Nexus Awakened (An Isekai LitRPG Gender Bender Story)

623. The Tearful Woe of A Fallen Star

“Michaela. You’ve resigned yourself to this fate. To be locked down beneath your constructed paradise with clipped wings.” Uriel’s voice was accompanied by the sounds of clopping footsteps.

Her figure eventually met with the Arbiter, whose body was wrapped with derelict chains of the Chained Theocracy. Her wings bled a primordial, red ooze too bright to belong to a human. But the color in itself was proof that they were not so different from them to begin with.

“The Broken Thorn will be taking over Paradise in the wake of your stubborn pride. Puritas has a better ring to it. Feed on them well, Michaela. The amalgamation of sins from Paradise will bring forth an unlovable first born.”

It was etched into the bare chest of the Arbiter. Her arms were not bound, but she did not resist.

“Your lack of resistance is just like your pride. So you’ll endure this humiliation for the sake of your children. Very well. All things will end eventually, including you. Consider our proposition a gift from us out of respect for who you once were.”

A bleeding tablet was then placed in front of Michaela’s eyes.

“The second born will be the child you wished for. The reincarnation of the Captured Star. You will be allowed to reunite with it under our conditions. Know that you may not touch the child after its birth if you wish it to live. You never excelled at protecting the things dearest to you.”

Uriel placed a finger under Michaela’s chin, locking their twisted gazes.

“Look at the black forest at the borders of your Paradise. That mangled Angel will be this world’s incarnation of that miserable trumpet. Even you can pity it, but you allowed it to slip through your fingers. Sinder. The Apostles of that wretched facility. Lailah, another creation of yours. Us. We’ve all turned our backs to you, because even in these moments you still cling onto your pride. That second child will your last wish from us.”

Michaela didn’t react.

Her vice of pride made her keep her children despite what awaited them all later.

< “I understood the futility of it.” >

< “But I wanted to see that child again no matter the cost.” >

< “If it lived, I thought, then I could be happy.” >

< “My mistake came in the form of an adamant belief.” >

< “My pride left me to rot.” >

“If you truly wished, then you could end this right now. But you and I know that your child will die as a stillborn the moment you exert yourself. I come with a promise. Seven years from the second child’s birth is when we shall come and take the ripened apple of her heart. And you, by the decree of our blood, shall watch idly as we take what is rightfully ours.”

< “My own flesh and blood sought for the same Forbidden Apple that Elysia had bitten from.” >

“Three years thereafter, the new Elysia will endure the turbulence of the Black Forest. We have harvested enough material from it as is.”

< “But I would have rather that Elysia take another bite than to allow them to meddle with my child.” >

* * *

The grey world shifted to white before Frost’s eyes. Snow fell from the outline of a great tree far ahead where the source of the light resided. Alongside the Vexed and the Relinquished Consanguinities arose a third, one that stood proud with a pearlescent shell shaped like an upside-down sword.

< “My child is all that mattered to me.” >

“You exist as a forest. We will come to harvest our fruit. It is only fair that we are allowed a bite. It can’t be all for Elysia.”

< “Then it came to me. It mattered not what happened to me. If I died, then perhaps something would change.” >

“Like me…” The Princess uttered in disbelief.

She remembered how painful it was after her mother disappeared. Knowing this now put into perspective just how her mother would have felt if she had disappeared. Remorse filled her heart as she clutched onto Frost’s clothes.

A golden eye appeared in the center of what was a ten-meter-tall Marker. A red crevice broke through each jutting limb, revealing a system of flesh, nerves and veins pulsating within. The white shell shivered, breathing like a giant accordion as its sole eye trembled.

< “The Captured Star is perpetual. If my child dies, then the person I longed to bring back will return anew exactly fifteen years later.” >

< “They all know that.” >

< “That is the stellar cycle of the Captured Star.” >

< “The curse of perpetuity born from the authority of time.” >

< “The only place it can be reborn is behind the pale walls built by me, or by what it once was.” >

The Prideful Consanguinities did not attack. They warded the other Consanguinities, allowing all that was pale behind them to prosper like the walls of Paradise. The stream of blood ended, and the black, twisted trees were all but gone.

The walls of paradise appeared ahead, as did something twisted. A horrible cry ripped through the air. Moments later, something rained from the skies.

“Tears? Are these from Michaela?” Frost uttered, watching as giant, fifty-meter teardrops fell like meteors, ravaging everything.

“Yes. They’re from mother. They’re from when she became a monster. She used to have wings. But ever since I gave her the apple, she was never able to stop her tears.”

It all came crashing down. Each tearful splotch left a crater so large that it extended beyond Frost’s periphery. Were it not for her speed then she would have been swept away by the attack.

It exceeded the power of the falling meatballs of the Heart of Ours.

Eternal Night was the incorrect Threat Level.

< “I will destroy my Paradise once and for all.” >

< “My pride will bring forth a being that will swallow all Kingdoms of this world.” >

< “I have allowed the War in Heaven to cut off the rot.” >

< “So that the only place that you can be born…” >

The light beyond became a singular, tall beam of energy. And there, the silhouette of the tree finally took form, revealing a feathery cocoon made from twelve wings. They spread themselves, passing far above where they wept tears of the equivalent of a God.

//////// < WARNING > ////////

< WOE OF THE FALLEN STAR >

< THE ARBITER’S TRUMPET WAILS >

< “… will be the place furthest away from this hell.” >

* * *

//////// < ALERT > ////////

< The Genesis Stone resonates with the Princess >