When Elysia woke up, she saw another 'herself' rummaging through a black backpack.
Elysia blinked in confusion, then immediately realized she had been tied up!
She tried to break free — but found a wave of weakness surging through her body. Her limbs felt like jelly, completely drained of strength.
At this moment, the Faded Elf noticed she had woken up, and smiled: "Don't waste your energy. In your current state, you can't resist the Erosion."
After trying a few more times, Elysia temporarily gave up, then asked: "Who are you?"
"Me?"
The Faded Elf ran a hand through her hair, and the pink quickly faded back to light purple.
Then she smiled and looked at Elysia.
"See? Who am I?"
"It's you!"
The color drained from Elysia's face instantly. She finally realized — this was that gravity-field lunatic!
"What… what are you going to do?" Elysia asked uneasily.
"You~!"
"?"
It took Elysia a long moment after hearing the Faded Elf's answer to understand what she meant — and she wished she hadn't!
Watching the completely undisguised burning gaze in the Faded Elf's eyes, Elysia writhed across the bed trying to put distance between them.
"Help — somebody help me!"
But before she could get anywhere, her ankle was effortlessly seized. All she could do was squirm in place.
"Heh… it's no use. No one is coming to save you."
"Elysia, my Elysia — you're mine now!"
Watching the Faded Elf closing in, Elysia finally understood the despair Sa had felt earlier.
Despair settled over her heart. She had almost forgotten the last time she had felt this afraid.
Right — she remembered now. It was when she had first arrived at the orphanage. Facing the approaching coyote, she had felt this same despair and fear.
But back then, Lucius had stood in front of her.
And now, the big brother who had once said he would always protect her was gone.
In this moment, faced with the despair and fear welling up inside her, she instinctively called out:
"Help — Lucius, save me!"
"No one will answer you!" The Faded Elf laughed wildly.
At that moment, an abrupt knocking came from outside the window.
Knock knock knock!
"Hello, Miss Faded Elf — your takeout delivery has arrived. Please sign for it."
Elysia froze. The Faded Elf froze too — because both of them felt the voice was somehow familiar.
Though… why was the voice coming from outside the window? This was the 22nd floor!
After a moment's thought, the Faded Elf walked to the window and opened it.
The next instant she watched Lucius climb straight in through the window.
"???"
"Lucius, you… mmphhh!!!"
She had just started to ask why he was here when her mouth was covered by him first.
Before she could react, Lucius had already scooped her up.
Then, using the opened window, he threw her straight out of it.
The force of the throw was so powerful that the Faded Elf drew a streak of purple across the sky like a shooting star.
Once that was done, Lucius came to Elysia's side and untied the ropes binding her.
"Lucius?"
"I'm here."
"Is it really you?"
"Of course. I'm your big brother — I said I'd always protect you." Lucius turned to Elysia with a flawless smile.
"Waaah!" Elysia threw her arms around Lucius and burst into tears.
Lucius patted her head gently and said in a soft tone: "Don't cry, don't cry. The bad guy has been chased away."
Elysia only cried harder.
"o(╥﹏╥)o"
"I-I'm sorry, Lucius… sob sob sob!"
"I actually wanted to beat you to your knees — I'm so sorry, sob sob sob!"
But the weeping Elysia didn't notice that from within the blind spot created by her hugging him, the corner of Lucius's mouth had stretched into an enormous grin.
Heh… and she even has to thank me.
As everyone knows, smiles don't disappear — they simply transfer from one person's face to another.
As was the case right now with the Faded Elf, who felt as though she would never smile again.
If she still hadn't realized by this point that she had been set up by the main body, then her intelligence would probably be at the same table as Elysia's.
"Waaah! Lucius, how can he be this horrible?!" The Faded Elf knelt on the ground, pounding her fists against it as she sobbed. "I — I can't do anything right!"
"Sob sob sob! Elysia, my Elysia!"
The Faded Elf felt utterly, completely powerless.
As everyone knows, the most painful thing in the world is never whether you obtained something or not — it's obtaining it and then losing it again.
She had clearly been able to see the hope of success right in front of her, only to plummet from the very peak at the last second.
"Wah! Elysia, my Elysia..."
Suddenly, the Faded Elf, mid-sob, went still. A tuft of pink erupted from among her light-purple hair and began swiveling about like a compass needle, eventually pointing in a specific direction.
"This scent… why does it smell so much like Elysia?"
On the other side of things, Sa had departed from Elysia's vicinity and was running at full speed, one hand pressed to her backside.
She kept glancing anxiously behind her, terrified that the dreadful Earth creature would come charging out again to beat her into the ground.
Feeling the burning, stinging pain coming from where she had been struck, Sa ground her teeth and swore: "Detestable evil creature — whatever it takes, I will make you pay!"
Still, after all this commotion, the energy her main body had channeled into Earth was now completely gone. She no longer had any reason to linger on Earth.
And so, once she had confirmed Elysia was not pursuing her, Sa contacted her main body in the Sea of Quanta.
"Main body — can I come back?"
"...No. Channeling power to Earth was no simple matter. Your assistance will still be needed for any future interference with Earth."
Upon hearing this, the Sa stranded on Earth said in a forlorn tone: "Do you know what I just went through?"
She then synced her memories with the main body.
After the memory sync, the main body side went suddenly quiet.
But after a brief silence, she still said: "All the more reason you can't come back. We've already paid such a high cost — returning now doesn't serve our interests."
"How about we swap then — you come down and go a few rounds with these evil Earth creatures?"
Hearing her words, the main body Sa was first silent, then offered reassurance.
"You can't be unlucky forever. Since you've already survived this particular calamity, you should be safe for the time being. The bigger picture must take priority."
