My Ultimate OP System: Summoning All Dragons, Gods, Heroes & Villains

Bella then added, "Right before you stepped in, I explained everything that had to happen to get her to safety."

She paused, her gaze shifting from Ethan to Bettie. "But I could sense remnants of my power inside you."

"The darkness element?" Bettie asked.

Bella nodded. "Yes."

Then she stood slowly, walking toward Bettie before sitting on the table that served as the demarcation between them.

"May I?" she asked gently, gesturing toward her.

Bettie nodded, though there was uncertainty in her eyes.

"I need to see how deep the darkness runs," Isabella explained. "To understand what’s happening to you."

She reached forward and placed both hands on the sides of Bettie’s face. Then Isabella closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, extending her awareness into the darkness inside of Bettie.

It was like looking through a dark lens that revealed the inner workings of Bettie’s magical pathways.

Elizabeth’s mana circuits glowed faintly, it looked a delicate network of thin, thread-like channels running throughout her body.

But woven between those natural circuits were darker threads.

This was Isabella’s own darkness, still lingering inside Bettie’s body like invasive roots that had taken hold.

The remnants weren’t just surface-level. These strands of black energy coiled around Bettie’s natural mana pathways, and in some places, the darkness had merged so completely with her circuits that it was difficult to tell where Bettie’s own magic ended and Isabella’s residual power began.

The densest concentration was in Bettie’s brain.

Isabella’s eyes narrowed behind her closed lids as she focused on that area. The darkness had saturated the neural pathways responsible for magical comprehension and visualization.

It clung to the parts of her mind that processed spell logic, enhancing them, forcing them to expand beyond their natural limits.

That was why Bettie could suddenly comprehend higher-tier spells.

Isabella opened her eyes and pulled her hands back slowly.

Bettie’s breath became slightly uneven. "What... what did you see?"

Isabella answered. The darkness is m in your mana circuits, your brain, your heart. It’s everywhere."

Bettie’s eyes widened.

"And it’s not fading," Isabella continued. "It’s sustaining itself, but not in a way that brings you any bodily harm. If anything, your mana circuits have already accommodated the darkness. Because of that, you’ve adapted and evolved. It’s why you can cast higher-tier spells now."

Bettie’s hands trembled slightly. "That... has never happened before."

Bella nodded. "Yeah. We might be looking at the first recorded case of it."

Bettie hesitated, then asked quietly, "Can you... remove it?"

She wasn’t sure she liked unnatural changes like this. The idea of something foreign living inside, changing her from the inside out, made her uneasy.

Isabella sighed, then looked her directly in the eyes. "I can. But not without killing you."

Bettie gasped in shock. Even Ethan was taken aback.

Isabella’s expression remained calm. "It’s merged completely with you. Any attempt to remove it now would mean pulling at the strands attached to your own circuits. Your body wouldn’t survive the extraction."

Bettie’s face went pale. That was not a risk worth taking.

There was heavy for a moment.

Then Bettie asked, "And what about the dreams? Is this somehow connected to the darkness too?"

Bella hesitated for just a second, then said, "I don’t think so..."

However, right before she spoke, Ethan heard it.

Her heart rate skip a beat, which mostly happened when someone was lying.

He glanced at her briefly, but said nothing.

"I think it might just be the stress," Bella continued. "You went through a whole lot Elizabeth, then your body began adjusting to these new changes, and just after the final years graduated, you were already back the next week as an employee..

..You haven’t even give yourself time to recover. When was the last time you truly tried to relax?"

Bettie frowned. "But I mean... for a whole month?"

Bella leaned forward slightly. "It’s not entirely impossible. Trauma and stress don’t just disappear because you want them to. So maybe just consider resting, take a full week off. See if the nightmares continue. And if they do, then we can think of something else. Okay?"

Bettie nodded slowly, absorbing that. "Okay... that makes sense, I guess."

Then her expression shifted. "But what about the vision I saw when I looked at you in the hallway?"

Isabella’s response came quickly. "That was different."

Bettie looked at her curiously, waiting for more.

Isabella paused, then said, "That was... probably a memory."

"A memory?" Bettie repeated, confused. "But I don’t remember—"

"Well, you were unconscious," Isabella said, her tone uncertain. "But maybe not completely? I mean, who knows. Sometimes when people are in that state, they’re more aware than they realize. Like... half-awake."

Bettie’s brow furrowed.

Isabella shrugged slightly. "So when you saw me in the hallway, maybe it just triggered that thought."

Bettie stared at her with a look of uncertainty. But when nothing else came, she nodded, accepting the explanation even though it didn’t fully satisfy her.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Later that night...

At this point, Bettie had gone home, deciding to take Bella’s advice about resting and seeing if any changes occurred over the next week.

Isabella, on the other hand, had decided to spend the rest of the day with Ethan. Right now, she lay on his bare chest, staring into the Arcphone she was busy scrolling through.

The dim glow from the screen illuminated her face in the darkened room.

Ethan stared at the ceiling, mostly lost in thought. One of his hands rested on her lower back, rubbing her bum softly.

"Hey," Ethan began. "I want to ask something."

Isabella shifted slightly, adjusting her position so she could look up at him. "Yeah, go on, babe."

Ethan exhaled, then asked, "When you told Bettie the dreams weren’t connected to the darkness inside her, were you being totally honest?"

Bella sat up at that, taking some of the sheet with her to cover her nakedness. She had a somber look on her face, and for a moment, she was silent.

She couldn’t lie to him. So she came out clean, shaking her head as she said, "No... I wasn’t."

Ethan didn’t exactly look surprised, but he went on to ask, "Is there a reason why?"𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Bella nodded.

Right then, a flashback scene from earlier that day played back in her thoughts.

—

[Flashback Scene]

While Bella had examined Bettie, her awareness extending into the darkness inside of her, something else happened.

The darkness had pulled her deeper, and Isabella found herself floating in the void of a dark space, a subconscious realm of endless black in every direction.

And hovering in front of her was the entity.

This monstrous figure with glowing red eyes stared down at her, its form shifting and writhing like smoke given shape. It was massive, incomprehensible, terrifying to anyone else who might have seen it.

But Bella wasn’t scared. This wasn’t the first time she had met the entity inside of her.

In fact, as she watched, the entity folded upon itself. Its features twisted and contracted, morphing and reshaping until it took on a different form.

And now, Bella was directly faced with another version of herself.

This other version looked almost identical to her. Same face, same long black hair, same body. But there were differences.

Her eyes glowed with a reddish hue, and dark veins stretched from underneath her eyelids, spreading across her cheeks like. And she had this devious grin on her face.

The dark version tilted her head, her grin widening. "Hi again, me."

Bella’s expression remained flat. "Why are you choosing to leave fragments of your consciousness inside this girl?"