Chapter 70: The Terrible Truth of the Facts

Velista offered a faint, chilling smile. "Indeed."

With Vora stepping back, Velista leaned down, her face stopping inches from Ren’s cheek. The intense, oppressive weight of her dark energy washed over his skin, colder than ice.

"At long last..." Velista whispered softly, her hand reaching down to lightly brush her fingers against his temple as her dark smile broadened into something truly monstrous. "I’ve finally retrieved you... my other half."

A violent tremor ran through Ren’s body, his hair standing on end as the skin across his neck flushed cold.

Before he could react, Velista clamped her fingers firmly around his wrist. A dark violet pulse rippled through the air, and in the next millisecond, both of them vanished into thin air.

Left standing alone in the clearing, Vora stared at the empty space where they had been a moment ago. Her lips pushed out into an irritated, childish pout, her foot stomping against the damp grass in sheer frustration.

The suffocating sensation of spatial distortion passed as quickly as it had arrived.

Ren felt the ground beneath him stabilize. Keeping his eyes closed, his breathing faint, and his limbs entirely limp, he carefully extended his senses to probe his new environment. The scent of pine and damp earth was gone, replaced by the faint, dry breeze of open high altitude and ancient, weathered stone.

Click. Click. Click.

The unmistakable tap of Velista’s high-heeled boots rang out against a cracked stone floor.

"Wake up, Ren," Velista purred, her voice carrying a dry, amused edge. "How long do you plan on dragging out this pathetic little act? Aren’t you tired of faking unconsciousness by now?"

Ren’s chest froze.

’She knew...?’ His mind raced into overdrive, panic spiking through his veins like raw adrenaline. ’The entire time... she knew I was awake?!’

Abandoning the charade, Ren snapped his eyes open and pushed himself off the ground, springing back four paces in a single fluid motion. He dropped into a tense, low combat guard, his palms hovering near his waist as his gaze swept the perimeter.

They were standing in the center of an ancient, sprawling amphitheater. Massive, crumbling stone monoliths and decayed pillars encircled the arena like towering sentinels, their weathered surfaces cracked by centuries of neglect. Sunlight filtered down through the open sky, casting long, sharp shadows across the ruined coliseum floor.

Velista stood twenty paces ahead of him, her black-and-purple gown swaying gently in the high-altitude wind as her dark violet eyes locked onto his face with an unbothered, vacant stare.

"Relax, Ren," Velista said smoothly, tilting her head with a faint, deceptive gentle touch to her voice. "I brought you here simply because I wanted to talk. Is that so much to ask?"

"Cut the crap, you witch," Ren spat out, his voice sharp and laced with raw suspicion. He took another cautious half-step back, keeping his eyes locked on her center of mass. "We have nothing to discuss."

Velista’s eyes narrowed into twin slits of displeasure. She took two slow, deliberate steps forward, her dark aura flickering like violet flame around her hemline.

"My, aren’t we feisty?" Velista let out a low, musical chuckle. "You know, if I truly wanted to tear you apart, I could have exposed your little sleeping routine to Vora back in the meadow."

She paused, letting out a soft, theatrical sigh as she pressed her hand to her chest in mock sympathy. "I still find it astonishing how completely your friendship with her collapsed. She was the only person who cared for you when you had no one else in this world, Ren. It really is tragic... seeing how desperately she loves you while you look at her like a piece of filth."

Ren’s jaw tightened.

’So the previous owner of this body really was close to Vora...’ Ren analyzed, the piece fitting into the fractured puzzle of his host’s origins. Yet, the exact catalyst that broke their bond and drove Vora into the arms of the Heretical Dark Faction remained shrouded in darkness.

"Hahaha... but that’s ancient history," Velista laughed softly, waving her hand as if brushing away dust. "That’s not why I brought you to these ruins."

"Then spill it," Ren demanded, his tone dropping into a cold, pressuring register. "What is your actual goal here, Velista?"

Velista tapped her lower lip with a slender finger, offering him a playful, teasing pout. "I just wanted to catch up, Ren. I wanted to ask you a few questions. After all, it’s been a very long time since we split into two separate beings, hasn’t it?"

Ren blinked, a deep crease forming between his brows. "What are you talking about?"

"Have you really forgotten who you are?" Velista stepped forward again, her boots clicking sharply on the cracked paving stones.

