I Can Assimilate Everything-Chapter 330: The Flames That Speak II

The wind stirred quietly over the ruin-choked skies, and beneath the slow spinning haze of stellar obsidian, Achilles hovered still.

His hand moved with gentle finality over the husk of charred flesh that had once been Selamira, and in the silence that followed, his power surged again.

’Assimilate!’

The whisper didn’t need sound. It bloomed in the marrow of existence itself, and the air shimmered as the blackened body broke apart into a billion glowing particles- embers folding into his palm and spiraling inward like moths called to the sun.

A deep hum echoed from his chest.

The Primordial Source Echelon within him pulsed and expanded. Not explosively, but like the gentle growth of roots through old soil.

Yet even as her power melted into him, her memories, what he truly sought, came like shattered mirrors tossed into a storm.

A flash of Selamira kneeling before a being made of obsidian starlight.

Another, of her screaming as the Primordial Light of Darkness burned her soul and rebuilt it anew.

Snippets. Fragmented. Edited.

He frowned.

She had been a clone.

No core memories. No true substance. Her mind had only been allowed to hold glimpses, and even those had been distorted.

He saw no clear plan. No insight to the Primordial’s base of power. No face. Even when her mind turned toward her Master, all that greeted Achilles was static. Black mist. A presence so absolute it actively veiled itself even from remembrance.

He’s watching. The thought came coldly.

He has always been watching.

Even now, that entity hadn’t acted with brute force- but with narrative, manipulation, shifting perception across empires to paint Achilles as the villain.

He exhaled.

A soft wind rippled from his chest, obsidian and gold threads flickering across his armor. And then he turned, his gaze falling upon a figure standing some distance away- staring down at the broken earth where her father had once stood.

Nyxaria.

Her hands were clenched at her sides. Her frame didn’t move. Her single eyes were distant, cloudy, focused on a point long vanished into ash. She did not weep. She did not speak. She simply stood in a silence too jagged to touch.

Achilles spoke towards her.

His voice was low when it came.

"You didn’t get to do it with your own hands," he said. "But the promise we made not too long ago... It’s done. The Lunaris Throne is dead."

...!

Nyxaria’s shoulders trembled at that, and slowly, she turned to face him.

"I thought," she began quietly, "I thought there would be... something. A rush. Relief. Some kind of release from it all. But..."

Her eye locked onto his, her voice cracking.

"But he’s gone, and I still feel like nothing’s changed."

She turned back toward the cratered skies.

"The cold, the cage of his voice- they’re all still there!"

...!

A heavy silence came.

And the silence that followed was broken by none other than Rose, her emerald flame hair gently swept by the wind, appearing behind Nyxaria without a sound.

She didn’t speak immediately. She simply stepped forward and embraced Nyxaria from behind, wrapping her arms around the woman’s waist as if cradling something precious.

Her chin rested lightly on her shoulder, and her voice came soft, wistful.

"Pain and trauma doesn’t leave just because the one who caused it is gone," Rose murmured. "That’s the curse of it. You kill the monster, but the monster already built a home in you."

Nyxaria’s eyes shook.

"But I found," Rose whispered, "the only way to move forward... is to crowd it out."

She turned Nyxaria’s face toward her, pressing their foreheads together as she had grown to like this girl after the past few days of being together.

"Fill your mind with new memories. Better ones. Let joy take root. Eventually, even the worst pain will have less room to breathe."

Nyxaria closed her eyes.

Tears finally slid down her cheek, and she nodded against Rose’s forehead.

Achilles watched quietly, the edges of his mouth softening with something near a smile.

But it didn’t last.

The moment bloomed, and then...

Snapped.

His eyes flickered sharply, golden-purple irises tightening as his mind came back to Selamira and the terrifying Primordial Light of Darkness.

A being whose mind had turned even memories into weapons.

The Primordial Light of Darkness had ensured nothing useful could be seen. No locations. No plans. Even his name came fragmented. Achilles had to admit it...

This was no ordinary enemy.

This was a puppeteer. A shadow among shadows who remained out of sight while entire worlds burned under his whisper.

But if he thought he could play with him...

He would soon find the cost of manipulating a man who could assimilate anything!

Achilles turned his eyes downward, toward the still-standing towers and stonework of the Lunaris Capital.

A city built on blood.

He could feel them.

The humans still within. Some hidden, some confused. Some who had worshipped the throne that now lay dust. Judges. Officials. Executioners who had followed orders with blind faith. Or worse, with joy.

He didn’t know who was guilty.

But he could find out.

His hand lifted. No grand gesture. Just a quiet command from a sovereign heart.

HUUM!

A tremor whispered through the air.

From his skin bloomed millions of invisible particles, glowing briefly with the mark of his Draconian Pathogenicity VI before dispersing into silence. Spores- tuned to his will, danced into the city below.

They snaked into lungs.

Settled behind eyes.

Infiltrated minds like smoke.

And through them, Achilles began to see.

He saw Judges who had laughed while sacrificing others.

He saw Overseers who smiled as children were culled to maintain population quotas.

He saw secret police who reported discontented mothers and fathers and labeled them heretics.

His eyes narrowed.

He would not bring such darkness into Adrastia.

The spores marked them.

And one by one, he began to separate the guilty from the innocent!

In the distance, the Royal Panthera Lions and High Elves stood still, frozen not by Achilles, but by the revelation of the Primordial Light of Darkness.

An Outsider!

The true kind.

Since before the Long Slumber.

The truth bloomed slowly in their minds like poison.

Their expressions turned cold. Thoughtful. Alarmed.

And then, as if they all came to the same conclusion, they moved.

Without a word, their bodies vanished in beams of starlight, racing back toward their respective continents.

They had much to do!

And if the Primordial Light of Darkness was truly an Outsider...

The idea alone was terrifying to imagine!

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