Yasha walked across the barren land, each step leaving behind faint, almost imperceptible traces of Punishing energy. She had learned to release it, learned to shape it into that cold blade of death—but she had yet to learn restraint.
Every time she drew upon the power of her Punishing core, it ignited a storm within her—a miniature maelstrom that tore through her body. And when the storm passed, the residual energy didn't fade. It lingered. It settled. Like a poisonous mist, it clung to her non-human shell, spreading outward in silent contamination.
When she first awoke, her presence alone was enough to drive low-tier Corrupted away.
Now, the concentration of Punishing energy around her had reached a new, suffocating threshold.
The air within several meters of her grew thick and dim, as if she were a walking epicenter of Punishing corruption. Tiny plant fragments on the ground withered and crystallized the moment they touched her invisible field.
And she felt it.
A gaze. No—something colder. A probing perception, threading through the ruins and the mist, locking onto her like a tether.
The observer made no effort to hide. Their posture was open, deliberate. Not too close. Not too far. Like a scientist watching a specimen.
Yasha didn't flinch.
The purple flames behind her mask burned steadily.
Locked on? Tracked?
She didn't care.
If this observer had the power to end her erroneous existence, it would be a mercy. The curse of immortality had long since dulled her instincts. She no longer feared threats. Only felt the weight of exhaustion—not of the body, but of the soul. A weariness born from endless wandering and eternal emptiness.
She stopped before a half-collapsed building.
A church.
Its stained glass was shattered, casting warped patches of light across the dust. Half the dome had caved in, exposing the leaden sky above.
She didn't turn toward the observer. Instead, she spoke into the hollow altar, her voice hoarse and metallic, cutting through the silence like a blade:
"Let's chat for a bit, Vonnegut."
She paused. Her gaze, burning with eerie violet light, seemed to pierce the walls.
"I can feel the Punishing in you."
Silence.
Then—footsteps. Echoing from the shadows of the broken aisle. Unhurried. Measured.
Vonnegut emerged, stepping into the fractured light cast by shattered stone pillars. His formal attire was immaculate, though dust-stained. His expression was calm, weary—like someone who had seen too much and understood even more.
He wasn't hiding. Just as she'd sensed.
"Keen perception," he said, voice low and steady. His eyes swept over her mask, over the warping air around her—a field of Punishing so dense it distorted reality.
"Not all Ascendants manifest such… unique fields."
His gaze settled on the slits of her mask, curiosity flickering like a scalpel's edge.
"I observed your actions.
Assisting humans is… rare among Ascendants.
Luna may cooperate with the Commander, but her disdain for humanity remains unchanged.
So what drives you?
Compassion?
Or some lingering directive?"
He leaned forward, voice laced with subtle intent.
"If I can understand this anomaly… perhaps I can leverage it.
A transaction with the Gray Raven Commander, maybe?
If Lady Luna could be persuaded to extend even a sliver of aid…"
Then, his tone sharpened.
"Tell me—who exactly are you?"
Yasha chuckled. Low. Hollow. Self-mocking.
"Who am I?"
She repeated the question, lifting a hand to trace the cold metal of her mask.
"A Corrupted wearing someone else's face?
A mass of indestructible residue reshaped by Punishing?
A mistake… even I despise?"
Her voice was weary. Empty.
"I don't know myself."
But then—her gaze locked onto Vonnegut's calm, scholarly face.
And something deep within her erupted.
It was him.
The Tree of Life's blood.
Huosha's twisted smile.
The agony of her collapsing body.
The despair of being fused into a tool.
The final insult—her hope for eternal slumber shattered, cursed into this monstrous form.
"Argh—!!"
A roar tore from beneath the mask—raw, furious, and filled with pain.
Almost simultaneously with the sound, Yasha's figure blurred—transformed into a shadow tearing through the air.
The dark purple katana materialized in her hand, glowing with condensed Punishing energy.
No hesitation. No restraint.
With the fury of annihilation, the blade sliced through the thick air, aiming straight for Vonnegut's chest.
