"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 assu 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?’ ant 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 ti, 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 mont, 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 so of the most powerful entities across the greater Cosmos, would not exist today.
Had she not been revived, Sarina would never have t Angela and agreed to beco part of the Witch’s experint 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 experints, 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 ca closest to eting 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 soone who was nothing more than a fallen Human Queen at the ti, 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 ti, Sarina finally rembered.
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 experints to create an immortal...experints she found would be impossible with the factors of just one race, and didn’t require three, four, or five like she was assembling so 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 beco a jack of all trades, and master of so.
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 flas 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 presud her dead. Others claid 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 so dangerous secret experint.
"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 co after her?
The idea of a secret experint 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 Supre’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...soone 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 ntion of his na, the man appeared beside her, having moved with the light of the star she’d just seen.
Sarina turned to him, eting 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 so questions never yielded answers until the mont 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 so invisible weight has been lifted off . It seems...I may have been more worried than I thought.
Was I afraid there was so grand sche 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 feel relieved."
Sarina realised she was speaking more than she usually did, though perhaps this feeling of hers had sothing to do with it, or maybe not.
"Monts 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 sches by others, their aning shifting depending on the lens through which they’re being seen.
Shaking his head, as though to dispel the sombre mood, Jamie asked,
"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’ ti 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 andered, taking detours here and there, eting with old friends along the way.
At one point, Jamie even stumbled into a universe engulfed in war and was ’summoned’ into it like so fifth-dinsional 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..."
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