1 month later.

"... *Sigh*... Being on top of this big tree isn't very fun, you know?"

I said so as a complaint while I quietly stabbed the tree with a normal sword.

"May my light be my guiding key, tier 4: Partial purification."

I used 5% of my concentration, to let out light energy into the tree… 3 seconds later, I took out my energy I gave it, as well as took some corrupted Darkness it has… its little compared to Litera's corrupted Darkness, so it's fine if I consume this much. It only takes a few seconds to recover from this anyway.

–... The problem with Purification is that you can't skip their chants.

Yep, the constructional magic crests that appear and how strong it is depends on what word you use to chant it, how long are you chanting, and others that aren't worthwhile to talk about… so yes, Purification spells are useless except for purifying corrupted Darkness, who could've thought of that?

–... Everyone?

"Eh, that answer is delicate enough… next tree that I was tasked to take care of… is…"

*Tzzt*

_Demon continent's World Tree, known as the Elthian Tree.

{... Hmm… What's next? Elthius?}

_That's a bit too similar to your name… eh, doesn't matter at this age and time. For now, I will teleport you to beside the tree, and… well, try to purify it, I already sent out Litera, but they can't do it alone._

{... I don't really want to meet Elthium, but sure… it might be a fated reunion at least…}

The green vines on my gloves shined in a faint green hue as I teleported close to the tree…

"Good to be back here… Illusion Forest."

I summoned the 6 artifacts and quickly rised up in the air… after a while of flying, I stop ascending and just dropped down on top of the tree.

 "So Litera… how bad is this one?"

I asked as I quietly summoned Oatheus, he looked at the leaves, grabbed it for a second, and then said it…

"10%... bad enough considering this tree is quite massive."

{Hmm… so a Tier 5 purification should do.}

"... Well, this world has too much corrupted Darkness, imagine how much Lea overworked me to even just lower it by 10% yeah, that took 3 weeks nya…"

–... Isn't it great that you can do that-

I had help from Litera too, the one I saved from Darkness or something a month ago…

Anyway, for now, I need to do something first before I purify it…

I summoned… Darkness Destroyer and stabbed it at the tree, and at that my moment, I immediately was placed into… a scenery I didn't expect to see.

*... Why is she still wearing the dress?"

Is what came out of my mouth.

"... You bastard… you didn't even use the contract more than once!... Tch, what-"

"Well that aside, I'm not a summoner, I'm a person who uses a Sword, slash, Bow, slash, magic nya…"

I said so, but she just looked at me in shock…

"As I said, ignore that and let me talk about the real issues… Corrupted Darkness, coming from emotions. It's too big, it can corrupt a normal person who can just use Light magic, to be a full-on Dark god imitator or something…"

"That isn't serious, I mean, I'm just fine, look at… hey?!"

I grabbed her hands and looked at it carefully… it's already corrupted…

"*Sigh*... Fine, you don't have a choice anyway…"

 I said so while summoning Oatheus and starting to float… a Holy energy covered my body as I started to chant…

"My Light, as it stands, the suffering of this World tree needs to somehow be resuscitated for at least temporarily, may a quarter of my soul be corrupted as the cost of this Spell…"

"Hey… that chant, isn't that… Purification?"

{Good for you to notice… but we both know that you can't stop me…}

"Light magic spell, Tier 5: Purification."

I used 50% of my concentration as the tree has less Corrupted mana now… the corrupted mana then entered my body which caused me to shook, but I tried to keep up a facade that I wasn't hurt…

"... Don't even try, you even said it in your chant, 25% of my soul may be used to enter my body, which is… a quarter of someone's soul."

{Well… at least I tried my best… and sure, I will probably summon you, or Elth… if I'm that desperate.}

I left the area and opened my eyes…

"Nggn…"

I summoned Obliteius and started to make the Corrupted Darkness that entered my soul into 50% Light and 50% Darkness. While it will take a while, at least it will make my body balanced in both energies…

3 hours later…

 "*Sigh*... I'm done for today…"

I quietly made a throne appear in front of me using 20% concentration… and I sat on it as I closed my eyes…

"Litera… hehehe… Litera-ly have fun for today… won't… you?."

I said so before I fell asleep.

"... That was very bad, but sure, I'll take your suggestion."

…

…

…

|If a person can't even feel regret, do they even have the will to live?|

They do.

|If I don't regret at all, then that means I'm fine with everything is, even if everything is wrong?|

… That's not something you can think of normally. And even then…

|If I lost my emotions, alongside regret, then I'm just a puppet-|

"Shut up!"

I shouted… and a screen like glass broke…

"Shut up… I'm not a puppet… I'm doing whatever I want…"

|Even though Lea forces you to tasks that are worthless to you?|

So what if it's worthless to me?... I'm already worthless… to begin with, why would I try to hide that?

|Well… you did hide it, or rather, there's something in you that doesn't want to be just a clone, an item called useless puppet that has emotions, while not the same as the one they're based out of, it undoubtly has similarities to the one they're based out of…|

What are you getting at?...

|Well… try to remember this… "When the start, starts to end, then the end will now start"|

"If the beginning was now ending, the ending will now start beginning."

I said unconsciously… and suddenly, I felt a headache as well as leaves covering my face…

"Nggn"...

