The Stonehearted Knight Chapter 336: His sole purpose

"I got it from you, mother."

The girl possessed with a fragnt of his mother’s soul froze as soon as the words fell out of his mouth. She overca the shock rather quickly as the next second Hex buckled and fell to his knees, pressed by an invisible weight.

"Mother? Is that so?"

She had crossed the distance between them without Hex noticing, and stared in his black eyes as she whispered, although it sounded more like a hiss.

"Yes," Hex spat, finding it very difficult to maintain his rationality and will to speak. Uttering even that one word tore his lips and hurt his jaws. The air pressure even put tears in his windpipe. But he didn’t wish to lose to her like the last ti they encountered. He was stronger. He should be stronger. But to his dismay, against a Sin Stage Being it didn’t matter whether you were a Knight or a Refined Knight.

’Wait. If this is truly the fragnt she left behind before escaping Wrixia then she shouldn’t have reached the Sin stage yet.’

Although she would still be a lot stronger than him, the gap was smaller. Plus, she was only a fragnt.

Hex’s heartbeat increased as his heart pushed more energy and Ice elents into his brain, using the cold to pull him out of his near-sedated state. At the sa ti, the rings on the back of his hand lit up, one after the other.

Ti Freeze

Blink Step

Frost Dragon – Tailwhip

He used every ability in one go. He pried himself free from the pressure and appeared behind her. The frost coalesced and a spike shot at her. Hex didn’t show any rcy to Cyantha. The girl’s body wouldn’t be able to take it. He knew it. But he couldn’t afford to be lenient. Not when facing soone like the Witch.

He sympathized with her and even felt torn about dealing with her, having read part of her diary, but in battle, thanks to his heart, he could forget everything and just focus on dealing with his opponent.

But before the spike could hit her, it burst into tiny shards that evaporated.

"You are strong. Good control over your abilities and techniques. And have imnse willpower."

He heard her say, each word felt like spoken directly into his mind but it wasn’t the mind communication he experienced with Sin and Saints. He saw her mouth move as she spoke.

"I guess I succeeded after leaving Wrixia?"

Her question affird the suspicion Hex held about her. She was but a fragnt of a soul left behind. She had no information about the things that transpired to her true self after she had left Wrixia.

"You an Project Godking?" Hex asked, deliberately uttering the na of the project. He hoped it would help to make her at ease with him and as such help him see her true intention.

At the sa ti, Hex couldn’t help but once again feel like his Fateless state caused the most unexpected situations. A fragnt slumbering for who knew for how long, possessed the girl about to be sacrificed just the one ti he had happened to be around?

Normally, this would be seen as Fate but what or who was pulling the strings in his case? Even Heaven couldn’t control him, so who or what caused all these so-called coincidences?

"So, you know the na of the project." As expected, his mother focussed at that one point. "I didn’t think we would succeed if I might be honest. But it ca at a cost, didn’t it?"

The twinkle in her eyes as she walked in circles, digesting the information she gained, showed how excited she was at knowing her project succeeded. At the sa ti, she gave him looks that felt uncomfortable. The looks were strange. As if...she cared for him.

’She, this fragnt of hers, is eting for the first ti. She can’t have maternal emotions towards , right? She didn’t even know how to create at this point in her journey.’

"What do you an?" He diverted his mind and heart by focusing on sothing else. His goal was information. It would do him better to extract as much out of her as he could.

"I an, if I did succeed and never returned to claim this piece of fragnt, it could only an I either suffered an untreatable injury or even perished. Creating a life without Fate was sothing not even the Godking himself ever attempted."

She didn’t look disturbed by the possibility of having died. But it did disturb Hex. More than he expected it to do. All her attention seed to be on having succeeded with her project, in having created him. Had she been broken to such a point that life didn’t hold any aning for her?

"Why did you create really?"

Hex heard quite a few reasons behind his creation. It boiled down to him being an accident, whether the thods used produced an anomaly or his other mother granted him life, whereas his actual purpose was to serve as a vessel for the Divine Lord.

His mother stopped walking in circles and murmuring all kinds of things he couldn’t follow. She looked at him with conflicted gaze as she bit her lips, clearly deliberating how and what to tell him. Hex didn’t ask suggestive questions. It would influence her replies, which he didn’t want to happen.

"You have heard about the Wills, I assu. And perhaps how the Godking has fallen trying to gain eternity?"

Hex nodded.

"What you perhaps don’t know is that the world is dying. The Wills are corroding the very essence and energy of this world, killing it with ti. Heaven, with all her authority, isn’t capable of saving it as we head toward the doom of the world. She is subjected to so many rules and restrictions, she can’t even grant a Blessing without an offering in exchange."

While talking, she stood close to Hex and put her hand on his shoulders, eying him with care and a gaze filled with emotions.

"The purpose of your creation was to create a being who could purge all the Wills of the world, and create a ruler over Fate and Heaven, with less stringent rules, so creatures, both human and other types, could prosper and evolve beyond what they were created for. Basically, as the na suggests, to beco the next Godking."