Neo stared at the reincarnations of his parents.
The sight made his blood freeze.
His chest tightened, and for a moment, even breathing felt like a Herculean effort.
“Mira and George. The people who streamed my battle against the Minotaur.”
The realization made feel an emotion. Fear.
“If I had not interfered…..”
Neo had defeated the Minotaur, which caused a Tiger-ranked Window to open above the Labyrinth of the Minotaur.
The Window had trapped a Mythic-rank Necromancer.
In the original timeline, where Neo did not exist, the Tiger-ranked Window would’ve opened a few years later.
The Necromancer would’ve emerged.
He would’ve kidnapped a few people.
Mira and George, the reincarnations of Neo’s parents, were among them.
The Necromancer would’ve used them to feed the Spirit Seed he was raising.
‘George’s fate in the novel was a brutal death at the hand of Necromancer.’
‘He, like other people, was tortured for months so that the Spirit Seed could get to eat plenty of negative emotions.’
The traumatic experience would’ve allowed Mira to awaken her Godblood.
‘Her awakening helped her snatch control of the Spirit Seed from the Necromancer and kill him.’
The Spirit Seed was one of Darkness.
It would’ve corrupted her mind after it bonded with Mira.
“Mira’s mind broke completely in the novel, and she became one of the future big villains.”
Neo’s hands curled into fists.
If…
If Neo had not interfered, his parents’ reincarnations would’ve faced a future more horrible than death.
Bael’s words echoed in Neo’s mind.
The closer your parents’ reincarnations are to each other, the worse death they will suffer.
Mira and George were a couple who had intentions to marry.
They were pretty close.
The curse would’ve killed his parents after soaking them in despair.
Just the thought of his parents suffering made his emotions go out of control.
Neo stopped using the Mind Invasion skill.
The scene around him returned—the dark hall, the oppressive silence, and the Sphinx’s mocking gaze.
“How was it?” the Sphinx snickered. “Since you seem to know bits and pieces of the future, you must know what the future holds for those reincarnations.”
The Sphinx tilted its head.
A grin appeared on its face.
“How does it feel to know you’ve saved the lives of your parents’ reincarnations unknowingly?”
Neo remained silent.
He felt like shit, but he wasn’t going to give the Sphinx any satisfaction by telling it how he was feeling.
While Neo remained silent, the Sphinx’s voice echoed again.
“Now that you have your answer, how about you accept my task?”
“….”
Neo wanted to accept the task.
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But he did not trust the Sphinx, especially when he did not know the reason behind the task.
“Oh, please, are you seriously considering refusing my offer?”
The Sphinx teleported before him.
“You need my help to save the Tyrant Queen. You should know you can’t save her yourself,” the Sphinx said, its grin widening.
“I can—”
“Hahahahaha! Are you seriously saying you can save her? How will you do that? With ‘those Concepts’?”
The Sphinx’s laughter rang out again.
As an administrator of Akashic Record, it could access Neo’s Status Screen.
It had seen his previous Concepts of Life and the Holy Element.
“Your Concept of Water is ‘Aqua Nihil.’
“For Life, it was ‘Decay,’ and for Holy, it was ‘Preservation.'”
The Sphinx’s voice dripped with disdain.
“All those Concepts are destructive in nature. Because that’s who you are. Because that’s the life you’ve experienced, Neo Hargraves.
“No matter how much you train, you can’t change your nature,” the Sphinx spat. “You won’t magically get a Concept that will allow you to heal the Tyrant.”
Neo’s mind flashed back to the world Velkaria had destroyed.
A world devoid of hope, color, and vitality.
There was no greenery, no life.
Nothing was left.
The source of life, water, had disappeared with everything.
Life would never return to the world again.
Neo had lived in that desolate world for centuries, walking through barren lands and watching as even the faintest hope of life was snuffed out.
That’s what became his Concept of the Water element.
Aqua Nihil.
The Nihility of Water.
It created a domain around Neo where no water was present, turning his surroundings into an arid wasteland.
It was especially useful against Water-affinity demigods and monsters.
“Your Concepts? They can’t save anyone. I mean look at them.”
The Sphinx’s words cut bore hole into Neo’s mind.
“Water, I can understand that you don’t associate it with healing like most people do, but ‘Decay’ for life?”
The Sphinx chuckled.
Concept of Decay.
It allowed Neo to extract the life force of his target and turn it into a poisonous life force—decay—with which he could attack others.
That’s how Neo saw life.
Decay.
From the day one was born, they started to walk toward their own death.
Even if they were successful, even if they became happy.
The ending never changed.
They would die.
If not today, then tomorrow, if not tomorrow, then years later.
