Chapter 1158: Plans For The Seventh

Having finished her talk with Allura, Alice felt her burdens lift slightly. But as with all things, once the serious talk was over, she couldn’t help but feel embarrassed.

After all, that was essentially a childish outburst! A tantrum thrown because she realised she wasn’t a ’human’!

For someone like Alice who saw herself as rather mature, this was an outburst that was akin to a social death.

If others found out...

"Argh..." Alice squirmed and twisted herself.

A rather amusing sight to see a short girl wiggling like a worm while hovering in the air.

[Don’t worry, only Alyss and myself know at this moment.] Cayla’s voice echoed out with a slight chuckle as Alice almost choked on her saliva.

She was too occupied with Allura and had forgotten the two people who were practically always privy to her thoughts.

’Cayla! You shouldn’t have said anything! Now sis is embarrassed because you reminded her!’ Alyss panicked while Cayla simply shrugged.

[Who told her to throw a tantrum?]

Alice groaned inwardly.

Usually, she would have a drink with Allura but since she wasn’t here physically, she couldn’t even enjoy some mead.

Feeling dejected about the mead and about her own social death, Alice couldn’t help but drift away like a sad lump of tumbleweed.

She wasn’t even drifting in a straight line.

She swayed to the left... She swayed to the right...

Seeing this, Allura couldn’t help but scratch her cheek.

’She’s feeling better now... right?’ She was confident a moment ago but now that she was seeing this, she couldn’t help but have some doubts again.

###

"Look who’s back." Alyss smirked with her arms crossed.

She was sat on the bed while facing the door. Next to her, a tiny Cayla yawned while laying on the bed. There was a grin on her face and seeing said grin caused Alice to flinch slightly.

She could already tell that if nothing is to be done, she would get a teasing of a lifetime that’ll leave her mentally deceased.

"B-before you say anything, I already know what you’re going to say okay?" Alice spoke quickly to try and mitigate the pain.

"Hou~?" Alyss raised an eyebrow as she crossed her legs.

Clearly she was considering whether or not she should pacify Alice for now or tease here with Cayla.

"I’m already suffering from the backlash of throwing a tantrum like that so let’s focus on more important tasks! Namely the issue about the energy we can control." Alice suggested as Alyss thought about it for a moment before glancing at Cayla.

Letting out a slight sigh, Cayla nodded and sat up.

"Fine, let’s hear it."

This was indeed an issue they had to address. Ideally before the meeting with the Queen and the Elders as there’s no telling what they might do to Alice. Especially since her power had taken a hit. Most of her energy was now being filtered towards keeping the Eldritch side in check.

But there’s no telling how long this’ll last. Especially with Alice’s body being such a wreck right now.

"As you know, Void is kind of suffering a bottleneck right now since Feris has lost her authority towards the Void. Not only that, but with its takeover, they’ve probably started to process of turning into a proper Nightmare realm.

"Now, there are a lot of complications with that, not just with my energy. Even with the danger that other’s face but we can set those aside for now. To sum it up, sooner or later, I’ll completely lose my access to the Void and this becomes a limited resource." Alice furrowed her brows.

Cayla tapped her finger with a solemn expression.

"And your solution to this problem is?"

"I think we need to find a way to merge both Void and Holy together to form a new source. Here’s my working theory, if the corrupted Eldritch energy is taking priority right now, especially by working together with Abyssal energy, we simply need to force another deadlock again." Alice held up two fingers.

"And your suggestion is to merge Holy and Void together? I doubt that’ll give you the result you desire if I have to be honest with you." Cayla questioned as Alice nodded her head.

"If it’s a simple fusion, then even I know something like that won’t work properly."

"Then?" Cayla furrowed her brows before pausing.

A smirk appeared on Alice’s face as Cayla must’ve caught on by now.

"The key is not losing the ability to control space itself as well as the ability to interact with the rifts between realms. If that happens, I won’t be able to stand parting with my three children." Alice lamented as Ruby, Helena and Leon manifested near her.

"Don’t worry, I won’t ever leave you three behind. I’m just saying what we want to avoid okay?" Alice pacified with a helpless smile before turning to Cayla.

