75 A Whole New World

"Eh?" Brynhildr looked at the unusual ritual being performed by Otto on the unconscious Issei.

"Wait... Was this it?" Otto muttered in confusion, glancing at the elaborate setup around them.

'Why isn't this working?'

He wondered, trying to figure out the unusual piece in the ritual. Otto had initially kidnapped Issei to fully steal his Boosted Gear, but something crucial seemed to be missing in the process.

"Hmmm, didn't we already get some of it a few years ago?" Brynhildr asked, her curiosity piqued.

"That's what I'm confused about," Otto replied, frustration creeping into his voice. He had assumed that the main part of Ddraig's soul was still within Issei, and he had planned to extract it to place it into his Star of Eden.

Brynhildr watched the proceedings with a bored expression, as the ritual showed no signs of progress.

"I think you should finish this quickly. Those devils might be looking for him," she suggested, glancing around as if expecting an ambush.

"Yeah..." Otto acknowledged, his mind still trying to piece together the ritual.

Several hours had passed, and there had been no unusual reaction from Issei's body after the red light had faded. Normally, extracting a Sacred Gear would cause intense pain, but Issei remained in a peaceful slumber.

"Hey Hildr..." Otto asked anxiously, turning to his sister with a puzzled expression.

"Yes dear~?" Brynhildr tilted her head, her playful demeanor unchanged.

"Can you identify what part of the soul you absorbed back then?"

"Nope." She shook her head. "It felt like eating plastic—though I've never actually eaten plastic."

Otto frowned, looking at Issei's body suspiciously. Something wasn't adding up. He replayed the events in his mind, trying to make sense of it.

Now that he thought about it, Ddraig seemed too confident in halving his soul to live.

'Could it be that the lizard transferred his main soul instead of just a part?' he theorized. But after seven years, he still hadn't heard from Ddraig nor could he feel its presence inside him.

"Something wrong?" Brynhildr asked, noticing his frustration.

"Yeah. I think Ddraig is inside me," he confessed. It was a bizarre conclusion, but the only one that seemed to fit the strange circumstances.

"Hmmm, so what would you do?" She asked, curiosity lacing her voice. She wondered if he intended to perform the same ritual on himself.

"Stab me with your spear and search my soul," Otto said, his tone resolute. He trusted her completely.

"Are you sure about this, Otto? It could be dangerous. And also, that's kinda kinky~," Brynhildr said, her playful smile quickly fading into concern.

"Yes, I'm serious," Otto replied firmly.

"Alright, alright... But it will hurt, you know, since I'm attacking your soul directly," Brynhildr warned. Hitting the soul was far worse than physical damage and could lead to permanent harm.

Otto braced himself, waiting for her to impale him.

"Bend down," she instructed.

"What?"

"I can't pierce you if you stand~" she playfully stated.

"I'm serious here," Otto retorted, clearly uncomfortable with the implication.

"Oh, can't you just relax? Just chill, I got this~" Brynhildr whispered seductively, noticing how tense Otto was.

'Now that I think about it... It's rare for him to get hurt nowadays...' she sighed internally.

"..." Otto eased up and let his defenses down.

"I'm putting it in~," Brynhildr teased, giving him a heads-up like how Otto had warned her during their first time together in bed.

The spear stopped at his skin, attempting to pierce, but it was unexpectedly too hard. Brynhildr struggled to penetrate just his skin.

"YOU'RE SO TIGHTTT~!" she joked, pushing her spear harder, causing the ground beneath her to crack.

"..."

'When did my skin become so hard?' Otto wondered as Brynhildr's spear should have easily pierced him without any problems.

"Why are you so thick-skinned?" Brynhildr joked, hiding her frustration.

'I should be happy that I'm so tanky, right?' Otto shrugged.

"Why not pull back and then pierce me again," he suggested.

She did as he wanted, but there still wasn't any sign of Otto getting hurt.

"Why won't I pierce you!? Are you hacking!?" she exclaimed in surprise.

"Mmmm... My defense is maxed so my lover couldn't penetrate me," he smirked, before helping her on the spear and plunging it inside himself, which smoothly impaled him.

"Aarghh, the fuck?" Otto grunted in pain, at the unexpected impalement.

"Huh?" Brynhildr had a confused expression on her face, wondering why it pierced through so easily this time.

"It must be the power of fri—I mean love, that made it work," Brynhildr nodded, watching Otto stagger.

Upon entering Otto's soul, Brynhildr was met with an unusual perspective, vastly different from what she remembered from when she previously resided inside him.

"Is this still my lover's soul!?" she exclaimed, astonished by the sight.

Unlike Ddraig's dark cave, Otto's soulscape was like several mountains towering above a sea of clouds. However, instead of white clouds, they were golden.

"..." She looked around, noticing the dense concentration of Divinity that permeated the air.

"Hmmm, was my lover an immortal cultivator in his past life!?" she joked, gasping at the possibility.