Ren instinctively retreated, keeping the twenty-pace buffer intact within the ruined arena.

"We were once a single entity, Ren," Velista stated, coming to a sudden halt. "We are the fractured halves of the true Dark God, Nyx. Have you truly forgotten why we divided our divine vessel into two distinct bodies?"

The words landed like lead weights in the pit of Ren’s stomach. His pupils dilated in sheer shock.

Velista scrutinized his bewildered expression, her eyes cold and sharp as needles. "You look utterly lost. You aren’t acting like the Ren I used to know at all. What exactly happened to you?"

Ren’s teeth clicked together as he maintained his silence.

’She can tell...’ Ren’s thoughts spun wildly. ’She senses that I’m not the original soul.’

When he first transmigrated into this world as Elian, the sparse lingering memories of this body had only provided basic surface details: a low-tier porter, an orphan raised in a sanctuary, a background tied to the Starlight Kingdom. There had been zero mention of a divine origin or a split soul.

Velista began pacing in a slow, elegant circle around him, her folded arms held high as her violet eyes tracked his every breath.

"You used to be so deliciously cynical," Velista mused, her tone dripping with nostalgia. "Cold, bitter, and utterly disgusted by the mortal realm. Which was natural, considering you were born from the dark divinity itself."

Ren’s gaze followed her movement across the stone floor. "A fraction of the Dark God...? Hold on. The ancient records said the Celestial bloodline performed a ritual to seal Nyx into a human vessel. The Dark God was summoned from the void into this body."

Hearing his words, Velista stopped in her tracks. She threw her head back and burst into a fit of unrestrained, mocking laughter that echoed off the ancient stone pillars.

"Oh, sweet child..." Velista wheezed, wiping a tear of amusement from her eye. "Where on earth did you pick up such ridiculous fairy tales?"

Ren’s posture stiffened. The historical accounts had come directly from Evelyn and the ancient texts recovered from the basement of the Celestial manor before Lumiria’s construction.

"You aren’t entirely wrong, Ren," Velista corrected, her laughter dying down into a sinister purr. "The fools of the Celestial bloodline did indeed perform a high ritual to bind Nyx’s divinity into a physical vessel. And they succeeded. But those ignorant mortals never realized the fundamental truth: you were not a cage holding a beast from the outside. You *were* the Dark God from the very beginning."

Ren’s breath hitched in his throat. His jaw locked up as his eyes widened in utter disbelief.

"Wait..." Ren forced out, his voice barely above a whisper. "Does that mean... I was the villain all along? Just like you?"

Velista nodded enthusiastically, her eyes gleaming with dark delight. "Precisely~"

Her expression suddenly dropped into a freezing, razor-sharp focus. "Which brings me back to my main question, my dear split half... Why on earth have you turned your back on your own nature to play hero for these pathetic humans?"

THROB

Without warning, a blinding, white-hot agony burst inside Ren’s skull.

"Argh...!" Ren gasped, stumbling backward as his hands shot up to clutch his head.

The world around him wobbled violently. His vision blurred into erratic streaks of color, the stone pillars of the coliseum spinning out of control as a sensation like hot needles stabbed directly into his brain stem.

Velista took a smooth, graceful step toward his trembling form. "My, my... look at you."

"Stay... stay away from me!" Ren choked out, dragging his feet back as his knees buckled under the agonizing pressure spiking through his neural pathways. "Dammit... what is happening to my head...?!"

"Why fight it, Ren?" Velista extended a pale, slender hand toward him, her smile widening into a terrifying arc. "We are two halves of the same sovereign. Why don’t we merge our power once more and erase these insects from the face of the planet?"

"Go to hell...!" Ren rasped, his teeth grinding so hard he tasted copper. "Never!"

Velista sighed, a faint, condescending smirk gracing her lips. "If your mind has grown this soft and confused, then it falls on me to remind you of who you truly are... and what our divine purpose is."

She thrust her open palm forward toward Ren’s head.

A sharp, violent pulse of deep violet light erupted from her hand, crackling through the air like dark electricity and striking Ren directly between the eyes.

"AAAAAAARGH!"

Ren screamed out in unadulterated agony as the dark energy surged into his mind, tearing through his suppressed memories like a physical blade.