Chapter 138: Ch175. Ouroboros curse - 2
Kurt smiled, feeling both a wave of excitement and a pang of sadness wash over him.
’Yeah... I had a good run with you all, guys...’
Kha’ur, having succeeded in almost completely assimilating Octavius’ body, tightened his grip on his only arm, looking, confused and perplexed, at the smile on Kurt’s lips.
"Why are you smiling?"
Kurt had his eyes closed, both trying to control the strength of the monster’s iron grip, and thinking about something that only he could understand.
Something he had not shared with anyone there, neither before nor after he returned from the coma caused by the parasite infection.
Kurt opened his eyes, and looked at Kha’Ur, who opened her eyes wide, stuttering momentarily.
"H-how... How did you..."
When Kurt spoke, it wasn’t just his voice that sounded from his throat.
"The same way I managed to keep myself hidden from you for so long... Brother..."
Kurt’s eyes glowed with that green light so characteristic of Essentium.
Only this time, the glow was much more intense, almost blinding.
Everyone who was still watching on land now only saw a green star shining in that blue sky.
"You... Were you helping him this whole time?"
Kurt smiled, as if even that titanic grip wasn’t something that bothered him anymore.
"Yes." He replied, his double voice still vibrating on his vocal cords. "And I will continue to help, as long as it means your power has an opponent..."
Kha’Ur let out an ominous scream, which echoed throughout the stratosphere, reaching even the ears of those watching on the ground.
"YOU CAN’T WIN ANYMORE, FOOLISH BROTHER!" Kha’Ur roared maniacally. "I FINALLY HAVE A BODY TO DESTROY YOU, AND NOT EVEN YOUR USELESS VESSEL CAN STOP ME NOW!"
Kurt chuckled.
Then, his chuckle became a laughter.
Then his laughter became a fit of laughter almost as crazed as Kha’Ur’s.
After a few moments, the laughter finally died in Kurt’s throat. He opened his eyes again, looking deeply into his opponent’s eyes, and still with some tears in his eyes, he said.
"You fail to understand a very simple thing, brother..."
The maniacal smile simply died on Kha’Ur’s lips, realizing that there really was something wrong there.
Kurt was no longer squirming.
The human wasn’t even trying to attack.
"..."
"Very good... Sometimes silence really is the best answer." Kurt retorted. "You fail to understand that my goal here... Our goal here... Is not to defeat you."
Kha’Ur raised a bestial eyebrow.
"It is not?"
"No."
The light emanating from Kurt’s eyes suddenly began to pulse, as if he had a heart of his own.
Kha’Ur roared again, and his own energy began to pulse wildly, ready to explode at any moment.
"I don’t think you’ll have time to do whatever it is you’re planning..."
As if a countdown was reaching its end, the monstrosity clinging to Kurt smiled, an animalistic smile.
And every trace of intellect that was in the eyes of that person disappeared at the exact moment that the energy that sparked around them completely stopped pulsing.
"G-goodbye... Fools..."
The sky was suddenly swallowed by a luminous explosion that painted the entire firmament red, quickly extending towards the ground.
Swallowing everything around in a red dome of destruction.
"Fools... It’s a good word to describe beings like you..." Kurt’s voice echoed from within the explosion, directed at Kha’Ur, who looked on with his jaw dropped, noticing that his enemy’s body was not disintegrating in the blaze of his self-destructing power.
***
"Because the price is too high, Kurt Blake..." Essentium, dressed in the form of Nina, Kurt’s mother, said, with a gleam of suffering in his eyes.
"Don’t you think I’m more than accustomed to paying dearly for my own life, or for the lives of my friends?"
The figure before Kurt blinked several times, looking at him as he tried to understand what he had said.
Suddenly, however, a sudden gleam of understanding flashed across her eyes.
"Ah..." She sighed heavily. "Yes. But... I still believe that this price is too high, even for-"
"Come on." Kurt pressed. "We don’t have all the time in the world, and you already know that I’m not going to just give up. It’s the only way, isn’t it?"