I sighed after that experience. {I shouldn't even try to tell anyone what happened, as they don't need to bother about something like that… I'm just a pawn that's useful currently, I'm still worthless at the end of the day, just like the puppet I am… hahaha, I really should learn how to ignore problems.}

I stood up and quietly stretched before looking around as to where I was. A strangely metallic room, it's not exquisite or beautiful, but I do have this sense of already being here for some reason, I don't really know why, but there's this feeling of not having… rings on my fingers… {... Eh… no rings?... Huh?}

{... Then where's Angel then?... Uhh… I'm being a bit stressed here… I seriously need to find him quickly!}

I quickly wore a lab coat and left the room.

"Leu, oh, you've woken up!... Let's do the experiments then."

{What experiments?}

"Sure. It should be easy, probably."

I just said so and we walked. 2 minutes later, we entered a room in which just has two wings in it, I don't know anything about it, but a strange feeling inside me tells me that this… "probably already happened", which was strange.

"So, what needs to be tested?"

I asked, trying to have a reconfirmation so I won't mess up and ruin the realistic memory happening at the moment.

"Just needs to test if it infects people. People who touched this wings died immediately, and we don't even know if it's god wills, or the world's mechanics at play… it might as well be both unless-"

Without hesitating, I touched the wings and it quickly starting to wriggle, soon after, pain assaulted my back, as if I have wings behind there… I collapsed due to the immense pain I am feeling…

"Kuggh… hey, look at that… I'm alive… so do the experiment already!"

I shouted towards the man and he soon got near me, he eyed on the wings that was slowly touching my back, he wore gloves and soon after, a knife appeared on his hands…

"... Well, who would've thought?"

I just said as I sighed. I already realized what's happening. So it's actually just people who touched it will soon "die after" touching it… tch, I should've realized that since this is the second time that someone touched it… {huh?... Whose memories is this?}

"Oh, tell your family that you don't have this, condolences."

A knife decapitated me…

…

…

"Uggh…"

{I'm starting to realize that me being a clone means I died… but I'm a scientist? Didn't realized that huh… Leu… hmm, make sense as to why I'm now Leus, huh? Leu, Leu's…}

I sighed as I kept my thoughts to myself, I looked around, and found out I'm inside my room at Lea's base… I should enter her lab…

I started to walk and quickly left my room.

–Oh, let's go then. And are you fine?

100% fine, I can even say that I'm perfectly fine. {... Please don't… don't even try to.}

–……  Well, that makes sense, you slept for 8 hours after all. [... I see, some nightmares?]

Nope. Nightmares are things I don't experience. {As… everything is just dreams. I didn't choose it to be a bad dream called a nightmare, or a normal dream or a good dream, it just happens when I sleep.}

–Haha… *sigh*...

Did you just sigh?

–You've been influencing me…

"... Eh sure."

I opened the door to her lab and all I seen is the normal her… but the room was strange, there's a lot of metal objects lying on the floor, as well as a Crystal…

"..."

{I wonder what happened?}

I think to myself as I quietly closed the door behind me and noticed that she's sleeping on the floor…

"... Well, I guess she also needs rest."

I walked towards the time stone and noticed that strangely, time wasn't dilated at all…

"... Strange."

–?

Well… nevermind.

I touched the time stone and quickly just observed where Liza was.

"Ahn-"

The moment I heard that, I unconsciously let go of it… what's it?

–Don't question it. You got that?

… Okay.

I quickly calmed myself up and touched the time stone again, this time I'm looking at where Reid is…

A cold blizzard is what I'm seeing, followed by a weak, few steps that are visibly seeable… a big leg taking steps-

I let go as it seems to be that I would start to worry what is happening the more I see things… I won't touch it again.

–... What the hell is happening?

I don't know either, but since Lea is currently resting here, I should leave and talk to… well, I should try my best to remember names…

As I left the room, I seen someone I had forgotten just months ago… a girl with royal yellow hair, as long as my hair while wearing a Dress that was Black laced with Gold as its secondary color.

"... Hello."

I said while waving. She looked at me, and quickly, looked shocked as immediately a Sword almost stab me as cat ears appeared on her head…

"I can't believe it… we look 100% similar… hey, are-"

"Nope."

I cutted her off while grabbing her arm, I then quickly ducked and thrown her gently 2 meters away, she quickly somehow flipped while in the air and stopped the momentum…

"So, are you calm now?"

I asked while drawing the sword on my waist.

"... So that's why my butler targeted you that day, you could've been…"

We both felt a presence walking towards us and due to that, I just put my sword I drawn just earlier back to its scabbard as her sword naturally disappeared. She probably teleported in somewhere.

"... What's happening?"

Cornelia asked as she looked at us, sensing the strange atmosphere we both are exuding.

"Well…"

I quickly covered myself in pure Darkness using my own powers and while that was happening, I quickly changed my clothes to that of a Black dress.

"Just some talk about which Dress is better, that's all."

I immediately made up a lie on the spot as I looked at the one and just gazed at her with the intention of "play along".

"Yeah, that. Anyway I'm pretty sure this person doesn't know my name, so my name is Therion the XVI."

"... Oh, my name is… Le-… Atleus, but please call me Leus."

 {... I almost accidentally said Leu for some reason…}

"?... Ah, sure."

Awkward…

I then immediately walked away, saying my farewell before teleporting outside.