Chapter 1152: Truest Sense Of Self

"Tee hee my ass!!!" Cayla shouted, losing her composure momentarily as she watched Alice’s casual remark regarding the serious situation.

The upturning of the balance within her body wasn’t something that they could simply dismiss as a tee hee I messed up kind of situation!

This had fundamentally changed the foundation of their planning as now Alyss was pushed to the forefront while Alice could only exist as a projection for the time being.

Her main ’soul’ or rather, her core essence was sealed away in their mind with all manners of restrictions.

In fact, Cayla was surprised Alice could even exist as a projection right now! She wouldn’t have been surprised if the girl couldn’t even communicated due to the changes in her body.

"Aww come on, it’s not like there’s anything that we could’ve done about it." Alice chuckled, hovering in the air with a smile.

"Oth’Zeruun needed to die. And even though twinnie messed up a little by not doing the barrier properly, we couldn’t exactly leave his energy floating around for the others to get. So regardless of the situation, I would’ve come into contact with his energy in some way shape or form.

"Therefore, this moment is unavoidable." Alice shrugged her shoulders with a matter of fact kind of look. As though she had completely resigned herself to what had transpired much to Cayla’s surprise.

While this wasn’t unnatural for Alice, something felt wrong.

Though she couldn’t quite put her finger on it.

It’s definitely not mimicry that’s for sure. Her habits were all in tact and same with the way she says certain things. So it wasn’t the Eldritch energy trying to pull one over them.

If so... what was the cause of this uncertainty?

Furrowing her brows, Cayla let out a deep sigh.

She resigned herself.

Whatever happens happens. It’s Alice, nothing was expected to be normal from the beginning.

In fact, if you really think about it, they shouldn’t have been able to survive the Outer God in the first place.

So this kind of result was actually a net positive. Yes, mnm, a net positive. So she should’ve stress herself over it.

If she kept stressing herself, she would start losing her hair.

One might wonder why the eye of the Abyss is concerned about hair loss but if she appears in her true form with patches of hair missing, how upsetting would that be?

No doubt it could cause everyone to look at her with a sense of pity.

So yep, there was no need to think about it. Don’t worry about it too much since it’s simply Alice things.

Cayla smiled and nodded to herself without saying a single word, causing the others to look at her in confusion.

"Hello? Hello~ Alice to Cayla, can you hear me?" Alice hovered in front of Cayla, waving her hands back and forth.

"Oh no, did I break her? Erm... I don’t think I can turn it off and back on again right?" She turned to Allura who looked away and held back a laugh.

But she had the same thought as Cayla.

Though this was indeed ’Alice’, something was slightly different.

"Bah! Anyways. What was it now... right, before we head back let’s hide Feris properly now shall we? Though she’s undergoing some kind of transformation, we don’t exactly want her to be out in the open." Alice waved her hand dismissively while floating upside down.

"I’m not sure what I can do for here considering... let’s be honest here, we don’t exactly want me using my powers while I’m bound like this." She sighed, looking inwardly at her sealed self.

Abyssal and Eldritch energy were being simultaneously restrained.

Which is rather amusing if you consider the chains being a product of Abyssal energy but there were concepts imbued into the chains that Alice was too stupid to fully understand. At least for the moment.

Once she regains proper control of her own body, the first thing she needed to do was study these chains.

"Ideally, I need to focus on the aspects of power weaker than Abyssal and Eldritch. In which case, it would be Holy and Void." Alice shrunk herself down a little and sat on Alyss’s head.

Since she was a projection, she could effectively choose what she looked like and the size she’ll be.

"Let’s not talk about Void since it’s less of ’Void’ and more of Abyssal energy taking the shape of Void now. Especially with Feris giving up her authority. Sooner or later, Void energy will disappear entirely and be replaced by Nightmare energy. And well... I don’t think that’ll be useful against someone who created the realm."

Crossing her legs and tapping her chin, Alice made a decision.

"We need to properly make use of Holy energy and turn Void energy into something that can contend with Abyssal and Eldritch." She grinned.

Seeing how confident she was being, all four people at the seen watched her with anticipation.

