Chapter 262 262 – Future Eternal
The Prison looked at Julian for quite a while.
It hadn't expected for Julian to know that Envy was stuck fighting Aegis.
It was true.
Envy couldn't spare any of its powerful servants since Aegis was putting enormous pressure on it.
However…
"That will not always be the case," the Prison said. "You are making a decision out of a momentary situation that will have permanent consequences."
The mouths chuckled.
"It's not permanent," they answered.
"The rate of my growth is unmatched."
"I only need to become a Demon, after which I will take control of the leadership of this city."
"And then, my power will not only be contained in this city."
"The governor can call Aegis."
"Is your lord willing to risk its powerful servants for a desire for revenge?"
The smiles on the mouths turned cocky.
"Is your lord that human?"
The Prison just looked evenly at the tree of mouths.
"I will ask one last time. Are you not willing to hand over a weak human to ensure your survival?" the Prison asked.
"If you had asked me before taking my food, I would have handed him over," the tree said.
"But you and your lord have taken from my plate without asking."
"Maybe I have been under humans too much, but I think I should feel offended and disrespected by that."
"And I also think I should now make irrational decisions borne out of anger."
The mouths snickered.
"Being a human is much more fun than being a Specter."
The Prison just kept looking at the tree.
"You are dead-set on making an irrational decision?" the Prison asked with a bland tone.
The mouths stopped laughing but didn't stop grinning maliciously.
"When you are an Eternal, can any decision be irrational?" they asked.
"When there are no negative consequences to your actions, do your actions even matter?"
"You are not an Eternal," the Prison answered immediately.
"But I will be," the mouths answered.
Silence.
"Look at the city."
"Everyone knows me, but nobody knows of my true existence."
"I am inside everyone's mind, but everyone will ignore the truth."
"Every single person sees me."
"But not a single person can see me."
"In this city, am I not the Sun and the Null at the same time?" the mouths spoke arrogantly.
"And what when I become a Fallen?"
"What when I become an Adversary?"
"When I become an Adversary, I can stop the Shields from seeing me."
"Then, only the Specters can be my enemies."
"But since I will be amongst the strongest of humanity, I am safe as long as humanity is safe."
"Do you understand what this means?"
"This means that when I become an Adversary, it is only a matter of time until I become an Eternal!"
"As a Demon, I can feed on every city! I can leave this one and go to another one without any issues!"
"As a Fallen, I can feed on Aegis' strongholds!"
"And as an Adversary, I can feed on all of humanity!"
"Humanity will be my weapon, my shield, and my food."
"So, why should I care about some Fallen called Envy?"
"It is not me that should surrender in front of Envy so that I won't be killed."
"It is Envy that should surrender in front of me so that I won't kill it."
The Prison just kept looking at the tree of mouths.
"You are not the first to speak such grand words," the Prison said evenly.
"And you won't be the last."
"Specters like you always fall to your own hubris."
"And most of the time, it happens on the hands of the very things you consider as food."
"Becoming human will never work out."
"Specters are not human."
The mouths chuckled.
"What about Nurse Alice?" the mouths asked.
"She is an Eternal. She is different," the Prison said calmly.
"If she can be human, why can't I be human?" the mouths asked.
The Prison just looked at the tree of mouths.
And then, it gave up.
It had seen a couple of Specters just like this one.
The Prison had been to many cities, and some of them had Specters just like this one.
Specters that thought that their rise was unstoppable and unavoidable.
And then, they became Fallen, and things suddenly started to become very difficult.
A Fallen could only properly grow by feeding on Protectors, and all Protectors belonged to Aegis.
And Aegis was damn good at finding and fighting Fallen.
While it was easy for a Fallen to survive, it was almost impossible for a Fallen to reliably grow.
For one simple reason.
The Fallen's food source was its most dangerous enemy.
Since Specters didn't suffer from the weakness of biological matter, they didn't naturally expire.
There were Fallen that were tens of thousands of years old, and yet, they still didn't manage to become Adversaries.
That was because these Fallen were forced into feeding extremely rarely and carefully.
Fallen that fed rapidly didn't tend to live long.
The Prison could see the tree of mouths joining the latter group of Fallen.
Of course, the Prison didn't care about the tree's fate.
Unfortunately, the tree's arrogance made it irrational, which made it impossible for the Prison to leave with its target.
But there were other things the Prison could do.
"There is no value to be had in this conversation," the Prison said.
A moment later, all the different people who had left the wagon came back.
"Change of plans. We're going to leave now," the man in silver armor shouted.
The Experts went to the front and started to pull the wagon towards the exit of the city.
But in truth, the Prison was just slowly floating down the streets.
"Until we meet again, future Eternal," the Prison said in a mocking tone.
The mouths just kept chuckling.
Then, the tree shrunk, and all the mouths gathered in one spot again before turning back into the figure of a blue-haired man.
Eventually, the Prison left the city.
A Specter generally only cared about its own survival, and the Prison wasn't an exception.
So, as long as the Prison was far away from the city, Julian's power didn't matter.
Envy was the servant of Famine.
The Prison was the servant of Envy.
Naturally, just like the other two, the Prison had servants of its own.
And it didn't care about their survival.
Updated from fr𝒆ewebnov𝒆l.(c)om