The misty parts of delta sigma gathered and formed itself into a storm in a fraction of a second, but there was something different about it: her face was scowling, all her eyes were visible, and she lacked that ring above her head.
Alfonso and Martinus drew their swords, but Lusihar stepped forward to calm the situation:
"Calm down, she wants me."
The two guards stepped back.
"I expected that. It's impossible for your body to be in one place. Alright, show me what you've got."
delta sigma lunged to attack Lusihar, and Lusihar began to flee again, pursued by delta sigma. In truth, Lusihar did nothing, and this was another illusion. Lusihar burst out laughing at delta sigma:
"Hhhh. you fall for the same trap twice, huh? Haha, I love this move... But seriously."
Lusihar stopped the illusion. delta sigma awoke and became even angrier.
"You stand no chance. You are fooled by my simplest trick. I'll fight you without monopolizing the illusion. What do you say..."
Lusihar had not finished her sentence before a punch was aimed at her face. She fell onto her back, avoiding it, then pushed herself up.
"Don't you have any variety in your moves..."
Before Lusihar could finish her boastful talk, as if she were the main character and people were waiting to hear her words, delta sigma delivered a punch to her stomach, causing Lusihar to bow her head from the impact. Then, with a quick turn, Lusihar delivered a kick with her right foot that returned delta sigma to her previous position with a bleeding nose. Lusihar bared her fangs and slapped delta sigma's face with her right hand. delta sigma fell hard onto the ground to the extent that her head scattered—a slap Farid felt in his bones due to its force. delta sigma quickly gathered herself and lunged into the fight, blazing. Between punches and kicks, she started replicating herself and increasing the number of hands to overcome Lusihar, whose single blow was like a truck collision. She was succeeding, as Lusihar was barely defending herself with her physical abilities without her superpowers, as a challenge to herself. delta sigma's copies started hitting her after Lusihar became tired from a fight that seemed endless against a being that never tires, with infinite endurance and regeneration, as if Lusihar was fighting dough.
Lusihar jumped backward and injected a mixture into her blood, similar to Ecstasy and Crystal Meth, which strengthened her senses and intensified her aura. Thus, delta sigma's physical techniques were impossible for her to penetrate her aura, which acted like rubber. Lusihar lunged with superhuman speed, dispersing the gathered delta sigmas, catching one of them, and starting to scatter their fragile bodies with her, as if they were toys, in a bloody scene without blood. But the problem was the regeneration; no matter how much she destroyed her, she regenerated. Lusihar wrestled with them, crushing some and tearing others apart, one by one or in groups, but it was like wading through white mud. If she killed her a thousand times, delta sigma would reassemble herself and return to the fight without tiring, but Lusihar, unlike her, was getting tired.
"Alright, I'm bored. If you were human, you would have died 575 times. You've defeated me. I will use my main ability."
delta sigma sensed danger, jumped backward, and her copies gathered into one body, yet she was paralyzed in place and fell. It was as if the electrical current had been cut off from her. Lusihar approached her. Lusihar saw her tears; she had begun crying, knowing her end was near after losing almost all her flesh, which had taken thousands of years to gather, due to her recklessness against the Theology Intercept Unit.
"The Well of Suffering."
delta sigma's senses began to amplify to the point of being electrocuted, as if struck by a million-volt electrical current, and the pain accelerated to insane levels, causing foam to form in her mouth. Her senses intensified so much that touching the air became painful. Sunlight became searing. delta sigma started hearing the sound of her own cells as a painful, hot scream of millions of people, amplified a billion times in her ears. As for the sense of sight, no matter how much she covered her eyes, she could still see Lusihar's face, which started becoming crazier and more terrifying with her sharp fangs, the veins beneath the skin's surface, and the huge, terrifying eyes. The surrounding reality distorted into holes and sickeningly bright geometric patterns, causing nausea, as if she were entering Hell. The amplification of her senses continued, accelerating towards infinity with every passing second. The pain was incredibly real, incredibly clear, and incredibly immense. All the pain in the world didn't come close to it; it was like comparing one to the number of atoms in the universe. No matter how she adjusted herself, the pain was independent of her senses—it was the only reality, nothing else. The pain reached levels where delta sigma's flesh began to boil without heat, and the sound of her muffled groaning was heard like the whistle of a pressure cooker. At one stage, her shape began to spasm and twist into strange forms, like intertwined trees, despite the supposed paralysis, and her color turned red. Her face was completely crushed, obliterated, and violently twisted into shapes resembling helical branches. She began to tear and show holes in a disgustingly sickening way. The pain was so great that delta sigma's mind began to burn from its intensity, and she began to lose her memories and identity. Her head was filled only with pain, as if she had never seen goodness in her life. The pain covered everything and poisoned all her memories—no thought, nothing but the accelerating pain.