Going by how she usually acted, this would be where she explains what she planned to do.

". . ."

Silence.

Tilting her head, Alice was confused.

"Why y’all staring at me like that?" She pursed her lips.

"Did you think I would have a solution already? I’m smart but I’m not THAT smart jeez. In the first place, how am I even supposed to upgrade Holy? That thing works off prayer and recognition. I’ve been skulking around the shadows, how the f*ck are people supposed to pray to me? Secondly, the f*ck am I supposed to do with transforming Void energy? It’s not like there’s a magical fifth source that I could just convert my Void powers into.

"In the first place, if I fully got rid of Void energy, I would basically disable all of my space powers. I need to retain the property of manipulating space not get rid of it." Alice grumbled her complaints rapidly.

With this quick rant, Allura finally pinpointed exactly where the strange feeling came from.

The reason that Alice was still ’Alice’ even though she was acting slightly weird.

"You... don’t have any filter right now do you?" Allura’s smile twitched.

"Filter? What do you mean?" Alice tilted her head.

"I was wondering how you were able to project yourself outward and talk like normal even though your main essence was sealed up." Allura let out a sigh. Pulling out a cigarette, she lit it and took a deep drag before continuing.

"I’m not an expert on souls and the whatnot, but what you’ve done was probably pulled out the deepest part of yourself. You projected the core of your very being. Your truest self. One that has no filter and acts most like yourself. Even the parts you usually keep hidden with internal thoughts." She smiled helplessly.

That explained why she was acting the way she did. Her bluntness in her statements while also remaining as ’Alice’.

"Hmm... Maybe? Probably. I think? Bleh, too complicated. I just want to sort out Feris and drink right now but we also need to meet the elves. ARGH! What a pain!" Alice pouted, nodding in agreement before throwing a mini tantrum on Alyss’s head.

Seeing her twin act this way, Alyss couldn’t help but chuckle.

Alice had become more wilful following this change, allowing her full thoughts to be put on display.

Which then made Alyss pause with a strange look on her face.

"Erm... Allu-"

"Mom." Allura smiled, causing Alyss to choke on her own words momentarily before coughing.

"M-mom."

"Yes? What is it?" Allura nodded with a happy smile.

"Are you sure we should be bringing Alice to face the important figures of the Elves? Considering her... brashness right now, there is a none zero chance- Scratch that. There is probably an 100% chance that she’ll say something stupid and piss them all off."

"Hah?! Am I that unreliable to you? Sure the elves are a bunch of weirdos who can’t even handle their own issues but even I know to hold myself back in front of important people... I think?" Alice folded her arms before ending her own confident statement with a question.

Alyss simply looked at Allura with a ’See’, kind of expression.

"Hmm... You’re not wrong. Throwing your sister in front of the people like this is probably no different to declaring war. That we don’t need their support anymore." Allura scratched her hair.

"Let’s just focus on Feris first." Karya took control of the conversation with a slight sigh.

She couldn’t help but look at Cayla with slight hints of pity as they were now currently dealing with dumbass one, dumbass two and dumbass three.

Dumbass one had no filter right now. The manner of trouble she could get into right now was second to none.

Dumbass two was weak to her twin. Just because she’s quiet most of the time didn’t make her different by much.

And dumbass three was someone who was willing to disregard her own health and safety because a slightly annoying lizard appeared.

All three were people she couldn’t trust not to cause trouble when left alone. So in this kind of situation, someone needed to wrangle them in and keep them from misbehaving.

With Karya taking charge, the group settled and made their way to Feris.

On the way there, Alice was humming a self created song about drinking mead that Allura found amusing yet also a little concerning.

Lyrics kept pouring out about her love for mead, few lines repeated themselves.

’Does this girl have no other hobby aside from drinking mead?’ As a mother, Allura couldn’t help but be concerned about her daughter’s sanity.

Of course the perceptive Karya kept her silence.

Just the look on their faces told her enough. They were probably, no, definitely thinking of something stupid!

What she needed to do was keep everyone on the right track. Nothing more, nothing less!