Michael's hand tightened unconsciously.
He was not so cold, detached existence. Seeing Lily scream in pain made his heart ache. Even having watched countless undead evolve before, doubt crept in slowly.
What if sothing went wrong?
Even when he had evolved Ace, a fellow human, he had not felt this anxious. Back then he had been able to tell himself that if Ace did not survive it was simply his destiny. He could not bring himself to feel that sa relative indifference toward Lily.
Her screams continued as the surge of mana around her only grew stronger.
Minutes passed. Finally the violent surge of energy began to slow. The blinding light that had swallowed Lily's figure started to dim as her screams faded.
Michael's eyes narrowed slightly as Lily's figure was finally revealed. She lay on the ground, motionless.
"She passed out."
Michael exhaled quietly. The tension in his chest eased slightly.
Copying the trait of his undead healing worm, Michael slipped a bit of vitality into Lily's body.
Five minutes later, Lily opened her eyes.
Her lashes fluttered slightly before her gaze focused. For a mont she stared upward at the purple sky above, confused.
"Where am I?"
Her voice was weak and laced with disorientation.
Michael, who had been standing beside her, felt the last of the tension in his chest finally release. Then, as if nothing had happened, he crossed his arms and spoke casually.
"What, a little nap was enough to wipe your mory? Why are you so dramatic?"
Lily blinked at the familiar voice. Her pupils shrank slightly. The haze cleared from her eyes as recent mories ca rushing back. "You-!"
She shot up to her feet in one swift motion.
"That was so painful!"
Without hesitation Lily lunged at Michael, who stepped aside lightly and let her fist cut through empty air.
Lily did not stop. She turned sharply, her body moving almost instinctively as she followed up with another strike.
Michael's eyes flickered slightly.
Interesting.
He shifted his weight and avoided the second attack just as easily.
For a brief mont the two of them moved across the space in quick exchanges. To the eyes of an ordinary person their movents would have been difficult to follow.
As they exchanged moves, Michael quietly observed his cousin's post-evolution state.
Her strength had increased. That much was expected. High Humans were significantly stronger than ordinary humans.
And then there was her appearance.
She had received the full standard package. Green eyes. Long hair. Her skin had taken on a faint, refined pallor, almost luminous under the purple light, giving her a mysterious quality.
Michael's lips curved faintly.
At the sa ti he could sense a small, condensed core of lifeforce within her. This was the mark of Aurora's Knight path. A life seed. Lily had now fully stepped onto it.
Lily, on the other hand, did not seem to have imdiately noticed the changes in herself. At first she simply wanted to hit Michael. But as her next attack subconsciously fell into the patterns Jester had drilled into her over months of training.
In the end, seeing that she could not wipe the smile off Michael's face no matter what she tried, she gave up.
As expected, her cousin was still very much out of her reach.
Michael watched her for a mont before speaking.
"How do you feel?"
Lily opened her mouth imdiately, clearly ready to complain again, when her expression shifted.
She turned to look at her hand and felt the imnse strength running through it. She moved her limbs and could tell imdiately that sothing had changed. Also, her hair. Why was it so long now?
"This..."
She looked at Michael again, this ti with a different expression.
Michael did not give her ti to question him and instead had her train to control her new strength. Only when he was satisfied did he
let Lily out of the storage ring.
Not without a few words first, however. He did not want to speak about his talent, even with the considerable influence he now held over Lily through both the taming skill and his blood. But as her older brother he felt he needed to say sothing to assure her.
"I'll always be here with you. And for you."
Even Michael, who had been through a great deal, could not help but
cringe slightly at his own words. So he did not give Lily a single
mont to respond before sending her out.
After finishing with Lily for the ti being, Michael shifted to the other important matter of the day.
The mories extracted from Shojo had taken Jester three full days to process. Since Jester was still inside the storage ring, Michael went
to find him there.
Unlike the previous ti when he had Jester relay information in pieces, this ti Michael had him transfer everything at once. Because he also wanted the mories from the demonic supernatural, they spent an entire day exchanging.
It was not a comfortable process.
Receiving another person's mories directly was different from
being told about them. The information arrived with context and sensation attached, impressions that did not belong to him sitting alongside his own thoughts and requiring active effort to keep
sorted.
A thousand years of Shojo's accumulated experience combined with several centuries from the demonic supernatural was not sothing that could be transferred cleanly or without effort.
By the ti they finished, Michael sat quietly to recover and sent
Jester out of the coffin space as well.
Jester, on the other hand, after returning to the real world imdiately went to seek out Lily out of curiosity.
Though the distance between them during the ti she had been in
the ring was not small, Jester's considerable senses been able to reach
hmtheir location.
Unfortunately he was unable to observe the full process, having received a brief warning from Michael.
Upon finding Lily, whose room door was open, Jester saw the girl
absorbed in her own reflection in the mirror. She was so taken with what she was doing that she had not noticed him at all.
*
A/N: Thank you all so much for another great month! I appreciate the continued support. I won't lie, my update rate this month might have been the worst since the story began due to so real life issues, but I'm well rested now. Like Awespec always says, the grind is eternal! Why aren't you slaving away today! Haha. Happy New Month in advance, everyone!!!
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