The strategic resolve of the war room faded into the quiet of the stone corridor as Ezmelral's lookalike and Meryal walked toward her chambers. But high in the veil of time, Ezmelral remained troubled, the Keeper of Balance's words echoing in her mind.
She turned to Raiking, her brow furrowed. "What did she truly mean? There were layers beneath that conversation—I could feel it."
Raiking tilted his head, his crimson eyes holding a knowing light. "To understand her meaning, you must first recall the nature of her very existence. Do you remember how the GodKing and your lookalike met?"
The memory surfaced in Ezmelral's mind with painful clarity. "Deatheny invaded her planet. They massacred her people and enslaved the rest for their experiments. The GodKing arrived on a Flood Mission to purge the corrupters... and he rescued her."
Raiking leaned closer, his tone turning probing. "If you asked someone whether a Flood Mission is good or evil, what would they say?"
She considered it, her brow furrowing. "Most would call it a necessary evil. Others might say it depends on which side of the devastation you stand."
"And the victims," he pressed, "those whose suffering was ended by the purging of their tormentors?"
"They would call it divine justice," she replied, the stark duality of perspective settling over her.
"Exactly," Raiking said, his voice softening with profound insight. "Now, inhabit your lookalike's mind. To her, the Flood Mission was not a tragedy; it was salvation. It was the justice that avenged her people, the event that led her to her master, and the foundation upon which she gained the power to resurrect her entire world. How could she not see it as a righteous, even merciful, act? But herein lies her conflict: How can she still hold onto the pure, childhood love for mortals when that very salvation forced her to witness the absolute depths of their barbarism? She is forever caught between gratitude for the cure and horror at the disease."
As his words faded, Ezmelral's gaze was drawn back to her lookalike, who had just reached her chamber door. She entered alone, the heavy door sealing shut behind her with a sound of finality.
And then, the composure shattered.
A violent, wracking cough convulsed through the lookalike's body. She stumbled forward, bracing herself against the wall as a spray of crimson blood splattered across the pale stone. Her strength fled, leaving her leaning heavily against the wall, her breath coming in ragged, painful gasps.
Ezmelral's mind flashed back to the deal struck with the Keeper of Time, the memory crystalizing around the day of L'uminix's resurrection. That pivotal moment, once a symbol of ultimate hope, now seemed to hold the dark, ticking key to her lookalike's unraveling.
---
The GodKing had vanished in a flicker of starlight, leaving Ezmelral's lookalike amid the miracle of L'uminix's resurrection. But the wonder was short-lived. As her people stirred back into existence, a dark undercurrent of memory surfaced, twisting the miracle into a waking nightmare.
"Who were those monsters?" a voice shrieked, raw with terror.
"I saw them slaughter my child!"another wailed, their face a mask of grief.
"They didn't just kill my family—they killed me!"a third voice cried out, the surreal horror of their own death compounding the anguish.
The crowd's confusion curdled into fear, and fear into a hot, directionless rage. Their eyes darted across the primordial landscape—a stark, simple world that was a pale shadow of the civilization they remembered. This wasn't the home they had lost; it was a blank slate stained with trauma.
"Are they still here?" someone muttered, the question spreading like a contagion. The air grew thick with their collective despair, a fertile ground for the seeds of vengeance.
Through this rising storm, the Keeper of Balance approached, her ten arms swaying gently, her form shrouded in humble robes. She fell into step beside Ezmelral's lookalike, her voice a calm, weighty counterpoint to the chaos.
"This is the consequence of an unorthodox path," the Keeper stated, her gaze sweeping over the suffering crowd. "Especially for a world that was, until moments ago, utterly extinct."
The lookalike stared into the faces of her people, seeing their pain reflected a thousandfold—a vortex of grief threatening to consume them all. Her voice was barely a whisper. "Is there no way to save them from this?"
"There is," the Keeper replied, her tone measured and solemn. "But the price is a burden few can endure."