The speed was blinding. The force—brutal. Far beyond anything she had unleashed against the Corrupted.
Clang—!!!
A deafening crash echoed through the ruined church.
The katana's tip, mere inches from Vonnegut's heart, was halted by an invisible barrier—a shimmering field of faint golden light.
It was like striking the Wall of Sighs itself.
Punishing energy exploded on impact, rippling outward in waves that flapped Vonnegut's coattails. But he didn't move. Not even a step.
For the first time, the calm on Vonnegut's face cracked—surprise flickering in his eyes.
He frowned, staring into the burning purple flames behind Yasha's mask.
"What is the meaning of this?
While Ascendants may clash, I'm certain we've never met—let alone crossed paths in conflict."
"Never met?!"
Yasha's voice trembled—twisted by rage.
She withdrew the blade and stepped back, her other hand clawing violently at her own face.
Punishing energy surged.
The Yaksha mask, fanged and monstrous, receded like a tide—revealing the upper half of the Gray Raven Commander's face. Her eyes, glowing with eerie purple fire, stared into Vonnegut's soul.
Each word she spoke was carved from agony:
"Look at this face, Vonnegut!
All the suffering I've endured!
Created as a tool.
Abandoned to die at the bottom of the sea.
Now cursed into this form—unable to live, unable to die.
Which part of this isn't your doing?!"
Her voice cracked, raw with fury.
"You should've let me die!
Why did you make me 'live' again?!
Even self-destruction is a luxury I no longer have!"
Vonnegut's gaze lingered on her half-revealed face—familiar, yet twisted by Punishing flame.
Recognition dawned. Then indifference.
"Heh…"
A dry chuckle escaped him, as if a long-standing riddle had finally been solved—and dismissed.
"So that's it.
The remnant of the failed key from the Cradle."
His tone was clinical. Detached.
"But that's no longer relevant."
Yasha's grip on the blade trembled.
"What… do you mean?"
Vonnegut's eyes drifted upward, beyond the broken dome of the church, toward a distant coordinate only he knew.
"The suitable key has already been born.
And it has fulfilled its purpose.
I have no interest in a discarded, unstable prototype.
Nor any obligation to force you into anything."
"Key…"
The word echoed in Yasha's mind.
Huosha's grin.
The Tree of Life.
The light before her collapse.
Fragments surged—chaotic, dizzying.
Vonnegut adjusted his coat, preparing to leave. To him, her rage was irrelevant. A failed experiment's tantrum.
But then—
A name struck her like lightning.
Chaos.
The white-haired girl.
The Wings of a Thousand Eyes.
The mirror.
Vonnegut must know.
"Wait!"
Her voice broke through the storm inside her.
"Tell me—who is Chaos?!"
The name froze Vonnegut mid-step.
He turned slowly. The scholarly calm shattered. His eyes burned with genuine, profound astonishment.
His gaze pierced her—through mask, through shell, through soul.
"Chaos…
How do you know that name?"
His voice was low. Dangerous.
A pressure filled the air—oppressive, suffocating.
"This is not a domain you should touch.
Did Compassion tell you?
Or…"
He studied the dense Punishing aura around her, considering darker possibilities.
After a long silence, he exhaled sharply.
The katana still hummed in Yasha's hand.
Vonnegut's surprise hadn't faded, but it gave way to a cold snort—tinged with reluctant acceptance.
"Very well.
It seems I cannot leave without answering."
He paused, choosing his words with care.
Then, with chilling finality:
"Genetically speaking…
Chaos is the Gray Raven Commander's child."
He didn't wait for her reaction.
"As for the 'key'—
The karmic entanglements are far too complex to explain here.
This is where it ends."
Before the words fully faded, Vonnegut's figure blurred—dissolving like ink in water.
Gone.
No trace. No energy signature.
As if he had never been there.
The church fell silent.
Yasha stood motionless. The katana had vanished. Her mask remained half-receded. Her eyes—once burning—were now frozen.
Her consciousness had collapsed into a void.
