Chapter 80: Awakening of the White Lotus
Seraphel
Mirevale let out a harsh groan of irritation and flicked her wrist. Behind me, the edge of the cliff cracked violently. Large boulders broke away from the cliffside, tumbling into the endless, silent abyss below.
"I am not going to waste the child’s existence," Mirevale said smoothly, a cold, calculating smile spreading across her lips. "I am merely going to extract its divine core before it forms. We will raise its energy in Elysium—turning it into a weapon for the gods rather than a savior for the Sins. Strip the child away, and your precious Prince of Lust will lose his greatest source of power forever!"
My fists clenched so tightly my knuckles turned stark white.
"You want to turn my baby into a weapon for your petty war?" I growled, wrapping both arms protectively around my waist. "Over my dead body! You will never take my child from me!"
Mirevale tilted her head, watching my desperate defiance before bursting into a loud, mocking laugh that echoed across the void.
"And what, pray tell, are you going to do to stop me?" she sneered. "You posture like a warrior, yet you have no magic! You are a useless, fragile human with not a single drop of spiritual energy in your veins. I will tear the core from your womb, leave you hollow, and toss your corpse off this cliff. If I were you, I would save my breath and accept your fate."
She reached up and slowly peeled off her leather gloves. Beneath them, her hands were horrific—pale, translucent skin wrapped in pulsing, ink-black vines that slithered beneath her flesh like living parasites.
This was why she was called the Goddess of Death. Her very touch radiated decay.
I bit my lower lip so hard I tasted copper. A bitter wave of self-loathing washed over me.
Why did I have to transmigrate into such a powerless character? I wanted so badly to fight back, to protect the little life I had grown to love.
Back in the real world, I had been the exact same way—a pushover who let people walk all over me, someone who never stood up for themselves.
Was I really going to repeat that same pathetic pattern here? Was I going to watch my child be stolen and repurposed as a holy weapon, while I died helplessly on a forgotten rock?
Nathan... you really are going to die a pathetic loser in real life and in this stupid story.
Mirevale raised her black-veined hands toward the sky and began to chant in an ancient, forgotten tongue.
"Esputelia, edotielia reatulia... Mors extractum, infantis lux ex silentio revocatur... Veni, origo peccati, ex alvo ad thronum mortis!"
(Extract the death, recall the child’s light from the silence... Come, origin of sin, from the womb to the throne of death!)
Her voice doubled and tripled, echoing like a hundred sinister choir voices screaming inside my skull. The sound was so agonizingly loud that I clapped my hands over my ears, squeezing my eyes shut as tears of pure pain spilled past my lashes.
I braced for the end, letting my head fall back as a single tear traced a path down my cheek.
This is it. This is where I die.
Suddenly, an unimaginable weight slammed into my stomach.
My eyes snapped open in sheer shock.
A stream of pitch-black light was erupting from Mirevale’s palms, snaking through the air and plunging directly into my abdomen. The dark magic wasn’t bright, but it was suffocatingly heavy. It flooded my veins like liquid ice, violently lifting my body several feet off the ground.
I gritted my teeth as the dark spell pulled at my core, feeling as if my soul were physically being torn in two.
"Azriel!" I screamed into the void, the sound ripping from my throat with a desperate power I didn’t know I possessed—even though I knew he was worlds away, trapped outside her domain.
Tears poured down my face as I felt a faint, warm aura begin to drift out from my chest.
It was a soft, glowing golden light—the divine core of my unborn child.
I was weeping, completely paralyzed as I watched my baby’s life force slip away. I am so weak... so utterly useless...
"No, you are not."
A gentle, ethereal voice echoed directly inside my head—a voice that sounded remarkably like my own.
In the blink of an eye, the agonizing dark light vanished. The suffocating pain, the height, the black-and-white cliff—all of it faded away.
I blinked, finding myself standing barefoot upon the surface of a vast, mirror-like ocean that stretched infinitely in all directions.
Ripples expanded beneath my feet with every step. Directly in front of me, floating at the center of the serene water, was a massive, pristine white lotus glowing with a soft, radiant light.
The lotus petals slowly unfurled, revealing a figure standing at its heart.
My eyes widened in disbelief. Standing before me was another version of myself—adorned in flowing, celestial white robes, with long, shimmering silver-white hair cascading down his back.
"Castiel?" I whispered, my voice trembling.
"I am glad you remember me, Seraphel," Castiel said softly, offering a serene, gentle smile. "I feared the chaotic waves of the time loop might have erased me from your mind."
I pointed a shaky finger at him, my mind spinning. "You... you told me before that you are the guardian spirit of the White Lotus. Why am I here? Did Mirevale succeed?! Am I dead?! Is the baby gone?!"
Castiel gazed at me with profound warmth, remaining silent for a moment as if reading the frantic, terrified thoughts racing through my soul.
Slowly, he shook his head.
"Mirevale has not succeeded," Castiel revealed gently. "Her dark spell threatened the child, which alerted the White Lotus residing deep within your soul. It has forcibly awakened a portion of your hidden power."
"My... hidden power?"
I looked down toward the floating white lotus. Swirling around its petals were brilliant threads of sapphire-blue light—vibrant, pulsing, and overflowing with ancient magic.
"I have magic?" I asked, completely bewildered.
"You possess a power far greater than you can currently comprehend," Castiel confirmed with a nod.
"Then tell me!" I pleaded, stepping forward on the glassy water. "If I have this power, why couldn’t I use it before? What am I?’’