"Yes," Alexis said with her eyes closed. She breathed in and sighed. There was no way for her to stop it at all.
'System, can I help her in any way?' Ning asked, but the system had already answered this question nearly 3 years ago.
<No, the loss of energy and death is inevitable. After a certain point, the planet will no longer have enough energy to sustain the manifested will.>
<At that point, this Will will vanish>
"It's fine," Alexis said. "I have come to term with my death. I only wish to see the world at peace or at least heading towards that path now."
Ning remembered her face that time in the origin when she mentioned that he was the one who was killing her.
"Do you hate me for what I did?" Ning asked.
Alexis' face changed. Her eyes shifted elsewhere, unable to look at Ning. Ning kept staring at her, trying to read her face.
In the end, Alexis breathed out and answered, "Yes. Yes, I did. I still do. But I'm trying to look aside from this hatred I feel and toward what you can do. The good you can bring to this world."
"If it's of any worth, I'm sorry," Ning said.
Alexis immediately hesitated, her entire body squirming with cringe from something she remembered.
Ning caught that too. "What's wrong?" he asked.
"I- I-" she couldn't bring herself to say it at all.
"What's going on? Are you alright?" he asked.
Alexis took a deep breath once again and said, "I'm sorry too."
Ning narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Why are you sorry? Just because you hate me?" he asked.
Alexis looked to the side, not daring to meet his eyes, and spoke, "I- I might have done some things to work against you."
"Work against me? When?" Ning asked. In the 3 years, they had been working together, in the 2 years Alexis taught him the significant ways to use Aether arts, not a single time had Ning felt someone working against him.
Everything had gone smoothly as far as he couldn't understand. The training went well, his time in the Freeland was without much trouble, and she even helped him learn about Alpurite itself.
So what could she be possibly talking about? As he questioned himself, a thought emerged in his mind.
'What if it was before we met?' he thought.
As he did, a few inconsistencies showed up in the things that happened in his past. Things that had bothered Ning a little, but not enough to give much thought to it.
Now that he learned that Alexis had worked against him, he could see things falling into places where there were gaps in his understanding.
The first thing Ning had always wondered was how did Perry ever find his room in the Odrain empire. He had directly teleported into the room, something that was impossible unless you had been to that place before.
The next thing that was confusing was why did Perry have a potion with him that poisoned his body in such a way that his infinite regeneration would work against him.
Ning had brought up the topic of poisons and the old woman had said that poisons weren't a recipe her family pursued as much as they did the others.
One of the strongest poisons she knew what something she had simply thought of one day. What if the old woman hadn't? And instead, the idea was planted by someone else?
Then, after Ning was poisoned, when he tried to cure himself. Coincidentally, one of the ingredients for his cure was missing. Hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of forest, and there was not a single flower there.
That was suspicious, but Ning hadn't given much thought to it. But now, that gap was filling itself.
Finally, as if to help him, Alexis appeared out of nowhere, making him work under her with the lure of Origin.
Was that all… her doing?
He looked at her, and her eyes looked back in fear and panic. "I'm sorry, I really am. I- I really hated you at the time, and my disciple asked me for my help."
"So without thinking, I gave him the way to ruin you."
"However, when I saw that you were a good person, and actually wanted to help this world, I sought out you, but by that time, everything was already over," she said.
"I wanted to fix you, but if I did… I would have disappeared then and there. My energy was already dwindling by that time."
"So, all I could do was make a deal with you to get you to work for me to bring peace to the world," she said.
Ning's eyes had at some point started burning with rage. He had never expected the entire planet to hold grudge against him and work to ruin him.
Alexis' lips quivered a little and she spoke. "If… if it's of any help, I can give you this," she said as she put her hands out.
As she did, light shined through her hands and something spherical appeared in her hands. When the light disappeared, something that looked like a white marble jabbed all around with a thousand red needles showed up on her hand.
Ning looked at it curiously. Not even a split second later, his eyes went wide.
"Scarlet Blood Lily?" he asked in surprise.
Alexis nodded. "I know I have wronged you and I wish to mend our relationship with this. You can continue to hate me if you want to, but please help me bring peace to this land."
"I had put my hopes on Perry, but that child… he… he's been corrupted by power. Please, fulfill this last wish of mine. I beg you," Alexis said as she got on her knees and bowed toward Ning.
Ning couldn't help but feel horrible seeing his 'master' bow in front of him. He still felt hate, but just like her, surely he could put it aside for now, right?
"Stand up," he said. "After I heal myself, I will go heal this world."