"I will pay it," the lookalike declared, the words leaving no room for doubt.
The Keeper reached into her robes and produced a Seed of Corruption. But this one was different—its surface was pristine, a hollow vessel waiting to be filled. "I can wind back their memories, erase this trauma. Return their souls to the state they were in a year ago." Her eyes, deep and knowing, locked with the lookalike's. "But you must bear the weight of all this accumulated corruption within your own soul."
"Their Seeds... will be blank?" the lookalike asked, grasping the immense implication.
"Cleansed," the Keeper confirmed, the scales in one of her hands tilting as if measuring the cosmic balance of the act.
"Why offer this?" the lookalike pressed, suspicion narrowing her eyes. "Does their potential downfall not serve your purpose?"
The Keeper's stoic expression softened, a maternal warmth breaking through. "I am the Keeper of Balance... but I was a mother first."
"You mean... the GodKing?"
"Mhm," the Keeper affirmed, a note of deep nostalgia in her voice. "I helped raise him. And he, in turn, protected me when I broke the highest taboo to bear my son, Shona. It is a debt I can never fully repay. How does one repay the man who now holds the cosmos in his palm?" She extended the pristine Seed. "This is my answer. This is how I help the child I raised, by aiding the one who holds his faith."
Understanding dawned on the lookalike's face, quiet and profound. She straightened her shoulders, meeting the Keeper's gaze with unwavering resolve.
"Then I will accept your gratitude."
---
As her lookalike accepted the deal—absolving her people of their corruption and erasing the horrors of Deatheny's invasion—she inherited a curse. Every fortnight, the corruption she had drawn from her world returned to her like a storm seeking its vessel. It gathered inside her Essence Core as psychic poison, gnawing at her soul in relentless waves. Each surge left her hollowed, but she endured it in silence, carrying the weight of a world within her chest.
From the veil of time, Ezmelral watched her lookalike stagger toward the meditation chair, every step a quiet act of defiance against the chaos within. The crimson flare of her Bloodline Mark shimmered faintly across her skin, lending her just enough strength to reach it. She sank into the seat and began to channel her Essence, drawing each breath with deliberate control until her trembling steadied into the rhythm of forced calm.
"Is she becoming disillusioned?" Ezmelral asked, her voice barely above a whisper, her concern tinged with helplessness.
"Who wouldn't be?" Raiking replied, his tone laden with weary understanding. "She witnessed her people's ruin, cursed her soul to cleanse them, and gifted them a perfect beginning. Yet within mere years, some have crawled willingly back into the same decay. Their corruption does not remain theirs alone—it seeps outward, staining the innocent who breathe beside them." His gaze remained fixed below. "How does one continue to love those who insist on destroying themselves?"
Ezmelral said nothing. The question sank into her like a blade turned inward.
How can you love what refuses to be saved?
"But her despair," Raiking continued softly, "is not hers alone to bear."
She turned to him. "What do you mean?"
"A flaw in the GodKing's design," he said, his voice low, the words measured like judgment. "He sought to preserve an innocence already slain. He wished to spare her the path he once walked—of killing to uphold creation's order. His first Flood Mission fulfilled duty but shattered his spirit. Since then, he has feared seeing the same wound in her."
He shifted his gaze back toward the meditating figure below. "But her innocence died the day Deatheny consumed her world. In trying to shield her from the killer she would need to become, he left her unarmed for the truth that survival demands blood. Protection became her weakness."
Ezmelral's thoughts turned inward. It is one thing to plan an outcome, she mused, but reality is a current that bends even the gods. It twists the surest designs until they fracture, leaving behind only those willing to bear what remains.
The veil around them shimmered faintly—light bending as if the cosmos itself exhaled. Below, her lookalike sat in unmoving silence, the faint glow of her Bloodline Mark pulsing like a dying star.
And for the first time, Ezmelral understood: some sacrifices are not made once, but endured forever.