The talks finished relatively quickly. It took an hour in total.
Kiana wanted to use up the excess time for something else.
"Is it really delicious?"
"Mn…"
She did not bother speaking. Like a true vampire, she bit on my shoulder until it bled. Her Nascent Soul Realm physique is barely able to penetrate my defenses—after relaxing them, that is.
Sucking blood while standing on the desolate Moon…
Only vampires can do it. I did not expect Kiana to do the same.
It took a while until her mouth separated from my skin. My wounded shoulder healed instantly.
"You became more delicious."
"Literally?"
"Um…"
Before she awakened a new fetish, I had to stop her.
"Do you want to taste mine? So it'll be fair."
"..."
Kiana gestured at the open spot on her Finality battlesuit. Her supple skin paired with her ethereal aura almost intoxicated me just by looking.
In the end, my will prevailed.
"No. There's no need to. You can do it as you feel it."
I do not have any strange fetish. I can't bring myself to harm my partners during our dual cultivation sessions. I can tease them, but that's it.
Kiana's eyes turned into a worried look as she said:
"You'll get taken advantage of."
"By whom?"
"Your future partners."
"..."
I chose not to say anything else. Three is enough for now. I don't know how I will do it with four, five, six… ten..?
"I am planning to break through now."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah. We can deal with the ones hiding on the Ooort Cloud after that."
"So you kept her as a whetstone?"
"Kind of."
Kiana's prowess with the Cocoon's power far exceeded her game self. Although her powers remain borrowed from external sources, her standing as a Nascent Soul Realm made a lot of things easier for her.
For example, processing vast amounts of information and locking onto targets within eleven dimensions. She won't need any anchors and can attack on her own now.
"I planned to leave her to others at first. But as you know… they have their problems."
Kiana nodded.
"Sirin. She's been in seclusion after defeating Otto. I tried to talk to her about it, but it's of no use."
Tao Hearts are a symbol of one's determination to stick onto a specific mindset. It is often used as a scale to measure one's determination to pursue immortality, but that is a mere fallacy.
Seele, for example, formed her fifth level Tao Heart by centering herself around me. Living forever (i.e., immortality) is a secondary option compared to being with me. It was absurdly strong; she does not care about anything else.
She can go as far as to kneel down in a dogeza to apologize for what I viewed as a small matter
In short, a higher level Tao Heart does not mean a cultivator is free from mental scars and afflictions. These mental problems are just small enough to be neglected. Once it grows bigger, it becomes the legitimate 'Inner Demons' which poses a threat to the Tao Heart.
Of course, there are also 'Inner Demons' that become strong enough to hinder the progression of Tao Heart, and at worst, cause it to shatter.
Immortal cultivators place a huge importance on mental well-being.
"I am afraid she might do something drastic. That's why I kept her here."
"...Alright. I'll try talking to her now."
"Thanks."
*****
To a girl whose entire two lifetimes are dedicated to revenge, what came next after accomplishing it was emptiness.
'Why am I here…?'
From her birth, the brief but happy childhood, being brought inside Babylon Labs for experimentation, the death of her beloved friends…
Sirin came a long way.
Back then, she was consumed by nothing but burning hatred. What's even more infuriating was the waves of self-righteous people that appeared one after another.
She, who wanted to seek revenge on Otto, was stopped again and again. First was Siegfried, then came Theresa, Welt Yang, and Cecilia.
The first one shall not be explained further. He viewed Sirin as a pure threat that needed to be eliminated.
While Theresa offered her an inkling of empathy, being convinced into forgoing her revenge did not help.
One of the most hateful people in Sirin's eyes was none other than Welt Yang.
When the peace talks failed, he utilized the belief of humanity against Sirin. He did not bother taking time to understand that it was the very same humanity that pushed Sirin to this state. It was humanity who turned her into a monster with burning hatred.
Finally, there was Cecilia. She, like Theresa, offered what Sirin lacked the most—maternal love. It was she who gave her the dream of living a normal life, thus resulting in K-423, Kiana's, existence.
Nonetheless, she was like the others. She prioritized neutralizing Sirin, becoming an obstacle in her way of revenge.
The entire ordeal is akin to someone being beaten badly by someone. When they wanted to beat up the same person who messed with their face, waves of people appeared one after another. All of them aimed to convince her to pull her punches, to forgo her hatred, and to forget the suffering she and the others had suffered.
It was intolerable.
Nobody spent a little bit of time understanding her. Sirin felt how it was to fight against the entire world… and so she bombed the world with her Moon fragments.
Sirin ended up being defeated, with her "remnant soul" staying on the Herrscher Core. Kiana's story began after that. Through her, Sirin managed to fulfill her wish. She got to meet Shi Tian, the person she loves the most.
However…
Sirin is not Kiana.
No matter how much Kiana tells her she also has the right to be happy—that she can live a normal life—Sirin could not see herself in it. She anchored herself to the thought of killing Otto with her own hands. She managed to hold on for years because of that thought alone.
When they faced Otto in the Imaginary Tree…
Sirin enacted her revenge. She made sure that Otto would not be able to achieve his plans. Kiana willingly handed over the Herrscher Core's control, to which Sirin used it to strike him with Void Renormalization. Only, it is destined not to last long.
Otto was not able to pull off his wishes until the very end. He did not manage to form a new branch of the Imaginary Tree due to Sirin's meddling.
Unfortunately, she did not see Otto's reaction at that time.
Since then, she felt emptied-out. Doubts consumed her mind. She felt like she had no other reasons for existing in this world.
Her long-awaited revenge turned out to be duller than she thought. Sirin let Otto off easily, as compared to what he made her suffer to.
All of these situations piled up resulting in the current Sirin. Twelve long years of seclusion turned her into an extremely deflated pufferfish.
When she was about to spend another day like this…
"Can I come inside?"
…he arrived.
*****
A/N: So we reached the 500 PS threshold again (yippie). I'll be uploading the bonus chapters on a spread out format. Since there aren't much to do on uni this week, I'll carry on with the enhanced PS bonus chapters for one more week.