Beyond the Bloodline-Chapter 363: Simplicity of Life
"Things in life are a lot simpler than one would always like to imagine."
Sarina muttered those words as she gazed out over the sprawling city below. It was night, the city lights twinkling in every direction, neon signs shining bright.
She sat atop one of its clocktowers, her hair drifting in the wind as her eyes slowly shifted from the lively streets beneath to the night sky above Hodorix.
One might assume that after more than a billion years of searching, she would have countless things to say, and that her conversation with Chrono would stretch on endlessly.
But in truth, it ended far quicker than anyone could have imagined.
’It was simply a life for a life. I saved a life, even if unknowingly, and mine was saved in return.’
That was the simple answer to the billion-year-old question of ’Why?’
But while the reason itself was simple, the consequences of that reason and the action it was behind, were far from simple.
After everything, both Sarina and Chrono had things they had each wanted to say, but never had the chance to.
"Thank you."
Simple words of gratitude, overdue for over a billion years.
Questions like ’Why?’ or ’How?’ meant nothing before those words.
If Sarina hadn’t, even if only on a whim, chosen to pick up the damaged sword she had found...
If she hadn’t, despite her sub-par skill at the time, tried using an Authority to repair the blade...
If she hadn’t, even after countless failures, continued, if only for the sake of her own training...
Then the Chrono Controller’s Minute Hand would have perished, and 25% of the Rule Breaker’s power would have been lost.
A quarter of its ’Existence’ would have faded into nothingness.
The reverse held true as well.
If the Chrono Controller had not found it within themselves to consider repaying the life they owed...
If the Chrono Controller had, even for a moment, hesitated to expend what remained of their power...
If the Chrono Controller had not made the decision to bring Sarina back to life that day...
Then the woman who now ruled over two of the most powerful races in the Zanerth Universe, a being with connections to some of the most powerful entities across the greater Cosmos, would not exist today.
Had she not been revived, Sarina would never have met Angela and agreed to become part of the Witch’s experiment in her pursuit of the power needed to take vengeance on her betrayers, and to escape the fear of experiencing ’death’ ever again.
’Angel and Demon, huh?’
Angela had chosen specific races for her Hybrid experiments, testing countless combinations over the years and producing many of what would later be called ’Incomplete Hybrids.’
But the final six were the ones that came closest to meeting her expectations.
And though Sarina was referred to as the ’Sixth’ of the Legendary Hybrids, she had, in truth, been Angela’s very first success.
Only after confirming that success through Sarina did Angela finally lay her own children on the operating table to make them immortals incapable of dying.
’I wonder why she approached someone who was nothing more than a fallen Human Queen at the time, instead of using pureblood angels or demons...?’
Sarina’s thoughts drifted back to the day she first encountered the infamous ’Witch of Chaos,’ the one who had slaughtered quintillions across an entire galaxy.
And what had she seen in those amber eyes, behind the madness, the ’chaos’ that gnawed at her sanity, the insatiable desire for ’disorder’ threatening to take over her mind...?
’Fear.
She was afraid... just like I was.’
After a long time, Sarina finally remembered.
It was their shared fear of death that had drawn them to each other.
"It’s ironic to think about it. Who would believe the Universe’s Strongest Witch was ever afraid of death?"
But just as she had muttered to herself earlier, things in life were often far simpler than people liked to imagine.
It was the fear of death that had driven Angela to begin her experiments to create an immortal...experiments she found would be impossible with the factors of just one race, and didn’t require three, four, or five like she was assembling some kind of chimaera, but exactly two, catalysed by the factors of a third.
Angel and Demon, catalysed with Human factors.
Dragon and Demon, catalysed with Elf factors.
Celestial and Devil, catalysed with Human factors.
Vampire and Dragon, catalysed with Divine factors.
Werewolf and Vampire, catalysed with Phoenix factors.
Werewolf and Vampire, catalysed with Drifter factors.
Those racial factors, combined with the individual traits and abilities of the six, along with stolen Cosmic Knowledge, gave rise to six nonstandard, immortal existences, each with their own specialisation.
A Nephalem, whose human adaptability allowed her to become a jack of all trades, and master of some.
A Demonic Dragon, whose radiant golden magic blinded all who found themselves on the wrong end of his hands.
A Celestial Devil, whose sword arm could cleave through anything that stood in his path.
A Vampiric Witch, who bent the laws of reality with the runes dancing on her fingertips.
