*BAM* *BAM *BAM*
The sound of Wrath's punches echoes inside the gigantic magic shell; she, Envy, and Lust have been trying for half an hour to open the shell again or break a path through it, but they have failed to do any damage to Its walls.
"SHIT! It won't open..." Envy complains.
"What the hell is this?!?" Wrath mutters as she continues to use everything she has to slam against the shell walls.
Sloth continues to stare at the gem walls with a thoughtful expression. "It appears to be a creation of a Primordial... something between an object and a creature, I guess."
"That doesn't help much, you know." Wrath responds in an annoyed tone. They've tried many things, including materializing their bodies out of the shell and even opening the purple world portal there, but nothing gets through the inner walls of those gem walls.
Meanwhile, Lucien and Olivia absorb the dark mana from inside the shell as Nea, Mira, and Saria observe the mysterious woman inside the glass coffin.
Lucien is focused on helping Olivia deal with so much dark energy; however, he can't help but peek at the glass coffin every minute, which doesn't escape the Mermaids' keen perception.
Nea knows that Lucien is as curious about the supposed Water Spirit condition as she is, and since the glass coffin seems as resistant and indifferent to them as the gem walls, she believes that only he can change anything.
But Lucien isn't approaching the glass coffin at the Sins' request, at least for a while. Due to his previous moves, they have ended up trapped inside something they don't understand, and they fear that any further action from him could trigger other unexpected and dangerous reactions.
And so, the mood inside the mysterious shell, which increasingly seems smaller, becomes more and more strange. Wrath punches the gem walls, the other Sins look at each other and look at Lucien, Mira and Nea look at each other and at him too, Saria looks at the supposed water spirit and also... at Lucien…
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})"Wait!!" The Mermaid Princess notices something others don't.
Everyone's attention is turned to Saria as she points to the beautiful face of the woman in the glass coffin and next to Lucien. "She... hmmm, her face... don't it look like..."
It's evident what Saria is suggesting, and everyone looks at Lucien's face. His facial features are unique with an almost surreal level of perfection, and even though he looks like his sisters, the details that differ in their faces are also quite striking.
And those same details that make his chin thin, his eyebrows sharp, and his lips perfect are clearly visible on Water Spirit's face.
They all look at Lucien and that woman's face several times, but the more they do that, the more they notice the subtle similarities between them.
Lucien also gets pretty confused while not even Wrath dares to suggest anything. That situation is too strange, but Nea can't contain her emotions. "Ho… how this… no, no, no, this is too crazy, right?"
"Didn't you say something like that when Lucien said this woman was calling him?" Envy comments.
"I didn't say she was calling me," Lucien speaks. "That was some kind of… calling?"
Lust looks at him with a thoughtful expression. "You also mentioned something familiar..."
Sloth looks at the woman in the coffin before looking at Lucien again. "And what's more familiar than the fam-"
"NO WAY!" Nea quickly exclaims as she tries to deny those thoughts. "Don't you know that random people can look alike without it meaning they're related??"
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})"What about the fact that the shell opened up to him only??" Envy asks.
"That..." Nea doesn't know what to say, just believing that Lucien and the Water Spirit are related is crazy. Then she looks at the woman in the glass coffin again. "See, they don't look alike; just... just their facial features are... delicate? Anyway, if you think so, then the fact that she looks like... like h..."
Nea's expression becomes more and more distorted as crazy thoughts come to her mind. Everyone else is confused as she seems to know something that no one else does.
"Mom?" Saria gets really concerned about her mother's sanity.
"No, no, no..." Nea looks back at Lucien and starts shaking her head. "If you and she... if you are... and she... and that... woman..."
"What woman???" Lust can't help but ask as crazy thoughts pop into her mind; in fact, Lucien and the other Sins begin to imagine the same thing.
"No... this is madness!" Nea exclaims again.
The Sins lose the patience, and Envy rushes toward Nea, holding her by the shoulders. "Say it!! Who are you talking about??"
Nea barely has the strength to react, and Saria instinctively tries to defend her mother, but Mira holds her gently; everyone is very tense, but they need answers, and Nea seems to be hiding something.
Lucien and the Sins fear that Nea is seeing similarities between the woman in the glass coffin and the mysterious woman who could be Lucien's mother. But her answers shock them even more.
"The Water Goddess..." She speaks in a dubious and worried tone.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"}) "The Water Goddess???" Everyone asks in confusion.
Nea continues looking at the face of the woman in the coffin and Lucien's. "Before... when that happened, I didn't have time to notice it, but... it's just... now that you mentioned it... our Lady is as similar to Lucien as she is to the Water Goddess."
"..." Nobody knows what to say about that, except that it sounds so fucking crazy.
"Okay..." Envy is the first to speak, which sounds in a fake casual tone. "So I guess this is all just a big coincidence… right?"
Nea really wants to believe in that, but even she can't do it anymore. "How... how can Lucien be related to our Lady like that damn woman???"
"That's so... surreal." Lust comments.
Lucien doesn't know what to think either; he feels attached to the woman in the glass coffin even though he's never seen her before, but adding a mad goddess to something already so crazy goes beyond madness.
