Crownless Reincarnation: New World? Nah I'd win-Chapter 42: Spirit World [3]

A small pocket dome was attached to it.

’...What?’

A dome that had uncorrupted small fairies.

Akamir’s eyes widened slightly.

Small fairies fluttered inside the dome like delicate fireflies.

They each glowed softly, untouched by the rot of the world around them.

They huddled close, some asleep, others playing quietly in the limited space, their wings shimmering like glass.

"Nayomi," he whispered, barely audible. "What is this...?"

Nayomi floated beside him, her gaze fixed on the dome. Her voice was quiet. "A miracle."

She drifted closer, her fingers ghosting along the dome’s edge without touching it. "I thought they all were extinct or corrupted...."

"...."

Akamir could only stare at her as she passed through the dome without any problem.

Those small fairies didn’t flinch in her presence, but they began to move closer to her.

Nayomi sat down on a rock inside the dome as the fairies finally recognized her.

They began to fly around her, excitement clear in the way they moved.

One of the tiny fairies landed on Nayomi’s shoulder, nestling there like a returning child.

Another brushed her cheek with glowing fingers, giggling softly.

A third sat on her lap, looking up with wide, shining eyes.

"They remember you," Akamir said quietly.

Nayomi didn’t look at him. "Of course they do. I’ve known them for a long time."

"What are you?" Akamir mumbled jokingly. "The goddess of spirits?"

Her eyes finally met his.

There was a depth there—a pain so old and buried that even now, it barely surfaced.

She just smiled. "Perhaps."

Akamir rubbed his face.

’I sometimes forget that she is almost six hundred years old.’

That’s a lot of time; a normal human would have gone mad living so long.

Akamir crouched, staring at the fairies.

They didn’t flinch from his presence.

One of them, a tiny one with translucent green wings, fluttered close to the edge of the dome, watching him with wide, unclouded eyes.

Akamir’s hand hovered just above the dome’s surface, and she followed his movements.

"This place..." he murmured, "Why hasn’t it been consumed?"

Nayomi looked up. "I...I am not sure."

"Can they talk?" Akamir asked as the green fairy stopped playing with him.

"Of course they can." Nayomi mumbled. "I don’t know why...they aren’t."

The green fairy stood in one place, staring into his eyes, and another fairy landed on her lap once again.

"Hmm?"

Nayomi tilted her head in confusion.

They both opened their mouths at once.

And...

Their expression hardened as they noticed something.

Their tongues were amputated.

"Akamir."

Nayomi slowly turned towards him.

"Run."

BOOOM!!!!

A sudden explosion made Akamir lose his balance as he fell down.

And then, the rot came.

Black vines burst through the forest floor, writhing like serpents.

They slammed against his chest, throwing him away.

The heads of the vines turned into skulls that began to bite onto his body.

Akamir barely moved back, flipping his body to rise back on his feet.

Even though pain flared in his chest, he cautiously looked at the vines.

The vines hissed, retreating slightly as if tasting his blood through the air.

Then they surged again, faster this time, coiling around him.

[Foxdrift.]

His body shimmered, flickering out of place just as the skull-headed vine snapped at where his heart had been.

He reappeared a few feet back, panting, eyes sharp.

"Nayomi?!" he shouted.

"Get out!" She yelled back from inside the dome. "I will be right behind you."

A dull, burning light radiated from where the dome had been.

’What is she doing!?’

He turned toward the roots—only to freeze.

The vines... they weren’t spreading randomly.

They all led to something.

Something towering.

An enormous spire of a tower rose into the sky, black and grotesque, covered in writhing tendrils.

Thousands of monstrous, blinking eyes stared from its surface.

And behind the tower stood a woman.

A translucent woman who was almost as tall as the tower.

She wore a beautiful, twisted black dress that felt like it was stitched from sorrow and agony.

But she had no head. Her neck ended in a neat, clean cut.

In her drooping arms, she held eighteen male heads.

Identical in appearance.

