Although Yennifer wore a pleasant smile, her words were anything but, and the commanding yet condescending tone she took sent an involuntary shiver down Brance’s spine, causing his brilliant luster to flicker off and on for a moment like a dying candle. Even his wings and Crest seemed to turn off and on.
|”Hm, that is different, how intriguing.”|
Yennifer said as she examined Brance like a zoo animal. Her violet eyes scanned his body, taking in every minute change as time passed. Her robotic yet human actions made him extremely uncomfortable, and the longer he stayed in her presence, the more he felt the need to flee—something he had never experienced in either life.
|”Fufu, there is no need to be so frightened; it’s not like I can play an active role and hurt you. The worst you have to fear is that I ban you from accessing my Obelisks. However…”|
Yennifer paused her sentence and appeared right in Brance’s face while staring at him as if looking through to his soul, her actions causing something inside him to stir in agitation.
|”Hm, I have seen many a Legacy Charge over the years, and very few have attempted what you seem to be in the process of doing. Unfortunately, those who did all eventually collapsed under the pressure and died soon after. What to do, oh what to do?”|
Floating back a few paces, Yennifer tapped her chin with her left index finger a few times, lost in thought, while occasionally tossing strange glances at Brance. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to Brance, Yennifer floated back up to him and tapped his forehead a single time, instantly powering down both of his Bloodline skills and causing him to wobble for a second as if drunk.
“What the?” Brance asked as he rubbed the spot on his forehead in confusion. Overcome by sudden exhaustion, he couldn’t help but look around the room with a suspicious feeling as if he was missing something.
“Uh, Ma’am…may I ask who you are? Am I supposed to fight you? What Floor is this?” Brance asked, utterly confused as to what was going on.
|”Hm, it’s as I thought, Young Lightbringer, Brance Jetlensr, you have no memory of the last few minutes, do you?”|
Yennifer’s words hit Brance like a semi-truck on the interstate highway. Be it because she knew his bloodline, his name, or even the glaringly obvious elephant in the room, Brance realized he had once again unconsciously lost control and activated his bloodline skills.
[“AHHHH! DAMN IT *SssT* ALL TO FUCKING *SssT* HELL!”]
Cynrik’s screams of pain and curses brought Brance back to reality as his face changed into a horrified expression, and fragmented memories returned to him. He had lost control during his reckless rush to save or help Cynrik and, at some point between his last memory and now, activated his Nephilim Crest and Nephilim Mode. Looking up at the hologram beautiful woman with black hair and shimmering Violet eyes, Brance vaguely recognized who she was.
“Uh, Miss Yennifer…I am sorry if I offended you….” Brance started to say but was cut off by the AI, who raised a hand to silence him.
|”Worry not, young LightBringer, it wasn’t you speaking with me at the time. You have quite a situation on your hands at present. By suppressing the Divinity Fragment Spirit within your soul for so long and not directly dealing with it, you have allowed that being a certain level of control over your body. Although it is also part of you, it is not entirely you.”|
With a wave of her hand, Yennifer brought up a virtual monitor and showcased Brance’s climb from the Twelfth Floor to the Seventeenth. Around Floor Fourteen, his entire demeanor and body language seemed to shift radically into an overbearing presence that, although the person on screen had the same face, was not him.
|”You are walking a dangerously thin line Brance Jetlensr, one that can only end in disaster if you continue to tread on it. An ordinary member of the CSH wouldn’t be able to give you any advice or guidance on this topic; however, I am different. My primary objective is to mold and aid young students from the VSFA into members of society who can stand on their own two feet and protect the world in its worst times. I do this through a series of Trials, the Obelisks, and the rewards I generate.”|
Waving her hand, Yennifer brought up thousands of screens, each showing a young person fighting in one of the Obelisks. With a snap of her fingers, all four remaining members of MyrkLys appeared on the virtual monitors.
Brance’s eyes locked onto Cynrik, who was sitting up with his hand pressed firmly on his chest. The most notable sight was the blood seeping from every hole on his head. From where he stood, Brance noted how Cynrik had activated his bloodline skills and was bathed in tri-color light (Red, Black, and Green). Every few seconds, his entire body would convulse as the pain rippled through every fiber of his being. Yet, Cynrik didn’t waver and continued working on himself to correct the imbalance in his Codex.
|”It has been thousands of years since I last saw someone with his level of resolve and such a pain tolerance. Not only that, but his intuition on how to handle the issue is fascinating to me. Billions of lifeforms have tried to correct such a disturbance in their Codex, but the number who’ve solved it is in the triple digits, and the ones who succeeded used a similar method, albeit not as expertly executed, as what your brother is attempting.”|
Tilting her head to the side and examining Cynrik’s actions, Yennifer explained her thoughts for Brance to hear. Still, it did nothing to calm his anxiety. The two of them had been through so many life-or-death experiences that it had become second nature to overcome them, but they always relied on each other’s aid in one form or another. Yet now, all Brance could do was sit and watch as his brother experienced something almost as bad as death helplessly.
