Chapter 53: Confessions in the Dark

Inside the cramped, dark storeroom, the air was completely still and smelled heavily of cleaning supplies. Leo stood tall, his large frame blocking the only exit door entirely. Moving with dominant, furious strength, he stepped deep into Stella's personal space, trapping her body directly between his broad chest and the cold metal wall shelves.

"L-Leo..." Stella whispered in a small, trembling voice. Her back was pressed hard against the metal edges, her playful, annoying mask completely shattered as she looked up at his angry face.

"Don't even try to lie to me, Stella," Leo growled out, his deep voice snapping with absolute, terrifying authority in the quiet room. His dark eyes were narrowed into a fierce glare. "You are going to talk right now. What the hell is going on? Who is Julia? How did she completely freeze time in the washroom? I have a mountain of questions, and you are going to give me answers before something really bad happens to us!"

Stella got incredibly scared, her emerald eyes shaking with deep anxiety as she clutched the straps of her school bag. She looked down at his chest, her voice hesitating heavily as she stammered. "Leo... please. I... I can't tell you the details right now. It's too dangerous."

Leo didn't back away, his gaze staying intense and furious.

"I promise I will tell you everything today!" Stella pleaded quickly, looking up into his eyes with absolute seriousness. "Just wait until the afternoon lectures end. Come straight to my apartment, and I will explain the entire story to you without hiding anything. I swear."

Leo stared down at her for a few long, tense seconds. He let out a low, irritated breath, finally stepping back to give her space. He opened the heavy storeroom door, but before he let her leave, he fixed her with a cold, warning look. "Fine. But you better remember your promise. I need all the answers today, no matter what."

Stella nodded quickly, her face pale as she hurried out into the hallway.

.....

The rest of the university day passed in a blur of heavy tension. The moment the final afternoon bell rang, Leo avoided his usual group, walked out of the campus gates alone, and secretly headed straight toward the residential blocks.

Reaching Stella's door corridor, he raised his hand and gave a sharp, firm knock.

Click.

The door flew open in a fraction of a second. Before Leo could even say a word, Stella's slender hands aggressively reached out, grabbing his arm and yanking his tall frame straight inside the dark entryway before anyone in the hallway could see him. She slammed the door shut, locking the deadbolt with a quick, heavy snap.

Leo turned around, his eyes scanning the quiet room, before he stopped dead in his tracks. His jaw dropped in absolute, profound shock as his breath caught heavily in his throat.

Sitting comfortably on the edges of the living room sofa was a highly familiar, striking face. It was the exceptionally beautiful, voluptuous woman with long, flowing midnight-blue hair—the exact high-threat entity Leo had violently fought inside the advanced laboratory weeks ago.

"Y-You..." Leo stammered out, his hand instinctively clenching into a fist. "You're that woman from the laboratory."

Stella quickly stepped between them, nodding her head. "It's okay, Leo. She isn't an enemy anymore. This is Lunaria."

Lunaria stood up from the sofa smoothly, her midnight-blue hair catching the low light of the room. A soft, warm, and highly genuine smile graced her beautiful face as she offered a polite, deeply respectful bow toward him. Her voice was calm and gentle. "I am truly, deeply sorry for the trouble I caused you the other day, Leo. Please forgive my aggressive actions."

Leo stared at her, his face completely full of confusion. He looked at Stella, then back to Lunaria. The cold, dangerous monster from the clone lab was completely gone, replaced by a polite, friendly woman. "What the hell is going on here? She isn't behaving like the other day at all."

"Sit down, Leo," Stella said softly, gesturing toward the wooden study chair near the desk layout. "We will explain everything now."

Leo let out a long, heavy sigh, dropping his duffel bag onto the floor and sitting down on the chair. He leaned back, crossing his arms as he looked at both of the women standing before him. "Alright, Stella. No more games, and no more acting goofy. Do not lie to me about anything. Clear up this entire mess right now."

