Chapter 1171: What If Scenarios

Alice stood still. She observed the different possibilities.

Possibilities such as Allura being too late in saving her after Lilia died.

A scene of her own death with Allura having a face of mild regret before coldly plucking the eyes of the Abyss from her head.

At this point, their relationship was nothing but strangers. To Allura, Alice was simply a container for the eyes that unfortunately died far too early.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Though this was merely one possibility, Alice had to admit that seeing this made her a little regretful.

There was even one where she had chosen a different Sigil for her second one. As for that ending...

Let’s just say she was glad she chose what she did.

Without the enhancement to her passive abilities, her casting options became far more limiting while the difference in physical prowess with and without abyss blood became extremely obvious.

Her... death during this timeline wasn’t a peaceful one.

’A lot of my battles were close ones where even having one thing missing could cause me to die due to a lack of power. The fact that this version of me didn’t choose the second Sigil and ultimately lost out in power means some of the later fights are impossible to complete.’ Alice furrowed her brows.

She had to admit, she had been extremely lucky for some of her battles.

So seeing this death wasn’t surprising. It was simply... disturbing to realise how close she was to death had she made a single wrong decision at that point in time.

Heck, she didn’t even know if any of the choices she made now would cause any domino effects later when she fights Nyer.

One such domino effect would be...

Selen.

One possibility made it so that Alice never became friends with Selen.

The two of them fought and in the even, Selen managed to escape without dying.

Without Selen covering for her in the north, Alice had to figure out a way to survive on her own.

To handle all of the issues by herself.

However...

Egil died alone, pierced by a myriad spears as he bled out on the battlefield. Alice didn’t get the leeway she needed to create a cure for the city. Verona forced herself to ascend onto to fail and become this horrifying monstrosity that Alice had to contend against while the other Northern Lords died under their Queen’s attacks.

Alice didn’t die.

She simply failed.

She killed many hybrids but the rest that remained managed to corner her and recapture her.

In the end, she was placed into that prison once more. Tighter bindings beyond her wildest dreams.

Bindings created after experimenting with her changed body and improved upon. The collar that not even her blood could neutralise.

A miserable end.

Kazira was another matter that caused a large divergence in the events of this world.

Kazira didn’t die, Astrelya lost interest. The outers corrupted the east and Suyin perished.

In their hopes to escape and regroup, they rushed westward only to collapse under the influence of the Nightmare.

Battles became hopeless with them having no way to avoid the Nightmare’s pull.

Travel speed was limited and defences became brittle.

Cities fell one after another as ’Alice’ found herself becoming more desperate with each battle.

But her desperation amounted to nothing when she lacked the assistance of Enris and the experience of having bested Kazira. With Kazira surviving, it meant she lost access to her best attack, Void Axis.

And with that, came the loss of Revenant Recollection.

Devastating losses that normal Sigils couldn’t make up for.

Alice didn’t know how long she had spent looking at the different possibilities, but by the time she realised she was at the end of the wall, the final possibility was...

"Feris." Alice mumbled.

To kill or not to kill.

To take over the authority of the surface or to cling onto the Void.

What consequences would her choices lead? What possibilities did she give up?

Was there a good ending in this?

Alice didn’t know.

Negative possibilities weren’t the only thing that she saw after all.

There were even some where they managed to find Kaden before he was ambushed by Famine.

But she had made the wrong choice at the wrong time.

Thus it became unavoidable.

Focusing her mind, Alice wanted to peer into the results of her choice regarding Feris.

But the deeper she tried to look, the murkier the view became.

A veil that refused her gaze, a wall she couldn’t break down.

Something was obstructing her perception, something that Cayla couldn’t surpass.

Creasing her brows together, Alice entertained the idea of trying harder with more energy, but gave up in the end.

As a caster, she could sense some of the fundamental concepts behind this obstruction. It wasn’t something that could be achieved through brute force.

Doing so would only break the wall apart.

She needed a specific trigger for it to reveal the secrets to her.

