Chapter 375
In every lifetime, she always tried to love someone—anyone she believed bore a resemblance, a familiar vibration, or even the faintest hollow hope that this might be him, the reincarnation of Xavier.
Yet each time, after efforts of love and deep observation, she was forced to confirm a bitter truth.
Xavier's soul had not reincarnated in that life.
He was not there.
The acknowledgment of this failure was not merely disappointment, but a final verdict for Myra.
An acute sense of loss, combined with her faith in their promise and perhaps an existential exhaustion, drove her toward the same single escape.
After confirming her mistake, she would kill herself.
Suicide became a ritual of transition, a way to end the wrong chapter and immediately leap into the next life, carrying the same fragile hope.
The cycle repeated endlessly.
The stupidity and futility of this cycle reached an incomprehensible level.
It occurred so often, so many times, that even the most basic mathematical concept from her original world—the Berkeley cardinal concept that served as the foundation for understanding even one-dimensional reality—could no longer interpret or calculate how many times Erietta, in the form of Myra, had reincarnated and fallen in love with the wrong person.
It was a number beyond logic, a suffering whose quantity itself became a cosmic absurdity.
Each life was an experiment in failure, each death a painful reset, and the love she sought was always one step ahead—or perhaps not there at all.
Until at last, the culmination of all that exhaustion, weariness, and inner torment arrived.
In one lifetime, after once again flatly rejecting the love of a man who was not Xavier, the weary Erietta felt something different.
Not from within, but from outside.
A transmission—or rather, a tremendous burst of cosmic energy—spread across the boundaries of the universal box.
The burst possessed a concentrated force at a single point in the multiverse.
Most importantly, Myra, with her hazy memories, assessed the intensity and quality of that cosmic energy.
It felt strikingly similar, almost identical, to the resonance of power born from the fusion of Xavier XVII's five elements.
It was a sign—a signal she believed was no coincidence.
Without lingering in doubt or further consideration, Myra Astrielle in that lifetime made her decision.
She had rejected the wrong love, and now she had been given a clue.
With newly blazing conviction, she ended her current life once more, committing suicide with a different purpose.
This time, she believed it would be her final reincarnation.
Myra Astrielle's soul launched itself toward its target, centered on a point on Earth, within this version of the universal box—precisely where that Xavier-like cosmic burst had occurred.
'Born from a loveless union, then discarded just like that.'
Yes, this was the first birth of that soul under the identity of Erietta Bathee. A beginning far removed from the glory and magnificence of her previous life as Myra Astrielle, Mother of the Gods.
This birth was not a celebration, but a bitter decree of fate.
From her very first breath, it was determined that Erietta was born unwanted.
Her status was that of an illegitimate child, the product of an unofficial relationship considered a stain by Erietta's original family.
She entered the world not with welcome, but with shame that needed to be cast away.
There was no place for her in an illegitimate lineage, and so she was discarded like trash that had to be removed to preserve a good name.
Yet amid the cold rejection, there remained a sliver of human compassion.
Perhaps from a midwife, a distant relative, or even a neighbor of those who abandoned her.
Genuine pity and sympathy arose, though perhaps mixed with a desire to cleanse their own reputation of trouble.
Rather than letting the baby die neglected, they decided to entrust her elsewhere.
The still-reddened and helpless Erietta was brought to an orphanage.
That place became her first true home—a building perhaps modest, filled with other children who also carried stories of loss and rejection.
'We come from the same place.'
Then, without hesitation or any attempt to conceal the information, Erietta said it.
Her voice may have been flat, or perhaps carried a simple tone of admission.
She informed whoever heard her in the train—or perhaps only muttered it to herself—that she actually knew Ilux perfectly well.
Her reason was not strategy or surveillance, but the most ordinary and fundamental childhood bond.
Once, she and Ilux had come from the same orphanage.
That confession opened a small door to Erietta's past before the Star Academy.
She and Ilux had once shared the same roof and played in the same yard.
They were two entrusted children, though for different reasons.
Erietta had been entrusted because of her status as an unwanted illegitimate child—a stain that had to be hidden.
Meanwhile, Ilux, based on what Erietta could confirm or assume, had been placed in the orphanage for unclear reasons from his parents.
Perhaps there had been family problems, a crisis, or other practical reasons that forced them to entrust their legitimate child.
What was certain, according to Erietta's knowledge, was that Ilux had been born legitimate, with proper family ties and lineage—unlike herself.
'Too quiet.'
Inside the rumbling train cabin, a silent scene was displayed like a tense living painting.
Theo and Aldraya, now perfectly disguised as the Head and Vice Head of the Bathee family, stood upright before one another, positioning themselves like two commanders facing off.
Their posture was stiff and authoritative, a flawless pantomime of military hierarchy.
Yet their true focus was not directed at each other.
Their gazes, hidden behind masks of indifference and authority, were fixed like two invisible pairs of lasers upon the figure seated by the window.
Erietta Bathee, her green hair cascading freely, was immersed in her own reverie, utterly unaware of the intensity of scrutiny directed at her.
At first, not a single sound left their mouths.
The silence they maintained was a weapon—a way to hear more than mere words.
Aldraya, in her disguise as the cold vice head, concentrated entirely on Erietta.
Her eyes, now identical in color to the real vice head's, swept over every minor detail.
She observed the rhythm of Erietta's breathing, the slowed blinking as she sank into thought, the micro-expressions that might reveal confusion, sorrow, or fear hidden beneath her calm surface.
Aldraya's own face remained flat—a blank canvas that offered no clue as to what she analyzed or felt.
She was a living surveillance camera, recording without readable judgment.
Meanwhile, Theo, now in the form of the Chairman with his black coat absorbing the light, performed his task differently.
His gloved hand skillfully held his beloved small yellow book—the same book he once used to record executions.
With nearly soundless movement, he opened it.
His fingers, now unfamiliar yet trained, danced across the paper, writing swiftly and neatly.
To be continued…