Genetic level…
Gray Raven Commander's child…
Chaos…
Vonnegut's words detonated inside her—one after another.
They shattered everything.
Pain. Rage. Identity.
All reduced to a vast, surreal emptiness.
The image of the white-haired girl twisted violently in her mind, refusing to align with the concept of "child." No answers. Only chaos.
Key?
What was that?
Who was the 'suitable key'?
What did it mean to be the failure?
Her thoughts spiraled. Overloaded.
She didn't even notice Vonnegut's departure.
She simply stood there—like a statue carved from Punishing energy, hollow and still.
A raven landed on a broken pillar beside her.
Its crimson eyes watched her silently.
Watched the lips beneath her mask, parted in shock.
Outside, the leaden sky pressed down.
The Punishing particles in the air stirred—agitated by
Power, like a double-edged poisoned dagger.
Yaksha walked across the barren land, each step leaving faint, almost invisible traces of Punishing energy.
She had learned to release, learned to condense that cold blade of death, but was far from learning to rein it in.
Every time she used that power originating from the punishing core, it was like igniting a miniature storm within her body.
After the storm, the residual energy would uncontrollably dissipate and settle, like an ever-spreading poisonous mist, entwining her non-human shell.
When she first awoke, the punishing concentration around her was enough to make low-level Corrupted retreat.
Now, this concentration had climbed to a new, heart-stopping level.
The air within a few meters of her became thick and dim, as if she were a moving, living source of punishing contamination.
Tiny plant debris on the ground would rapidly wither and crystallize upon touching this invisible force field.
She clearly felt that she had been locked onto.
A gaze, or rather, a cold, probing perception, like invisible threads, pierced through the ruins and the punishing mist, firmly tethered to her.
The other party made no effort to hide, even maintaining an almost frank posture, keeping a distance that was neither too close nor too far, like a scientist observing a specimen.
Yaksha's steps did not falter.
The eerie purple flames beneath her mask burned calmly.
Locked on? Tracked?
She didn't care.
If the other party had the ability to end her erroneous existence, it would be a liberation.
The curse of being unable to die had long since made her lose the proper vigilance against threats, leaving only numb indifference.
Wandering had no direction, only exhaustion—an exhaustion not from the body, but from the depths of the soul, from an eternal sense of nothingness.
She stopped in front of a relatively intact building.
It was a half-collapsed church, its broken stained glass reflecting distorted light patches under the dim sky, half of its dome collapsed, revealing the lead-gray sky.
She didn't look in the direction of her tracker, but simply spoke in a hoarse voice, with a metallic friction quality, into the empty, dust and rubble-strewn altar, her voice unusually clear in the silent ruins:
"Let's chat for bit, Vonnegut."
She paused, her eerie purple gaze seemingly piercing through the walls.
"You know I can feel the punishing on you."
A brief silence.
Then, footsteps echoed from the shadows of the church's broken side aisle, neither hurried nor slow.
Vonnegut's figure slowly emerged, standing at the edge of the shadows cast by several broken stone pillars.
He was still wearing his meticulously tailored but dust-stained formal attire, his face bearing that calm, slightly weary expression as if he saw through everything.
He wasn't hiding, just as Yaksha had perceived.
"Keen perception."
His voice was low and steady, his gaze sweeping like a scalpel over Yaksha's ferocious mask and the almost visible, air-distorting punishing force field around her.
"Not all Ascendants possess such… outwardly manifest and unique 'fields'."
His gaze finally rested on the eye slits of Yaksha's mask, with a pure, almost academic curiosity:
"I observed your previous actions.
Assisting humans is a rather rare exception among Ascendants.
While Miss Luna might cooperate with the Commander for certain purposes, her inherent disdain for human civilization has never changed.
What is your motive?
Pure compassion?
Or… some residual directive?"
He leaned slightly forward, his tone carrying a subtle hint of probing, "If I can understand this 'anomaly,' perhaps I can use it as leverage for some kind of transaction with the Gray Raven Commander when necessary?
