Instinctively, Xavier crushed the shard.
He hadn’t even use much force, yet the fragnt burst into thousands of fine particles that slowly rged with his body.
Boom!
It felt like an explosion went off in his head.
Information and experience he had never possessed before flooded his mind.
Practicing slashes thousands of tis.
Slicing necks.
The pungent sll of blood.
The thick, tallic scent of iron.
For a mont, he felt overwheld. Then, just as quickly as the discomfort ca, it faded, and everything felt natural—like breathing.
This was the power of an experience shard. One not could clearly distinguish whether the mories and skills belonged to soone else or were their own. It was like rembering a technique you had mastered years ago.
Without even realizing it, changes had already beca apparent the way Xavier held Warden Ruinblade changed.
If before he had gripped it stiffly and with brute force, now his posture was relaxed and fluid. The change was so natural that even Xavier himself did not notice it.
The four won watched from the sidelines.
From the brief vacant look in Xavier’s eyes, they could tell he was likely interacting with the Infinite Record.
After a while, clarity returned to his gaze, and the thick purple death-will aura surrounding him slowly faded away.
The first thing he saw when his vision refocused was Princess Evelyn, smiling at him with her bewitching face.
"Are you okay?" she asked in a gentle tone, her words filled with clear concern.
Even the mature elf, Lirin, standing beside Evelyn, wore a look of genuine worry.
With just one glance, Xavier’s expression imdiately chilled.
These damned vixens.
Did they forget how they ran with their tails between their legs when he needed them the most? Was he supposed to just ignore that?
"Why are you here?" Xavier asked coldly, a deep frown on his face.
Millie sensed the shift in atmosphere.
She silently moved to stand beside Xavier, as if to shield him from any danger.
Xavier noticed this and his frown deepened. He still couldn’t understand why she had chosen to follow him, let alone protect him.
As if that wasn’t enough, the cold and aloof Jackie also stepped forward, placing herself between him and the elves like a protective wall.
Xavier wanted to lash out, but thinking about how they were still standing here without running away, he couldn’t bring himself to say those harsh words.
On the other hand, Princess Evelyn’s gaze leisurely road up and down his figure, as if she were examining a rare commodity. A seductive smile curled on her charming lips.
"Of course I’m here for you," Evelyn said, enunciating each word slowly.
"Here for ..." Xavier muttered, a slightly dazed look in his eyes, as if confirming whether he had heard her correctly.
The next mont, he couldn’t hold back his laughter.
"What a fucking joke. You’re here for , you say, and I’m supposed to believe this nonsense?"
"Long-eared woman, what do you think I am? So pushover? So gullible brat?
Disappear before I change my mind or your fate would no different from the goblin king."
As he spoke, especially at the last line, the look in Xavier’s eyes turned especially chilling. He had no intention of entertaining these two-faced people, who changed colors faster than a chaleon.
While this exchange was taking place, Jackie’s face suddenly turned pale. She coughed lightly, a streak of blood leaking from the corner of her mouth.
"Jackie! What happened? Are you okay?" Millie asked in a panic when she saw her friend like that.
"I’m fine," Jackie replied, wiping the blood away quickly.
If anyone had paid close attention, they would have noticed how her gaze lingered on Evelyn for a fraction longer, a faint trace of shock flickering in her eyes. Then only she had started coughing.
Evelyn, anwhile, seed completely unaffected by Xavier’s harsh words, as if she hadn’t heard them at all. The smile on her face only grew more enchanting.
"It appears you don’t want to know about your sister’s wellbeing, then," she said softly, a hint of disappointnt in her tone.
....!
An extrely suffocating silence descended on the battlefield.
For so reason, everyone present felt a chill run down their spine.
"How dare you... How do you know about my sister?"
Xavier’s expression had turned ice-cold, his voice coming out utterly frigid.
There were few things in this world that he truly cared about, and his sister stood at the very top of that list.
"How I know doesn’t matter," Evelyn replied calmly. "What really matters is—do you want to know whether your sister is safe? Or am I wrong?"
The coldness on Xavier face intensified.
Just as it looked like Xavier was about to lose control, sothing happened, clarity slowly returned to his eyes.
His emotions were no longer as volatile as before.
Unknown to everyone, another thin line of blood slid down Jackie’s lips. She wiped it away quietly once again, going unnoticed.
"Haa..." Xavier took a deep breath to calm himself down.
He was being affected by his emotions far too easily. He knew he had always had the problem of mood swings and sudden bursts of anger, but never to this extent.
The ntion of his sister by a stranger should have angered him, yes, but not to this degree.
What changed...? he couldn’t help but wonder.
Just then, a cold chuckle echoed in his mind.
"Did you really think you could order around a seventh-sequence being and not suffer any consequences?"
He had barely heard her mocking words when sothing clicked in his mind.
Fragnts of the scene at Fort John flashed before his eyes—the corruption test, the strange readings—and now Zerin’s smug voice.
His mood swings definitely had sothing to do with her.
He wanted to question her further, but now wasn’t the right ti. His thoughts shifted once again to Princess Evelyn. If she knew about his sister, then she surely had a way to find her—or at least tell him if she was safe.
Of course, he didn’t doubt her words for even a mont.
In that brief instant, he considered all sorts of possibilities for how Evelyn might know about his sister. For him, these weren’t just wild guesses but potential futures that existed sowhere.
We must not forget his original philosophy: according to Xavier himself, the human mind could only imagine things that already existed sowhere in reality, if not in this then in so other. So might say his way of thinking was delusional or naïve, that he didn’t understand how the world worked—but that was simply how he was.
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