Red eyes glowed in all of them.

’....Fuck.’

The eighteen heads blinked and looked at Akamir.

They smiled creepily at him.

Akamir staggered back as a crushing pressure weighed on his chest.

His knees nearly buckled.

’What kind of monster is it.....’ freewebnøvel.coɱ

It wasn’t something he could fight. He couldn’t even understand it.

"Fuck."

He cursed once again as those heads began to float in his direction.

Nayomi began to rush toward him from the dome.

"Crown that connects me."

Akamir repeated, reaching his hands toward her.

The head opened its mouth to swallow him whole.

"Take me to the real world."

Akamir vanished in the last moment.

.....

"Haah!!"

A sudden rush of air made Akamir gasp for more.

"Cough! cough."

He coughed violently, rubbing his chest as he rolled to be on his back.

Cold sweats trickled down his forehead while his eyes shook violently.

What he saw there had clearly been engraved in his mind.

His eyes drifted around until he found Nayomi floating in the corner.

"What was that?" Akamir groaned as he began to sit on the floor.

Nayomi slowly turned to look at him.

A clear sadness was in her eyes that Akamir noticed instantly.

"A follower of the corruption." She mumbled. "It was using the fairies as bait."

Akamir frowned. "What were you even doing with the fairies?"

"I tried to free them." She mumbled, rubbing her eyes. "But it wasn’t that easy."

Akamir nodded, looking down at the floor.

"That woman," he said. "That... headless... thing. What was she?"

Nayomi didn’t answer at first.

She floated closer and sat beside him, her voice barely above a whisper.

"They used to call her the Bride of the Forsaken Tree. An old myth of this world. Forgotten, even by the spirits. I thought she was just a tale for wild fae." She moved her head to the side, unable to look at him.

"A spirit who beheaded her lovers, searching for one whose soul could match her own. When none did, she offered herself to the rot."

Akamir blinked. "That’s—"

"Insane?" Nayomi gave a weak laugh. "All true myths are."

Silence fell between them.

Akamir clenched his fists. "The fairies—"

"They’re gone," she said, voice trembling now. "I couldn’t save them. I tried, I—"

She cut herself off, biting her lip. "They were mutilated so they couldn’t scream. Used like bait in a trap. I should’ve seen it sooner."

Akamir looked down at the scars on his arm where the skull-vines had latched. "We barely made it out."

Nayomi didn’t respond.

Silence lingered between them as they both kept their silence.

After a whole minute of nothing, Nayomi slowly looked at him.

"Let’s make a deal." She said, her voice serious. "From this day onwards, I will teach you everything that I have ever learned."

Akamir blinked. "Everything?"

Nayomi nodded solemnly. "You saw it too, didn’t you? The tower. The rot. That thing. It’s not sleeping anymore. It’s hunting."

She stood, her light drifting softly in the air. "I can’t keep protecting you forever."

Akamir’s jaw tightened. "I didn’t ask you to."

"If you die. I die." She replied, looking down at him. "It’s not out of care but out of necessity."

He rubbed his temples, looking at her. "What do you want in return?"

She drew in a deep breath.

"Help me create a new body."

She said, looking into his crimson eyes.

"Help me...Clean the spirit world."

Akamir thought about her offer for a long time.

...

As soon as Akamir returned to his room in Vyavan Dukedom, the paralyzing aftereffect grabbed him.

He quickly shifted his body so he fell on the bed and not on the floor.

"Urgh."

He groaned as he felt his muscles twitch all over his body.

"Hmm?"

From the angle his head was, he saw a letter close to his door.

"Did someone slide it inside?"

Akamir wondered aloud as he concentrated.

Using telekinesis, he made the letter float in front of him.

Nayomi grabbed it from the air, making him surprised.

’She can hold things? I never knew.’

"It’s a joining letter."

She said, turning the front in his direction.

"The headmistress of Pendora Academy awaits your arrival."

Akamir stared blankly at the letter.

"Fuck."