Chapter 62: True Survival is Never Valiant

Lorelei carefully placed the tenth body around Aden. Her expression had visibly darkened and if one looked close enough, her fingers were trembling.

“Isn’t this enough?” She asked.

Aden turned his head. All that was left of his body at this point was half his chest. The light that trailed off his vanishing form had dimmed considerably.

“This isn’t nearly enough… Bring them all.”

Lorelei bit her lips till they bled. The weight of sacrificing her fellow Vassals to the one they were supposed to serve till eternity left a bitter taste in her mouth.

But she didn’t dare disobey. She was born and bred for this single purpose alone.

“I… Can’t do that…”

Or could she?

Aden’s eyes widened. “What… Did you just say?”

His form grew even more unstable, Lorelei’s expression turned pained instantly, her feet took a step forward, and halted.

“At least absorb these ones first!”

Frustration had began to show on her face. The earlier fanaticism had been overthrown by the number of events that had happened this past week.

’He hasn’t even officially ascended and he’s become this cocky, who knows what he’ll ask of me when he succeeds in the Rituals?’

Aden’s expression turned feral. “You dare—!”

The words died halfway, the intensity in Aden’s eyes suddenly faded, and a warmth surfaced.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you, Lorelei. I might die soon and that can’t be easy for anyone to bear.”

Lorelei took a step back with a wary expression. The change was simply too abrupt, too controlled.

“Wouldn’t you miss me if I dissapeared, Lorelei?”

Her stomach churned at the unnerving display of warmth. His eyes were a millimeter too wide to invoke genuine sympathy and that smile was stiff enough to send shivers down the spine of anyone who stared too long.

The truth of the matter was Lorelei had her suspicions from the very beginning.

She was mildly surprised when Aden had chosen to use the Vassals as a conductor of his pain, but she attributed it to his intelligence.

But the sudden knowledge about the ability to absorb the Vassals to regain his form only served to burn her suspicions even higher.

She literally could not tell him about the diverse use of the Vassals due to the contract she had been bound with and anyone else who had knowledge about these things were in another plane of reality.

She had indeed intended to sacrifice the Vassals had push come to shove— which it clearly had, but she only planned to sacrifice four or five at most.

“Who are you?” Her eyes narrowed dangerously as she stepped forward. Not towards the remaining groaning bodies, but towards Aden’s.

“What?” Aden had a weird, jerky expression. A mix between forcefully suppressed rage and hidden frustration. “It’s me, your Lord. Aden.”

“Aden would never refer to himself as a Lord,” Lorelei argued, her body looming over him.

All that was left was his neck up to his head and genuine panic could be found in the traces of his expression.

“I will die of you keep wasting time!”

Lorelei’s fingers buried half deep into her palms as she muttered through clenched teeth, “So be it.”

“Dammit! If only this body was strong enough!” He clicked his tongue. “I guess I’ll have to make do with this.”

Before Lorelei could register what he said, a loud groan sounded from his lips and the ten bodies surrounding him twisted and turned violently.

The ten bodies surrounding Aden’s decapitated essence slowly unraveled in a similar manner to him, except theirs were much faster.

From the center of the circle, thin, mercury-like tendrils erupted from Aden’s severed neck, lashing out like starving vipers and latched onto different body parts of the Vassals and began sucking hungrily.

Pained, horrifying groans left their lips as their bodies writhed in impossible angles.

The white energy that had been leaking out began to spin, creating a centrifugal force that pulled the liquified remains into a skeletal framework.

First came the spine which was a jagged, silver column that grew downward from his jaw. Then, ribs snapped into place, formed from the hardened essence of the Vassals.

Aden’s torso filled out, but it wasn’t human. It was a patchwork of marble-white skin and translucent, humming muscle. The black veins that had plagued the Vassals transferred to him, mapping out a new, more efficient nervous system across his chest.

“Ah…”

A weird sound left his lips as he looked downwards at his body. “That’s more like it.”

Aden stood up. His legs were the last to form, solidifying from the feet of the boy Lorelei had just carried, but the toes were in normal condition.

His movements were wobbly and jerky at first. His facial expressions constantly changed, as if two people were fighting for control over one body.

Eventually, the signs of discomfort and struggle died down and all that was left was a prideful being.

“You’re sentimentality is unbefitting of a Vassal,” he started, his hands clenching and unclenching by his sides as he drew closer to her.

After the transformation, Aden currently stood at a towering height and loomed over Lorelei.

His finger poked at her chest, a strange warmth flowing through them, which ironically caused Lorelei to shiver even more.

“We’ll have to do something about that.”

Lorelei gulped subconsciously. “I— I apologize, My Lord,” her eyes averted from the endless abyss that resided in Aden’s. “It won’t happen again.”

A frown, then a twitch in the left side of his lips, before a satisfied smile shakily appeared.

“Good. Good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have more important things to attend to.”

With a light wave, he pushed Lorelei aside, nearly causing her to collide with the wall at the far side of the cave.

A myriad of emotions showed on her face, not from the push, but from the ridiculous statement that left Aden’s lips.

“Lord, you can’t possibly be intending to go out there once again. You just survived a major attack and they might be—”

“Do you think those weaklings could push me completely into a state of retreat?” Aden’s cold voice interrupted. Lorelei felt a restriction on her airways just from the sheer presence he exuded. “Is your Lord truly that weak in your eyes?”

Her eyes shook violently. She couldn’t meet his gaze and stared at the cracked floor meekly.

Her fists clenched till they turned white. Her teeth clenched and between those gaps, a sound barely above a whisper left her lips and echoed surprisingly loudly in the cave.

“…I believe so…”

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