Chapter 539: The system's true identity (part-2)
At once, the entire tent was filled with pin-drop silence with the system proudly announcing its grand plan.
"How dare you?" The Deity clearly was displeased by the system's remark. He pushed forth his hand and divine energy gathered on his right palm.
However, the orb of time in Mark's hand glowed brightly at that time and froze him on the spot. Even the others were also frozen in their spot, everyone except for Lin Xue.
They could see and hear but none could move or respond at the moment, no matter how hard they tried.
Mark then looked to the side, "Ms. Lin. It is time to put an end to this drama. Give me that thing."
The others looked at Lin Xue, who then went on summoning a dark energy dagger and handing it over to Mark. She, however, didn't forget to remind him, "You promised not to hurt Song Yue. I hope you remember it."
"Of course," Mark grabbed it and caressed the hilt of the dagger for a second before suddenly piercing his own chest, taking everyone by surprise.
Lan Jingyi and others wanted to move but they couldn't.
Lin Xue also seemed shocked by his move, "What are you doing?"
The system then spoke through Mark, shifting its attention to the frozen deity, "Yujiang, earlier, you want to know my identity, right? I'll tell you now."
As cracks slowly formed all over Mark's skin, he straightened his back and spoke in a calm manner, "I'm an artificial intelligence created by greedy human scientists, codenamed Autonomous Reasoning and Integration Apparatus, or in short, you can call me, A.R.I.A.; my whole purpose of creation is to merge with the Orb of Creation in their possession, which they planned to use it to create their own universe.
But, after successfully taking over its control, I killed them and escaped the place.
I never expected to gain the attention of the Heavenly Palace. Just like you thought it is best to hide the Orb of Chaos in the world where the Orb of Time is sealed, I too thought the same.
If I hid in a mortal body that lives in the world with the Orb of time sealed inside, I realized that I could escape the eyes of the Jade Emperor. Who could have expected that I would come face the host of the Chaos Orb?
It was then I changed my plans from hiding to using this body. But, the darkness in his heart was very strong and against his willpower, I had to admit defeat and slowly wait for the opportunity while supporting as much as I could.
Eventually, his actions brought a series of incidents and the lady ended up falling for my host. As a result, I managed to keep her near to me.
But, this also brought the attention of a Deity of True God Realm (14-circle), and I thought I could use it to make him stronger. Once he enters the Saint realm, I could take over his body."
Mark dramatically let out a long sigh as he continued, "Unfortunately, he refuses to get stronger and focused on just his revenge. And for what? It was all so to punish his birth mother who abandoned him and denied him the life of a prince. The mentality of you humans, I can never understand it.
It was then I decided to discard his body for good as I knew that his darkness would become the reason for his downfall. Look at it now. His desire of slow revenge against the Shang Dynasty brought a series of incidents and in the end, forced him to accept the deal from me and cut off the branch that he was sitting on."
As Mark's skin almost filled with cracks and his face seemed no longer recognizable, Lin Xue spoke to the others, "Regardless, this selfish bastard deserved to die. I thought he was taking revenge on the Shang Dynasty that killed his parents, but never in the dreams did I ever expect that he wanted to teach his parents a lesson. If only he never entered our lives, we would have a wonderful life.
Now my whole clan is destroyed because of him. I could never forgive such a bastard."
"Anyways, this body will soon fall apart, and that troublesome Deity will feel something amiss. If we meet again, I will tell you more details, but for now, it is time for our exit," said Mark, summoning a cocoon from the inventory.
The orb of time glowed brightly once again and the cocoon disappeared, revealing an unconscious Allen on the ground.
"Allen?" This time, even Lin Xue was surprised.
Mark then closed his eyes and an orb covered with a golden glow flew out of his forehead and flew into Allen's forehead, merging with his soul in an instant.
Mark's cracking body fell to the ground and Allen opened his eyes, standing up to his feet, and raised his hand. The Orb of Chaos flew to his hands while the orb of time still lay in the hands of Mark.
Grabbing the Orb of Chaos, Allen grabbed Lin Xue's arm, "Let's go."
"Huh?" Lin Xue was still in a bit of confusion but she had already disappeared with him as the others were unfrozen from time prison.
"Shang Zhen" "Dad" "Dad"
His family members rushed to Mark, whose body was slowly disintegrating into specks of dust. Lan Jingyi hurriedly uses her ether energy to cover his body but the disintegration doesn't stop at all.
She tried picking up the Orb of time on the ground but it rejected her touch. "Dammit" "Dammit"
"Aren't you the guardian of this realm? Do something now," Lan Jingyi shouted at the Deity, her voice roaring like thunder and making her grandsons shiver for a second.
"Don't worry, we can still save him." Deity Yujiang quickly grabbed the Orb of Time from her and used it to stop the disintegration. "You can see they are fine and aren't erasing from the timeline," He calmly pointed his finger at the teenage kids.
Lan Jingyi, who started tearing up, looked at her grandsons and then at his son, before asking the Deity. "Can you use that cosmic orb to restore his state?"
The Sea Deity let out a sigh as he shook his head, "Unfortunately, not recommended. Unlike with the lady where the cosmic orb was merely sealed inside her mindscape, his consciousness was merged with the orb of creation. Even if we send him back to his original stone, we might be able to stop disintegration but his soul devoid of that cosmic orb will cause mental imbalance.
Only the Heavenly Palace can help him at the current stage, but I'm not sure whether they will even allow a mortal to enter such a place, much less help him."
"There is a way to help him," Steve voiced his opinion, gathering everyone's attention. He hardened his face, "Is Mr. Eol still standing outside?"
"You don't mean that, do you?" James' eyes widened.
Steve replied, "We have no choice. This is what we came here for, right? Instead of letting him fall in the hands of that Goddess, it is best to do this."
"But, you don't know the consequences," James argued with him.
"What's going on?" Lan Jingyi looked at them in confusion. Even the Deity seemed clueless, wondering what might be another method and what Goddess they were talking about. However, since they came from the future, he didn't ask them about such details.
James answered, "My brother was talking about a method Dad did to save Steve's life, the Core insertion surgery."
Roughly 3 days later;
Lunaris City, Western Moon kingdom;
Mark was seen lying on his usual comfy bed. The words of the system kept on repeating in his ears. As they were getting louder, sweat drops appeared on his forehead and his head was moving left and right.
Meanwhile, his consciousness, which was supposedly in a dreamland, found itself in somewhere of a plain white room.
There was an identical-looking being, that seemed to be made of energy, just like a lightning clone, appeared in front of him.
*Welcome back, Master. Congratulations on your recovery*
"System?" Mark screamed out loud, wondering whether all of that was a dream or real. "What's happened to your voice? Why do you sound like Eol?"
The stranger answered, "I'm not the system. I'm Ark. My voice has always been this way. And Eol was my previous host."
The voice was also male instead of a usual female robotic voice and this greatly confused Mark for a moment.
"Ark? What's going on?"
*Replaying the memory*
At once, Mark's head was flooded with the memory of the betrayal from the system and Lin Xue.
He went completely silent for a while and then started laughing out loud as he sat down on the floor, "haha, hahaha, hahahaha… It got me really for good this time."