3.3 - Èmó shān's Despair/The Temple of Light's Great Mistake

Scarlett took out her bow and started to shoot her mana arrows to see what she could do to it.

-10

Her heart dropped but then she had an Idea. She began to channel her flames and her light ability all together. A dense wave of energy radiated from her body as the flames slowly linked together with the light, creating a sort of luminescent crimson color. Her hair waved around wildly as she drew back her bowstring, generating an arrow.

Èmó shān felt danger from this next arrow and set up a darkness barrier between it and the arrow but what happened next shocked it.

"The arrow came out like a beam of lightning and tore through the barrier, hitting it in the middle section of the mountain. All of the vegetation and demons on it were suddenly lit on fire and the flames quickly spread like a fierce wind had hit it. Before Èmó shān realized it, it was on fire.

It quickly began to generate dark energy to try and ward off the flames which worked but at a cost. Anywhere the flames went out, they exploded violently, forming craters on the surface and dealing large amounts of damage.

He screamed and shouted as he realized that the pu y human was also not to be trifled with casualy. Now it was taking her seriously.

Scarlett had just started getting closer when the scroll flew out of her inventory. It made a gesture that was saying to move faster and then tect appeared on her screen. [Move faster! The other part of me can't hold on much longer!]

Scarlett paused for a second before activating her wings of sylvan and breaking into the air and flying towards the mountain like a jet.

Èmó shān saw Scarlett approaching and said, "A newbie light bearer and Inheritor of not only the golden crow sacred flame but the Phoenix flame as well? I will gladly add these treasures to my collection." A hand grew out of the mountain as a ball of darkness formed in its hand, rapidly growing until it was ready to release.

[Shoot the ball! Shoot it now!] A voice in Scarlett's head said and she didn't hesitate. She shot another 'holy flame arrow' at the ball of darkness and... it sunk in like it was going into water.

The arrow suddenly exploded inside of it... and then there was a reaction. The ball puffed up and slowly began to expand.

[Get out of here!]

The text appeared as Scarlett was starting to double time it back.

"Noooooooooo!" Èmó shān shouted out as he lost control of the dark energy ball. The mountain demon began to chant something in its own toungue as it tried to save itself. Unfortunately, it was too late.

The explosion was something out of a horror movie. Something like an everlasting darkness instantly consumed the entire area Scarlett felt the darkness trying to consume her when a sudden light barrier appeared, burning any and all darkness in its path.

Scarlett was unable to move though as she was still shocked by the magnitude of this explosion. She was sure that her hearing was damaged but everything else seemed alright.

Scarlett eventually saw the darkness begin to receed. When it was all gone, what she saw shocked her, a litteral loot mountain.

[You have killed Èmó shān and prevented him from finding a way to the mainland. Rewarded with 15,000,000xp, 1,000 gold, 2 levels to all skills...]

Essentially, she was rewarded with alot of things but what she had her eye on was this dark vortex that appeared in the middle of all the loot.

She walked foward and began picking up all of the loot that she deemed to have a use like materials, special items, weapons and armor. once she was done sorting through this, she breathed in a sigh of relief as she only had 1 space left in all of her inventory bags combined.

She finally turned towards the black vortex of darkness. For some reason, she felt a kind of connection between it and herself.

[I will take over from here...] The text appeared just as the glowing scroll came out of her inventory. Scarlett watched with bated breath as the scroll got closer and closer to the dark vortex.

[Brother, is that you?]

[Yes, Ď̴̡͉̜̍̅̈́a̷̻̦̫̯̔ṟ̵̛̊k̵̤̀̽̒͝. Let us join back together and find our balance once again.]

It went inside. The vortex suddenly closed for a second but then came back as a swirling vortex full of dark and light energy.

[Thank you, Lightbearer.] Scarlett heard their voices this time around. It sounded like 2 voices speaking at the same time and was really odd. [But I am sorry to say this but the task of a light bearer is what some qould say to be a thankless job.]

"What do you mean?" Scarlett was now confused. What does it mean by this?

"The light abilities that have been praised ever so highly, have a nasty side effect. The ability sucks away your life essence everytime you use it. If not for me earlier, that explosion of light from within you would have aged you until you were your own grandmother." Scarlett widened her eyes in horror.

"Why... why wouldn't..."

"...wouldn't they tell you? It's very simple, you are one of the blessed ones as we like to call you. A person who can die and be revived by the almighty one above. Your light powers however... those old fogeys in the Temple of Light still believe that you can be revived by the almighty one but in reality, the elemental balance within yourself was broken the moment you became a light bearer. Not many light bearers make it past their 2nd decade as a Lightbearer before the symptoms start to show."