"Well, he must not have awakened his full memories. Mmmm, that must be it~ even though he was naive a few years back then." Brynhildr's mind danced with absurd conclusions.

"Hehehe—am I one of his jade beauties?" She laughed while continuing her search for a sign of Ddraig.

"He must've eaten an immortal pill, and sat for thousands of years and once done, reached the rank 8 ping pong to rank 2 ching chong, which is still a hundred ranks below the Heavenly Golden Dragon God Emperor Star Ancestor. But that's alright because he has 3000 chapters left to go, and all the big-shot elders who could kill him with a fart are currently busy doing their cultivator things. So he can go and wipe out a ding-dong clan, which obsessively wants him dead because he courted death by destroying the King-Kong clan after its young master picked a fight with him over his jade-like beauty childhood friend..."

Brynhildr tried to summarize her own version of Otto's past life, based on the novels she'd read in her free time.

"Look at this! This must be his immortal supreme temple," she declared, arriving at a golden temple nestled in the mountain.

Inside the temple, Brynhildr explored the grand halls, her steps echoing off the golden walls. The air was thick with Divinity, each breath she took filled her with a sense of overwhelming power. She wandered deeper into the temple until she found herself before a grand altar, held by four humongous golden chains imbued with Divinity. Near the altar, a red sparkling light glowed brightly, casting a warm crimson hue across the room.

"???" Brynhildr felt a strange familiarity with the light.

"Is this supposed to be the lizard that dear has been fixated about?" she wondered aloud, inspecting the surroundings. Apart from the red light's intense brightness, nothing else seemed out of place.

"Tsk, look at this lizard." Brynhildr scoffed, trying to grab the red light.

As she reached for it, she suddenly felt an ominous presence behind her. Her heart skipped a beat.

"!!—?" She quickly turned her head in a panic, eyes wide.

"You fucker, you scared the shit out of me!" she screamed at Mahoraga, who was sitting like a beggar, its eyes fixated on her.

Mahoraga tilted its head in confusion. It had been sitting there the entire time, undisturbed.

"Uwawa Gruuu," Mahoraga growled in an unknown language, its tone almost inquisitive.

"Tsk, you dog," Brynhildr muttered, wondering if they would end up fighting. Mahoraga's presence was unsettling, and she knew it was a formidable opponent.

She considered the odds. 'The crazy dog is certainly strong because of its adaptation ability. That it's downright hacking, the only way to beat the thing is by killing it with one hit before it could adapt to it, and its defense is no joke as well...' She sighed, realizing the difficulty of the fight if it were to happen.

Turning her attention to the red light, Brynhildr reached out and snatched it without any problems.

"Ah, finally, I'm free!!!" an excited voice echoed through the place.

"Shut the fuck up, lizard!" she said, clearly annoyed by the sudden outburst.

"Okay," Ddraig's voice responded sheepishly, the tone of excitement replaced with submission, aware that the woman holding his soul could easily suppress even Mahoraga.

"Why the fuck is your main soul here?" Brynhildr glared at the glowing red light, her grip tightening threateningly.

"Uhhh, that bast—friendly guy over there kept me 'safe' in the seal," Ddraig referred to Mahoraga, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

"..." Brynhildr gazed at Mahoraga, puzzled by what could have possibly terrified the prideful Welsh Red Dragon Emperor of Domination into submission.

'Wut?' Mahoraga stared back at her with a confused expression, having simply done his job of protecting his master's soul from dangerous foreign forces that could attack his soul.

Brynhildr shook her head, muttering to herself. "Of all things, a dragon afraid of a dog." And spoke like Mahoraga isn't a big deal.

"By the way, who are you, ma'am?" Ddraig asked politely.

"I am Otto's wife, Brynhildr" Brynhildr responded smugly, crossing her arms with a satisfied smile.

"Uhuh..." Ddraig muttered, the name 'Otto' triggering a bright memory of someone who had once almost claimed his ass virginity with a spear, nearly sending his soul to oblivion. He also felt like her name was familiar a long time ago.

"Answer my question." She demanded.

"Uhhh, I accidentally offer my soul instead of a part of it." Ddraig tried to be as convincing as possible, as he intentionally offered his main.

"... So you lied to us?" She menacingly said as she can easily rip him apart.

"I wouldn't say I lied..." Ddraig began, his voice a tad nervous as he sensed Brynhildr's threat. "More like... I didn't correct the assumption."

Brynhildr raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "You didn't correct the assumption? So you let us think you were just a small part of your own soul?"

"Well, yes and no," Ddraig stammered, trying to explain. "I mean, technically, I am a part of my soul. Just the main part."

"That's not how it works!" Brynhildr's patience was wearing thin, as she gave a sinister smile. "You were deliberately misleading him."

"Look Ma'am, I'm sorry that I tricked him, I just want to get out of here." Ddraig begged.