Hearing the message from her main body, Sa sighed and consoled herself: "True enough. How could anyone possibly be that unlucky all the time?"
The main body's thoughts were naturally also her own thoughts — this exchange was essentially just a collision of internal streams of consciousness.
"Looking on the bright side — at least with my energy level this low, the probability of the Cocoon locking onto me has decreased significantly. But the most pressing thing right now is to find a host and lay low..."
This time, her actions on Earth were not only aimed at harvesting energy — but also at taking revenge on that obnoxious pink Earthling.
The next time they met, she would absolutely strike back!
Having settled on her next course of action, Sa was about to move — when she felt herself collide with something, the impact from the other direction nearly knocking her off her feet.
But before she could fall, a hand caught her arm and steadied her.
"Thank you..."
Sa said thanks by reflex, but the moment she saw who it was, her entire body went rigid.
Light purple hair. Reddish-brown eyes. And that perfectly flawless smile at the corner of the lips.
Though the hair and eye color were different, there was no mistake — this was Lucius's dead white moonlight, the one who had just humiliated her!
"You..."
Sa was just about to act when a sharp sting erupted from her neck, and her consciousness began sinking into darkness. She crumpled to the ground with a thud.
Before her consciousness faded entirely, she saw 'Elysia' crouch down and produce a rope from some inexplicable location.
And so, in despair and horror, Sa closed her eyes again — unwillingly.
Hotel front desk.
Miss Elsa was eating chips slowly, her mind still drifting back to the two girls who had just gone inside.
At that moment, the sound of cheerful chatter came from within the hotel.
She watched the pink-haired girl from earlier walking out of the hotel behind a young man with a white streak in his hair, the two of them chatting and laughing as they left.
"Oh, almost forgot~"
Elsa watched the pink-haired girl place a room key on the counter in front of her.
"Hello — here's the room key. Thank you for your hospitality~" Saying that, she left together with the young man.
Miss Elsa stared blankly at the two of them as they departed.
"Strange — didn't two girls go in just now? Or have my eyes gone funny?"
She didn't have long to ponder it before the hotel door was pushed open again, and Elsa saw that the two girls who had just left had come back.
Though one of them now had light purple hair.
"Hello, I'd like to book another room." The Faded Elf said.
Elsa numbly completed the check-in, watching the Faded Elf support Sa as they walked into the hotel.
After a moment's thought, she picked up the hotel phone and dialed a nearby hospital.
"Hello? Is this Saint Louis Hospital? I'd like to schedule an eye examination..."
As the darkness receded like a tide, Sa woke from unconsciousness.
And upon opening her eyes, she found the Faded Elf standing in front of her with a deeply unsettling grin.
There are times when words genuinely fail a person.
She very much wanted to demand loudly: is there something seriously wrong with all you Earth people?!
But before she could even open her mouth, the other's actions cut her off — because the purple creature in front of her had already started pulling at her clothes.
"Wait — what are you doing?!" Sa cried in horror.
The Faded Elf looked at her strangely and said:
"You, obviously~!"
"Since I can't get the real thing, a substitute isn't out of the question. The substitute might not taste quite the same — but at least it takes the edge off the hunger!"
Of course, there was another important reason she hadn't stated aloud.
The Elysia — Sa before her had been shaped from Lucius's memories, which essentially meant she had already been marinated in Lucius's essence.
After experiencing Lucius's betrayal, out of a subtle and inexplicable irritation — she suddenly felt that compared to the original Elysia, this Elysia with Lucius's flavor had a certain distinctive appeal of its own!
If she could humiliate her...heh!!!
"Heh heh heh — stop struggling. No one is coming to save you!" The Faded Elf pulled at Sa's clothes.
"No! You can't — you absolutely cannot do this!" Sa's face reached peak terror. Not even facing the Cocoon of Finality earlier had frightened her as deeply as this.
"Of course I can do this — I absolutely must do this!" The Faded Elf's lips stretched into a smile that made Sa's heart seize.
"No — absolutely not! I absolutely cannot be defiled by you people!"
"Main body — save me!!!"
After sending the distress signal to her main body, the main body Sa in the Sea of Quanta followed the connection and saw the wretched state of her projection.
And so she too felt bewildered.
As a being of supreme wisdom who had lived through countless ages, she had witnessed civilization after civilization rise on Earth. But compared to any other era, the one before her now seemed just a little too… abstract.
Was there something fundamentally wrong with this Earth?
Though she felt this world was becoming increasingly unfamiliar to her, the main body Sa's hands moved without hesitation.
Upon realizing she had no effective way to intervene, she simply cut the connection between herself and the projection outright — lest the humiliation being inflicted on the projection travel back through the mental link and humiliate her as well.
And so the Sa on Earth, upon discovering her main body's merciless severance, fell into complete and utter despair.
Looking at the Faded Elf who made no effort to hide her intention to thoroughly humiliate and defile her, Sa's fury finally erupted completely.
Fire blazed in her eyes — a great and desperate courage born of having nothing left to lose.
"Do you think you've won?"
"Hm?"
The Faded Elf, who had been about to act, felt it — Sa's body had begun rapidly dissolving into silvery-white liquid. This was the Soulium self-destruct sequence.
Given the choice between her life and her dignity, Sa chose the latter.
To avoid the ultimate humiliation, she chose to end herself.
"Detestable Earth creature — even in death, I will not be defiled by you!"
"— BOOM!"
Sa's body exploded into silvery-white liquid, splattering across the entire room.
At the same time, her voice echoed through the room.
"Detestable Earthlings — I will definitely be back!"
"No wait — I am absolutely NEVER coming back!!!"
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