The moment his palm touched her body, the world became silent—her face pale as Asura's red pupils looked once more at the woman who ruined his past life.
A sudden thundering howl boomed.
Like distorted thunder, the world turned monochrome when the intensity of his flames exploded from her back.
The explosion and beam lasted less than a heartbeat as they flashed, and a calm silence greeted the room.
"a...g.h..... ughk..... buh..."
Verena tried to speak, her mouth bubbling with blood as she gasped and choked. Her eyes dilated as her body trembled.
She desperately looked at Asura with pleading eyes filled with tears, a single hand attempting to reach his face.
Yet without power, it dropped to the side as he removed his palm from her pelvis, revealing a huge bloody hole. "So you weren't even pregnant when you mocked and killed me... what an amusing woman you were."
His words caused her face to distort into a solemn visage. Her lips quivered while her bloody tongue tried to move and clear her airway, with down-turned eyes pleading.
"S....a...v... ghk...m....e..."
Her voice gurgled. Her pleas fell on deaf ears.
The white pupils returned as he stood up and stepped back, a cold, emotionless gaze looking at her suffering.
"Verena, thank you for revealing the truth and pushing me this far. I truly appreciate it." Asura's voice seemed calm, his eyes no longer filled with anger or disgust when looking at her collapsing figure as he grabbed her with his arm to avoid her falling on the floor.
"Ghuk... ughk.... khurk.." Verena struggled to breathe, her eyes filled with hopelessness as she looked at Asura, desperately reaching a hand towards his face.
"I imagine if we met in this life, where I had the power, you might not have killed Verana or done stupid things. Our story together might have changed, however... because of your actions. That's now impossible, you understand, right?" Asura said as his flaming pupils stared directly into her.
Her trembling hand reached his cheeks. "ah... ghurk... gurk..." Verena tried to speak.
"Hmph... Don't worry, and I won't let you vanish alone. I will devour everything you have before the tower can take it back." His handsome face watched her, devoid of sympathy, as he closed his eyes and opened his mouth before moving his head forward, gently touching her cracked, luscious pink lips.
"A....n...gh...gg..gh... ghu..." Asura's mouth opened, cutting off Verena's voice—his large serpentine tongue wrapped around hers and sucked.
He continued sucking with a rhythm as his eyes opened and gazed into her soul, witnessing her slowly fade away, filling him with the fragments of her soul; this illusion was born from the genuine Verena of his past life somehow... The kiss wasn't romantic, but cold and cruel, despite this... The face of Verena looked happy.
'This tower is strange... It can steal fragments of other worlds' souls.'
Her soul was his prize as she gradually vanished within his mouth and travelled to his body, where he sensed her last regrets.
That she never slept with Shang Luo despite professing as such and that her act was about to set herself apart from Verana desperately amused him slightly, his lips curling into a macabre smile as the illusion faded.
"Something is different. The tower feels more aggressive, and I feel unwelcome now. Is it because I devoured Auros' and Verana's soul fragments?" Asura wondered while checking the room and noticed the strange tomb was missing, now replaced by a black coffin.
"Perhaps those who enter the tower leave a trace of themselves, a piece of their soul?" He guessed while rubbing his chin. Yet the mysterious black coffin intrigued him.
However, the moment he reached for it, the sound of chains rattling echoed, growing louder before his eyes distorted, and the tower forced him into the second rest zone.
"Hmm, something has changed..."
Asura's four parallel thoughts spun as he analysed the change.
"First, I didn't need to use the weird portal to move here. Does the tower have its sense of consciousness or soul?"
He came to this conclusion when remembering Helliana inside his spirit palace... Maybe that coffin contained someone or the existence of who keeps this tower running.
"Second, my flames have changed..." With a flick of his wrist, snapping two fingers, a brilliant white flame appeared—the more it fluttered, the more the surroundings seemed to fill with life. Flowers slowly bloomed, and the dull stone filled with water damage and moss became brand new and beautiful. "The white flame isn't destruction, but rebirth?"
Analysing his flame, Asura smiled in satisfaction and pondered the previous changes.
"Third, I have less time left in this tower. The master will try to finish me on the next set of floors. Hmph, just try it. The Asura of yesterday might feel fear or a sense of worry."
Time felt tense and pressured him as if on a countdown as his skin crawled from an unknown threat, but he was no longer the same.
He accepted three of his past lifetimes:
The clown gained from his previous lifetime as Asura.
The Traitor gained from his dark lifetime as Auros.
The Sacrifice from the lifetime as Sura.
He had many debts, many failures, and many successes.
However, he no longer denied those lives. His heart felt calm, and he accepted everything.
"But from what I learned, I should never have been reborn as Asura again. The pattern is always a new life, new world or time... Something kept me bound to this body, this fate."
[.....]
"Asura?" A gentle voice accosted him, the familiar low and sweet tone very familiar. "Ah... you look handsome, but where did the horns go? Those little flicks of hair are cute."
She noticed his changes, proving how she watched him when they met.
The moment he turned around, a small camp burned with various meats and veg on a steaming bed, the beautiful black hair shimmering in the orange light as her blood-red eyes watched him. 'I know everything, Verana.'
He stepped forward, not revealing anything as his face remained calm, approaching her as she looked at him inquisitively, her eyebrows lifting and her mouth opening as if to speak to him, stopping as her slender hands clenched into fists.
