Rogue Villain-Chapter 290: Two Sides

Fortunately, the blue sun’s destructive properties were no longer in the lead, and the three sources weren’t completely extinguished. But, in all their metaphysical glory, the three sources melted and mixed into a puddle, which, due to the searing heat, was refined, blended, and purged of impurities and unnecessaries.

It was an unlikely and unexpected event that would have never occurred if anything had been different.

Like the Stone of Wisdom, when the three sources had been completely refined and transformed into something new, something greater than the simple combination of Will, mana, and vitality, the Smelting Furnace expelled it and focused on taming the blue sun.

The new source escaped the seal put on the Smelting Furnace’s soul shard and joined the rest of Ackster’s soul inside the sphere created by the liquid Stone of Wisdom. At first, the swiveling lump of the new source floated separately from the Stone of Wisdom and the pile of soul shards.

But after coming in contact with the new source, the Stone of Wisdom opened up a path to the center of itself and the pile of mangled soul shards. It was the perfect building block to make up for what Ackster’s soul lacked.

The new source was compiled of three things that signified Ackster’s life and mortal body. Ackster’s Will was a metaphysical manifestation of his willpower, his intentions, needs, wants, and desires. It was an expression of his mind.

Ackster’s mana, while absorbed and trained through someone else’s manual, was the link between his body, the supernatural realm, and the rest of the world. Through his mana, Ackster was connected to the world and the world to him. The world remembered his mana and the imprint he had left behind in its history.

Ackster’s vitality was the bottomless well of energy at the core of his physical body. It was his heart and center. Without his vitality, Ackster would be without life.

The Will was his mind, the mana the echoes of his existence, and the vitality was his body and heart.

With the three of them in a superior combination, free from impurities and unnecessary imperfections from the world, a strange diet, and a clogged mind, the Stone of Wisdom could begin reconstructing Ackster’s body.

The Stone of Wisdom stole heat from the Smelting Furnace to soften, mold, and melt the soul shards, borrowing the light from Unstoppable and Survivalist to reignite the other shards. The Stone also used itself as a connecting material to fuse itself into and between the new source and Ackster’s soul, creating new life.

The large outer sphere of liquid Stone of Wisdom shrank and compressed what was inside it, further squeezing everything together in one coherent marble of the vestiges that characterized and remained of Ackster, the monstrous madman.

The deep purple color and the colorlessness from the Stone of Wisdom, the translucent, grey soul shards, and the dark green but occasionally clear white new source came together to create a marble that was sometimes a shadowy dark grey and sometimes a resplendent golden shine.

The colors didn’t follow any art teacher’s guide on what happens when you mix different paints. But the marble was the essence and condensation of Ackster and his life so far. It reflected his two sides. The side that wanted a peaceful and harmonious life in this world that was not Earth but full of wonder was golden, and the side that was willing to do anything to get it was almost black.

The two colors mixed, swirled, corrupted, and cleansed each other.

The golden desire for peace fed the resolution to do anything to get it. And the willingness to commit atrocities nourished Ackster’s need for harmony.

However, the marble wasn’t complete.

The fragment with the epitome of Ackster’s ability to suffer, grow, and feed on his victims, Smelting Furnace, was still not added to the mix.

The two colors, despite the balance, were far from calm. If left as they were, they would certainly lead Ackster to fierce mood swings and an unstable and violent temper.

So, even without having fully tamed the blue sun, Smelting Furnace fused into the marble before it was too late and used its heat to unite and control the fragments of Ackster’s wild personality.

That wasn’t how fire and heat worked. It didn’t calm things down.

But it was a representation.

Ackster used self-harming, painful, and fiery destructive methods to control himself and stop himself from going insane. He burned himself with the pain of growth to keep himself grounded and focused on his mission.

Smelting Furnace wasn’t the only skill symbolizing that aspect of Ackster. In a way, all of his skills were. But Smelting Furnace, the Sun God Token, and the blue sun were the keys to reigniting Ackster’s spark of life and exploding the marble into something more than an utmost treasure.

The trio of fire got to work as soon as they fused into the mysterious marble, and the temperature skyrocketed.

The marble was unaffected even as the Smelting Furnace repaired itself and could handle the collision between the freed blue sun and the reawakened Sun God Token. The Smelting Furnace even fostered the competition between the two and increased the temperature further, ventilating out the relatively cool air and creating a draft that incinerated the grass that had started sprouting in the valley again.

The dark and gold marble hovered in a pocket of steaming and boiling air as the temperature rose enough to ignite the marble, the combination of the Stone of Wisdom, the new source, and Ackster’s soul.

The marble blazed through the night seemingly without change except for the eternally increasing temperature that melted the snow on the tops of the mountain range’s farthest mountains.

Finally, as if crossing a threshold, the marble exploded with dense rainbow-colored light before a fully formed body replaced the light.

The body had muscles perfectly chiseled and aligned all over. The frame was perfectly proportioned. The skin was without flaws. And the face was a masterpiece without mortal equal.

The entire being could only be described with the word perfect. It was the ideal body and a face everyone could agree was attractive, regardless of preference. It was to the point where it was too attractive for a person to be drawn to it. The otherworldlyness and inhuman beauty was frightening.

"Ugh. Fucking hell. Shitty lizards. I’m beating the shit out of both of ’em as soon as I find them. Fuck that promise. Goddamn bitches."

But the words coming out of the person’s mouth were far from the beauty and grace belonging to the body.