Chapter 39: Armageddon And Nyxare’s Origin

Ystella took a few steps toward the doorway at right and then halted.

Alex watched her with vigilant eyes, and she pointed at the room beside hers and said, "You can sleep in there."

He nodded, and she walked into her room.

He stood still for a few minutes and mumbled, "What did she mean by those words?"

"Agh! I can already feel that things are about to get strange," he muttered in an annoyed tone and walked to the doorway beside Ystella’s room.

Upon entering the room, his gaze fell on a cupboard and a bed.

After making sure that there were no traps, he lay in the bed and closed his eyes.

The night passed, and the sunlight streaming through the blue windows fell on him, but he was too fatigued to wake up.

As he slept, a sweet aroma drifted into his nose and pulled him out of his sleep.

His eyes slowly opened, and he rubbed the sleep off them before asking in a confused tone, "Where am I...?"

He sat up in his bed and looked around, and upon seeing the familiar walls, he mumbled, "Right... I had entered the cottage."

His expression suddenly darkened, and he whispered in a dejected tone, "I wasn’t planning to sleep."

As he grumbled over his failure at being vigilant, the sweet aroma once again brushed past his nose, and he turned his head toward the hall.

"What is this sweet smell?"

The wooden floor creaked as he stepped down from the bed and left the room.

As he stepped into the hall, his gaze landed on the two plates placed on the twin sides of the table.

Where is she? He walked over to the table, and a faint hum reached his ears.

He followed the hum, and the sweet smell intensified – the sound was coming from the kitchen, where Ystella was preparing breakfast.

She wore a fitted pair of brown leather pants, a white shirt, and brown leather boots with her silver hair tied in a ponytail.

Damn... Alex watched her for a few moments, his face turned red, and feeling his gaze, Ystella smiled and turned her head toward him.

"Why don’t you go get fresh instead?" She mumbled with a mischievous smile.

He instantly looked away and stammered, "A-Alright.

She pointed toward the right. "Go out, you’ll find the toilet and the bath."

He nodded and quickly left the place.

Seeing him storm out, she chuckled and continued cooking.

After getting refreshed, Alex returned to the cottage and found Ystella sitting in a chair with two large bowls placed at the center of the table, between the two plates.

His face reddened slightly as he walked over to the empty chair opposite hers, and before he could say anything, she stated, "Let’s eat first."

Alex nodded in silence, and they began to eat.

The left bowl had fried rice while the right one had a sweet and savory gravy with large pieces of meat.

As he ate the gravy, the sweetness and savoriness of the gravy and the meaty flavor of the tender meat filled his mouth.

For the next few minutes, they ate in silence, and once he finished, he placed the spoon onto the plate and said, "Thanks. It was delicious."

Ystella smiled and leaned back in her chair, staring at him with her usual faint smile. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

He also stared into her eyes and finally asked, "I think we should have our pending conversation."

She nodded, and her head turned toward her armor.

He too looked at it, and she asked after returning her gaze back to him, "What do you know about Armageddon?"

Hearing the word, a surprised expression appeared on his face.

Many NPCs were aware of Armageddon, but it hadn’t been mentioned so early into the original story.

Seeing his face, Ystella concluded, "So you know about it."

"I do." He nodded slowly and continued, "Armageddon was the war between the Primordials... it is said that it had no victor because all of them died."

Ystella nodded. "That’s right. It is believed that during Armageddon, a drop of Primordial Night’s blood fell on a barren land, turning the place fertile and the ground pitch-black."

"Later, that place became Nyxare."

"I wasn’t aware of that," he mumbled curiously.

Nyxare wasn’t mentioned a lot in Villain’s Ascension, mainly because it was just a starter city made to punish Players who had failed to save themselves in the Starting Zones.

"I wasn’t either. It’s what the church tells us, paladins."

He frowned. "Are you sure that you can tell me that?"

Hearing his worried voice, she let out a chuckle and said, "You don’t have to worry about me, Alex. The reason I am still a paladin is that I want to find out what the church is hiding."

"What do you mean?" He pressed.

"Didn’t you see it yourself? The temple hidden behind the veil... if it was true that Nyxare is just a place where Prime Night’s blood had fallen, then why is a temple of a different Primordial here?" She asked with a serious expression.

Seems like she doesn’t know that it belongs to Primordial Darkness.

Alex blinked a few times and muttered in utter disbelief, "That temple isn’t of Goddess Nyx?!"

She shook her head. "It isn’t."

"How are you so sure about it?" He asked with surprise still filling his eyes.

Ystella had already expected him to ask that, so she pointed at her armor and said,

"Our armors are forged from Nyxsteel, and whenever we are near any of Nyx’s monuments, our strength increases... however, nothing of the sort happened when I had entered that temple."

"Wait! If it makes you stronger while being near Nyx’s monuments, shouldn’t it work throughout the city? This place is blessed by her blood after all," he surmised.

"That’s the thing. The church told us that the blooddrop has lost most of its power, so it doesn’t work throughout the area but only beside the goddess statues placed all over the inner city."

Hmm? What is she talking about? Alex frowned and muttered, "What statues? I didn’t see any while making my way here to the cemetery."

"What?"