Neo’s gaze remained fixed on the floor as the Sphinx’s voice became a whisper in his ear.
“Life – living – is but a decay that would end in death. Isn’t that how you see the world?”
Neo clenched his jaws.
He knew his Concepts were twisted.
Living was not decaying.
Just because one was going to die didn’t make life meaningless.
Life was a journey.
It was something to be enjoyed.
Neo knew that.
But he couldn’t help it.
The life he had lived was not something he could change.
“Also, ‘Preservation’ for Holy? That sounds nice, but knowing how you would use it…”
The Sphinx paused, letting the mockery sink in before continuing.
“It’s disgusting.”
Neo’s fists clenched tighter.
The Sphinx’s words dug into him like barbs.
Preservation allowed Neo to maintain any being’s state.
Simply put, their injuries wouldn’t worsen.
The Concept of Preservation would ‘preserve’ them.
Usually, such a Concept should be useful for saving someone fatally injured until they could be healed by someone.
But Neo’s Concept had a different use.
Preservation and Eternal Death.
Eternal Sleep, Neo’s Death, would put anyone in Eternal Sleep.
But that person would die physically after some time.
After all, sleeping wouldn’t stop his aging.
Their bodies would grow old.
Sleeping eternally would prevent them from consuming food and they would weaken.
It would lead them to ‘death’ due to starvation or aging — a natural death, a death that was not Neo’s.
That ‘death’ was an escape from Neo’s Eternal Death.
“Your Preservation was a prison, wasn’t it?
“It would prevent anyone from dying and escaping your Death, Neo Hargraves.
“Preservation would force your prisoners to ‘live’ eternally under your Death,” the Sphinx mocked the irony of his Concepts.
Logically, his Concepts had a very high synergy.
But….
“Your Concepts can’t save anyone, Neo Hargraves. If you don’t take my help, you can’t save the Tyrant.”
The Sphinx’s voice was smooth.
Yet each word was laced with malice.
It seemed to delight in seeing him caught in this internal conflict.
“Oh, that reminds me,” the Sphinx said. “Someone like you should have no regard for life.
“That’s what your Concepts are saying.
“But that’s weird. You want to save the Tyrant. Why is it that?”
“You—” Neo opened his mouth, only for the Sphinx to interrupt him.
“Wait, wait, let me guess. Don’t spoil it.”
The Sphinx crossed its arms.
It tilted its head as if deep in thought.
“Oh, I get it!”
It looked at him with a grin so wide it bordered on sinister.
“You are afraid of being alone! That why you want to save the Queen and the others.”
“I let you talk since I wanted to hear what you had to say, but seriously?”
Neo finally spoke.
“Afraid of being alone? What kind of fucking nonsense is that? Why would I be afraid of being alone?”
He couldn’t help but shake his head inwardly.
‘There is no way I’m falling for a bait like this.’
The Sphinx’s words, as always, had a purpose behind them.
It was to know if Neo was the one whom Daniel wanted to save.
Unlike what it had told Neo, the Sphinx had actually found a few clues about the person Daniel was trying to save.
The clues didn’t come from the Akashic Records.
They came from the Daniel’s notes.
He has been alone for centuries, fighting.
How much loss and loneliness he must’ve suffered?
It was all for the world.
Why should someone who sacrificed everything to protect the world die in exchange?
I need to save him. I must do it.
If Neo was the person Daniel talked about in his notes, it meant he had been fighting someone alone for centuries.
Right now, the Sphinx taunted Neo.
It said he was trying to save his friends as he didn’t want to be alone. He wanted companions.
‘Had I showed a reaction, I would’ve unknowingly revealed that I was the one who saved the world, and the one whom Daniel had been trying to save,’ Neo thought.
All of the Sphinx’s words had been a trap to force the answer out of Neo.
“Why are you silent?” Neo suddenly asked the Sphinx, breaking the stillness.
“Just wondering about things,” the Sphinx finally said, wondering if Neo had known about its bait, or if he was not the one the Sphinx was looking for. “Well—”
“I’ll accept your offer,” Neo said, cutting the Sphinx off mid-sentence.
The Sphinx raised an eyebrow.
“I thought you were suspicious of me?”
“I still am. But that does not change the fact that completing your request will help me too.”
The homeland of monsters was a treasure trove for Neo, and he wasn’t about to let such a chance slip by.
“That’s nice,” the Sphinx said with a smile. “You can go meet your parents and pack your bags. Come meet me after your preparations are done.”
“What about the other two answers?”
“Don’t worry, sweetie.” The Sphinx waved its hand with a normal smile for once. “I won’t back down on my words.
“I will tell you what you want to know when you come to meet me again.”