The power of the most powerful Gods and Fallen had activated a curse to attack Nightwing.
It found the smartest being whom Folly could sense and zeroed in their curses on that one being.
The power of Pausontai tore through the realms. While Beginning, Fate, Histerion, and many others began to hinder the power of the curse being delivered, it still managed to reach the mortal realm and attack Nightwing.
But as the power of Pausontai appeared, the power of Time surged.
Even though there were allies next to him, the power of pause had made them unaware of everything,
Nightwing saw it because of the counterpower of Time. A tremendous amount of power was collected from such a great power source.
"All those things that Histerion gave us are being used here... I guess you were right. So instead of giving me my form back, it's better to use this power to counter a god-level spell." Calaminus chuckled.
It was all according to the plans of Kyros. Time had paused, and it created a trigger to force Kyros to use his Soul to appear.
Nightwing had long known of this seal and didn't know how to activate it. Unlike Kyros, Nightwing does not know the Soul Console nor did he know how to code. It was the one knowledge that he didn't have access to compared to Kyros. And this was what Kyros used to his advantage to hide numerous truths from Nightwing and enact the plan that was set ever since Kyros had escaped from the Unrecorded Pages.
The curses began to attack Nightwing, and Nightwing knew.
"You.... jerk...! You plotted this!" The pained Nightwing felt pain as curses bombarded his soul.
"You should understand by now why I had to do that," Kyros answered as numerous paths and powers appeared and allowed his body to stand up and take form.
"...You! We are... supposed to be... one!" Nightwing was angered.
"We are. That's why I'm doing this. You know that you are the better person to bear the seals. I was the original one cursed. If their curse had attacked me, it would have made the restrictions heavier, and we would have died. But of course, there was no way for you to agree with this... So I had to do it this way."
Nightwing was losing his vision, but suddenly, a strange power began to glow from within him.
The terrifying curses suddenly turned light, and Nightwing's consciousness began to return.
He could see Kyros's expression revealed immense pain and understood what was going on.
Kyros was drawing out some of the pain, and while Nightwing still bore most of it, Kyros took some and prevented the full effects of the curses from sealing Nightwing!
Time suddenly continued, and everyone was startled to see Nightwing create a clone.
"Master Nightwing?" Monica asked.
"...You're not Nightwing! Who is this?" Krysta sensed it.
Nightwing coughed up blood as his power began to weaken.
Everyone was shocked as they saw Nightwing weakened.
"Leave me. Much is to be discussed with this fool. But he is me. My other self. Go!" Nightwing ordered.
[Oration activated.]
Everyone was shocked at Nightwing's command and hesitated.
"You guys should go. Your boss is not feeling well." Kyros spoke.
Krysta could see a strange power in him. Monica, Sherah, and even Angelian could tell that the 'blood clone' was not Nightwing!
Despite their confusion, the group slowly left.
"...At least you know how to bear the weight." Nightwing finally spoke.
"...I already bore these curses once. So I'm not doing it again." Kyros answered.
"...Once? Didn't you bear it twice?"
Kyros smiled but did not answer.
"...What? You mean...!"
"When I awoke, I had a great affinity to the light. I thought it was because of the Celestial Code, but let's be honest. How can one harness the light even with the Code? If you are the Fallen Soul. I am the Ancient God. The first one, the one whose memories you are seeing, is the one who has yet to awaken. The third person of our Trinity."
Nightwing began to think but noticed a strange power of constant strange thoughts entering and hindering him.
"...Ugh. I can't believe I'm this slow. Is this the effect of Folly?"
"Sorry about that. I'm only drawing out a small portion because, naturally, I'll be the one leading this body again. And I can't do that with a lot of Folly in me. This Folly is really smart despite his name. He should be as smart as our mother. But... he is given in to his foolishness. The effect on us is making us dumber and unable to see basic truths and act on them."
"I can't believe thoughts of bedding those girls are affecting me. It's as if I would be willing to throw away their lives for my selfishness. But, of course, it also makes me want... to kill you." Nightwing glared at Kyros.
"Let me clarify what I know and why I sealed your memories."
"You better. I'm turning into dumb and dumber here."
"...You can't turn into two of them. Pick one. Jim Carrey or Jeff Daniels."
"Just get on with the story, smarty pants."
"Alright. The fight in the Unrecorded Pages and my talks with Histerion made me see two members of a Duality. I've already heard of this Duality through Kyriachos. Beginning and End. Fate and Destiny. Histerion and Lanthanou. Soter and Kyriachos. The more I saw, the more I pondered on what we were. We are a trinity, but I can't fathom what we are. One conceals, the other reveals. I am obviously the one that reveals. As for you, you managed to do what I could not. Conceal. I cannot wield the power of Oblivion like you can, who used it to conceal things."
"So that's why you went to the trouble of 'awakening' me. You prepared that tower and sacrificed an entire kingdom to be devoured to create my darkness. You broke free from the bonds of Destiny, and you wanted to fully conceal yourself, which was the source of the curses that afflicted you and your family. The Steele family."
"They're your family too, you know? But yes. I did that to maximize the benefits and traps that we could make. But with what I know, I was afraid of one thing. The other member of the Duality of our mother. Folly would naturally side with End because even if he knows the truth, he will choose to destroy the universe in his folly. I was wondering why he had not shown himself. I mean, Destiny knows we're smart. If he wants to stop us, he needs to use Folly."
"You assumed that Folly did what Folly does best. He did some stupid stuff that either left him in a near-death state or that him to disappear from this universe."
"Exactly. You still have some INT with you! Good! Anyway, I was afraid that if there was one thing that could find us again, it would be Folly. After all, Mysterion and even using Oblivion could hide us from all these curses, but Folly will sense the smart ones and attack them. If he was to return, our powerful intellect would be the one thing that would reveal our location. Even if they don't know about Kyros or the Nephilim, they could launch an attack to target the smart one."
"...You deduced that Destiny caused the curses in our bodies? I was under the impression it was Fate who did it, in collaboration with many other gods and fallen. How did you conclude that End's team cursed you in that past life and sealed you in the Nephilim Sealing Temple?"
"Think about the curses we have now. [De-Smart]? That's definitely Folly. We were sealed in a Temple and kept away from the world for hundreds of thousands of years. It's definitely a curse of Pausontai. [De-Spacito] is a time curse, but why would Calaminus or Luigi curse us with this time spell?"
"Luigi? You got your memories back?"
"Yeah. It was fun thinking I was a slime." Calaminus cheered.
"You also met my wife. That's awesome!"
"Never in a million years, even with my wisdom, would I believe you were married to such a beautiful goddess." Kyros shook his head as he remembered.
"Yeah. I found it hard to believe too..." Nightwing shook his head in disbelief as well.\
"In any case, we saw the curse of Fate in us, but until I grew stronger, did I realize that there was a curse of Destiny in it. Who would be powerful enough to make our body, which has the blessings of many gods and fallen on Beginning's side, to make us not see the curse of Destiny."
"Lanthanou." Nightwing realized it.
"Yes. So I knew that these curses could return should Folly return. And I planned on bringing him back."
"How? How could you forcibly... oh. The Charmed Fallen."
"Exactly. Folly guides the Fallen Phaulos. He could even be their ancestor. It might trigger his return if I could force gods and fallen to act in Folly. And my existence had to disappear, and by disappear, I mean really disappear."
"Because if you were 'present,' the curse would attack the two of us. You timed for the moment when the curse was already sent and removed yourself from me." Nightwing glared at Kyros.
"Hehe. Don't be mad. If anything, you're only mad because of Folly! Without it, you would be very impressed with the plan I came up with!"
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