Asura pondered about the change in Xia's eyes and the only thing that seemed to fit the situation was the staff lying on the ground in front of them.

"Hey, Xia."

"?"

Expectant eyes looked at the boy calling for their owner, full of mysterious passion and joy. For the Xia from before, such behavior was unimaginable, but ever since her contact with the angel and this boy, she seemed like an entirely different person. However, she was unaware of this change for now.

Asura pointed his small finger toward the staff whose thickness was equal to the the thickness of his arm. The staff was almost two times Asura's height and of an unknown weight. The only thing they were sure of about the staff's weight is that it was massive as neither of the two could pick it up from the ground.

"About this staff... Don't you feel anything strange about it?"

Xia's brows slightly furrowed, almost imperceptibly, while her eyes drifted towards the crystal embedded at the end of the staff. The crystal was strange and even seemed mystifying—as if one look at it would lead straight to the abyss.

After a period of silence, Asura glanced at Xia only to find her eyes rapidly getting distant and hazy. As if waiting for him to notice this, Xia's body limply fell in Asura's arms.

"~!"

Such a rapid change frightened him, making him anxious about her condition.

"Hey, Xia! What happened? Are you okay? Xia? Xia?!", a voice filled with worry echoed multitude of times in the confines of the gloomy hall.

Asura hastily brought his head to the girl's chest and focused, only calming down with a sigh when he heard her heart beating - albeit slightly faster than normal.

"Hooo.... this little girl truly does make others worry for her."

His eyes trailed towards the crystal in the staff, wondering what could it possibly contain to cause a change of that intensity in Xia.

"If it was so powerful as to make her blank out, why am I still conscious then? Could it be that it only reacts under certain conditions? Hmm...."

As he was wondering about the events that took place, Xia's body temperature started rising and strange events started happening around them. The air in the room seemed to have started moving around in a swirl—taking the two of them as the focus point. Xia's brows neared each other as her body temperature gradually rose. If it was any normal human, by now they would already be in grave danger considering how hot Xia's skin had become.

"What the hell is going on?!"

Asura felt helpless. He had no way to help this little girl in any way except for being there to support her body from falling. Apart from that—he had no idea what was going on currently! To make things even worse, he had just arrived in this world not long ago and had no idea how things here functioned. He didn't even know if the knowledge from Earth held any meaning here.

After a while, Asura noticed that Xia's body temperature stopped rising and gradually became constant, even though it was still high. After observing for a while longer, he noticed that Xia didn't seem to be in any pain and that made him breathe a sigh of relief. Only then did he have the time to skim through the current situation again.

All the clues inevitably led to the staff lying on the ground.

"What's so special about that crystal? Is there something inside of it? If so..."

His thoughts eventually reached here. Even though he was seeing these events for the first time in his life, Asura knew there was something strange going on. Furthermore, he was getting a strange feeling from the crystal in the staff—a feeling that he expected would eventually appear.

"So... it's summoning me now, huh? Then—let's see what's hidden inside!"

His hand reached out and touched the crystal - and then everything vanished. Only darkness remained.

>>>

"Ngh... where?"

Asura's eyes shot open, greedily awaiting for the unfamiliar scenery that was about to appear—or at least that's what he thought.

"!!!"

Before he could even finish his sentence, he had to wonder whether his eyes were playing him. The place he appeared in was full of endless darkness. Yet, despite this eternal darkness, he was able to sense everything that existed within this space. Even though there was no light—he could feel everything within this world even better than when he used his eyes. The mysterious feeling was truly overwhelming for him.

"How strange..."

"Oh! You're here sooner than I expected.", a voice appeared directly in his mind.

"?!"

Not expecting anything like this naturally resulted in immediate manifestation of fear. After a moment or two, the fear subsided and curiosity took over but the fact that he got scared even for a moment remained in Asura's subconscious.

"What are you acting scared for? Did this new body completely reshape your previous soul? The you I know was not a coward—he was laughing even as lightning took his life!"

"Wha—!"

Before he was able to ask anything, a massive surge of memories suddenly awoke from the dormant state. All the key moments of his past life flashed by as Asura slowly recalled who he was before. The mentality of the old self began appearing once more, but the current state of his soul wouldn't allow it to completely manifest.

After the overwhelming feeling of memory surge subsided, Asura finally calmed down—surrounded by a special aura of confidence and indifference. These were the key traits from his past life's self. These key traits now awoke once again in his current form—the one of a child. What weight this change carried remained unknown to anyone, not even known to Asura himself.

Asura lightly smiled as his mind focused on the source of the ethereal voice.

"Ah... I see. So it's you—fate."

"Hehe, so you do remember this humble one after all! Good."

"Humble—haa..."

Asura shook his head with a lamenting sigh.

"Say, what happened with you after coming here? Why did you end up like this?"

Feeling her state, Asura truly felt confused and even slightly surprised.

The girl calling herself fate was none other than the angel from a while ago, only now she was a corrupt being - a dark angel.

"Hehe... Funny, isn't it? My own fate turned against myself. Even I don't know why it turned out like this..."

"..."

"Curious, aren't you? About Xia and I?"

With a smile, Asura replied, "Naturally. Who wouldn't be?"

"Hehe~ that's what you think! Many people would wind up going insane with all these events yet you didn't. I don't think anyone would be curious in your place—they would be crying and begging to go home."

"Hmm... think so? I may really be a monster then... meh, who cares."

"Hahaha!! That's exactly like you. That's it. I knew my choice won't be wrong."

"...", the silence was the only thing Asura could use to reply this time as not even he knew what fate was talking about.

"Anyway, let's not waste any time, your little Xia is about to complete her awakening soon. It won't do you any good to fall behind now will it?"

"..."

"Let's start, shall we? Let's carve your new path in this world!"

With those words, Asura's soul felt as if it was being pulled towards the white seed in the middle of the dark angel's heart. Soon enough, he really found himself inside. What awaited in this place was a small wisp, similar to what his soul looked like when it first surfaced in this world, only that this one's color was pure white and its central core was black.

"I wasn't supposed to be alive, you know? Those chains within you - what are they? How could they interrupt the judgement of heavens?"

"...?", at this question, Asura was genuinely confused because he himself didn't know anything about the chains. In fact, he wanted to ask her about them.

"Haa... as expected—you don't know either. Your soul was sealed by a hundred chains. Unless you somehow detach all of them, your soul will never be able to expand like others do. However, after resolving each of the trials brought by the chains, your soul will evolve once—for a total of hundred changes. Those hundred chains should each be housing the Curse of Heavens, but I don't know what those curses are. That will be up to you to find out, I guess."

"...", once again—the silence was the only answer Asura provided.

"Sigh... Anyways, let's get to the current problem - you have to choose what to do with me quickly or I will soon get devoured by those resentful souls. This fragment forced in by the chains won't last for eternity."

Finally, Asura's barrage of silence ended when those words appeared.