Chapter 338: [Completion Reward: Echo of Everveil]

“VITA!”

Kael shouted as he lifted Vitaria and brought her face right in front of him. The crimson tears rolling out of her eyes horrified him. His heartbeat quickened. He shook Vitaria’s body a few times, his movements were desperate but gentle at the same time. His emotions were a mess.

“F-Father…”

Vitaria stuttered. She freed herself from Kael’s grip and slowly wiggled her way inside his shirt. Normally, Kael would have laughed at this situation because of how ticklish it felt. Right now, however, he didn’t dare to laugh.

He could feel it.

Vitaria’s body was trembling. She was using her soft paws to cling to him as tightly as she could, almost as if she was scared of something.

“Vita…”

He called out, hugging her tightly. He found that the tighter he hugged her, the less she trembled, so he used more power than usual. He also rubbed her back and ruffled her fur through his shirt. Both actions seemed to calm her down.

Soon, Vita’s trembling stopped.

In her father’s embrace, she had fallen asleep.

Kael, however, was still not at ease. His mind was racing. What he saw scared him. Even now, when Vita seemed to have calmed down, his heart was still racing.

What happened?

He wondered.

And soon, his mind started gathering the clues.

The first and foremost was the system screen that appeared in front of him, showing Reynara’s status. Leaving aside the fact that the screen did not work in Everveil before, what Kael found even stranger was that he didn’t even activate his ability—it just… happened on its own.

Almost as if… the System was trying to tell him something.

What was it?

Was it her race?

Did the system want him to know that Reynara was a Celestial Fox, just like Vita?

The moment he thought of that, another scene appeared in his mind—it was the time when Reynara cried after he told her that Everveil was an illusion.

Crimson tears rolled down her eyes, just like what was happening right now. Even when Reynara cried back in Everveil after being betrayed by her people, the tears that came down were crimson.

And the similarities did not end there. Now that Kael was actively thinking about it, he recalled what Imperia told him in secret before—something that the Ant, and he, found odd at the time.

It was when he and Cirri went to Tempest Sanctum, and Vitaria was together with Lavinia and others. (Chapter 254).

Imperia told him the words Vitaria used to comfort Lavinia:

‘Living with a closed heart is difficult—impossible even. You will only suffocate yourself.’

‘Best way to die is to die while holding the hands of the people you love.’

Of course, these words didn’t seem to have any relation to what was happening right now, but Kael remembered Imperia mentioning the momentary grief she saw in Vitaria’s eyes. The Ant said that she didn’t say anything at the time because it seemed like Vitaria didn’t want anyone to know about it, but she told Kael nonetheless because she was worried about her sister.

At that time, Kael just patted Imperia’s head for being so considerate and started keeping an eye on Vitaria, but when he did not find anything odd, he stopped on his own.

But now…

It all made more sense.

The reason his Vitaria, who generally only played pranks on humans, acted so differently when it came to Lavinia.

There were times when she would silently stay by Lavinia’s side when she was asleep and pat her head with her paw. Kael also remembered how Vitaria continuously told him to take care of her. There were even times when the Fox woke him up at night just to tell him not to move, giving him no choice but to stare at the Princess in silence.

He didn’t understand it before, but now he could see it—that was Vitaria’s way of taking care of Lavinia. She wanted the two of them to get close.

‘Do not betray her.’

He remembered the words Vitaria said to him and that strange expression on her face when she did.

It all finally made sense now.

After all, Lavinia’s and Reynara’s situations were similar—they were both betrayed by the people they loved.

And Vitaria…

If Kael’s guess wasn’t wrong, she was the reincarnation of Reynara.

This was the reason she always took care of Lavinia—she felt a sense of familiarity with her.

As to why Vitaria never said this before, it was probably because even she did not know it completely.

All his Bonds inherited a different version of knowledge because of their race, but this knowledge wasn’t continuous—it was divided into fragments to only keep what’s important.

Kael theorized Vitaria’s memories of her past life were the same. She did not know the details; she simply knew what she needed to know to cast her illusions instinctively. Her grief, however, was so strong that it somehow affected her anyway, and when Lavinia appeared in front of her,

She instinctively began to take care of her because she sympathized with her.

Of course, all of this was still just Kael’s theory, and he could very well be wrong about everything, but recalling everything Vitaria did for Lavinia from the very beginning, and how the Fox played the major role in bringing the two of them closer, he felt like the chances of all this being true weren’t low.

After all, even if Lavinia was loved by the Elementals, to Vitaria—who cannot sense the Elementals—it simply did not matter. To her, Lavinia was no different than an ordinary human with a traumatizing past, yet she still went over and beyond for her sake.

Even the Dragons, especially Igni, who seemed to trust Lavinia because of the Elementals, weren’t active—because he was waiting for Kael himself to make a move. Yet Vitaria purposefully made him reveal all his Bonds to her, sleep with her when they had just met, and created other opportunities.

“…”

Kael stayed silent. Vitaria, who was in his arms, moved in her sleep, making herself as comfortable as possible. Kael momentarily loosened his grip, letting her move as much as she wanted, but the instant he did that, her body began trembling again, and he instantly started rubbing her again, telling her that he was right there next to her. Only then did the Fox calm down and continue her sleep.

‘I’ll make sure she will never feel betrayed again.’

Kael swore in his heart. His little Vitaria—he would make sure she never went through what she did in her past life.

Thinking about it, he held her more tightly as he began looking around. The illusion was still ongoing. Reynara continued to laugh inside the Everveil she created. By now, she had long forgotten that the world she was living in was an illusion.

It was supposed to last an eternity, but then suddenly, Kael saw him and Vitaria appearing in Everveil through a portal.

‘Oh? This is still going?’

Kael raised his eyebrow, curious.

He saw how he began to interact with the Kitsunes. Another interesting thing he noted was that only about two and a half hours passed every time Kael went back to Nerathis and then returned to Everveil.

It was similar to how the 24 hours he spent inside Everveil were only less than two and a half hours in Nerathis.

‘So the time flow in the two places switches depending on where I am, huh.’

He noted.

Time passed even more. He saw how he began to learn, then how after a month, he confronted Reynara, how the Everveil illusion broke, the sky cracked, the world turned white.

Then, even he and Vita disappeared, leaving only floating, lifeless Reynara in it.

‘What is happening…?’

Kael, who was watching this from afar, questioned. He didn’t remember this part—well, more accurately, he did not see this part.

Reynara’s body floated above. Her real body had long perished—what was left was the remaining power she had gathered before she died, and suddenly, her ‘body’ turned into that raw power, and this power flew towards Kael.

No—more specifically, it flew towards Vitaria, who was inside his shirt.

[Completion Reward: Echo of Everveil]

Kael saw a message as the pure energy surrounded Vitaria, and the Fox’s body started absorbing it slowly.

It wasn’t just her—some of the leaking energy flew towards him, and his body started absorbing it as well.

The entire process was confusing. Kael couldn’t even sense where this new energy was being stored inside him.

What he did know, however, was that something was changing.

Just like his Igni and Cirri, Vitaria was entering the next phase of her evolution as well.

Of course, Kael tried his best to understand this phenomenon. He even tried using the Eye of the Ancient, wanting an explanation like he got during his time with Igni and Cirri,

But then suddenly—

He sensed a sharp pain in his head and—

He passed out.

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