For a while, Cassius just sat there in a kneeling position, staring at the graves of the companions he once treasured. He shed not a tear. Made not a peep. But his actions spoke plenty, for he spent millions of years kneeling there.
Until eventually…
"She told you'd co, but I never believed her."
'A voice…?' Cassius urged his dusty bones to move, turning to look at the fairy-like woman who descended from a puff of light.
He imdiately realized who it was, and though he wanted to speak, no words ca out.
The fairy-like woman smiled. "It's been a while, Big Brother Cass."
"…Opal…" Cassius finally uttered the words, his crusted lips flaking off due to how inactive they had been.
"So you rember ." Opal's smile widened as she glided down beside Cassius, her flawless face now re inches away from his. "Billions of years… A lot has changed, Big Brother. You've missed so much."
Cassius looked into this woman's crystalline eyes, yet was unable to find the timid girl he once saved from a paid-off Slayer Squad in the Nightmarescape.
"We have a lot to discuss," said Opal. "Why don't we start from the beginning?"
She then went on to tell him all that had happened in the past 20 billion years.
She spoke of her fusion with the World Tree and the Holy Mother Spirit. She talked about all the grand achievents Yimin and the rest of the girls made, yet also described how so very lonely they were after reaching the peak.
They all reached the ends of their lifespans at different points, yet their singular regret remained the sa:
They wished, if only for but one more second, they'd be able to see Cassius again.
However, their wishes were never fulfilled…
"Can you believe that crazy Yimin from back then went on to beco a Scholar that shocked the world over with her profound discoveries? Hahaha! Ha…"
The atmosphere went stale, with both Cassius and Opal quiet as a church mouse.
After a while…
"Big Brother, you've co here without knowing why. But the core part of you knows why you've co."
No response.
Opal smiled fondly. "These past few years I've spent telling you all these stories have been really fun, you know?" She looped her slender arms around his neck. "Definitely the most fun I've had in a very, very long ti. But Big Brother… All good things must co to an end."
"You have to absorb and subsequently the entirety of the Ascension Tower." Opal continued with a false tone of acceptance. "I-It's the only way… You must… You must let go. Just like the others were let go across this endless river of ti…"
"You still have sothing you need to do, don't you, Big Brother…?" Opal tightly held onto his tattered robes, hiding the face torn between sadness and what had to be done.
"Sothing I need to do…?" Cassius mumbled.
His mother.
His father…
His sister….
The girls...
"Sothing I need to do," he repeated, his tone vastly different from the first ti he said it. "I have to… bring them back."
Opal froze, her expression on the verge of collapsing altogether.
In the end, all she could do was manage a fake smile while stealing his icy blue gaze.
"May… She told this day would arrive long ago. And I thought I prepared for it. I believed the impact you had on my life wasn't large enough to affect so. But I… I was wrong…"
Pushing away from Cassius, Opal took a deep breath. And with the loveliest smile she could manage, she said, "I've lived long enough for all of us, Big Brother. It's ti I join my sister and family as we join together inside you to witness what you'll achieve. I've transmitted into your mind the ssages your companions wanted to leave behind for when you returned. You should read them after… After I'm gone..."
"Go ahead."
"Do it."
Cassius hesitated for what felt like an eternity.
He didn't know what to say. He didn't know how to react.
He didn't know anything.
But when next he ca to, his hand was already placed against Opal's tear-stained face. The absorption process had already begun. No…
It had already finished.
"Big Brother… This is farewell…" Even while facing permanent erasure head-on, Opal was still smiling. "If there's a next life, I hope to be a butterfly… That way I can fly beside you forever, Big Brother—"
FWOOOOM!
Like the turning off of a TV screen, everything went dark for Opal.
She was gone. Her consciousness no more.
Thousands of years went by without Cassius doing anything. He just stood there, his mind andering.
Until he heard it. The monotone voice of his oldest companion.
*Ding…*
[Your life and death hang in the balance.]
