Guild Wars - Chapter 1335: Love Or Obligation? 3

Chapter 1335: Love Or Obligation? 3

Eva shook her head to snap out of that memory, feeling a bit overwhelmed. “That is not the point. Even you agreed back then that I had problems that needed fixing, and that my changes might be for the better!”

Draco forked a finger over to himself with a strange smile. “Me? I agreed? Are you sure about that?”

Shuangtian interrupted here. “Yup, this time you did. Your exact words were: ‘No matter your personality or train of thought, whether Riveting Night or Amaterasu, you will always be Eva to me, my soulmate for eternity.’ While holding her hands romantically.”

Draco folded his arms. “Once again, I ask: Are you sure I was the one who said it?”

Hearing this, both Eva and Shuangtian shared a look.

Shuangtian was largely on Draco’s side, but even she had to shake her head in disapproval. “Draco, if you are trying to hide behind your multiple personality disorder thing, I don’t think it holds up. Back then, there was none of Lucifer’s influence on you, right?”

Draco nodded with a smile. “Right.”

Eva then took over. “So then what’s the problem now?”

“The problem is exactly what I’ve been saying from the start. You are not Eva. Riveting Night is Eva. You are just Amaterasu with a lot more common sense than before.” Draco stated, raising his hand and reigniting the seal symbol.

Shuangtian reached out and patted Draco’s shoulder gently. “Not so fast, handsome. I know you don’t like to explain yourself like some 3rd rate villain like the other guy, but you have to say a bit more this time.”

Draco scowled but looking at Shuangtian’s firm eyes and thinking of his words earlier, he stopped his actions, leaving Eva breathless. Power-wise, she was not any less than Draco, but his skillful use was too high and he was actively utilizing his recently acquired Mind Force to give him an edge.

“Fine, it’s not like tyranny will work much with you two anyway, nor should it be.” Draco said, making one of his largest concessions ever.

He still adopted a rather unfriendly posture towards Eva. “But that is reserved for my Shuangtian and Eva, not you Amaterasu. You and Lucifer are truly trash beyond measure. From history and from our meetings, you’ve always painted it as you two were simply kind-hearted and innocent lovers who were being encroached upon by a big bad and his group of powerful cronies.”

Draco sneered. “Yet what happened? You convinced Eva she was imperfect and had to merge with you in order to survive some man-made crisis or whatever. Lucifer saw that my previous life fell apart and that this one was going well, his evil nature taking form as he planned to slowly takeover.”

He then pointed at Shuangtian. “And amongst all that, what did Pangu, the so-called ‘big bad’, do? Even though Shuangtian was harvested of her bloodline, meaning that Pangu could have gone to help Shuangtian perfectly master the implanted bloodline, he stayed with her throughout her darkest time and provided her comfort.”

“When he was called out by Shuangtian for a minor disagreement, the fellow looked at the girl he stuck by and marveled at her progress, feeling she had perfectly matured and did not need him anymore. At that moment, like a proud father, he said his goodbyes and resolutely dissipated himself!”

Draco spat to the side. “The heroes try to perform a hostile takeover while the villain lets go and passes away honorably. What a joke!”

The faces of the two women changed, Shuangtian becoming complicated and slightly grief-stricken as she thought of her guardian, Pangu, while Eva wore an expression of dismay and significant frustration.

“What the use in saying all this?! What exactly do you want me to do?!” Eva asked exasperatedly.

She was losing her patience because her tolerance of this farce so far had been due to her love, and her slight apprehension of Draco. However, she really did not like the fact that he was calling and referring to her as another woman, on top of that Amaterasu who she also disdained deeply!

Draco only saw the work she did to fix Amaterasu’s mess on the side, Eva was the one who actually had to do the heavy lifting, and all while pregnant at the time too!

It was one thing to be a peasant in the medieval era who thought nobles were superior while being the one who took out the trash versus being the peasant who cleaned their chamberpots daily.

The peasant who took out the trash worked in the same building, but he did not have the same view of the nobles that the shit-cleaner did. The shit cleaner had seen it all and knew that these so-called nobles, no matter how much money they had or how fancy their clothes, they still had diarrhea like normal people while their shit stank to the high heavens.

So if Draco thought he had a negative view of Amaterasu, Eva had one even worse! She had made that abundantly clear as Riveting Night before she reluctantly merged with what was left of Amaterasu to form the current Evaterasu!

In fact, Riveting Night was often locked up in her mental space not because she was too edgy — similar to Edgelord Draco’s situation previously — but because she would like strangely Evaterasu on sight and shatter their collective soul space if she was left alone!

“Do you want me to kill myself then? Is that it? And let Riveting Night come back? What, not satisfied with one of us having a dark and repulsive personality so you want to go for two?” Eva asked with a sneer as she folded her arms.

Shuangtian, who was still trying to talk down Draco, paused and glanced over at Eva with raised eyebrows, wearing a ‘dayum’ expression. Draco himself also seemed surprised, but rather than anger, there was a hint of pleasant amusement as he nodded.

