"How is it possible for you not to see any when the church has placed Goddess statues throughout the inner city?" Ystella asked with a dumbfounded expression.

Hearing her, Alex’s expression darkened.

Is it because of Prime Paradox or Primum Horrendi?

As both of them were something he did not know about, he couldn’t point out what the issue was.

It could be that it was caused by one or both, or neither. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

He clenched his fists under the table and muttered with an embarrassed face, "I must have missed them."

Ystella didn’t speak for a while and stared into his eyes. She seemed to have noticed that something was troubling him, and she chose to ignore it.

"Probably. It’s a large city after all," she stated.

He gave her a faint smile and nodded.

Though the smile soon disappeared, his expression turned serious.

"You still haven’t told me why you are living above a place that hides the temple of a god you do not worship."

"I want to know the truth," she answered.

He tilted his head and pressed, "I do not understand."

Her gaze shifted toward the white roses visible through the blue window, and she mumbled,

"Whenever the Shadow Puppets drag someone into the veil, a symbol appears on the wall. However, that symbol isn’t of that Unknown God but of Goddess Nyx. I don’t understand why that is..."

Hmm... it could be that Nyx had created that place to choose a successor for Erebus’s Domain. The two were husband and wife after all.

"Maybe Goddess Nyx was somehow related to that Unknown God?" He suggested while rubbing his chin with a thoughtful expression.

She blinked a few times and mumbled, "That can be possible..."

It is. He remarked inwardly and with all seriousness, he asked, "Lady Ystella... Do you know anything about Seed of Darkness?"

However, just as those words left his lips. Ystella’s expression turned icy cold, and her eyes sharpened.

"How do you know of it?"

Alex’s eyes flickered with surprise. At the same time, he was joyful that he could finally learn about the Seed of Darkness though she didn’t seem like she wanted to talk about it.

"I am searching for it," he mumbled. "If I don’t find it in time, I will die."

"Dying just because you can’t find something? I’ve never heard anything so stupid," she muttered flatly.

"I believe dying that way would be even stupider," he added with a forced chuckle.

Silence stretched as she stared at him for a while, and then she said, "I don’t know if it truly exists or not, but according to the church, it is Nyxare’s spirit."

A bounded spirit! Alex’s eyes widened.

On some rare occasions, spirits merged with physical entities such as weapons, armors, artifacts, and even places.

These spirits were called bounded spirits, and they could make use of that physical entity just like how a person would.

Though in the case of location-bound spirits, they had control over the place, allowing them to do any phenomenon they wished.

Obviously, there were some constraints to their power.

So Seed of Darkness is a spirit bound to Nyxare... As Alex registered that, he remembered the strange event that had happened on his very first time in the inner city.

That voice must’ve been of the Seed of Darkness, and it is hiding itself from me... but why?

Seeing his expression switch from joy to confusion, Ystella tapped on the table and muttered, "You cannot find it unless it decides to meet you. Give up your foolish dreams, Alex Blade."

He finally came out of his thoughts and looked at her. His expression darkened.

"Why are you telling me all of this?"

Ystella tilted her head and muttered while feigning ignorance, "What do you mean?"

"Even though there was no need, you told me everything. Why is that?"

For a few minutes, she stayed silent as though considering something important, something personal.

Soon her eyes calmed, advising that she had come to a decision.

She rose from her chair and turned around with her back toward Alex.

"What are you doing?" He asked with furrowed brows, and instead of answering, Ystella unbuttoned her shirt and began to undress.

"W-Wait!" He sprang from his chair and stammered, "W-What the hell are you doing?"

She ignored his childish theatrics and continued.

He looked away, his face red as he mumbled in a barely audible voice, "W-Well if that’s what you want to do..."

"Look at me," she said.

He steeled himself and turned his gaze back at her. As he looked, his eyes widened.

"How?"

On her back, she had a black mark of a snake wrapping around her back and abdomen. Although it was similar to Alex’s twin snake marks, this one seemed to be an adult snake while his were younger.

How does she have that mark?! Is she a half spirit? No, that’s impossible – the system wouldn’t have called me a contradiction.

Ystella rolled her shirt back and turned toward him with a faint smile. She pointed at him and said, "I got this when I first entered the Unknown Temple, and when I saw you having similar marks, I told you to come here."

It’s a blessing... Alex remarked inwardly.

Blessings were a form of elementals where they themselves chose you as their master. Each blessing had a unique ability, but as he had gained his by turning into a Pseudo Shadow Spirit, he believed [Shadow Movement] and [Shadow Eyes] to be his unique abilities.

Seeing his baffled face, she let out a chuckle and pointed at her sword, placed beside her armor. "I also found that sword in there. It allows me to control the wall, and the Shadow Puppets no longer attack me."

"You told me everything just because I have something similar to you?" He mumbled while frowning.

She looked at him with a calm expression and said, "For me, it’s difficult to live knowing there’s no one like me... Many would find my situation exhilarating, but I find it lonely."