[Finishing the absorption of Yggdrasil and the Ascension Tower is your only path to Immortality. You will have to leave everything behind…]
[Do you accept?] - [Y/N]
"Leave what behind…?" Cassius muttered with an incomprehensible tone. "Everything already left behind long ago…"
While speaking to the System, he carefully read through the ssages left behind by the girls, each one more painful to read than the last.
Then he ca across May's…
"Cass, if you're reading this, then everything has already happened, hasn't it…? We're all gone, and you're alone…"
"I… I knew this day would co. I've always known. Even before you pulled out of the pits of despair, I've… always known…"
"I never told you the truth. I fed you lies in an attempt to make you retain hope. But I was wrong… I never should've lied to you…"
"Cass, I'm… I'm sorry… sorry for everything…"
"I'm sure you've heard enough confessions from the others... And even though I don't deserve to say this, I want you to know… that I love you too. More than anything else in the world. Since the very mont you saved …"
"Cass… Goodbye…"
Cassius was put in a daze, his thoughts spiraling.
Until the System spoke once more:
[Dear Host, you're aware that even your mories and experiences will not remain after you make this irreversible decision, aren't you? The likelihood of you one day regaining what you'll lose is abysmal… Infinitely close to zero…]
Those were the last words Cassius heard the Idle Evolution System utter before it and all 9 Idle Benefits combined together. The resulting product shot toward him along with the Essence of Yggdrasil at the summit of Mount Olympus.
The graves of those lost to the dredges of ti violently shook and cracked before crumbling and drifting into the blowing wind, taking with them the mories most precious to the one forgotten in ti.
CRACK—
The unbreakable barrier that Cassius had spent millions of years vainly trying to shatter—without even realizing it—finally began to crack.
"In the end, there was no possible way for a re mortal to break through the constricts of lower lifeforms, was there…?"
Turning toward his System, Cassius revealed a pained smile. "Thank you for all you've done for over these years. Without you, I'd be nothing. So sincerely, I thank you."
[Dear Host…]
This was the first ti the System seed genuinely sad about sothing. It even went so far as to hide its digital emoticon.
[You're wrong, you know? There's a reason that out of countless living beings across an infinite number of realities, you were the one I chose. You would've never been nothing.]
Cassius went quiet…
[Dear Host, this journey we've experienced together; I enjoyed it a lot. And… I'm sorry…] The System's voice cracked. [I'm sorry I was so harsh on you. I just… I just wanted to prevent all this from happening.]
In that mont, Cassius realized sothing.
"You knew, didn't you…? That this would all occur as it did…?"
[…]
The System's lack of response was the only answer Cassius needed.
That was why it always put an emphasis on character developnt. On never going easy on oneself no matter what.
Since the very beginning, the System simply… wanted him to survive.
"I've been a fool…" Cassius murmured. "You hid it so well behind all those jokes and insults that I never would've figured things out without you telling …"
The System still wasn't responding.
Cassius was grateful. He was extrely grateful for all the System did for him. And it knew that as well as he did.
"I'm also grateful for you two," he said to the two weapons glowing weakly within his cracking soul. "Thank you for accompanying this far. If there's a next life, I hope to have you as my partners the sa as this life."
Lilith and Mora humd with an agonizing lancholy, seemingly pleading for their Master not to go through with this.
There had to be another way!
But it was already too late…
"It has been fun."
Cassius smiled.
He then faded atop Mount Olympus.
Along with all that he was and had ever done…
BLIP!
And then he was gone—slipped through a crack that the Ascension Tower made while in the process of being absorbed by him.
"Hmm?"
The Cultivator that served as the source of Cassius's despair turned his head off to the side.
For so reason, he felt sothing was out of place.
However, he ultimately passed it off as nothing important and resud his cultivation. At the sa ti, he occasionally glanced at the cultivating Sylvy and the two unconscious souls trapped next to her.
"For inventing this Technique that makes use of the relationship between parents and child to cultivate, one could say that the Demonic Faction is useful for at least one good thing. Now, both her undying loyalty and future prospects as a Human Furnace are secured."
With that, the Cultivator closed his eyes, and ti continued to pass without a finish line in sight…
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