“Finally, you’ve gotten your balls back. However, that doesn’t change the situation, Amaterasu. I don’t care what logic you use to rebut me, the simple fact is that I don’t want even 0.1% of you present in Eva.”

Draco made a gesture of ‘you see’. “Even if Riveting Night has problems, that’s fine. There is the original young girl Eva who has the perfect personality to lead things, though she might be a little inexperienced.”

Shuangtian opened her mouth but shut it the next moment, thinking that she actually did not need to say anything at this time.

Eva was also put in a tight spot as her expression became ugly and the situation tensed up. Shuangtian saw this and realized she could not leave it to Eva to defend herself under the suppression of this Draco, so she made a suggestion.

“You claim Amaterasu tricked her. Regardless of your preferences, let’s verify if this is true or not by analyzing those memories.” Shuangtian suggested, which Eva hastily nodded to.

Draco snorted and folded his arms. “Just as well then.”

With a flick of his finger, he dug out the memories that were long buried, of a time in Eva’s life when she almost capsized into the gutter.

……………..

In those moments, Eva’s bloodline had surged within her, tearing at the seams of her identity as she attempted to ascend into the Divine Class, only to be confronted with the horrifying realization that she lacked the very nature demanded of her by Amaterasu’s legacy.

The Eva of that time had found herself trapped in a searing nightmare of memory, screaming and thrashing in the isolation pod while the prototype’s alarms wailed. The world she had entered had been no different from the bleak realm she had known during her Ascension Ceremony, a place filled with statues that reflected the monstrous truths of her bloodline’s semi-ruined state.

She had confronted Amaterasu’s visage then, the celestial goddess appearing before her not as a motherly guide but as a mirror reflecting every perceived flaw in Eva’s being. Her rage and defiance had boiled over as she rejected the notion of submission, even as Amaterasu’s words cut deep with words that reminded her that her current self was a flawed and corrupted version of what she was supposed to be.

In that darkness, the statues had knelt, each representing the bloodline’s twisted legacy.

The Holy Celestial Maiden now revealed to be an inheritance of enticement and desire.

The so-called Abyss Gatekeeper, not a righteous guardian but a misunderstood reflection of a lost paradise.

The Light Goddess, the only one whose inheritance had accepted Eva’s darkness and sought to forge it into a purified justice.

In her rebellion, Eva had chosen neither to submit nor to erase herself. Instead, she had challenged the entire system, daring to mold it to her will rather than allow it to mold her. In that crucible of suffering, she had fought against the unyielding expectations of her divine progenitor, determined to forge her own path.

And in that defiance, Amaterasu herself had stepped forth looking radiant and serene, yet haunted by regret and incomprehension. She had pleaded with Eva to reconcile the contradictions within herself, to become what she was always meant to be.

Yet Eva’s rage had been unshakable as she had spat venom at the goddess, accusing her of cowardice and pretension. She had torn apart the illusions that had bound her, exposing the uncomfortable truths that even Amaterasu could not deny.

In the end, it had taken the compromise that led them here today.

Amaterasu merged a fragment of herself into Eva’s mind, reshaping certain facets while preserving Eva’s core nature. The statues had knelt once more, now to a reborn Eva who had emerged from the darkness with a new form, a new confidence, and a throne no longer broken but whole.

……….

Shuangtian’s expression was strange as she glanced at Eva at the end of the recollection, and she took a step back. Eva herself was deeply troubled, her pupils having constricted to needle points.

“The Mandela Effect. A very interesting theory which is more than often stealthily applied in reality due to the very nature of memory and recollection.” Draco remained calm as he stepped forward.

“Like now. You had a very cherry painted view of those memories from back then when recalling them, but the actual occurrences when brought up to the fore in their true form was not like you remembered, huh?” Draco questioned, glancing at Shuangtian, who nodded with a slight hint of sweat forming on her brow.

Eva was still locked in an expression of shock and rage, her aura becoming unstable as something darker was coming to the fore. Her back was hunched and she was looking downward, but one could still see her expression which was warping between various states in an eerie and insane way.

Draco sized her up and smirked. “Now that you’ve seen what I have always known, do you still have the guts to tell me what you said before?”

Shuangtian was silent, unable to say anything in Eva’s… no, Amaterasu’s… defense. If she was skeptical before, then reviewing those memories from her current knowledge and perspective immediately pointed out what Draco was talking about.

In Eva’s casual recollection, she and Amaterasu had a heart to heart in which Riveting Night finally relented and let them merge to become better.

But the truth of the matter was that she and Riveting Night had a serious argument that ended with neither willing to give in to the other, with Riveting Night only capitulating to the change under the fear that a bloodline backlash would harm the still unborn Lucitera.

There was no willingness in that!

It was just a desperate measure to cross over a short term calamity that was not desired nor relevant to the current day!

More importantly, after reviewing those memories, even Shuangtian could see the problem within. How convenient that it was when Eva was ascending to the Divine Class that this so-called backlash happened, when she was still weak and unable to fully control the bloodline.

If you are arguing that Eva has incompatibility with her bloodline due to her extreme personality, then why the fuck did Shangtian, a bloodline thief, never have any backlash for as long as he was alive??