing line between two worlds — above, the crystal-clear blue water glead under the faint light of the sky, and below, a thick, dark mist began to coil, silently falling into the mysterious depths of the lake.
I had no clue what to do at that mont, so I just decided to wait. A few tense, silent monts passed until slowly, bubbles started to form around .
It began with a single small, translucent bubble, but little by little their number grew, filling the air around . In no ti, I was completely surrounded by them, their surfaces shimring with iridescent reflections in the dim light.
Suddenly, I felt my body being thrown, without knowing exactly where: up, down—I had no idea. All I could sense was the feeling of the bubbles wrapping every inch of my skin, as if I were being swallowed by a sea of liquid glass. It was a sensation both strange and hypnotic, like being suspended between two worlds.
When the bubbles finally faded away, my eyes managed to focus again. I was in the sky — I didn’t exactly know how I got there, but sohow, inexplicably, I had been teleported to that high place, surrounded by clouds and a vast horizon stretching out before .
As I fell from the sky, my eyes scanned the scene below with growing attention. At first glance, the place seed... almost too normal. A vast, silent field covered in golden grass that swayed gently, like it was dancing to the rhythm of an invisible, originless wind.
On the horizon, white-barked trees glead under the diffuse light, their black leaves forming a serene and nearly symtrical line — like a divine garden sculpted in perfect silence. Further ahead, a crystal-clear lake lay still, reflecting the sky and landscape with an almost supernatural sharpness — maybe even more vivid than the real world itself.
No matter how stunning the surroundings were — the sky painted in warm shades of orange and purple, clouds looking like artistic brushstrokes on the horizon — none of that changed the fact that I was plumting toward the ground at over 60 miles per hour.
I admit, the thought of my face smashing into the dirt wasn’t exactly encouraging. But deep down, it didn’t worry much because I knew I wouldn’t die. Maybe it was that certainty that kept strangely calm, even as the wind cut across my face and everything around spun at a dizzying speed.
However, contrary to what I expected at first, the closer I got to the ground, the more my falling speed slowed. It was a weird feeling, like I was sinking slowly into a dense liquid, but with no control over the movent.
Suddenly, my fall slowed until it stopped completely, leaving suspended in midair. I wasn’t touching the ground—in fact, I was floating just inches above it, as if an invisible force held up, defying gravity and everything I expected at that mont.
But definitely, the strangest part was that my feet could feel the ground even without touching it directly. The grass beneath was slightly crushed, as if it had supported an invisible weight.
I could feel the soft, damp texture of the grass against my skin, even though my feet weren’t touching the surface. It was an almost surreal sensation, like the air itself was transmitting nature’s touch. Honestly, that place was a walking contradiction — sothing at once real and impossible to explain.
The sky stretched out in a clear, almost surreal blue, crossed by still clouds, like statues suspended in the air — they didn’t float, didn’t change shape, they just stayed motionless, indifferent to ti. There was a diffuse light illuminating everything, but no sun to explain its origin. The warmth was tangible, yet ca from no visible source. Everything was beautiful. Silent. Peaceful. And yet, deeply wrong.
The trees, when looked at closely, had no bark — their surfaces resembled thin, translucent skin, with subtle veins pulsing beneath what should have been wood. The grass, to the touch, wasn’t cold or rough; it pulsed gently, like living flesh, vibrating with a silent, unsettling life.
The lake, still and serene, reflected the surrounding field perfectly, but refused to reflect anyone who dared to look at it. It was as if its mirror held a dark secret, excluding the observer from the reality hidden within.
The distance between things was unchanging. Always. No matter how far you walked, the serene lake, the lined-up trees, and the vast field remained fixed in place, as if the world were a drawing on a sheet of paper, and you were just a piece slowly sliding across it.
No bird sounds broke the air; no restless buzzing of insects, nor the genuine rustling of leaves moved by the wind. The silence was so absolute, so pure, it seed to seep into the mind, echoing in reverberations that refused to fade. And when I finally raised my eyes to the sky and stared for too long, I noticed sothing I hadn’t seen before.
The clouds seed to be looking back, motionless and silent, as if guarding ancient secrets. In this strange world, ti didn’t move forward — it only repeated itself, an endless cycle caught in a chanical dance. An illusory balance, delicately sculpted, where life and death, day and night, heat and cold blended into a single, indistinct, unchanging mold — like an eternal painting that refused to change.
Sohow, my first impression of that place was that of a living paradox, a contradiction pulsating in every way. Its very existence seed to defiantly challenge everything I understood as logical. It was as if that entire space escaped the bounds of common reason, where the rules I knew simply didn’t apply.
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