Chapter 1055: Authority Of Life |
Alice instantly sat up upon the mention of Velouria possibly being involved in this tower’s creation.
She turned to Allura, who had a serious expression on her face, and realised this was no joke.
Allura wouldn’t joke about something like this.
"When we arrived here, I noticed something similar to a resonance. A connection with the authority inside my own body," Allura spoke.
With Alice’s recounting of her adventures, she understood that the young girl had gone through far more than what she had expected since they parted ways.
So much so that there was no need to hide or deliberately obscure information.
"It wasn’t a full resonance with Severance, but enough to make me realise that there was a trace of Velouria here. A fragment of a dead god. Either her body had been donated by... Nyer, or she left a trace of herself here. Regardless, we’re still in the middle of negotiating with the Royal Family." Allura shrugged her shoulders with a sigh.
"Wait, negotiating?" Alice tilted her head.
If the tower was this important, she half expected Allura to coerce the Royal Family into helping. But if she was negotiating with them, it would explain why it had taken this long.
Out of habit, she reached for a cigarette due to her stress.
Without even getting a chance to light it, Alice snapped her fingers and recreated her finger lighter.
Blinking her eyes, Allura chuckled before accepting the light.
Taking a deep drag, she exhaled a cloud of smoke.
"Severing connections like that is both easy and hard. It entirely depends on who they made the contract with. A Law of Agreement between people? Easy enough. Even one between Lords.
"But this?" Allura narrowed her eyes.
"This is on a level above an Apostle. If I want to tamper with a connection like this, I’ll need my full power, not just Severance."
"Oblivion?" Alice interrupted, surprising the three Lords while Lab was confused.
"Wait, how do you know about Oblivion?" Allura asked curiously.
During Alice’s retelling of her journey, she hadn’t mentioned anyone who would tell her about Oblivion. If there was one...
"You met the Slayer, didn’t you?" Karya was the first one to ask as Alice slowly nodded her head.
"I met him while I was recruiting Elias. I... finished the job and walked away. He’s probably looking for me about now," Alice admitted.
She had left out the Slayer earlier, simply calling him a normal Lord since he showed connections with Allura.
Alice didn’t want to talk about it if she could help it.
Like a guilty child after doing something bad, she didn’t want to speak about the incident that could have been resolved had she left it be.
But how could she?
That was the woman who killed Lilia.
She couldn’t possibly look the other way, even if she was suffering from the consequences of drinking her blood.
If anything, it was more akin to mercy.
Gin glanced down and exhaled softly.
He knew this would happen eventually but still...
The parting of any old friend left a void in one’s heart, no matter what the reason may be.
One would still remember the good times they had spent and the connections they had built across the years.
Why else would Allura teach him how to tap into the Void?
Allura reached out and patted Alice’s head.
"In life, there are times when you stand on opposing sides. He made that choice when he allowed his wife to commit the atrocities in the Colosseum. In that regard, we’re not innocent either, as we didn’t stop him.
"What’s important is that you’re safe. That is my priority," Allura reassured.
The only reason she was surprised was because Alice seemed unharmed.
To face Oblivion and still live to tell the tale...
Though she doubted Theron would have fought Alice at full power during that moment.
His priority would most likely have been to keep his wife safe and...
Protecting something was always harder than killing.
"But yes, you are right. If I want to destroy this connection they have with the tower, Oblivion and Severance would be needed. But doing so may also destroy the purpose of the tower, and without knowing that, it’s not a risk I’m willing to take."
"IF you can even take that risk in the first place." Karya narrowed her eyes.
Tapping into the power of Oblivion?
In her current state?
Absolutely not.
"I know, I know. I won’t do it, okay?" Allura pursed her lips.
Karya was making it sound as though she was completely reckless, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Definitely.
Meanwhile, Elias held back a laugh.
The way Allura was reacting...
It felt almost identical to Alice.
Though it was probably the other way around.
One could practically see what they were thinking through their expressions, even if Allura didn’t realise it.
