Secrets of the Universe

In the room, it was still clouded with a hazy and sharp air.

The banshee queen eyed the hole that the human she kicked made.

She couldn't estimate how far he went. So, she removed her focus from that.

On her chest region, grey blood poured from it. Anytime, it touched the floor, it disappeared.

She tried to heal herself, but, the effects of the human male's attack kicked in.

Coughing blood out rampantly, she fell to her knees and clutched her chest in pain.

Despite the attack not reaching her heart, her heart could feel how close it was to it and went into a stroke.

Not just that, that attack that damaged her was too powerful. She could understand why she was just succumbing too the effect now.

In her torturous pain, the queen found herself coughing a lot of blood at the egg behind her.

To her surprise, the blood did not disappear when it touched the egg.

*Clang!*

Her attention was removed from the egg and brought to the center of the room. 

The hazy air had begun dispersing and, while her face and skin burnt under its harshness, she could see two vague figures fighting against each other.

She was already in her weakened state. So, she could not afford to join the battle. She could only hope that her subjects were rushing to her right now!

As she was analyzing, she failed to notice that the egg behind her pulsed in a dark silver energy. It subtly absorbed the queen's blood that fell on it.

...…..

"Sh*t," cursed Eden.

As he continued fighting with the wraith, he spread his senses around.

He had noticed when Jake got catapulted out of the room. Hence, he also knew that Jake hadn't managed to kill the queen.

It was not his fault though. The latter had probably tried his best. That would also mean the queen was severely injured right now! 

Shouting loud, he informed, "River, claim the bounty, she's injured!" 

He already knew that River had covered the room with [Holy Dusts], making it a no-go area for the netherans for the meantime.

Renee was beside him, assisting him to take care of the wraith. So, the dice still fell back to River.

Focusing on the wraith, Eden smiled.

He was lucky that the wraith was severely injured by the bombs he threw. It was barely active right now, and it was immensely unstable, a sign that it was near death.

If not for its body state, Eden knew that he wouldn't be alive right now. The wraith would have killed him, using its elusive speed.

Eden decided to finish off the wraith and join River, "[Metallio Ver.1]!"

His inky energy coalesced around his body. It materialized in the form of metal sheets that wrapped around his body, making it seem like he wore thick armor.

Only his face was spared from the technique as he has not yet adjusted to a headgear.

Nodding at Renee, who had helped keep the wraith at bay, Eden jumped back into the fight!

............

As soon as she heard Eden's instruction, River ran to the position of the queen so as to not let her recover.

She brought out her chakram from her waist and charged her body with her energy.

Getting closer to the queen, she flung the weapon at her!

As expected, the queen easily dodged it, but River did not give up.

The chakram boomeranged back to her and she infused it with her energy, throwing back at the queen.

The weapon whistled in the air, but it didn't find itself in the queen's body as the other had other moved just in time.

Hiding her left arm from the queen's sight, River murmured something, but the queen didn't care.

She dashed at her attacker but was dumbfounded when she saw her attacker split into two.

Her eyes twinkled under the nightlight as she examined the two versions of her attacker, trying to find the original one.

After a while, the queen stopped in her tracks and asked, "Human, what is your name?"

"You don't need to know?" scoffed her attacker.

The queen wasn't angry when she heard that. 

She posed another question, "What is the name of your technique?"

"[Crystal Mirror]," answered the attacker, who saw no point in hiding the name.

All the while, the two versions of the queen's attacker had been replying to her, not giving a hint as to who the original was.

"Crystal mirror…...what a good name? It produces a reflection of the user. Using your [Water Element], after a lot of processes, you would be able to get the clearest reflection…...amazing," smiled the queen.

She shocked her attacker by instantly analyzing her technique.

Her attacker, River, was on edge as she could already feel the situation was going in a bad direction.

"If I attack one, and it's a false one, the other would attack me. I'm sure I would succumb to the next injury I receive," said the queen as she hugged her chest injury.

Quoting one of the phrases she had read, she began, "Then they looked around, they were surrounded...surrounded by their armies of foes..."

"Enough. [River Maze]," chanted a nervous River. 

The way the queen acted made her understand that she had to put in more effort.

Her reflections doubled. It tripled. It quadrupled…. Until it surrounded the queen….just like she had prophesied.

All the reflections, plus the original, moved closer to the queen, threatening to tear her apart with their respective chakrams.

However, the queen remained unmoved, "Tell me. Are you sad?"

River ignored her question.

"So, that's it. I'm guessing you recently encountered a tragic event caused by a netherans or something related to it. A homeless man would always curse the bountiful rain that fell from the sky," sighed the queen.

"Shut up," River got riled, but she didn't fall bait.

"Okay, it's alright," the queen said as her natural sad eyes hung low, "I have already gotten what I want."

Like a true monarch, she walked in the sea of her enemy. 

Everywhere, she passed, the figures of her enemy turned to water and lost shape.

"The first mistake you made was to move. I would be able to tell who is leading the movement, even if you are not in front."

She crossed another wave of 'River'.

"The second mistake you made was purposely trying to trick me by using a complicated formation."

She smashed through all the remaining 'Rivers' except one, the original.

"The third mistake you made was actually not your fault. The original you had more emotion than the others."

The trembling eyes of River watched as the queen came close to her in a dramatic manner.

She became paralyzed as the queen dragged her to the corner and thinly slit her throat with her nail.

When she fell down as she couldn't move, a trail of blood flowed to the egg mysteriously, but the queen still didn't notice as she was draining the life out of her attacker.

After she drained the last ember of life from River, the queen felt rejuvenated.

Suddenly, she heard a cracking sound from behind her.

She smiled and rushed at the wildly palpitating egg.

Placing her finger on it, she tried to absorb the egg's lifeforce, which had reached its peak.

Her dark grey energy battled against the dark silver of the egg. At first, it seemed like she was comfortably draining the energy, but something unimaginable happened next.

The grey energy linking her and the egg got corroded with dark silver lights, signifying the queen's loss of control.

She found herself been sucked into the egg by the dark silver energy. Before she could even react, she was sucked dry and permanently disappearing, leaving only a grey cold heart in the material world!

The queen had died, and subsequent to her death, a hand shot out of the egg