Farid stood in front of Lusihar, ordering her to stop. Lusihar smiled at him with a crooked grin, and Farid's vision began to see her face flicker and hear the sound of an approaching train, as if she was trying to influence him.
Then Lusihar collected her smile and stopped the influence.
"Alright, she's not worth all this."
She ended delta sigma's torment and stopped her technique. The intertwined delta sigma, whose length of twisting from pain had reached several meters, relaxed, and all those trees fell like pieces of red clay. The whistling sound of boiling began to subside. delta sigma's body began to regain its color. On the other hand, Lusihar started dusting herself off and cleaning up.
Then she picked up her belongings and said with a sarcastic smile:
"Aren't we moving?
[Lusihar hugged Farid with her arm, pulled him to move, and continued]
She knows the way home."
"No
[Farid pushed Lusihar away and continued]
I will carry her home. She is my real friend, and as for you, I'm not sure if you are telling the truth or lying to me."
Lusihar tried to speak:
"But Sir..."
"If I am your master and the prophecy boy, as you say, then you must listen to my commands. delta sigma is not an evil being. I know her; I created her. You harbor baseless grudges against her."
"But she eats humans, and the proof is her ability. All that flesh is the flesh of people she ate or whose flesh she absorbed."
"And how do you know it's her? Maybe it's another individual of her species. I am delta sigma's creator, and she is a kind entity who helped me reach the summit in my past life. She is very kind despite her arrogance. But you... leave me. Go ahead to the palace. I will follow you."
Alfonso and Martinus left, but Lusihar did not. After some time of shrinking, delta sigma regained her shape and entered a coma. Farid noticed Lusihar's presence.
"Didn't I order you to leave?"
"I apologize, Sir, for what I did. I hope you put yourself in our place. This being belongs to a species that only hunts humans. The amount of her flesh indicates she has eaten many of us. She has broken up families and separated children from their parents. She is..."
"No, stop. Don't explain to me. You talk too much. Apologize to her, and let's turn the page. Stop your hatred. I know delta sigma. Despite her haughtiness, she is kind. She wouldn't even kill an insect."
"Alright, Sir."
Lusihar approached and took out a small vial filled with stellar liquid and gave it to delta sigma to drink.
"This is an amnesia antidote. It will help her a little to forget what I did because it might cause PTSD, if no other side effect occurs."
After some time, Alfonso and Martinus brought a stretcher, and delta sigma was transported to the palace. Farid sat beside her, waiting for her to wake up, while Lusihar went down to the ground floor to meet Brihan, who had short, messy, metallic blue hair, relaxed royal blue eyes, and a slightly slender physique.
"Why didn't you kill her?"
"I feel she has a role in the Enlightenment event. She played her first role, but she mentioned something about a solution when she was talking to Farid on the first day he arrived. I feel like a Chekhov's Gun is being crafted in the plot."
"Why didn't you just make her addicted so you could control her?"
"Huh?"
"Don't tell me you didn't think of it."
"Honestly, I didn't think of that, and..."
"Idiot."
"Say that again, and I'll kill you. Why is everyone interrupting me today??
If I control her, nature won't take its course, as my control distracts from everything else, and I don't want that. Besides, I have repented of these actions. I want to sleep. Go and take care of him."
Brihan replied in a protesting tone:
"Ugh ...Fine."