After all, if Lady Luna could thus extend a little help to the continued existence of humanity…"
"Can you tell me," he interrupted the speculation about transactional possibilities, bringing the topic back to the enigma itself, his gaze sharp as a knife, "who exactly are you?"
Yaksha let out a low, self-mocking chuckle, her voice sounding particularly hollow beneath the mask: "Who am I?"
She repeated the unanswerable question, slowly raising a hand, her fingertips tracing the cold metal faceplate, "A Corrupted wearing someone else's face?
A mass of indestructible residue reshaped by punishing?
A… mistake that even I despise?"
Her voice was filled with weariness and emptiness, "I don't know myself."
However, when her gaze truly focused on Vonnegut's calm, scholarly face, an uncontrollable, lava-like surge of rage suddenly erupted from the deepest part of her consciousness!
It was him! It was him!
The viscous blood of the Tree of Life! Huosha's twisted smile! The pain of her body collapsing! The despair of being forcibly fused as a tool! And the ultimate insult of her hope for eternal slumber in the cold seabed being shattered, cursed into this monstrous, neither human nor ghost-like form!
"Argh— !!"
A roar filled with pain and fury exploded from beneath the mask!
Almost simultaneously with the sound, Yaksha's figure transformed into a shadow tearing through the air!
The profound, dark purple glowing katana instantly materialized in her hand!
Without a trace of hesitation, with a resolve to destroy everything, the blade sliced through the thick air, stabbing directly at Vonnegut's chest!
The speed was astonishing, the force brutal, far exceeding any previous strike against a Corrupted!
Clang— !!!
A dull yet deafening crash echoed through the church ruins!
The dark purple katana tip, a mere inch from Vonnegut's chest, was firmly blocked by an invisible energy field shimmering with a faint golden glow!
It was like striking an indestructible Wall of Sighs!
The terrifying Punishing energy contained within the blade violently collided with and annihilated the force field, creating visible energy ripples that flapped Vonnegut's coattails, yet failed to budge him in the slightest!
The calm on Vonnegut's face was finally broken by a hint of genuine surprise.
He frowned slightly, looking at the eerie purple flames burning with towering hatred so close to him: "What is the meaning of this?
While disagreements and conflicts exist among Ascendants, I am certain that I have never met you before, let alone offended you."
"Never met?!"
Yaksha's voice was twisted and trembling with extreme rage.
She suddenly withdrew her blade and took a step back, her other hand fiercely clawing at her own face!
The Punishing energy fluctuated violently!
The Yaksha mask, covered in ferocious fangs, rapidly receded and converged like a tide!
It revealed the upper half of the Gray Raven Commander's face, and those eerie purple eyes that seemed to spew tangible flames from sheer fury!
She stared intently at Vonnegut, every word squeezed out from between her teeth, steeped in blood and tears:
"Look at this face, Vonnegut!
All the suffering I've endured!
From being created as a tool!
To being abandoned at the bottom of the sea to die!
To now becoming this monster, unable to live or die… which of these isn't your doing!
You should have just let me die at the bottom of the sea!
Why did you make me 'live' again?!
Even self-destruction has become a luxury!!"
Vonnegut's gaze fell on Yaksha's half-revealed face, familiar yet distorted by non-human flames, pausing only for an instant.
A flicker of understanding, like mist clearing, passed through his eyes, then gave way to a deeper calm, even a hint of… indifference?
"Heh…" he let out an ambiguous chuckle, as if the riddle that had bothered him was finally solved, yet so insignificant, "So that's it.
The remnant of the failed key from the 'Cradle'."
His tone was as flat as if stating the fate of experimental waste, "However, that's no longer important."
Yaksha's hand, gripping the blade, trembled slightly with extreme rage: "What… do you mean?"
"The suitable key has already been born and has fulfilled its mission."
Vonnegut's gaze seemed to pierce through the church's dome, looking towards a distant coordinate known only to him, "I have no interest in a discarded, out-of-control defective product, nor any obligation to force you to do anything anymore."