’I suppose it’s a rather recent occurrence. Depending on what happens, I can still ’change’ the outcome if I saw what it was.’ Alice exhaled.

Just as she was about to turn around, she felt a chill down her spine.

A shifting of the shadows in her peripherals.

A tall woman in a lab coat that didn’t match any of their silhouettes.

Snapping her head to the right, Alice furrowed her brows when she didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

"Alice?" Alyss tilted her head in confusion.

"There’s something here. It’s probably related to the Tower or perhaps even Yvael."

"!!!"

Hearing this, Alyss focused up.

With Alice gaining control of all four sources of energy within their body, Alyss’s own power had decreased.

Her control over Holy and Void was lacking in the first place. Only being able to reinforce her body with a mix of Abyssal and Eldritch.

But with both of them going over to Alyss, she was at best an empty vessel.

Instead, she had a different idea.

Taking some of the experience she earned from using Eldrtich energy as well as watching Alice fight, Alyss came up with her own idea.

Since she was an empty vessel, didn’t that mean she could use anything? She was just an empty container after all.

One with no ’colour’.

Since they were twin’s, their ’origin’ was similar in nature.

It wasn’t quite ’consumption’ but it was similar.

Absorption!

Alyss slammed her fist towards the ground as her body started to hungrily suck in the energy from around them.

She could feel a foreign energy slithering into her body. Overbearingly weighty, feeling as though countless heavy bricks that just been placed upon her body.

Not only that, but her view of the world started to shift.

Her vision blurred and cogs manifested briefly. It wasn’t a proper manifestation but rather simply to peer through the veil, no matter how brief.

Snap!

Her eyes locked onto the figure making herself known to Alyss.

The ghostly visage of a certain woman messing around with everything she could whenever she could.

"Ohya? Ohya ohya? I thought your sister would be the first one to see this but would’ve guessed it would be you instead." The featureless woman smiled, folding her arms in front of her chest.

She was a simple silhouette. No details, not even eyes could be seen.

"Truly, you can’t trust probability keke. It’s either it happens or it doesn’t. nothing more, nothing less. Even if the odds are 1 in 1 trillion, as long as the possibility exists, a miracle could always happen." She nodded with satisfaction.

Alyss was tense. Thought the silhouette didn’t reveal anything, she had a hunch on who this woman was.

Yvael.

"I would commend you on your achievement. Usually that is. But..." She turned to face Alyss properly.

"It’s a bit too soon for you to see me. So let’s put this meeting on hold and wait for your sister yeah? It’s only worth it when both of you can see me after all."

*Clap!

Without waiting for Alyss’s response, Yvael clapped her hands together and expelled Alyss.

Though... expelled wasn’t quite the right description. She could still absorb the ambient energy in order to make herself the perfect vessel but Yvael hid herself carefully, ensuring that not even a hint of her presence could be seen anymore.

Like a passing mirage, she disappeared as if she was never here in the first place.

But Alyss knew otherwise.

Alyss’s strange reaction wasn’t missed by Alice as she walked over.

Seeing the expression on her twin’s face, Alice understood she must’ve seen something after absorbing the energy around them.

The only possibilities were either the Cogs or Yvael.

Had it been the Cogs... Black chains and restrictions would’ve been placed around her.

So the fact that there wasn’t anything like that... could only mean she had seen Yvael.

The two made eye contact. Even without saying anything, Alyss confirmed Alice’s suspicions.

"Tsk... things are getting complicated." Alice scratched her hair.

Everyone was making big moves upon this chessboard and yet all they’ve done was act like pawns.

They needed to hurry to the other side so that they could also start making big moves.

To transition from a pawn to a player.

[Let’s try promote to being a Queen first. If we can only move in one direction, our first step is to broaden our horizons and increase the number of moves we can make.] Cayla interjected.

[It doesn’t seem like we can go further into the Tower. The doors to the next layer are sealed tight. So let’s focus on regrouping with everyone instead. We need to drag our allies out of the Abyss.]