Chapter 142 | Aurora

Chapter 142: 142 | Aurora

Certain items—when they reached a certain level of power, a certain level of consciousness—had the possibility of deriving an item spirit. Item spirits were similar to artificial intelligence in some ways. A consciousness developed by the item itself, born from accumulated energy and ancient power. Once this consciousness matured, it would derive and incorporate a body—an illusory image, a phantom form. And once that illusory body reached a certain maturity—or encountered some specific opportunity—it could develop into a corporeal body. A real, physical form.

She said she was an existence attached to the Nine Lamps.

She was an item spirit.

Not just any item spirit, either. An item spirit that had attained a physical body. When she had first emerged from his chest, she had been translucent—see-through, ghostly, obviously illusory. But now, as she hovered before him, she looked real. Solid. Present. As though she were made of flesh and blood rather than light and memory.

"You can certainly think of me that way," she said, nodding gently. "You can relax, master. I will not harm you. I will obey you. I will certainly obey you from now on, okay?"

Her voice was warm. Gentle. Soothing. The kind of voice that made you want to close your eyes and let go of all your tension, all your anger, all your suspicion.

Andrew frowned.

"Stop your act."

His voice cut through her performance like a blade through silk. Cold. Sharp. Final.

The woman’s smile flickered.

"The reason you are displaying such a lowly posture before me," Andrew said, each word measured and precise, "is because you lost. The Nine Lamps Inheritance failed. You wanted to possess my mind—to take over my body—but you failed. Instead, you fell under my control."

His eyes hardened.

"If I had not faked my weakness during the inheritance—If I hadn’t held on when everything in me was screaming to let go—my mind would have been completely destroyed. My body would have fallen under your control. I would have become a puppet. A complete, mindless puppet."

He looked down at the brand on his arm again. The memory of the pain—the soul-cracking, world-ending, reality-shattering pain—flashed through his mind like lightning.

"I will not forget how painful the merge was," he said quietly. "If I had not turned things around and taken the Nine Lamps into my possession, I would have definitely died."

He looked up at her. His gaze was no longer just cold. It was hateful. The kind of hatred that comes not from anger, but from survival—from the raw, intimate knowledge that you were almost destroyed by the thing standing in front of you.

"So I promise you this," he said. "If I have the opportunity, I will use any method available to me to destroy the lamps. And to kill you."

The woman was stunned.

She stared at him with wide silver-white eyes, her lips slightly parted, her wings frozen mid-flutter. She hadn’t expected this. She hadn’t expected him to be so direct, so ruthless, so completely unwilling to be charmed or seduced or soothed. She had expected relief, perhaps gratitude, perhaps even desire.

Instead, he was promising to kill her.

Her lips curled upwards. Not into a seductive smile this time, but into something stranger—a look that was almost vulnerable, almost childlike. She looked at him the way a child looks at a parent who has just scolded them—eyes wide, lip trembling, expression caught between genuine hurt and performative innocence.

"Come on, master," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I know I was wrong. If you are still angry, then you can smack my butt. Just don’t be mean to me." She sniffed delicately. "I will listen obediently to master’s words. I will do whatever master wants."

Andrew opened his mouth.

Then closed it.

He could feel it—her words worming their way into his mind, soft and warm and insistent, like fingers pressing against the cracks in his willpower. If she kept speaking, kept looking at him like that, kept using that voice...

His will would break.

Not now. Not immediately. But eventually. Slowly. Surely. Like water wearing down stone.

"What is your name?" he interrupted sharply.

The woman blinked. Then smiled—a pitiful, wounded little smile that made her look even more bewitching than before.

"Am I forgiven?" she asked softly.

Andrew glared at her. His fists clenched at his sides. He could feel the hatred rising in his chest—real, genuine, burning hatred. Not just for what she had done to him, but for what she was. For the way she could twist his mind with a word, a look, a tone of voice. For the way she made him feel things he didn’t want to feel while his soul was still cracked and aching from what she had put him through.

"Tell me your name," he repeated. Each word was a hammer strike. Cold. Final. Non-negotiable.

The woman held his gaze for a moment longer. Then—slowly, reluctantly—she let the performance drop. Just barely. Just enough.

"All right," she said. "My name is Aurora. Okay? My name is Aurora, master."

Andrew held her gaze for a long, hard moment. Then he nodded once.

"Okay, Aurora," he said. "Tell me what this Nine Lamps—this ancient Nine Lamps—means."

Aurora smiled. It was a different smile this time—genuine, almost eager, the expression of someone who had been waiting a very long time to share a secret.

She took a step forward in the air. Her tiny feet pressed against nothing, the movement as effortless as walking on solid ground. Then she lifted off, flying around Andrew in a slow, graceful circle—her white dress flowing behind her like a trail of moonlight, her wings fluttering gently as she orbited him.

Andrew watched her, his expression unreadable, his body still aching, his soul still cracked, his nine brands still burning faintly against his flesh.

She circled him once. Twice. Three times.

Aurora stopped circling him. She hovered in place, her tiny form floating at eye level, her silver-white eyes meeting his with an expression that had shifted from playful to serious.

"I don’t really know the true story of the lamp," she said. "Not all of it. But ever since I was sealed inside, I have heard many stories. Passed down through the ages. Fragments. Pieces. Most of them contradict each other."

She paused.

"But there is one story that seemed true. The one that felt... real."

Andrew waited.

"The Nine Lamps Inheritance was forged using the bones of nine gods," Aurora said quietly. "Not just the bones. The bones ’and’ the souls of nine true gods."

The words hung in the air like a guillotine waiting to drop.

Andrew stared at her.

"Nine true gods," she repeated, her voice barely above a whisper. "Their bones. Their souls. All of it—ground down, forged together, shaped into the nine lamps that are now branded into your flesh."

She let that sink in for a moment before continuing.

"It is stated—in every story, every record, every fragment of memory I possess—that this item is the most loathsome and most ominous object in the entire Elven’s Domain. The gods despise it. They fear it. They will do everything in their power to destroy its existence. Not just the item itself, but everything and everyone connected to it. Anyone who touches it. Anyone who wields it. Anyone who even knows of its existence."

Andrew’s face changed slightly.

An item forged from the souls of nine gods.

Nine ’true’ gods.

The weight of that revelation pressed down on him like a physical force. His mind raced, trying to process the implications. How could such an item—a thing forged from the essence of nine deities—be found here? In a beginner village? In a cave that the system itself couldn’t see? It was insane. Completely, utterly insane.

He hadn’t even taken his class advancement quest yet. He hadn’t advanced past level 10. He was a nobody. A speck. A level 10 brat who had barely begun to scratch the surface of what the world had to offer. And here he was, standing in a dead god’s domain, branded with an artifact forged from the souls of nine deities, talking to an item spirit who had just told him that the gods themselves would want him dead if they knew what he carried.

Even the system couldn’t relay the lamp’s functions to him. The question marks weren’t a glitch. They weren’t an error. The system—whatever it was, however vast its reach—genuinely could not process what this item was. It existed on a level that the system simply didn’t have the capacity to understand.

His heart beat quickened.

This was something he should not have touched. Not if he wanted to live. Not if he wanted to survive long enough to become anything. He had walked into a trap, touched the one thing in this palace that was more dangerous than the sword, and now it was permanently seared into his flesh and also his soul.

However—