"Setting all that aside, because the Royal Family is so annoying to deal with, we’re in the middle of a negotiation. They want to deal with the Zenia Family, which lines up with what we want to do. If things go well, they’ll have the power of two Lords at their disposal while we get information on the tower, along with a myriad of other things." Allura smiled as Alice tilted her head momentarily.
"Is Nalem responsible for the negotiations?" If he was, it would make sense why he wasn’t here right now.
"Yes. Though I’m sure that with the information on Kaden that you’ve brought, there are probably more things he needs to request on top of what we require as it stands. Right now, we just need to wait for him to finish up, then we can get started on resolving the Nightmare issue." Allura grinned, patting Alice’s head.
Closing her eyes, Alice immersed herself in the feeling.
Having Allura here...
It felt like anything was possible.
The heavy responsibility on her shoulders had now been lifted, and the stress she felt disappeared bit by bit.
However...
Having been in that position herself, Alice realised just how much pressure was on Allura’s shoulders.
The weight of every decision.
The knowledge that she might not be able to fight when the time came.
Sitting back and letting Allura handle everything was too cruel.
Alice turned to Karya.
"You linked Allura’s life force to her energy reserves, right?" she asked out of the blue, surprising the Lord of Life.
Karya nodded slowly.
"Do you think there is a way for you to attach her vitality to my own? As you saw during our fight, my body is far from normal. While I’m not entirely sure how my regeneration works, I’m confident that I should be able to help sustain Allura’s life far better than a leaking energy storage," Alice asked, pointing at herself.
Of course, like before, she omitted a bit of information that might have gotten her into trouble.
The fact that, through Griselda’s own words, rather than regenerating, she was more so ’dying’ and reviving.
Resetting her body to its ’prime’ state.
Karya furrowed her brows before shaking her head.
"If you had been there since the very beginning, then it would have been possible. I would have been able to ’borrow’ a bit of your vitality rather than using my own and Gin’s to compensate for what Lua lacked," Karya admitted.
When they activated this technique, Allura was literally grasping at straws.
Her body was weak to the point that she couldn’t even walk on her own without Gin’s help.
The fact that Karya had even been able to compensate for such a loss of vitality was already a miracle.
"However, trying to attach another source afterwards would turn it into a completely different ability. It could backfire badly."
Borrowing time from the reaper and then trying to attach more conditions?
That was asking for death.
One couldn’t simply attach more conditions after signing an agreement.
And for Allura, that agreement was to extend her life by another year through burning everything.
"What kind of ability is it? One-time use? Once per person? Per contract?" Alice asked.
The more she knew about this ability, the better.
And perhaps...
She might even be able to find a loophole for Allura.
Elias sat up straight.
His mind clicked, and he understood exactly what Alice was trying to do.
Depending on the exact nature of this ability...
They could exploit it!
"It’s per authority, per person, and per contract. I can only form this kind of contract with each person once in their life. Once it’s put into place, no more contracts can be made. That’s the kind of deal Lua made to extend her life." Karya shook her head.
Alice’s breathing sped up.
Per authority, per person, per contract.
It wasn’t a one-time thing!
At least, not in her case.
"What if there was a second Lord of Life? Would we be able to give Allura a new contract?"
Karya furrowed her brows.
"Are you telling me to die?" she narrowed her eyes, but Alice shook her head quickly.
She glanced at Allura before looking back at Karya.
"Can you give me some of your blood? I want to show you something."
By this point, Allura had a knowing smile on her face. But since this was something Alice wanted to do, she decided to simply sit back and watch for the moment.
Even Gin was shocked as he started mumbling to himself.
But seeing neither of the two stop Alice, Karya pricked her finger and dripped the blood into an empty vial.
Accepting the vial, Alice didn’t hesitate and immediately drank the small amount of blood Karya had offered.
Before the Lord of Life could even question the meaning behind such actions, her eyes constricted in shock as the aura of a Lord erupted from Alice’s body.
And with that... .
The Authority of Life itself.