Chapter 82: Ch121. Answers
Beep!
[YOU HAVE ENCOUNTERED AN ECHO]
[ARIAS, THE DIVIDED]
[AS THE ORIGINAL ENTITY’S ECHO, ARIAS LONGED TO MEET A VERSION OF HIS FORMER FRIEND, KURT BLAKE, ALSO KNOWN AS ORKAS, THE DARK HERO]
[THE FINAL REQUIREMENT FOR THE SECOND TRIAL HAS BEEN MET]
[THE PLAYER HAS TWO OPTIONS]
[TAKE THE ANCIENT DRAGON’S CORE AND PROCEED TO THE FINAL TRIAL]
[ALLOW THE PARADOX TO ERASE ARIAS’ EXISTENCE, FOR IT IS NOT ALLOWED IN THIS WORLD]
"But if you take the second option, it will just kill me, and it will interrupt your growth in power." Arias said. "Which means that you’ll be stuck in your current level until you die, and probably will not be able to finish what my former friend started..."
Kurt didn’t need to think.
He breathed in deeply, and spoke.
"I refuse both options."
Arias stared at Kurt, shocked.
[WHAT?]
Kurt chuckled at the system’s response.
"You said that Arias’ existence isn’t allowed in this world, right?"
[... YES]
"So, since I’ll soon be moving to my home world-line, I’ll just keep Arias, just like I did with Groth. He was the former Kurt’s familiar, after all, right?"
[... YES...]
"Which means that he can also be my familiar, so I’m keeping him. I’m not letting anything kill him just for the sake whatever a paradox means, and I’m not taking his core for whatever purpose. He is my former self’s friend, and I intend to keep it that way."
Arias looked at Kurt, and he could swear that was a tear falling from one of the enormous dragon’s eyes.
"Ever since I felt you waking up from that coma, I knew you were different from the others. That you had something else... Something that could lead us to hope. Thank you, Kurt. You have passed the test."
Kurt raised his brow.
"Test?"
And as if to answer Kurt’s question, the system beeped in his head, along with the holographic screen appearing only to him.
[KURT BLAKE HAS PASSED THE FINAL TEST OF THE SECOND TRIAL]
[THE ENTRANCE TO THE SHADOW WORLD IS OPENING]
[YOU ARE NOW READY FOR THE THIRD AND FINAL TRIAL]
"Shadow world?" Kurt asked, looking at Arias.
But Arias was already turning into his humanoid form.
The only thing was that Arias looked different from when he showed up as Yisal.
He kept the white scales, and his face was more humanoid than draconic.
His wings were majestic, carefully tucked behind his back and making him look as powerful as Kurt knew he was.
"There are more secrets that you can even begin to fathom behind the origins of this world." Arias said. "Behind the origins of your power. But there’s your chance to reveal some of them and understand things better. But if I’m not mistaken..." He paused, after the so-called entrance to the Shadow World began to open.
It was a human-sized rift in space, pitch black, with edges in a strangely contrasting white hue.
"... You will have the chance to create your own legacy from there on out."
"Will you come with me?" Kurt asked, in which Arias smiled.
"I will. Because there’s something that needs to happen in there. And it can only happen with my presence."
Kurt nodded as they stepped into the threshold.
The place they arrived at, took Kurt’s breath away.
"It’s the... It’s the [ARMORY]! But how-?"
You believed that it was forever closed, just because the system told you?" A familiar voice echoed through the air.
His voice.
Only older.
"Orkas!" Kurt said, waiting for his senses to warn him any time.
But since they didn’t, Kurt walked around, looking at the items he once didn’t have the chance to observe properly.
"I think that, at the point where we are now, you already know who I am, so you can call me by my real name. Or you can call me K, like the other one of us out there."
"Where are you?" He asked, and when he turned around to look, even Arias wasn’t there anymore.
But there was a black wooden door at one of the farthest walls, where once Kurt could swear just shelves covered it.
He walked towards the door, and it opened, with a blinding light coming from the inside.
As Kurt crossed that threshold, he found himself in what he could only think of as a forge.
But everything in there, just like in the [ARMORY], didn’t have colors.
It was all covered by an eerie hue of black-and-white.
As if all of it was nothing but a black and white movie.
Kurt looked around, and near a fireplace that burned with black flames, he saw it.
Arias in the form of a very small dragon, almost nothing but a hatchling, playing enthusiastically with the man he had seen a few times in the [MEMORY FRAGMENT], and once after reaching the fifth level in the system.
It all seemed so long ago...
Yet, he was there, still looking like no time had passed.
Like nothing of what Kurt had gone through inside the system with his older self had happened.
"I’m glad you could finally join us, man." Orkas/Kurt said, with a smile on his lips. "And I’m also glad that you passed the test." He sighed. "I can’t count how many times I had to watch him die in front of me... All because of more power, or because the other echos of you believed that reality would be in danger if this cutie here remained alive..."
Kurt couldn’t believe was he was seeing and hearing.
"So I wasn’t the first one to have come so far, but all the others failed... But failed in what, exactly?"
Orkas/Kurt got up and held Arias under his arm.
The little dragon looked so happy that it looked like a completely different creature.
Definitely not the majestic and powerful gigantic dragon that Kurt had seen before.
"You see..." Orkas/Kurt replied. "You could’ve wanted as much power as it’s possible. But if you’re willing to sacrifice your friends in order to achieve more power, than you’re no better than the Ishir, who got so greedy, that they ended up being controlled by their home planet’s conscience, and went out, ravaging the universe in search of other fragments of its twin brother. So we couldn’t let any of you who were willing to do that, arrive here. We had to make sure, but you finally came, and it’s time for you to learn more, and to choose your own legacy..."