"Holy isn’t something I’m overly familiar with increasing but if we merge the two together while retaining certain properties, we should be able to find a third source that can contest with the pressure of Eldritch energy. Once that happens, Abyssal energy won’t get dragged to Eldritch and balance should return."

Cayla fell silent.

Calculations running in her mind. Her eyes darted ever so slightly, a sign that she was currently flicking through the archives.

She was referencing past events and information she had on other cases that might be similar to Alice,.

Not specially to do with Alice per say but rather what she wanted to attempt with the Void and Holy.

Then, after a brief pause, she glanced up with a slight frown on her face.

She realised what Alice was wanting to do.

"Can you even fit it in with your schedule?"

"I can certainly try can’t I?" Alice chuckled.

Their cryptic exchange only caused Alyss to tilt her head in confusion.

But to avoid her sister remining the confused bystander, Alice chose to explain the situation.

"Since I need something to ’glue’ the two sources of energy together and fuse them into something new to contend against the Eldritch whilst retaining the ability to manipulate space, there’s only one thing I can do is there not?" Alice chuckled.

"I need to think about getting my seventh Sigil. And by extension, I need to obtain an authority to go with it."

Raising an eyebrow, Alyss understood why Cayla was questioning whether or not they have the time.

Killing the Lord wasn’t a difficult task. They kill Lords like they were eating breakfast.

The difficulty came from the fact that she had to find one in the process. To find a beast strong enough to serve as her seventh while also retaining the control over space.

And to do so while dealing with everything?

"So it’s down to luck?" Alyss frowned.

"When have things not been down to luck?" Alice shrugged before looking serious. "We need to investigate the Abyss anyways. To find Ria and the others since they might be in danger.

"I’m sure there will be a couple of sealed Lords or the whatnot for me to hunt down. Even if I don’t find a suitable Lord, what’s to say something better won’t come around?"

Looking at one another, Alyss and Cayla smiled helplessly with a nod.

"As long as it doesn’t take too much time. We’re on a pretty tight schedule after all. Tomorrow, we’re even meeting the Queen and the Elders. Do you think you can hold yourself back?" Cayla spoke first.

"I don’t think she has the words hold back in her dictionary right now. Honestly, if Alice can hold back it’ll be a miracle." Alyss laughed, causing Alice to puff up her cheeks in annoyance.

"I can hold back if I need! I just have to endure right?"

"Endure my ass. Who was the one that had an outburst just earlier and picked a fight with royalty." Alyss interjected as Alice was about to counter when she coughed awkwardly.

Right... She did indeed pick a fight with Royalty.

"Do erm... Do you think they’ll hold a grudge tomorrow?" Alice smiled sheepishly as Alyss rolled her eyes.

"I’m sure if you apologised to her in a private setting things should be better. Either way, we cannot avoid this meeting tomorrow so let’s behave ourselves okay?"

###

On the day of the meeting, the group had gathered together for a quick dress fitting.

After all, this was a serious event where they meet the decision makers for the elven race. A certain level of formality had to be kept.

Allura was more than familiar with the process while the same went for Cayla and Karya. The ones having a bit of issue was Alice and Alyss.

But Alice didn’t mind since she had dressed herself up plenty of times.

As for Alyss...

Since she didn’t come out often, this felt strangely embarrassing for her.

Ironic since her usual preferred outfit showed off a lot of skin.

"D-Do we really have to test this many outfits?" Alyss stammered, holding down the skirt with her hands as a blush covered her face.

She usually wore shorts since they were easy to move in.

But this skirt?

It felt so... exposed.

She wouldn’t be able to fight properly if she didn’t want to flash everyone on the scene.

"Of course. How often is it that you get to come out for long periods of time? We have to make sure we make the most out of it!" Allura was now in full parent mode as her eyes sparkled.

There were so many outfits she wanted Alyss to try on.

After all, despite being twins, there were differences in their personality.

Alyss was bold in combat, being rather tomboyish in nature.

So the rare opportunity to dress her up couldn’t be missed!

"Hehehehehe~" A laugh escaped Allura’s lips as she dragged Alyss away to the changing rooms.

Alice simply nodded with her arms crossed and a peaceful smile on her face.

Soon, her twin will learn to accept this. After all, she already accepted this kind of life when Velouria kept making clothes for her to try on. Now it was Alyss’s turn to enjoy this with Allura.