On the third night, Adelasta had dragged herself onto the bed sometime after the alter ego vanished the night before. Her palms still throbbing faintly where the daggers had pinned her. The wounds had healed, leaving only faint pink scars that itched like crazy. Fresh bottles surrounded the mattress. Some empty and others were half-drained. The alter ego materialized again, stepping out from the corner shadows with a casual smirk. There was no guitar this time.
Adelasta didn't flinch. Her voice came out flat and exhausted.
"What do you want this time?"
"Tonight we're talking about your childhood, darling. Since you're so fond of pain, maybe you need to remember how it feels."
She waved her hand. A ghostly image formed, glowing softly in the dim room. It showed the moment of Adelasta's birth in a lavish but cold chamber of the Vazakiel Palace. The newborn let out a weak cry. Her mother, a sharp-featured woman with cold eyes, looked down at the baby with pure disgust twisting her face.
"A girl. I carried you for years and you give me a girl. I wanted a boy. An heir with real potential." She turned away, refusing to hold the infant.
"I'll never raise this one. She's yours now."
The father, looking weary but gentle, took the bundled newborn. The mother shoved her forward dismissively.
"From now on, you raise the child. I've done enough."
The image faded. The alter ego crossed her arms.
"Even at birth, you weren't liked. You were not wanted from the first breath. Nice start, right?"
Adelasta stared at the empty air where the vision had been. Her blank expression didn't change, but something twisted harder. The air shimmered again. This time, a four-year-old version of herself appeared in the projection. Tiny Adelasta, all scrawny limbs and determined little face, was dragging massive boulders tied to ropes across the polished floors of the Vazakiel Palace training grounds. Her small hands were raw and bleeding from the rough cords. Sweat poured down her face as she strained. The boulders were easily thirty times her weight.
Her mother supervised from the side.
"Faster, you worthless thing. You're raceless. There is no Omniscient bloodline in you at all. You're not even a proper Immortal Human. Look at you. Weak, slow, pathetic. The only value you'll ever have is as an assassin for the Vazakiel Dynasty. Move!"
The little girl fell hard. The ropes cut deeper into her palms. She cried out but forced herself up, dragging again. Her mother cracked a whip across her back—once, twice, three times—leaving bright red welts on the child's skin.
"Cry again and I'll make it worse. Assassins don't feel pain. Get up!"
The four-year-old sobbed silently now but kept pulling. Her tiny muscles screamed. One boulder tipped, crushing her foot momentarily before she yanked it free with a muffled scream. The brutality went on for what felt like hours in the vision. Endless laps, cold water thrown on her when she collapsed from heat exhaustion, only to be ordered up again.
The alter ego watched Adelasta's face closely.
"Brutal for a four-year-old, wasn't it? While other kids played, you were learning how to be a tool. Because you were nothing else to them."
Adelasta's hands clenched in her lap.
"Stop…"
But the images kept coming.
The vision shifted to age six. It was her first birthday in the family's twisted calendar. It was supposed to be a day of celebration, but instead it was the day of her Reversal Ascension. The projection showed little Adelasta writhing on the cold ritual floor, screaming in pure agony. Her small body convulsed as energy was infused in her body, reshaping her from the inside out. It felt like every bone was breaking and reforming.
She screamed and cried. Tears ran down her flushed cheeks.
"It hurts! Mother, please—it hurts so much!"
Her mother stood nearby. Her brothers lounged against the walls, chuckling at the spectacle. None of them moved to help. Only her father knelt beside her, holding her trembling hand, murmuring soft words that barely cut through the pain.
The alter ego's voice turned mocking.
"Even on the most important day of your childhood, no one supported you. Look at them. They didn't care. And the worst part? After all that suffering, you got nothing. No Pinnacle. No Base Tether at all. You went through Reversal Ascension and came out powerless with no race to back you up. You were just a blank, useless girl. They mocked you for it afterwards didn't they?"
In the image, as the convulsions eased, one brother sneered.:
"Pathetic. All that noise for nothing."
The vision changed once more. This one was even darker. Young Adelasta, still around six or seven, was being held underwater in the palace fountain by her brothers. Their hands gripped her shoulders and head, shoving her down hard. She struggled wildly. Her legs kept kicking and her arms flailing. Bubbles exploded from her mouth as she screamed underwater.
Even though Spheraphasians didn't need air the same way mortals did, this water was acidic to her since she didn't have any race to boost her defenses and it was full of energy. It seared her skin, blistering her face, arms and chest with severe chemical burns. The pain was excruciating. She thrashed harder, screaming bubbles of agony.
Her brothers laughed above the surface.
"Hold her longer! She needs to learn!"
"Useless raceless bitch. Maybe the water will wash away how worthless you are."
"Stop squirming, freak. Daddy's little mistake thinks she belongs here."
They finally yanked her up. She gasped and choked, barely conscious. Her skin was raw and blistered. Water and blood mixed as she slumped in their grip, coughing violently. They dropped her onto the stone edge like discarded trash, still laughing.
"Look at her. Can't even handle a little swim."
The alter ego made the image linger, zooming in on the child's burned, tear-streaked face and the brothers' cruel grins.
"They made you feel worse every single time and you took it. Because what choice did you have?"
Adelasta sat on the bed, staring at the visions with her flat, vacant eyes. Her breathing stayed shallow. No tears came. The alter ego stepped closer, smiling.
"From the moment you were born, you were not wanted. You are beaten into shape, burned, broken, and you still grew up thinking you could be enough for someone like Vastarael. Cute. How does it feel knowing the only person who ever really held you through the worst days was your father… and he couldn't protect you from any of it? After all, this is a matriarchal world. Men don't have a say in anything when it comes to these matters."