"Couldn't you be… wrong?" He asks Nea, trying to sound as respectful as possible. "I mean, at that time, you should have been really mad at the Water Goddess and then the Water S... that woman came, and you could just... well, she's a beautiful woman, that Goddess must be beautiful too, and am I... you know, similarities between random people?"
Nea begins to doubt her own sanity. "Well... maybe..."
But before she says anything else, Lust has an idea. "There's a way to be sure about it!"
"How???" Lucien and Nea ask simultaneously, making it clear that they are the most shaken by those ideas.
Lust looks at Lucien before answering. "There is someone who knows the face of the Water Goddess very well."
He doesn't even need a second to know who she's talking about. "Helena!"
"Yep." Lust nods and Lucien doesn't waste a second before calling Helena.
While Nea is not sure what kind of confirmation she wants to hear from Helena, the purple world portal opens, and the lovely dark angel comes out.
Just as Lust earlier explained to Lucien what would happen, Helena doesn't feel comfortable around the remaining dark mana inside the magic shell.
Her original affinity was with light mana, and as the Gods cursed her, she acquired some dark mana; however, that also strengthened her spatial affinity, that is, her body accepts that energy better than the dark one.
But as Helena is also used to the dark mana, she quickly gets fine after a few shivers run through her body. Then, she looks at Lucien with a confused expression. "Hubby?"
"This isn't about the dark mana..." He had already mentioned that to Helena, and she didn't want to absorb that energy along with Olivia, so he points to the glass coffin. "Could you take a look at this woman?"
"Huh?" Helena is even more confused, but she does as he asks and approaches the glass coffin. "Who is-"
She starts by noticing how pale that woman's skin is, but then she sees her face, and the shock comes along with anger, pain, and other bad feelings. "She..."
Helena is speechless, so Lucien approaches her and hugs her. "This woman is the supposed Water Spirit, the woman I mentioned earlier..."
"Why does she look like that damn bitch??" Helena quickly asks, not holding back the anger in her heart. "And why... how can she looks like you too??"
Until now, Lucien shared Helena's hatred for the Water Goddess, and the fact that she attacked the Mermaids made him more certain that she is a horrible person. Yet, now he can't help but want to meet that woman so badly.
"Just to be sure, you're talking about the Water Goddess, right?" Nea question.
"Yeah..." Helena nods. "I will never forget that hateful woman's face! And one day, I will destroy that arrogant smile."
Nea totally agrees with Helena's hatred. As a Mermaid, she shouldn't think that way, but the Water Goddess has corrupted her pure heart with her wickedness beyond limits.
"So..." Nea looks at Lucien with a confused expression. "What does that mean??"
Helena also looks at him with the same confused expression. "What's going on?? This woman, the Water Spirit or whatever, she has a nose so much like that hateful woman's, as well as other identical facial features, but... she looks just like you too."
Lucien can only shrug. "I have no idea..."
"What if this is part of that woman's manipulations??" Wrath suggests. "Like... I don't know; it could be her move to confuse us... because how could you be related to a woman that's related to the Gods??"
"He's part dragon, have you forgotten?" Envy asks in a sarcastic tone. "I wouldn't be surprised if he had a relationship with the Gods either."
Lust is sure that if she were using a physical body right now, she would have her head hurt a lot. "But why he doesn't have a direct connection to the Gods with their energies or anything... it doesn't make sense for him to have a connection with someone who supposedly has a connection to the Gods."
"And does anything make sense about it all?" Sloth asks in her usual slow tone. "I can't even imagine how such a connection could exist..."
Although Lucien has a lot of life mana, not even that can keep his head from hurting as he tries to understand at least one piece of the mystery that is his life. The Sins seem prepared to debate on that that for hours, days, and even years, but he doesn't want to think about it right now.
As Olivia finishes cleaning the remaining dark mana inside the shell, his desire to help the woman in the glass coffin is slightly sated, but then he notices Olivia falter.
Her eyes turn completely black as a liquid of the same color runs down her face; dark veins become more visible all over her body while her blood becomes black like Helena's. Then she loses all the strength in her legs and starts to fall.
"Olivia!!" But Lucien quickly takes her in his arms.
"She's okay!" Lust explains. "She's just a little overwhelmed with too much dark mana, but you can help her recover quickly."
Lucien is relieved by Lust's report, but he still hates seeing Olivia like that. She, on the other hand, smiles as she caresses his face. "I... I feel so powerful... it's so much energy that it's escaping my body..."
"You did a great job, my love." He praises her for absorbing all that dark mana. Then he talks to Lust. "What can I do now?"
"Take her home and..." Lust smiles at him. "Well, give her as much demonic energy as you can, and she'll be fine soon."
"Sure." He comments as he enters the purple world portal with Olivia in his arms, leaving Nea, Mira, Saria, and Helena with confused expressions inside the shell.
The women look at each other while also looking at the woman inside the glass coffin. They envy her for peacefully sleeping while they're freaking out due to not being able to understand what's going on.