"Key…" Yaksha chewed on the word.
Huosha's sinister grin, the fusion with the Tree of Life, the strange light seen before her consciousness dissipated… chaotic memory fragments surged up, bringing a wave of dizziness.
Vonnegut seemed to have lost interest in continuing the conversation.
He adjusted his attire, preparing to turn and leave this meaningless ruin.
To him, answering the anger of a failed experiment was far less important than his grand plan.
However, just as he lifted his foot, another name flashed like lightning through Yaksha's mind!
That white-haired girl with the Wings of a Thousand Eyes, glimpsed in the mirror!
Vonnegut!
He must know!
That name, like a lifeline, suddenly surfaced in her consciousness, overwhelmed by anger and confusion!
"Wait!"
Yaksha's voice carried an urgency she herself hadn't noticed, even overriding her anger, "Tell me!
Who is Chaos?!"
This name, like a forbidden spell, instantly froze Vonnegut's departing figure!
He slowly turned around, the scholarly calm on his face utterly shattered for the first time, replaced by a genuine, profound astonishment!
His gaze, like ice picks, stabbed relentlessly at Yaksha, as if to pierce through her mask and punishing shell, directly to her core consciousness:
"Chaos… how do you know that name?!"
His voice was low and dangerous, carrying an unprecedented sense of oppression, "This is absolutely not a domain you should touch!
Did Compassion tell you?
Or ...? "
He scrutinized the unusually dense punishing aura around Yaksha, seemingly considering an even worse possibility.
After a few seconds of suffocating silence, Vonnegut seemed to weigh the cost of forcibly leaving (the dark katana still hummed in Yaksha's hand).
The astonishment in his eyes hadn't faded, but it finally turned into a cold snort mixed with a hint of helplessness:
"Very well.
It seems I cannot leave easily without answering you."
He paused, as if choosing his words carefully, finally uttering the cold and magical truth:
"Tracing back to the genetic level, Chaos is the Gray Raven Commander's child."
He didn't give Yaksha any time to process this statement, immediately adding, his tone carrying an undeniable sense of finality:
"As for the 'key'… the karmic entanglements involved are far too complex to explain in a few words.
This is where it ends."
Before his words fully faded, Vonnegut's figure, like ink dissolving in water, suddenly blurred and became transparent before Yaksha's eyes, then completely vanished into the air, leaving not a single energy fluctuation.
As if he had never appeared.
Inside the church ruins, dead silence descended once more.
Yaksha stood frozen in place, the katana condensed from punishing in her hand having silently dissipated at some point.
Her mask had only receded halfway, revealing those eyes burning with eerie purple flames, but now those flames seemed frozen, solidified deep within her pupils.
Her consciousness had completely fallen into the blank, dead silence after a storm.
*Genetic level… Gray Raven Commander's child… Chaos…*
Vonnegut's final words, each like a heavy bomb, detonated in succession within her chaotic core!
The information was vast, absurd, and overturned all cognition!
It shattered all previous pain, anger, and self-doubt, leaving only a massive, unfillable, magically colored void!
The bizarre image of the white-haired girl with the Wings of a Thousand Eyes in the mirror clashed and twisted wildly with the concept of "Gray Raven Commander's child," yet failed to piece together any coherent picture.
Key?
What was that?
Who was the "suitable key" Vonnegut spoke of?
How was it related to her, this "failure"?
Her brain hummed like an overloaded machine, refusing to process such insane information.
She didn't even know when Vonnegut had disappeared.
She just stood there blankly, like a punishing sculpture from which the soul had been drawn.
A raven silently landed on a broken stone pillar beside her feet, its crimson eyes quietly watching her, watching the slightly parted, human lips frozen at the edge of her mask, widened in extreme shock.
Outside the church, the lead-gray sky pressed down heavily.
The punishing particles permeating the air also seemed to become more agitated due to the towering waves within her heart.
A new storm, not in the sky, but in the consciousness within this non-human shell, was quietly brewing.