'I know how you suffered... agonised... and waited far longer than I did.'
"I... You look the same, but... you've changed." Verana stood up, her eyes narrowing as she hesitantly tried to approach. Her steps were heavy, and her brows scrunched as if expecting him to reject her.
"I have."
Asura could only lift his lips slightly, a small but rare smile as his left hand reached out, her fragile body trembling momentarily before he touched her beautiful, soft cheek.
Verana closed her eyes and moved her head to rest on his hand, his warmth seeming to relieve her as she relaxed her shoulders.
"Thank you for waiting."
Verana's eyes trembled at his words as her neck jerked, and she looked at him blankly.
For a moment, silence with only the crackling of flames and fat of the meat sizzling sounded before a single drop... followed by a stream of tears flooding from her eyes, her face scrunched up, the sorrow in her half-closed eyes, the trembling of her red lips as she stuttered.
"y...ou...forgive...me?"
Her voice was deep, a mixture of happiness and shock, as she repeated, "You forgive me?"
"I don't hate you for what you did. I admire you." His right arm reached out and rested on her tight hip before pulling her towards him.
His arms embraced her—he placed her head on his chest—as he whispered. "I accept everything about you, from that lifetime to now."
"!!!"
It was over.
The thoughts she held, the frustration, panic, sorrow, joy, regret and despair, suddenly melted into his chest as if he could absorb everything and leave her with only the positive and happy emotions. Her tears soaked his chest as her loud sobs vibrated on his body.
"You were trapped, just as I was." His words were soft as he rubbed her back.
"You must have suffered terribly from everything she did." Verana's voice cracked—her anger, frustration, and deep-rooted despair from the past years seeped out like an inverted fountain.
"But I'm glad you are free, at least for now." Asura looked down at her face. She looked confused before he leaned down, his face approaching as he whispered again, "Because I won't let you go this time."
"....!!!!" Verana's face flushed red, and her eyes widened before her body heated—her legs turned soft, and her body crumpled like jelly in his embrace.
His right hand softly grabbed her chin before a hot, soft kiss stole her breath. 'It makes me feel like scum, kissing both sisters within a few minutes of each other... haha.'
However, she quickly calmed his worries as her delicate arms wrapped around his neck—unlike her sister, she opened her mouth first... and Asura felt a sense of nostalgia.
'Yes... this is the woman I spent a decade kissing... It was her all this time.'
'This feeling... I have her again. Finally.'
As the heat rose in his chest, Asura thought, he wasn't sure whether it was passion or excitement, but he felt liberated after accepting everything—his heart would no longer be in conflict.
Not regarding this girl, although he knew it might take time to repair and build a new relationship. He felt a sense of freedom with his heart no longer treating her as an enemy and blinding him.
Verana's seductive tongue moved—her red eyes gazing into him with a hint of shyness—but also the hunger and need that had grown after centuries.
'Just relax, Verana. I won't go anywhere.' He could only feel her desperation to taste and savour this moment, a soft grunt escaping from him as her lips and tongue attacked him with a voracious need to devour him.
After what felt like an eternity of kissing, Verana's eyes and face glowed—her red pupils shining with a diamond-like sparkle that pierced Asura's heart—the passion of their tongues separated.
Her mouth sucked the last of his saliva into her mouth as she swallowed it under his gaze, and she grabbed his hand and led him to the fire.
"What is it?" His gaze couldn't help but move toward her chest and her erotic buttocks as she walked with an enticing sway of her hips.
"Sit on the rock." She smiled at him—it was the first time Asura had seen her this way. He could see the life in her eyes.
The deeper meaning behind her smile calmed Asura. He could breathe a sigh of relief. She finally smiled in this life.
'Let me savour every moment,' He decided, closing his eyes and sitting on the warm rock.
"Good boy." She laughed as Asura didn't protest her request. Her beautiful hands wrapped around his neck as she sat on his lap, resting her head on his shoulder.
"Hey... Verana."
"Mmmm...?"
"I killed Verena, but she wasn't pregnant, and I've read her soul's memories... She never slept with that eastern prince, either."
Verana shivered as her grip tightened—he felt her hot breath on his neck—before she sighed in relief and squeezed his body gently, placing her lips close to his ear and whispering.
"Thank you... She wasn't worthy of your revenge. She was a pathetic woman who squandered my mother's plans and ambition... My mother would never have let her suffer and follow the clan's rules... But I was a very awkward sister and cannot forgive her."
Her body pressed against his chest as she spoke. "I couldn't do anything about her. Only watch and wait. As she stole everything, humiliated you and then killed you."
"You deserved better. I was an idiot for believing she was my sister. If I were stronger..." Verana's voice trembled as she thought back to the past.
"It no longer matters. I planned to kill her... mercilessly in this life." Asura spoke calmly, his face barely changing shape, before looking down at Verana's lovely face.
"However, I will leave her to you in this life. My hatred for her seems to have vanished with the tower. I only seek to kill the one who destroyed my family... Knowing those were his plans now."
Verana nodded in his arms, "Thank you... thank you."
"Hey, Verana?"
"Hmm...?"
"Thank you for loving me." Asura smiled at her. His right hand stroked her long black hair and rubbed her head.