Chapter 144: ***********************
"A [MEMORY FRAGMENT]?" Kurt asked himself, with a huge smile on his lips, barely paying attention to the [FULL RECOVERY] he had also received as a reward. "Okay, let’s go... ARGH!"
Kurt felt a sharp pain in his chest, and immediately, he felt difficulty breathing.
He tried to speak, but his voice barely came out.
Immediately, the only thing he was able to do, before he felt his consciousness slipping into the void, was to open the subspace window to his [HIDDEN INVENTORY], and take out the [FULL RECOVERY] that had just materialized. .
Kurt took the lid off the crystal bottle, and brought the liquid to his lips, noticing his vision darkening around the edges.
He had little time, and he didn’t know if he could do it, but he poured the liquid into his mouth and forced himself to swallow.
At first, the liquid seemed to burn as it went down his throat, but Kurt understood that this was probably just the effect of his exhausted body, broken bones, and almost zero stamina.
But a few moments later, he began to feel, very slowly, that sensation that he had experienced only once, before reincarnating, if that was the right term, in this world line.
The comforting sensation of your bones mending, your wounds healing, and your vitality being replenished with full strength.
Kurt’s armor had a few tears and a few breaks, but after finally feeling well enough to be able to stand up, even without remembering when he had fallen backwards onto that icy stone floor, he realized that [RIGHT HAND’S QUIETNESS] seemed to have some level of self-regeneration.
Since wherever he saw there were tears or breaks in the solid but finally shaped metal, Kurt noticed that they seemed to be closing, healing very slowly.
Stretching and cracking his bones, Kurt took a deep breath, making sure his lungs were one hundred percent recovered, and only then, he exhaled, relieved.
"Okay... Time to get to the important part of all this."
Kurt took from [HIDDEN INVENTORY] a luminous crystal shard, glowing black, and tapped it twice with his index finger.
Soon after, the crystal shard lit up, and the system’s voice echoed.
This time, only in Kurt’s mind.
[WANT TO ACTIVATE - MEMORY FRAGMENT -?]
"Yes."
As he responded, Kurt’s mind was filled with images, and his body completely lost sensitivity.
For a moment, it was as if Kurt was caught on a threshold between two worlds.
But in the next instant, Kurt started to get used to the effects again.
And he realized that those were, indeed, Vena’s memories.
***
The forest smelled of life.
The trees gave off a green scent, the animals ran, free and noisy.
The cycle of life and the law of the jungle prevailed.
Vena reigned, sovereign, over that verdant immensity.
Until they came.
Vena didn’t know their names, but she knew what their arrival meant.
Vena had already heard about the Conquerors, as the telepathic communication network between her and the other Kings had suffered breakdowns in the years preceding the great incident.
A single ship entered the atmosphere of that planet covered in green.
And a single ship, from what Groth, ruler of the beasts that inhabited the planet Zawn, had told him, before he himself perished in combat, was more than enough for the Conquerors to lay waste to an entire planet.
Humanoid beings with four arms, three fingers on each hand, and rough, olive skin, the Conquerors were carriers of a type of technology that no King had ever seen before.
And there was Vena, realizing and understanding that her turn had come.
But she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
So, he decided to command all creatures in his empire to mercilessly attack each of the Conquerors.
However, none of their efforts were worthy of bearing fruit.
The Conquerors were far more powerful than she had ever imagined.
With that strange technology, her unknown powers, and weapons that seemed to drain the life essence from the atmosphere and convert it into destructive power, Vena was easily overwhelmed by the invaders.
But for some reason, she hadn’t been killed.
On the contrary, he had been kept alive by his captors, to suffer inside a prison beneath his own kingdom.
In fact, the great queen of the forest did not believe that she would be able to be defeated by the invaders.
Much less, that she would be left there, with her life running out of her, trapped, without anyone being able to come and rescue her.
Ages seemed to pass, until the first visitor arrived.
He was one of the Conquerors.
Vena felt her body contort, and discovered a new world of pain, in the hands of that individual.
"There..." He said, after what seemed like endless hours of excruciating torture. "Now, you won’t be able to say a word about us, to anyone who comes into this place..."
"You why...?"
The Conqueror seemed to smile, both pairs of lips curling upwards in a macabre grimace, before answering the question.
"Now... We need to ensure that the continuity of reality remains the way the Master desires, don’t we?" And before applying something to Vena’s neck, which made her completely lose consciousness, he finished it off. "We cannot allow the seeds of the future to find out about us. The third planet has barely formed yet... We have to ensure that Master will have enough food when the time comes for his awakening..."
And everything became darkness in Vena’s mind.
***
Kurt opened his eyes, panting.
He realized he had fallen again, his hands feeling the icy touch of the rock.
His heart beat fast, and he tried to breathe steadily, but his hands were shaking.
The mere presence of the being Vena called one of the Conquerors, even though Kurt was experiencing it through a simple [MEMORY FRAGMENT], was enough to make his stomach turn upside down.
He got to his knees, and vomited on the stone floor.
’The third planet...’ Groth thought in Kurt’s mind.
"Yes... It’s Earth." Kurt stammered. "It’s gotta be." He got up, noticing that Arias had returned to his shadow. "We gotta get back to Shibuya right now. I gotta put my plan in motion sooner than I thought."