As the heated argument between Brynhildr and Ddraig continued to escalate, Mahoraga, sensing the rising tension, intervened to quell the conflict.

"Wrrryyy," he groaned, holding up a finger to his lips in a gesture for silence, before accidentally brushing his jawline and wiggling his finger.

The sudden interruption caught both Brynhildr and Ddraig off guard, causing them to fall silent and turn their attention to Mahoraga.

"Hmph," Brynhildr snorted, her frustration evident, before turning on her heel and leaving the temple. However, despite her annoyance, she couldn't deny the allure of exploring further inside Otto's soul, especially with Ddraig's soul in her hand.

As she walked away from the temple, her mind was filled with curiosity about what other interesting changes laid hidden within Otto's new inner world form.

"Hmmm, to think that kid—I mean Lord Otto's inner world could be this beautiful," Ddraig marveled. Throughout all his time as a sacred gear, no host had ever formed such a mesmerizing inner world as Otto's.

"Hmph, that's to be expected of my husband, after all," Brynhildr bragged as her tone filled with pride and admiration.

"Did you know that a person's inner world is often reflected in their past life's karma?" Brynhildr smirked, eager to share her own version of Otto's past life that she had just conjured up moments ago.

"Hmmm... That's quite interesting," Ddraig responded, taking her words at face value and finding them plausible.

'He bought that bullshit?'

Brynhildr was surprised at Ddraig's response, realizing that he hadn't even doubted her words. Encouraged by his acceptance, she continued to weave her narrative of Otto's past life, adding more over the top details with each passing moment.

As they ventured deeper into Otto's soul, they reached the densest part of the inner world. The golden clouds that had surrounded them now began to form a golden divine-like mist, creating an ethereal and mysterious atmosphere on the plateau terrain they stood upon.

"Where are we... I mean, what is this place?" Brynhildr muttered in curiosity as the environment suddenly shifted, revealing a new and unfamiliar landscape.

Brynhildr squinted her eyes, trying to peer into the distance of the mysterious plateau. Amidst the mist, she caught sight of something peculiar and out of place—a flower like she had seen before at the water in some Japanese shrines.

"A lotus?" She approached closer, confirming what type of it.

"It looks like it," Ddraig confirmed as he had seen it from his previous hosts.

"A lotus flower in Otto's inner world. how interesting," she mused, recalling the cool facts she learned after reading Chinese fantasy novels often associated with lotus with purity, enlightenment, and spiritual growth. As she had no real knowledge of Buddhist or Hinduism beliefs.

Brynhildr's mind was filled with intrusive thoughts as she gazed at the delicate lotus flower before her in Otto's inner world.

'Hmmm... Should I try to touch it?' she wondered, her curiosity piqued by the allure of the flower.

As she contemplated reaching out, a strange sensation washed over her. It was as if her consciousness was being pulled back to the real world, dragging Ddraig along with her.

"!!!" Brynhildr's eyes widened in surprise as she felt the abrupt shift.

"What did you do inside soul?" Otto's voice broke through her disoriented state, his concern evident as he noticed her discomfort.

"Huh?" Brynhildr blinked, trying to orient herself as she looked around with Ddraig's soul still in her hand.

"You alright?" Otto's expression softened, his worry deepening as he observed Brynhildr's unusual reaction. It was rare for her to experience such moments of disconnection.

Brynhildr shook her head slightly, trying to shake off the lingering effects of the experience in Otto's inner world.

"I... I think so. It's just... that your inner world had changed a lot, mmm yes." She nodded.

"Nooooooooooo— not this again—!" Ddraig's voice echoed faintly, a sense of déjà vu washing over him as he experienced a familiar sensation akin to when Mahoraga had sealed him away before. His soul was placed inside the orb, a state he had hoped to avoid after he had been free.

Brynhildr watched the scene unfold with surprise as Otto didn't even have second thoughts about Ddraig.

"If you're concerned about whether he was useful, I don't really care about his boost thing now," Otto stated. He explained that he already had Code: Unknown, which provided strength to his body, and combined with the Dharmachakra's ability to adapt, he felt well-equipped.

"And the only thing I need is knowledge. I don't want Ddraig to read my mind, it makes me uncomfortable," Otto clarified.

"Hmm, well, the lizard might be a hot chick, you know," Brynhildr remarked playfully, looking away. She suggested that Otto could change Ddraig into a female body, and taste of a dragussy.

"What?" Otto responded, clearly surprised by the sudden change in topic.

'Hell no... maybe?' He thought about it, recalling some fanfictions that portrayed Ddraig as a female. Some of them were confusing, suggesting that a dragon could be any gender or something like that, which following in fantasy standards he know of, dragons shouldn't have any genders...

He glanced at the Star of Eden, containing the soul of a Longinus gear. Thinking about it.

...

-Chapter End-

(A/N: pls point out mispellings or wrong grammar That would be much appreciated. I read comments... sometimes.)