Chapter 120

Halo of Divinity

“W-what are you looking at?” Agnes asked awkwardly, finally having had enough. Sylas had been intently staring at her for almost an hour now, the look in his eyes extremely strange. “O-oh, I know! You have finally been entranced with my beauty? H-hah! It was about time!”

“... yeah, that must be it,” Sylas smiled languidly as he spoke, taking a spoonful of stew.

“... something happened, didn’t it?” she suddenly asked. She’d realized it. After all, it wasn’t as though he was being particularly subtle about it. Ever since she came to the castle, he’d been behaving strangely, often appearing mindless and vacant when looking at her, as though thinking deeply about something.

“Things happen all the time,” he replied. “Something happened yesterday and something happened just a few minutes ago. Like me farting.”

“It was already suspicious that I was told so little,” she frowned. “But... Sylas, please, tell me what happened. I think I’ve earned the right to know.”

“Ah, if you must know,” he said. “We shared a passionate kiss.”

“...”

“...”

“Shit.”

“Ha ha ha,” he laughed freely as she lowered her head.

“Your crudeness is not fair,” she said. “If I lived among men, I sure would have gotten experienced like you!”

“Probably even more,” he said. “I’m glad you didn’t, though. Your reactions are pretty funny.”

"As are your lies," she fired back. "I know myself, this or past version. We haven't shared a passionate anything outside the words of scorn. Please. I'm pleading here. Just tell me what happened. Did I die in a painful way or something?"

“No,” he said. “Nothing like that. And stop asking. I won’t tell you. I’ve already made up my mind. I’d rather stay temporarily ignorant than ask.”

“What are you talking about?”

“This and that and those,” he said.

Though he spoke, Sylas’ mind was awander. Nearly every fiber of his being was begging him to crack down and ask her--ask her why she had that same thing like Ryne, the blue orb of ‘destroy everything’. All this while, Sylas suspected Ryne’s was something her Master had implemented in her as means of protecting her. Yet, he was wrong. Agnes had it, too.

And yet, he didn’t have the heart to ask her. The right choice was to ask her, to get the answer, and to reset so she forgets yet again. He knew it was the right choice. And yet... he couldn’t do it. All the oaths that he had taken in light of what his choices resulted in appeared to be in vain. His conviction, the very thing he thought he had steeled beyond reprieve, was cracking.

He’d found comfort in her, he realized. She’d become his solitary constant, a voice not his own that carried over through his deaths. He hadn’t even realized how much he needed it before he got it. Something to hang onto besides the invisible tangent of immortality. In a strange sense, she became his anchor of reality--a ‘proof’ that he wasn’t losing his mind somewhere in the four walls.

Each time she came crawling through the window, despite him telling her all the time to just use the gates, a part of him calmed down as his mind cleared up, allowing him to think far more clearly.

“You are a prick,” she said.

“I thought we’ve already established that.”

“... it must be something scary if even you won’t bring it up,” she said.

Just as Sylas was about to respond, a window appeared in front of him, causing him to pause as his eyes veered toward the letter inscribed on the shimmering surface.

New Quest: Beholden to Light

Content: you have twice witnessed the 'Halo of Divinity'. The Halo is an intrinsic, defensive mechanism that all the Divinely Chosen are gifted with from their birth. There are three major conditions for triggering it. You have discovered two: any attempt to infiltrate a Divinely Chosen's mind will result in immediate activation of the mechanism. The second condition is bodily-instinctive; at the height of fear, dread, and horror, the mechanism will activate to not only defend the Chosen from without, but also from within, by entirely eliminating thoughts/memories/emotions that are fueling the negativity.

Quest: discovering the third condition for the activation of the Halo.

Reward: Divine Blight Mantra

Sylas paused and gaped. Once more he was showered in a bout of knowledge that seemed the type that few, at most, were aware of. When he saw the quest, he was almost beyond certain that it would be about actually discovering what those things were. And yet, he was outright told what they were--with the ‘only’ quest being that he was supposed to discover the last condition.

Still, even if difficult, it was likely easier than having needed to figure out the entire narrative behind the Halo, which also included identifying both Ryne and Agnes as ‘Divinely Chosen’. Though he suspected they were of that nature, he wasn’t absolutely certain.

“What now?” she asked, tearing him out of his thoughts. “Did you hear a voice too?”

“... something like that,” he smiled, taking another bite. “Can I ask you something personal?”

“When the hell did you ever ask permission for it?”

“Now?”

“...” she remained silent, rolling her eyes.

“What’s the worst vision you’ve ever had?” his words froze her for a moment as she lowered her head, her entire countenance shifting.

“... w-why do you want to know?” she asked.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he said.

“I... it’s, it’s not that I don’t want to,” she said, looking up at him. “It’s... you, you would hate me.”

“Hm?” he arched his brow in confusion. “Hate you? Why would I hate you?”