Looking away from the monitor, Yennifer glanced at Brance and smiled.
|”There is no need to be so worried; he has already passed the most dangerous part and is in the final stages before success; he would have to be a brainless ape to mess it up at this juncture, and from what I have observed, he is anything but stupid. You should be more worried about yourself.”|
|”The fact that you have not addressed your own physical and spiritual ailment concerns me greatly as if it were to continue progressing, you will become a force that will not only be a danger to yourself but also to the student body of VSFA.”|
Tearing his eyes away from the monitor, Brance looked up at Yennifer with worried eyes. He had known since the day Cynrik beat Ragnar that if he didn’t eventually deal with the Divinity Spirit, it would only grow in strength until it had consumed his entire mind and body.
“What should I do, Miss Yennifer? If your primary objective is guiding and nurturing students, wouldn’t I also be part of that group?” Brance said hesitantly. The more time he spent around her, the more uncomfortable he became. The power and Mana Fluxuations radiating off her body were stifling him, making it difficult to breathe. Add in the constant screams of Cynrik within the mind link, and Brance was only a single step away from a mental breakdown.
|”Indeed you are. However, I am helpless in aiding you until you do one thing.”|
Yennifer stated with a mysterious expression on her hologram face, leaving Brance momentarily clueless and confused.
|”To receive the aid and answers you seek, you must first clear the Trial Obelisk Tower with a perfect score. Currently, you are located on the Seventeeth Floor. So far, you have received a perfect clear on every Floor you took part in, leaving only six more. If you can defeat all of the challenges on each of the remaining floors with a perfect record, then and only then can I give you the necessary rewards.”|
Clapping her hands, all of the screens blipped out of existence, and Yennifer Floated up toward the ceiling. Her words caused Brance to fall deep into thought for a moment as he digested them. Staying like this for several minutes, Brance overlooked the fact that Yennifer had already disappeared.
Eventually, the lack of Cynrik’s pained screams brought him back to reality, and when he looked up to where Yennifer had been previously, all he saw was the standard notification window he would have before the start of every Floor’s challenge. Realizing that Cynrik had stopped, Brance’s eyes widened, and he immediately called out to him.
[Cyn, are you ok? What the fuck happened? How did you end up fucking your Codex so hard that it fell into a Crippling Overdraft?]
[Huff, how in the fuck do you know what happened?] Was the first thing Cynrik said after getting ahold of himself. Although the process had been excruciatingly painful, and he was covered in his own blood, Cynrik was overall fine, except that he had burned a significant amount of his Stamina.
[Well, I rushed through all the floors until I got to the Seventeenth like you. Once there, I screamed for a while until finally, the Hologram version of Yenni appeared, and she filled me in on your situation and how she is part of the CSH. Originally I wanted to come to your Virtual Realm but was told it was forbidden. In the end, she confirmed you would make it through in one piece and left after telling me to continue my trial.] While leaving out most of the interaction he had with the AI regarding his Bloodline issue, Brance filled his brother in on most of what had transpired.
[What the fuck…you summoned the AI, and she’s part of the CSH, damn, you really pulled a me that time, good on you Brancie.] Not suspecting that his little brother was omitting information for a second, Cynrik praised him while standing up and manifesting some BlackFire to clean himself off.
‘Tobs, the Chaos Affinity Gem, where is it?’ Scanning the ground around his body, Cynrik noticed the gem was missing.
-I have taken the liberty to store it within your Inventory inside a segregated spot, cut off from the rest of its contents. This way, it would not affect any of your items or the Eggs stored inside.-
‘Good looks, alright, let me see all of the notifications you suppressed for me since the moment my Codex went out of wack. I assume you listed out everything that went wrong.’ Waving his hand in the air, Cynrik began scrolling through all of the notifications, and the more he read, the harder his brow creased.
-This series is exclusively published on WebNovel if you are reading it anywhere else…You Wrong, Fam. PS Check out the discord, https://discord.gg/dcxKNJEMwg-