Alessia didn’t try to attack, instead she disappeared from the room while leaving a barrier to delay the blonde woman, but while she was trying to get some distance from the castle, she suddenly felt danger coming from behind, she immediately dodged to the side evading for a few millimeters a flash of golden light that kept advancing until it disappeared into the sky.
The clouds that a moment ago were covering the sky were divided apart which allowed the starry night to be visible.
Alessia turned around to see what happened and she was speechless, the castle was… cleanly cut in half, seeing the woman standing there in the same point smiling at her almost made Alessia lost it.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, the outer walls of that castle were made out of mithril!!!”
Alessia’s idea to reunite with her sister before fighting that monstrous woman was reinforced, a dark aura surrounded her whole body when she started to fly as fast as she could but when she was about to reach a door that looked like the one that Aster used to enter this place, she felt danger from above, she couldn’t avoid on time so she used her aura to reinforce her body but it was futile, the golden light pierced through her defense and ripped her clothes in the process.
The golden light collided against the earth and the impact sent Alessia flying a few meters away from where she was, while she used her aura to cover her body that was in plain view due to her clothes being destroyed, she heard a voice that seemed to come from her most horrible nightmares.
“Now, that look suits you better, I think my master will be pleased once he wakes up hehehe ♥”.
Alessia started to panic, “Damn I almost made it”, she thought.
“Mm?”
Seeing that Alessia was stealing some glances at the door that was behind her, the blonde woman smiled.
“Hoh? Seems like you believe that whatever it is behind that door will somehow help you to fight against me, in that case go for it I won’t attack you”.
Alessia gritted her teeth “she is playing with me”.
As if the blonde woman could read her thoughts she said.
“That’s right, I’m just playing with you, I will let you reach your current best state and then I will crush you, humph let’s see if you ever dare to mock my master again after that”.
After saying that the blonde woman distanced from the door and after doubting for a moment Alessia slowly walked before opening the door and what came out of it was the white-haired woman that Aster met before.
Aylin was worried, she felt that the space was unstable and when she looked at Alessia that had an exhausted expression she rushed towards her before hugging her.
“Big sister… how many years has it been since we were able to see each other”.
Alessia looked moved for her sister’s actions but she clenched her fists before separating from her and saying.
“Now is not the time for this… Aylin”.
The blonde woman approached and looked at them as if she was evaluating those two.
“So that’s how it was, that explains how you were weaker than I thought you would be, you both need to be together to be complete huh?”.
Aylin was surprised for a moment, but she shook her head and her face became visible, she looked almost the same as Alessia with the exception that her hair was white and her eye color was blue, she bowed her head a bit before speaking.
“Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Aylin and I’m Alessia’s twin sister, can I ask why are you attacking us?”.
The blonde woman nodded in recognition.
“Oh? What a well-mannered girl, this whole situation could have been avoided if you were the one to do the trial instead of that irrational sister of yours”.
Aylin sighed.
“Somehow it doesn’t surprise me… big sister what did you do this time?”.
Alessia felt aggrieved.
“Why do you side with that crazy woman, I…”
Alessia couldn’t finish her sentence when she noticed Aylin giving her an accusatory look which made her stop for a second before explaining what happened.
Aylin had a complex expression after hearing her sister’s story.
“Why did you attack him, you know that he is probably the only one that will ever be able to get into this place…”.
This time Alessia interrupted her.
“Because if I had accepted him then you… you would have disappeared!!!”.
Aylin looked surprised for a moment but then she shook her head a bit.
“So, you knew after all… but in the first place you are the original one so that is how it’s meant to be”.
The blonde woman looked interested in their story so she decided to give them a chance.
“Since the little book-girl hesitated to kill my master a couple of times, I don’t mind waiting for a moment while my he wakes up and decides whether I destroy you or not, so tell me your story”.
Alessia was about to start fighting again but Aylin stopped her.
“In our current state even if we are together, we… don’t stand a chance so why not try a different approach this time, after all the ones that are in the wrong here are us”.
Alessia wanted to argue but seeing Aylin’s pure and worried expression she finally gave in.
“Fine, let’s do it your way”.
The three of them flew towards the castle and once they were inside Aylin extended her hand and white light radiated from her which made the castle insides to restore themselves with the exception of the parts that were directly destroyed by the golden light that the blonde woman used to attack Alessia.
Aylin was shocked.
“What is this? Every time I try to use my power to restore the outer wall it simply disappears as if the walls were meant to be divided like that”.
