Chapter 42: Stick a Shadow Crystal

Chapter 42: Stick a Shadow Crystal "At the same time everything went to hell—the sky cracked and the ground split open... Just as we squeezed our eyes shut waiting to die, this mysterious voice whispered in our ears: ’Please! I’m begging you to take care of them from now on!’ When we opened our eyes, we were back in the real world. And in our arms, we were each somehow holding this adorable little girl about ten years old, with these huge blinking eyes calling us ’mama.’ Yolanda and I felt our mom instincts kick in hard, thinking this had to be some kind of blessing from above, so we adopted them. Right after we got back, we found out to our horror that our spirituality seemed totally locked up. No matter how many monsters we killed, we couldn’t get any stronger at all. We got so bummed out and didn’t want to worry the Captain and everybody else, so we snuck out of the inner city and laid low in some tiny mountain village in the outer city, raising those two little girls as they grew up..." Carlos felt like something was seriously off. After running into unknown forces and having their own spirituality mysteriously shut down, the two women had actually chosen to bail on the inner city and their connections like Captain Iris, who could’ve probably fixed their problems. Even as basically rookie Psionics, they’d willingly raised two girls of totally unknown background for ten whole years in some regular human village in the outer city. It sounded really fishy—more like they’d been mentally messed with by that mysterious voice. Otherwise, even if they couldn’t level up anymore, they’d definitely choose to come back to the inner city. The inner city could offer way better pay and a comfortable lifestyle than the outer city. "Sounds like the Shadow Twins might be kids or backup plans that some mysterious force on the verge of getting wiped out desperately sent out." Carlos thought it over. When he had some free time, he needed to cross-reference the abilities shown in the Shadow Twins’ data from his memories with whatever secret organization they matched up with. The final survivors of that kind of secret group would very likely inherit all sorts of valuable stuff later. If he helped out, he could definitely get a piece of the action as payment... ... "...Finally, Young Master Carlos brought us back to the inner city." After Yolanda and Sara finished their story, Iris was frowning like crazy. She also picked up on the fact that Yolanda and Sara hiding out anonymously in the outer city was probably because of that mysterious voice screwing with their heads. And the two women’s mysteriously locked spirituality, wasting ten whole years, had to be that mysterious voice’s doing too. Thinking about this, Iris couldn’t keep a lid on her rage anymore. Terrifying pressure burst out from inside her as the hall’s air got incredibly thick and blazing light started blooming... The two women were shaking—they thought, oh crap, the Captain’s still pissed. They quickly ducked their heads, pathetically waiting for the Captain to lay into them. "Sis." Carlos spoke up as a heads-up—he hadn’t expected his usually cool-headed sister to blow her top over this. At his reminder, Iris realized she’d lost her cool. She quickly got herself together and pulled back her aura, getting the hall back to normal. "You two morons, getting played by that mysterious voice and didn’t even realize it! Most likely, your spirituality being stuck is its fault too!" Iris tore into them. Sensing the two women’s pathetic sub-Low-tier Psionic Energy, she got even more heated. Back in the day, Yolanda and Sara were candidates she’d carefully picked out for Carlos—good skills, good character. Most importantly, they really had a thing for Carlos (never mind that he was just a kid then). But they’d mysteriously vanished for ten years with zero spiritual progress—how infuriating! Seeing the two women’s totally clueless expressions, she felt both furious and kind of heartbroken. "Whatever. Later I’ll drag you to the High Priest to see if there’s a way to fix this mess." Hearing this, Yolanda and Sara lit up, quickly thanking her: "Thanks, Captain!" About Iris’s earlier comments on the mysterious voice messing with their minds, they started wondering for the first time if something was actually wrong with them. Carlos didn’t know about his sister Iris’s complicated feelings, but he could tell these two had quite a close relationship with his sister. Considering he still needed the two women to keep the Shadow Twins in line, he jumped in with a helpful hint: "Your spirituality being stuck is most likely because of Spirit-Devouring Mayflies in your bodies." "Spirit-Devouring Mayflies?" x3 Not only the two women with the problem, but Iris had never heard of this either—all three looked totally lost. Carlos kept going: "Spirit-Devouring Mayflies are really weird spiritual realm creatures, super tiny and completely invisible to human eyes. In theory, they don’t cause any physical damage to living things. Since they’re spiritual realm creatures not in the same dimension as the real world, they can’t actually touch each other. But they feed on Spiritual Essence. Once they set up shop in a human body, they’ll gobble up all the Spiritual Essence that Psionics gain. From the outside, it looks exactly like what you experienced— spirituality gets ’locked.’ No matter how many monsters you kill or how much you train to soak up weak ambient Spiritual Essence, it all just disappears into thin air." After Carlos’s explanation, impatient Sara showed desperate hope while gentle Yolanda also got unusually antsy. "Young Master Carlos, do you know how to fix it?" Carlos had planned to help out for his sister’s sake anyway, so he didn’t want to make them sweat it, answering straight up: "If I’m right, ten years ago you woke up Spirit-Devouring Mayflies in those shadow crystal statues in the ruin, and they invaded you. The way to get the Spirit-Devouring Mayflies out is pretty simple. Compared to human bodies, they’d rather hang out in shadow crystals. Just stick a piece of shadow crystal on your head and wait a bit—the Spirit-Devouring Mayflies will automatically move to the shadow crystal." "Bring two black accessories." Iris didn’t question him—she had 100% faith in Carlos’s word. She directly told a nearby maid to go get them. Shadow crystal, this type of mineral, looked gorgeous and was widely used for making black jewelry, pretty common in fancy households. Soon, the servant brought over two black accessories. Iris got up and personally placed the two shadow accessories on the women’s heads. Now it was just a waiting game. This was perfect timing for Carlos to fill his sister in on the Shadow Twins’ situation. "Iris, in my vision, if Riley and Anna go bad and become human traitors, they’ll have extremely terrifying power and cause horrible damage to humanity." He didn’t try to hide this from the two women. Yolanda quickly jumped in: "That’s not gonna happen—Riley and Anna are good kids. They’re super sweet and always help out regular people around them. They absolutely won’t turn bad!" Sara was pretty chill about it, balancing the shadow accessory on her head. "Yolanda, he didn’t say they’re gonna go bad in the future, just what would happen if they did. As long as we’re around, the kids can’t possibly turn bad." That last comment, whether she meant it or not, really nailed the important part.