Stella took a deep breath, stepping forward until she stood right next to Lunaria. Her emerald eyes looked straight into his dark gaze, her voice dropping into a calm, serious tone as she began her story. "To start... Leo, we are not humans. We did not grow up on this planet. Lunaria and I came from a completely different world across the stars, a planet called Luxora."

Leo’s eyes widened slightly, a soft gasp escaping his lips as his body went rigid. He stayed completely quiet, listening to her words with absolute care.

"Our civilization was incredibly advanced, far beyond anything humans have built on Earth," Stella continued, her eyes growing distant as she got lost in her heavy memories. "For thousands of years, our people lived in absolute, beautiful peace under the guidance of our royal family who ruled the domains with kindness."

Stella paused, a visible flash of deep sadness and pain tracing her pale face.

"But one day... everything was destroyed," Stella whispered, her voice cracking slightly. "An unknown civilization, a race far more advanced and terrifying than anyone in the galaxy, launched a sudden, brutal attack against Luxora. Their specialty is the absolute control of time and mind control. It makes them the most terrifying, unstoppable species in existence. Our planetary shields were crushed in a single day."

As Stella spoke, the room seemed to grow colder, the heavy weight of the past filling the quiet apartment.

"The enemy forces invaded our grand palace," Stella said, her fingers clenching into tight fists. "Their soldiers were releasing millions of parasitic mind-controlling worms into our crowds, turning our own vanguard warriors against us. It was pure chaos. I remember the screaming in the corridors..."

A vivid memory flashed through Stella's mind. Inside the burning, crumbling throne room of Luxora, the elegant and beautiful Royal Princess, Princess Ophira, had stood tall despite being surrounded by the dark imperial enemy ranks. Her glowing silver dress was stained with soot, but her regal posture remained unyielding.

"Stella! Lunaria! You must leave the planet right now!" Princess Ophira had screamed desperately, using her remaining raw magical energy to open a swirling, unstable spatial transport rift behind the royal guard lines. "Our civilization cannot die here!"

"We cannot leave you, Your Highness!" a past, uninfected Lunaria had roared out, drawing her heavy cosmic blade to strike down an advancing enemy soldier. "Our duty is to protect the royal bloodline to the absolute end!"

"Go! That is an official royal command!" Princess Ophira had wept, her hands glowing bright as she forcefully pushed them toward the portal.

But right as they fell backward into the glowing rift, a cruel, high-class enemy commander stepped out from the smoke, the exact visual image of Julia. She carried a cold, mocking smirk on her lips as she raised her hand. "A pathetic struggle," Julia had whispered coldly. With a wave of her fingers, a dark, writhing mind-control parasite worm shot through the air, violently sinking straight into Lunaria's shoulder right before the portal snapped shut.

"The Princess saved our lives," Stella said, her voice snapping Leo right back to the present apartment room. Tears glistened at the edges of her green eyes. "But she was caught, and the entire royal family is currently kept heavily caged by the enemy on our home world. Somehow, our damaged transport pod malfunctioned, and we crashed straight into the atmosphere of Earth."

Lunaria stepped forward, her voice carrying a deep layer of remaining guilt. "The moment we landed in the ocean, the mind-control worm took complete control of my brain, Leo. The parasite forced me to build that secret laboratory. It forced me to kidnap Miss Cynthia and Miss Chloe to run biological tests, and it manufactured the doppelganger clone to hide our identities from you."

Lunaria looked down at her hands, a sweet, grateful smile gracing her lips. "If you hadn't destroyed the parasite worm, I would still be a mindless slave to Julia's empire. You truly saved me, Leo."

Leo sat perfectly still on the study chair, his mind completely reeling as he processed the massive revelation. "So... you two hid out here, and you disguised yourself as a regular university student just to survive."

"Yes," Stella said softly, her face flushing in a sudden, intense hesitation as she looked at his boots. "To survive... and to find you."

Leo’s dark eyes violently contracted, his posture tensing up instantly. "To find me? Why?"

Stella looked up, her emerald eyes staring dead into his shocked face as she delivered the final blow to his sanity. "We came to find the exact System and hidden powers you have inside your body, Leo."