Alex couldn't hear anything when Khos and the Lord of Reprise were speaking, but watching Khos move frantically told him that Khos was definitely talking.
He gathered his courage and stood, moving toward them. Compared to the Lord of Reprise's size, he was not even an ant. Thinking of a way to get its attention, he began waving both hands and shouting loudly as he approached.
"Oh—a human... hmm, are you a human?" came a voice that made him wince and clutch his head in pain; it sounded like thousands of voices speaking simultaneously through vocal cords of wood, if that even made sense—but it was surprisingly feminine.
"Can you speak... with a little less power, please? I feel like I might die if I hear you again," Alex answered through his mind, the same way he had been communicating with Khos until now.
After a moment he heard back, "Is this sufficient for you, little human? I'm not sure I can speak any more softly."
The voice jolted him again, but for a different reason: it was the voice of a human woman, and hearing it after fifteen days of only hearing Khos made him almost tear up.
"Yes, yes, this works. Thank you for hearing my request," he replied politely.
"Hmm—let's change the scenery as well; talking to you and this little system node in my current form might make you both go mad. Well, at least you, little human— sentient system nodes that I have met before were already mad, hehe," she said, and suddenly the scene shifted again. Alex found himself in a large royal chamber. In front of him sat a small, cute girl on a high throne.
Something soft settled under his calves and he fell back onto a chair that felt like a pile of clouds. After looking around for a long beat, he came back to his senses.
"Where is Khos? I don't see him anywhere, my lord," he asked. He knew, without doubt, this small girl was the same entity; she might look cute, but he had no illusions about how dangerous she could be. She might not need to lift a finger—just a thought could erase him from existence.
The chamber itself was breathtaking; his mind felt refreshed with every breath, but a strange pressure was settling in his heart.
"You can drop the honorifics and speak casually; we are all friends here, after all," she said cheerfully.
"I have not met any living beings in a long time. Let's have a fun talk," she added.
"As you say, my lord... I mean, my mistress... Lord of Reprise," Alex fumbled. He might have been able to speak normally before, but remaining in her presence for some time produced a strange pressure; he was asking for Khos because he suspected Khos was protecting him from that pressure. He had stood on a meteorite, in the void, and near the Lord of Reprise and had felt safe before—but now even looking up toward her took all his willpower.
Suddenly she lifted a finger and flicked toward him, and he felt a sudden sense of loss inside.
"There," she said. "I removed fear from your soul—no need to be afraid anymore, little human."
"Ah—ah. Thank you, my lord, for showing mercy," he began, and immediately went into a posture of worship, lying flat on the ground on his stomach.
Shit, shit, shit, Reprise cursed internally after seeing this; looks like removing fear had turned the little human into a stupid worshiper.
The girl looked at him and flicked her finger again, removing adoration and awe—then love. But he still remained on the ground, forcing her to remove joy and reverence next, which caused Alex to stand up and look straight at her.
For a moment she thought she had finally succeeded in fixing him, but his eyes became bloodshot and he started running toward her as if she were responsible for all the bad things in his life.
Alex's situation could only be described as horrible. He felt like a river meeting a mountain, bending and striking another mountain in turn, for a moment everthing was alright, but suddenly she started attacking him; he felt his end near. But after looking at her once, he saw an enemy trying to kill him. With no fear inside, his fighting instinct kicked in and he ran toward her to give his judgment.
Reprise was in a dilemma. After so long, she had finally met living beings—a human, no less. She had met them before, but none had ever entered her territory. That little node had done what even gods could not and brought a living human into her domain, making her consider granting his wish: accepting sentient nodes as living entities under her authority.
She began testing multiple changes on Alex by restoring the missing emotions in full, then removing and adding them back in varying quantities to find a mix where he could be in her presence without going mad—unaware that each intervention was breaking him a little more. Initially, she doubted if he was really human, since he could stand in her presence, but after what she thought were a few tests, no sane entity would recognize Alex as human.
Adding and removing parts of a soul and putting them back again is like cooking food, freezing it, then separating the components and assuming it will be the same.
To Alex, the experience was torture. He was not in much physical pain. Some pain that he did feel was all his own doing. Standing, then laying flat, then running and trying to punch her, then breaking his hand while punching her. Yes, she allowed him to punch her; he knew he wouldn't even be able to reach near her if she didn't allow it, but with no fear, he reached her and when his punch landed, he felt like he had hit solid steel. She was even kind enough to fix his broken hand.
So no, he was not in much physical pain; he just felt extreme loss then suddenly extreme joy.
To Reprise, it was like channel surfing—changing stations until frustration makes one throw the remote away because nothing good is available without paywalls.
Reprise knows the exact number of humans that exist at this moment in the whole universe, but she cannot go and fetch some to experiment to get answers to the questions that have always eluded her.
Yes, Reprise is on the side of good—technically she is on God's side—while the other side is, of course, the demonic fucking Demons. Comparing humans to demons, a newborn demon soul can even be mistaken for human, but in power, they are leagues apart.
The gods had to create angels to fight demons and stop them from taking over the known universe.
If she could figure out this soul issue in humanoid beings, she could change the whole world balance and finally bring an end to the war that has raged across multiple cycles of the universe—scratch that, for as long as she has existed.
And if this little human could help her fix humanity, he would earn great karma; from Reprise's point of view, she was doing him a great service.