"I am the advanced manifestation of the S.E.X System of Cosmic Supremacy!" the Loli whined, her voice high-pitched and indignant. "I am the culmination of the Master’s divine intellect! I am not a grape!"
The Athyst King, whose form was still struggling to maintain cohesion, threw his head back and joined in Ethan’s laughter, a glorious, thunderous sound that shook the tiless space.
"Oh, you are just so cute!" the Athyst King said, his ethereal hands reaching out to playfully pinch the Loli’s holographic cheeks. "Don’t listen to him, my darling. You look so lovely and adorable when you are angry! That’s my girl!"
The Loli squird in the King’s grasp. "Master! Stop! You are embarrassing in front of the new vessel!"
The King simply laughed harder, pulling the Loli into a brief, warm hug before his body began its inevitable, final dissipation.
"You see, Ethan," the Athyst King said, his voice fading but full of warmth and humor. "You must always rember to enjoy the small details. Life is too short, even when you are functionally immortal, to be serious all the ti."
The temporal clone dissolved entirely, its essence absorbed by Ethan and the Loli. The cavern snapped back to an intense stillness, the residual energy of the King’s farewell vibrating in the air. The humorous tension eased, but the underlying severity of their situation remained.
"The Master’s final instructions and a fragnt of his raw power have been successfully integrated," the Loli said, her expression instantly shifting back to rigid professionalism, though a faint blush remained on her cheeks. "The temporal sanctuary is now destabilizing. We must use the remaining ti efficiently, little one."
Ethan, feeling the surge of new, unexplained power settle within him, took a deep breath.
"My first question is about my enemies," Ethan said, his voice serious now. "If they survived, how strong are they, and where are they? How far away? Can they find ?"
The Athyst King’s ethereal image imdiately solidified again, summoned by the necessity of the question.
"I have no idea," the Athyst King said.
"I have no idea," the Loli said at the exact sa mont.
Ethan blinked. The King and the Loli turned to look at each other, and then both burst into laughter.
If one system was annoying, two identical ones are a headache, Ethan thought.
"Well, that was rather well-synced, wasn’t it?" the Athyst King said, wiping a tear from his phantom eye.
"It appears the integration of your latest emotional profile is still a work in progress, Master," the Loli said, shaking her head wryly.
"Now, back to the questions," the Athyst King said, regaining his composure. "As for my part, I am dead. This is only a fraction of my consciousness, a programd echo designed to activate at the point of contact. So, it is simply impossible for to know their current status, strength, or location."
The Loli then stepped forward, her small fra radiating a faint, anxious energy.
"And for mine," the Loli said, "I can only see as far as you see. For a brief mont, upon recognizing your genetic signature, I was able to use the power of the beacon to try and trace our true location to guide us back and fulfill the Master’s objectives. It was then I discovered that sothing is actively searching for us."
Her eyes widened slightly, emphasizing the danger. "I did not dare reactivate it. I instantly shut down the external query, fearing they would pinpoint the source. The beacon still holds about 5% of its core energy, which we will reserve and use only at the precise mont it will be most effective."
Ethan felt a cold dread settle in his stomach. They were out in the void, hunted, and entirely blind.
"Okay," Ethan said, trying to organize his thoughts. "The ’Bastard’ who is hunting ... who is he?"
"The King of Darkness," the Athyst King replied instantly, his tone devoid of his usual levity, a rare show of gravity.
Ethan threw his hands over his face in exasperation. "Please, stop. Forgive , I wasn’t specific," Ethan said. "Who is he, where did you know him, and why does he hate you so much?"
The Athyst King shrugged, a gesture of cosmic indifference.
"The truth is, I don’t know," the Athyst King said. "His mask is quite good, and I couldn’t see through it even when he was in front of . And honestly, there are hundreds of kings who want my head for screwing their won, so he could be anyone."
The sheer, staggering narcissism of the statent was almost comforting in its consistency.
"And the woman we saw in the vision... the one who subjected you?" Ethan asked, referring to the terrifying female figure of the King’s mory.
The Athyst King scoffed, though his eyes held a flicker of deep caution.
"She didn’t subject ... well, I suppose you could say she did," the Athyst King said, his voice hesitant for the first ti. "She is, hmm, a crazy woman who was obsessed with . I never wanted anything serious with her, and that frustrated her to the point of a cosmic ltdown. I thought she had died of old age in so remote, forgotten sector, but as you can see, she seems to have prospered and reached a truly terrifying level of power."
Ethan quickly moved to the next critical topic, the only thing that stood between him and oblivion.
"The System," Ethan said. "I know it’s your collected knowledge and final resources, but how can it do what it does? How can it give money, create items, and how can it have all that information, even about my current planet?"
"Ah, the chanics of divine technology!" the Athyst King said, lighting up again, the engineer in him taking over. "Regarding that, it’s actually quite simple. The beacon analyzed your planet and found its life forms to be far too low-level, technically speaking. So, it simply hacked the entire planet."
The Loli nodded, her voice crisp and factual. "That is why I can do what I want here. If this were a more powerful, higher-tier planet, it would be an entirely different story. We would be severely restricted."
"That’s also how the System obtains the weapons and artifacts from your planet," the Athyst King added. "It just copies them from the local planetary database and materializes them. The items that are superior to your planet’s technology—those co from my old kingdom or other highly-advanced realms across the universe."
The Athyst King looked up, his gaze distant, staring into the far reaches of the temporal space as if recalling sothing imnse and beautiful that was now lost.
User Comments
0 comments from readers