“... it’s... it’s a vision,” she stuttered, taking a deep breath. “Of... of what happened to Ryne, Valen, and others.”

“...”

“...”

“W-what?” Sylas mumbled in shock. “You... you saw that?”

“I--I rushed here, I swear!” she cried out. “I swear, Sylas! But... I... I didn’t make it in time. I... when I realized, you... you were waking up to her scream. All the time.”

“...”

“That’s... that’s why I stayed out of the castle,” she said, her fingers digging into her thighs due to nervousness. “I... I didn’t know how to approach you...” she bit her lip. “I really, really tried. I... I know it’s not an excuse, I should have tried harder, but I--”

“It’s fine,” he interrupted her suddenly, causing her to look up.

“It’s... fine? Aren’t you mad?”

“I was first joking when I said you’re a thirteen-year-old girl in a body of a thirty-year-old woman, but looks like that ain’t far from the truth,” he smiled. “Why would I be mad? I know that if you coulda made it in time, you would have been there. Or are you the type of a person who would have stayed out of the castle and laughed menacingly through it all?”

“N-no, no, of course not!” she exclaimed.

“There you go, then,” he said. “It’s a shame, but that... it feels to have been an inevitability. I’m just surprised that was the worst vision for you.”

“... in my vision, I saw your face,” she said. “With all the hell reflected in your eyes. It... it broke my heart, honestly.”

“Tsk, look at me,” Sylas clicked his tongue jokingly. “A heartbreaker without ever having even met the woman in question. Bards ought to hear this and write a song about me.”

“They ought to,” she cracked a smile as well, as though a mountain of burden came undone from her shoulders. “You’d make a fine hero of a bard’s story.”

“Would I really, now?”

“Of course,” she nodded. “A ruggedly handsome man who stares death into its face and never flinches embarks on a journey to save a Princess from a painful curse! To cure her, he must defeat Seven Evils and take their hearts to brew a potion for the Princess! And he only has a year to do it!”

“Wow, you do make me sound badass.”

“If only you had the confidence of one in reality,” she added. “No, confidence is perhaps a bad word. Belief, I imagine, conveys the sentiment better.”

“Not all of us can so unequivocally love ourselves,” he said, cracking a wide smile as he poured himself a cup of wine. “And honor the wind that touches us by our grace. Self-doubt, you know, is an essential part of what makes humans... human.”

“Are you implying I’m not human?” she frowned.

“Implying? If that’s ‘implying’ to you, then damn girl.”

“...”

“But I am joking,” he added. “I wouldn’t have you any other way, really.”

“Good,” she nodded. “So, tell me what happened--”

“No.”

“Dammit. Why?! What could possibly be so bad that you outright refuse to even imply anything?!”

“I told you,” he said. “We shared a passionate kiss but... but the truth is... you were so bad you bit half my tongue off.”

“... where do you imagine your tongue would be anywhere in the biting distance even if we did kiss? But fine, fine. You don’t have to tell me. Yet.”

“Ever.”

"The reason you're not telling me something is probably that you don't think I can handle it," she said. "Well, I can! And, in due time, I'll prove to you that I'm strong!"

“Really?”

“Yes! So, I demand you train me how to fight!”

“... yeah, that ain’t happening.”

“Why?!”

“Because you’d literally break your arms if you tried to lift up the sword,” he said. “If you want me to train you, we’ll have to bulk you up first. Add some twenty-thirty pounds at the very minimum, fix your awful conditioning--probably by having you run circles around the castle--and completely beat the girl out of you and turn you into an emotionless, fearless blob.”

“Nobody beat the man out of you for you to become strong!”

“Really?” he asked with a sly smile. “You don’t think the life didn’t skewer the man in me onto a pike and left ‘im rotting and decaying in the sun? Strength isn’t just about training,” he added. “It’s the question of using it. Can you ever imagine yourself coldly mowing down a field of men without remorse?”

“I--”

“Can you imagine yourself walking up to a man and cutting his throat coldly while he begs for his life?”

“...”

"Can you imagine ignoring the cries of your friends dying and focusing instead on killing rather than saving? Can you see yourself setting fire to an encampment and watching it all burn?"

“Sylas--”

“Can you imagine leaving me or Ryne or Valen to die while running away?”

“Never!!”

“... then you can’t be strong,” he said.

“What? Are you telling me you’d leave Ryne or Valen or even me to die while you run away?!”

“No.”

“Then... what... what the hell are you on?”

“It means I can’t be strong either,” he cracked a smile and saluted toward her with the cup of wine. “So there’s no shame in you being weak. Turns out, I’m weak too.”

“... haaah. You’re just a bundle of nonsense, aren’t you?”

“I truly am. Anyway, we should pack. We’re goin’ north tomorrow. I didn’t get to test my theories the last time around.”

“Okay, seriously, what the hell happened?!”

“We passionately--”

“Oh, shove a spoon up your ass passionately, you hairy-assed troll.”