A Wolf goddess, whose esoteric flames burned both the tangible and the intangible.
A Vampiric Wolf, who did not integrate himself into space, but instead, space into himself, and dared to declare that he embodied the Cosmos.
"I suppose Angela really was as crazy as they say. Just look at the monsters she unleashed on the Cosmos."
Sarina spoke with a wry smile, fully aware that she was one of those nonstandard ’monsters’ who defied the usual conventions of power.
Her eyes swept across the sky, following the path of distant shooting stars as she thought to herself,
’I wonder... just where is she now?’
Over a billion years ago, Angela vanished for reasons unknown.
Many presumed her dead. Others claimed she had gone into hiding from the Eternals, who were after her following the stunt she pulled with Akasha. And then there were those who believed she had locked herself away, working on some dangerous secret experiment.
"All bullshit.
There’s no way that woman could die. And as for the theory about the Eternals, there were thousands of years between her stealing Akasha’s power and the creation of the Hybrids. Why would they wait that long to come after her?
The idea of a secret experiment is far more believable, but that woman, no matter how she might appear, loves her children. She made them Immortal just so they’d never have to face the death she feared more than anything.
There’s no way she would’ve stood by and done nothing while they were at the risk of Existence Erasure during the Destruction Supreme’s reign..."
And yet, knowing all this only made Sarina more curious about how, and why, Angela had disappeared without a single soul knowing the truth.
"No...someone knows why."
A star twinkled as she spoke, and then, in a low voice, she muttered,
"Jamie Westley."
"What’s up?"
Almost as if summoned by the mention of his name, the man appeared beside her, having moved with the light of the star she’d just seen.
Sarina turned to him, meeting his casual smile with an unreadable expression that gave away nothing of her thoughts.
’If anyone knows where Angela is...it’s him.’
But despite her lingering curiosity, she turned away without asking.
After all, if a billion years of existence had taught her anything, it was that some questions never yielded answers until the moment one least expected them.
Asking Jamie now would accomplish nothing, so she didn’t bother.
"Turns out I was saved for a much simpler reason than I expected," Sarina finally said.
Hearing this, Jamie nodded, his coat fluttering in the night wind, and replied,
"And how do you feel about that?"
"How do I feel?"
Sarina blinked, seemingly unsure how to respond. After a few seconds of quiet thought, she finally found her voice.
"I feel...relieved?"
"Relief?"
"Mhmm... I feel strangely relieved. Like some invisible weight has been lifted off me. It seems...I may have been more worried than I thought.
Was I afraid there was some grand scheme behind it? Or was I scared it had all been nothing more than a thoughtless whim?
I don’t know anymore. The answers I finally got just make me feel relieved."
Sarina realised she was speaking more than she usually did, though perhaps this feeling of hers had something to do with it, or maybe not.
"Moments like these make emotions seem more complicated than they really are," she muttered with a sigh, prompting a dry chuckle from Jamie.
"All aspects of life are far simpler than people tend to imagine," Jamie replied, then heaved a sigh of his own. "Emotions included."
After all, many actions taken for simple, straightforward reasons can easily be mistaken for complex schemes by others, their meaning shifting depending on the lens through which they’re being seen.
Shaking his head, as though to dispel the sombre mood, Jamie asked, 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎
"Ready to head back?"
"Mhmm. I don’t have any reason to stay here anymore."
With that, Sarina rose to her feet and brushed off her trousers, while Jamie gathered cosmic energy to open a gate.
He had already said his goodbyes to Alexia and everyone else he knew, so he felt no hesitation about leaving.
"We’re not in a hurry, so let’s keep the trip casual," he said as he stepped into the gate.
Raising an eyebrow, Sarina asked, "Casual? In what way?"
She followed him in as she spoke, and the gate closed behind her, marking the end of the two Hybrids’ time in Vladi.
◇ ◇ ◇
Jamie and Sarina’s leisurely journey took them through dozens of universes they hadn’t stopped by on their way to Vladi.
With no urgency to return, they meandered, taking detours here and there, meeting with old friends along the way.
At one point, Jamie even stumbled into a universe engulfed in war and was ’summoned’ into it like some fifth-dimensional eldritch entity, an assumption that, frankly, wasn’t too far from the truth.
The overall vibe of the trip was calm, which was precisely why Jamie was completely unprepared for the storm that awaited him upon reaching the borders of Zanerth’s Empire.
"My Lord...w-we’ve lost all contact with Lady Miranda..."