"You should be glad I showed up because for the sake of balance within our crazy world, I will help you find your balance once more." The vortex began to haver closer to Scarlett.

"Wait." The vortex stopped. "This... is a lot to take in at the moment. Let me think for a moment" Scarlett's mind was doing gymnastics, trying to process all of this new but very helpful information. She took a while but eventually, she stabilized her thoughts before saying, "What do I need to do?"

[You have started the hidden path quest: Intertwining Light with Darkness.]

"It's simple, really. Accept us."

[This is a very dangerous fork on your path of glory. Are you sure you want to go through with this?] [Yes/No]

Without hesitation, Scarlett chose yes and suddenly, tendrils of dark and light energy shot out of the vortex and entered Scarlett's body. Scarlett's vision turned black and then suddenly filled with light as she found herself in an entirely new location.

Scarlett looked around wide eyed at her surroundings as there was stuff that shouldn't even be able to be transfered into a game. One of these things were her memories. She saw the day her father came back to tell her that her mother died, The first day of high school, the train accident... All of these significant moment of time in her life were replaying like a movie.

"So lightbearer... you want to control this power?" A voice from close by but also far away spoke to her.

"I... I need to control this power, to... defeat those who want to hurt what I want to protect." Scarlett said hoping that stutter wont get her crushed by what ever thing was talking.

"Protect... what a familiar word... but something that that feels... distant... Lightbearer... do you think that you can show me... show me how to protect, show me how... how to help those in need?" The voice became melancholic as it asked her, almost pleading her.

Scarlett was once again amazed by the artificial intelligence in this game as she saw a large ball of light and darkness energy forming in front of her.

[Do you wish to protect the realms with the power of Primal Chaos?]

[Yes/No]

Scarlett once again selected yes and the swirling mass of white and black began to mix together suddenly. The reaction was swift and violent. Explosion after explosion made Scarlett's hair blow back wildly as she was somehow unaffected by this series of events. She watched on as the mass of swirling light and dark energy slowly shrunk down as they combined into a gray like matter.

Eventually, all of it mixed together and formed a floating orb of gray matter.

[Place your hand within the graymist and accept us.] The voice said to her. As if in a trance, Scarlett placed her hand inside of the orb and the graymist orb began to expand as it opened up enough to wrap Scarlett up in something like a cocoon.

Scarlett went unconscious during this event at this time. Her body curled into a fetal position as if she was an infant in the womb, waiting to be birthed. Her body was then fed the graymist cocoon through her skin. This graymist was slowly absorbed by Scarlett as she underwent a huge transformation.

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Meanwhile, in the outside world, the Moonlight Mercenaries were getting ready for bed when they realized that they hadn't seen Scarlett all day.

"Is she still in the game, Athena?" Athena was the last person on after all of them got off. She was also surprised to not see Scarlett off the game yet.

"I guess she is but it shouldn't be much longer before she comes out." Let's prepare dinner so she can eat something when she comes out. Athena said and went to the kitchen. Cecillia and Scott followed as they also wanted to cook. The rest waited around in the lounge area, hoping that they were worried for nothing.

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2 hours later...

Scarlett woke up in an empty field in the middle of the night. It took her a little while to realize that she was still in the game.

[Intertwining Light and Dark - The Power of Primal Chaos: You have gained the ability to control yin and yang energies. You have kept all of your previously owned abilities with the addition of all of the basic yin and yang abilities.]

Before Scarlett could explore her new abilities, an alarm went off, startling her. She had that alarm set for if she stayed on too late so she looked on the clock and saw that it was almost 12 at midnight. She immediately logged off and got out of the VR Cabin.

Getting out, she immediately noticed that her hair that had been red for the past few days had now gone back to being black. It was a bit wierd but it could be easily explained later on. Right now, she needed to take a shower.

She grabbed herself a change of clothes and began to take a shower.

Meanwhile, everyone in the house was relieved wheb they heard water running in her room. Around 30 minutes later, they saw... a black haired Scarlett come down the stairs and look at them.

"Did you finally decide to dye your hair to a normal color?" Scarlett nodded absentmindedly and looked at the food on the table. She immediately made a b-line for it and before everyone knew, she was halfway through devouring her plate of food. When she finished, it hadn't even been 3 minutes. She went to the fridge and got a bottle of nutrient fluid. She chugged it down and after that she called it a night and went to bed.

Everyone looked at her strangely and asked themselves why Scarlett dyed her hair in the middle of the night but didn't bother since it was so late. They all decided to follow her example and go to bed as well.