After pondering for a few moments, the figure dropped its shoulders, looked at the ground for a few moments, and as if it were really Kurt’s mother, looked at him with a compassion that almost bordered on pity.
Kurt didn’t like that, but there wasn’t much he could do, so he just let her talk.
"...You must become my host, in Kha’Ur’s place, so that my power can become yours."
Kurt raised an eyebrow for a moment.
"Won’t this... Won’t I basically become a... Deity?"
Essentium giggled, visibly delighted at Kurt’s thought.
"Yes, but for a very brief period of time." She answered. "So brief, that it will be just enough for you to seal Kha’Ur’s will and soul within you. But this must be done at exactly the right time."
"And when will that be?"
Kurt was visibly perplexed by that plan, but something inside him felt like it could work.
Essentium’s next words, however, sent shivers running down Kurt’s spine.
"When he is about to destroy himself, to take everyone with him, towards the Red Flood."
"But... We’re all going to die with him, right?"
It was definitely not what Kurt expected to hear from the consciousness that had caused the birth of the countermeasure against Kha’Ur’s machinations.
"But it’s not... Just that... Right?" Kurt asked, noticing a gleam of some other emotion in the eyes of the figure that had taken the form of his mother.
"No. It’s not just that." She answered. "No one will die. Not even Kha’Ur... However, one thing will definitely happen."
Kurt waited for the brief pause, which seemed to last forever, until Essentium finally spoke again.
"You will release all of my power in conjunction with yours, exactly when Kha’Ur’s explosion happens, and it will be able to recalibrate the vibrations of the Earth, through the shadow world, restarting your world for the briefest of moments. "
"And let me guess..." Kurt put a hand to his chin. "This moment will be what decides what the Earth will be like, after restarting..."
Essentium just nodded, adding a single sentence after that.
"But in this brief moment, it is you who will decide what your world will be like, because you will be the primordial deity of that world."
***
"I was waiting for this chance for, unlike you, to save everything and everyone." Kurt said. "Even though it’s going to be a pain in my heart, to have to say goodbye to them."
Kha’Ur tried to say something, to retort the words of his mortal enemy, of his future vessel gone wrong.
But he wasn’t able to.
Because with every microsecond that passed, the monstrosity’s body began to disintegrate along with everything its power touched.
"Thank you for giving me this chance..."
Suddenly, when everyone on the ground looked, dumbfounded and open-mouthed, at the red second sun that was forming in the sky, getting closer and closer to them and closer to fulminating them, the red sphere of energy stopped growing, completely ceasing the advance against the world of shadows.
The sphere of energy suddenly began to recede, being absorbed, little by little, by Kurt’s body, which glowed with the massive power of Essentium beginning to take on shades not only of that almost phosphorescent green, but also shades of red, characteristic of the original form. of Kha’Ur.
Little by little, the red glow also disappeared, and Kurt’s body simply stopped emanating that light, that energy.
Kurt’s eyes slowly closed, feeling that vastness of power rushing inside him like rivers of lava, holding himself back with all his strength to not let a single sound escape his throat.
When his eyes opened again, they were pitch black.
Kurt opened his arms and, immediately, the clouds returned to cover the sky of [SHADOW WORLD], enveloping the world once again in those shades of gray, black, and white that once permeated everything as far as the eye could see there.
All of a sudden, at ground level, Evellyn’s eyes shone ever so slightly and briefly.
Immediately, the girl began to scream, stretching her hands towards Kurt.
"NO! KURT, NO! YOU DON’T HAVE TO DO THIS! PLEASE, THERE HAS TO BE A WAY! YOU DON’T HAVE TO SACRIFICE YOURSELF! PLEASE..."
Kurt wasn’t able to hear her, and his friends couldn’t understand what she meant by the words that came out of her mouth.
Holding Evellyn, fearing that she was suffering from a freak out from overusing her powers, everyone looked up, feeling only a strange foreboding sensation.
Exactly when everything exploded into darkness.