The blonde woman seemed proud of Aylin’s surprise so she explained.
“Don’t bother to try, unless I allow it everything that I cut will never be able to restore nor heal, but that doesn’t matter right now, tell me your story… before I change my mind”.
Hearing the blonde woman’s affirmation Alessia was terrified “if what she said is true then… if that golden light cut my neck back then wouldn’t I have died?” she wondered, to a certain extent Alessia could avoid suffering damage thanks to the dark energy she manipulated and adding Aylin’s regenerative laws even a severed head wouldn’t have killed her immediately or at least that what she used to believe.
Aylin guided them to another room, the three of them sat while Aster was still floating behind the blonde woman due to the golden platform, his wounds seemed to have mostly healed, after doubting for a moment Aylin started to speak.
“A long time ago a man wished to attain the immortality but his cultivation stagnated, even if he was considered to be on the peak of the existence on that time, he was old so he had already spent all his potential, in his despair he started to look for ways to extend his lifespan until one day he got news of a treasure called “Twin eternity lotus” which was said to restore one’s vitality to the fullest without any side effects in other words it could be considered as getting a new life”.
“He started to search the lotus in all the realms and planets he knew and it took him a couple of thousands of years to finally find it, by that time the lotus had already developed a conscience… that was us or I should say that was my sister”.
Alessia stopped Aylin from speaking and she continued with the story.
“That old bastard tried to take advantage of my lack of experience to trick me so I would let him refine me, of course I defended myself and the backslash almost killed him but I allowed him to flee thinking that he will never appear again, humph I was really naive, the next time he appeared there were other two people along with him, an alchemist and an array master, I was attacked by them and this time I lost, they restrained me for a long time, to be honest I don’t even know how many years passed until one day those three let me out, it seems like they were already reaching the end of their lifespan because they decided to use some despicable methods to refine me”.
“Using the life force of countless people, they created a prison in the form of a book to not only seal me but force me to use my innate laws to help them be young again, fortunately something went wrong and they couldn’t control the array which ended draining their vitality and killing them, but I was already sealed on the book.
“After all the massacre that happened, that place became a cursed land and since I was trapped, I decided to cultivate, thanks to all the life force that was stored on the book I managed to comprehend a part of the cycle of life, during that time the second consciousness of the twin lotus took form and that resulted on the birth of Aylin, the problem was that the book only allowed one spirit to exist, so she had to be in a sleep state and most importantly totally separated from me, when I managed to absorb all the remaining life force that was contained in the book she could wake up but we couldn’t communicate or the prison would erase her”.
Aylin took over this time.
“Then we both started cultivating at the same time while we changed the book from the inside, after that we somehow restructured almost everything with the only exception that we couldn’t change the fact that a human male had to be the owner of the book, someone eventually found the book on the cursed land and thus it started to be exchanged between a lot of humans, we tried to communicate with all of them but we weren’t able to do it”.
“We realized that we needed something that connected us to the people outside of the book to communicate, in other words the only one that might be able to release us was… a human male that had gone through the whole cycle of life which was impossible as it had to be someone that was aware he has died before”.
The blonde woman suddenly laughed, while she looked at Aster and caressed his hair.
“Impossible you say? Well, I won’t deny that even I thought the same before meeting him, but now I firmly believe that the world “miracle” was invented to describe my master’s existence, still I don’t understand why your sister attacked him?”.
Alessia answered.
“Because I found out that if I accepted someone as the owner of the book, I will be able to go out of this space but Aylin’s existence will be erased during the process, I didn’t tell my sister because I thought that no one will be able to ever fulfill the requirements, besides we couldn’t communicate unless it was an emergency that threatened the existence of the book”.
The blonde woman had an amused expression.
“So, when I started attacking you, the restrictions of the book became unstable and that allowed you to meet with Aylin”.
Alessia nodded, and the blonde woman seemed to be debating with herself for a moment before she spoke.
“I have a way to free you both from this prison but I’m not your friend nor your family so what can you give me in exchange?”.
When Alessia heard her, she knelt down while lowering her head for the first time in her life.
“I’m willing to atone for attacking that human by staying at his side and become a part of his strength but… please let Aylin go, she is a kind girl and I’m pretty sure that if she knew what I was going to do she would have tried to stop anyone from entering the trial”.
Aylin stood up immediately.
“No, please let me take her place, my sister is not a bad person she was only worried about me!!!”.
The blonde woman smiled while thinking “well, seems like these two are totally my master’s type hehehe ♥”.