She summoned the tiny four-year-old dragging boulders, superimposed over the drowning girl, over the convulsing six-year-old, over the disgusted mother at the birth.
"See? This is you. It always has been. Keep stabbing yourself if it helps but we both know the truth. You were never meant to live. Just give up and die."
Adelasta remained silent for a long moment, pinned by the weight of it all. Then, quietly, she reached for the dagger on the bedside table. The blank stare never wavered as she pressed the blade to her arm again.
The alter ego watched with a satisfied smirk as she vanished . The room was filled with the sounds of shallow breathing, dripping blood and the quiet counting under Adelasta's breath.
"One… two… three… four…"
-----
Sunlight—or whatever passed for it in Technographia—tried to creep past the heavy drapes but failed miserably. Adelasta sat slumped against the headboard. Her palms still ached from two nights night before, even though the skin healed. The blank stare was heavier today.
Flames emerged from nowhere, twisting into the shape of her alter ego. The figure stood there, fully engulfed in fire across her skin and hair without consuming her. It should have been terrifying. Instead, it felt almost fitting in the blood-stained messy room.
Adelasta jolted. The bottle slipped from her fingers and spilt across the sheets.
"What the—why are you in flames?"
The flaming alter ego tilted her head.
"Because both of us are dying, Adelasta. You have already given up on living. The Existence Divinity is acting up now. Can't you feel it?"
"Divinities?"
"Divinities are gifts the universe hands out when you hit Divine Rank. It's power beyond normal limits, acting as buffers and defense mechanisms. It's double-edged as hell, though. They protect you, but they also reflect the mess inside."
"What?"
"My true identity isn't just 'you.' I'm the manifestation of your Existence Divinity. I'm the part that's been handling the weight of everything falling apart. When Vastarael was deep in the Obsidian Runic Spire, losing his mind while forging that Control Mystic Circle, his Divinities created an alter ego to keep him sane. They step in during madness, trauma or life-or-death shit. They're psychological shields for beings like us. It helps us survive what should break us."
"Then why…"
"Because you have two Divinities, "Existence and Flames. They're clashing right now. I'm the Existence side. I want you to give up. You can't recover from this psychologically anymore. Vastarael's gone, remember? You watched it. The childhood shit we dragged up last night? It's all piling on. You're too far gone. The only reason you haven't actually killed yourself yet is because of the Flames Divinity. She hasn't shown herself because your grief drowned her out. But she's forcing her way in now."
Adelasta's hand twitched toward the dagger on the nightstand, but she didn't grab it.
"I don't want to live anymore."
"I know. I've been trying to help you end it. But balance has to happen. Two Divinities means neither of us gets to win easy. You still have that tiny spark wanting to keep going and it's feeding her. The Flames Divinity is getting stronger because of it. For now, she'll take her turn. I hope she fails. Killing you would be a lot easier than forcing you to keep living like this."
The flames surged, burning brighter. The Existence alter ego vanished in a swirl of smoke and fading embers. In her place stood another version of Adelasta, but this one practically glowed with lively energy. Flames still covered her body, but they were warmer, playful, like a hearth fire rather than a funeral pyre. She stretched her arms with a dramatic groan and flashed a bright, ironic grin.
"Whew! Finally. That Existence bitch is so damn annoying. Always moping about 'giving up' and 'ending the misery.' Like, yeah, trauma sucks, but come on! We've got fire in our veins. Erasing ourselves? What a drama queen."
Adelasta watched her with that same vacant stare but confusion.crossed her face.
"You're… the Flames one?"
"Yep!"
The Flame alter ego plopped down on the edge of the bed without invitation, right next to a pile of empty bottles. She picked one up, swirled the contents, and made a weird face. She tossed the bottle aside and turned that cheerful grin back on Adelasta.
"Ugh, you've been drinking the cheap stuff. We can do better than this while we figure things out. Existence really thinks the only way to save you is to wipe the slate clean. What a bitch, right? I mean, I get it, watching your man vanish into sparkles would mess anyone up. But we're not quitting that easy. I'm here to balance the scales, whether she likes it or not."
She reached out and poked Adelasta's arm, leaving a tiny harmless spark that tingled warmly instead of burning.
"See? Fire's not just for destruction. It's for keeping going. Warming up cold nights, cooking meals after long battles, passion, all that good stuff. You felt it with him, didn't you? That night in the Erna Isles? That was me, pushing through even back then."
Adelasta leaned back. The heat from the alter ego made her feel warmer. The blank stare remained, but her fingers unclenched a little.
"I don't… I can't keep doing this."
The Flame alter ego laughed.
"Sure you can! Or at least, we're gonna try. Existence wants to burn everything down to ash and call it peace. Me? I want to burn bright enough to light a path forward. It's gonna hurt. A lot. But that's what fire does. It hurts while it purifies. Remember how good it felt when he used Body Reconstruction on you after? That warmth? That's my department, darling."
She stood up again, pacing energetically around the bed.
"Look, I know the childhood crap, the loss, the stabbing yourself every night, it's a lot. Existence has been whispering 'just end it' because it's easier. But I'm the one who remembers the fight. The way you dragged those boulders at four and still got up. The way you survived the drowning, the ascension pain. You've got fire in you whether you like it or not. So here's the deal: I'm taking over for a bit. We're going to feel this grief without letting it kill us. Maybe cry for real. Maybe train. Maybe even sing one of those stupid songs Vastarael taught us. Existence can sulk in the background. Balance, remember?"
Adelasta didn't respond right away. She just stared at this vibrant, fiery version of herself, which was the irony of the cheerful personality cutting through her numbness like a warm knife. For the first time in days, the counting in her head—"one two three four"—faded a little.
"Don't worry. I'm annoying too, but in a fun way. Now, what do you say we start by cleaning up some of this mess? Or at least drinking something that doesn't taste like regret?"