Chapter 880 Four Pillars: Anomaly
Chapter 880 Four Pillars: Anomaly
Whoosh!
Returning back to the Gates of Transcendence now that the memory was finished, Valyr stared off into the horizon for a bit, going over all of the information he had obtained from the memory in silence.
By the time he had made sure he committed everything to memory, the young man let out a faint sigh before looking at Vaughn with a slightly bitter smile.
"To think that everything was the result of one decision," said Valyr, causing Vaughn to flash a bitter smile of his own.
"I still feel a bit of regret from the event since that decision caused many lives to wither away," replied the man. "However, now that many years have passed since then, I feel like I'd made the same decision."
At those words, Valyr faintly nodded in understanding. "Exchanging your civilization's freedom for something that's technically free isn't a good deal by all means."
Hearing that, Vaughn nodded in agreement. "You could definitely say that again."
After that, the two of them talked a bit more about the memory the two of them had viewed, with Valyr slowly filling in the other missing parts of the greater narrative through it.
In the end, it took Valyr a few hours to make sure he had obtained everything he needed to know to make the greater narrative complete, feeling a faint sense of satisfaction because of it.
'If Mystia or any historian from Veldanyr knew that I had knowledge of something like this, they'd probably go crazy,' thought the young man to himself, causing a faint smirk to appear on the edges of his lips.
But of course, even though he and Vaughn were talking about what had happened in Veldanyr in the past all this time, that did not mean that he had forgotten the question that Vaughn dodged answering.
"Alright, then." Looking at Vaughn with a calm expression, a faint smile could be seen on Valyr's eyes. "Now that we're done looking through the memory, can you tell me what you were holding off on saying earlier?"
Unsurprisingly, Vaughn began to act oblivious.
"Holding off on saying what?"
Valyr merely let out a sigh in response, telling Vaughn that he knew what he was doing.
After that, he went over what he had told the man earlier regarding the prophecies made known to him through the Imperial Alchemist.
Fortunately, the man dropped the act after hearing that. "The Heralds and the one regarding the being greater than Heralds, right?"
"That one, yes." Valyr nodded.
Nodding back, Vaughn then asked, "Did that Imperial Alchemist person give a name or a title for that being?"
"She call those beings Harbingers," replied Valyr, unsure of where Vaughn was leading the conversation to.
"Harbingers, huh…" At the young man's words, Vaughn let out a slight chuckle. "Well, the word does have greater impact when compared to something like a Herald."
"Plus, it's way better than the original name I went with naming this second being."
"What name did you come up with?" asked Valyr in response, now curious.
"It's far less fanciful than Harbinger, that's for sure," said Vaughn with a shrug. "A bit derogatory, even."
"Then again, the name I came up with is more direct than something like Harbinger, so I'll continue sticking with it."
Just as Valyr was about to directly ask Vaughn for the name with how roundabout he was with it, the latter soon dropped the name out of nowhere, causing an ever-familiar sound to echo in Valyr's mind the moment he heard it.
"Anomaly."
"The beings that are greater than Heralds… I call them Anomalies."
Ding!
[You have gained a piece of information regarding your true identity.]
Briefly reading through the notification he'd received, Valyr looked back at Vaughn with slightly widened eyes, his gaze telling the latter why he decided to name those beings Anomalies.
As if he was reading the young man's gaze, Vaughn smiled in amusement. "Remember how I said earlier that those prophecies were more like conjectures?"
"I wasn't lying when I said that."
With that, the man then went on about how the conjectures came to be while he was in the midst of completing Operation Hope.
Having found the right amount of blood that would give the humans he created enough physical strength to fend for themselves, the man soon pondered as to what would happen if he were to… cohabitate beside them.
Though he felt a hint of disgust from the thought since the humans were his own creation, the man still went along with it, making use of the advanced technology to obtain his answer.
Surprisingly, he found out that if he were to combine himself with the humans he made through Operation Hope, there would eventually come a generation where a descendant would be born with a far larger ratio of his own blood in their body.
Understanding that more of his own blood would mean greater strength for them, Vaughn looked at the result with a bit of surprise.
At the same time, it caused him to think about pushing Operation Hope to greater heights, wondering if it was possible to create humans that had this amount of blood in their bodies without relying on chance.
"Because of that, the side project was created, bringing the Heralds to life," explained Vaughn. "It's the same reason why those descendants that inherited more of my own blood are called Heralds."
"How about the Anomalies, then?" asked Valyr after that. "How did they come to be?"
"The same thought process," replied Vaughn with a slightly bitter smile. "I checked what would happen if I were to cohabitate with Heralds."
"The result that I obtained was that there would eventually come a descendant that would have all of their blood be my own blood."
"In other words, they would turn out to have similar qualities to the humans of the past." Nôv(el)B\\jnn
Ding!
[You have gained a piece of information regarding your true identity.]
Hearing a notification go off in his mind once more, Valyr briefly looked at it for a bit before continuing the conversation.
"Wait, that doesn't make sense," he replied. "Does that mean that you… cohabitated with a Herald from the Zeihardt clan, then?"
"Surprisingly, no." Vaughn shook his head. "All of the Heralds I made back then actually ended up becoming the founders of the various noble and imperial clans you see today."
Though he was surprised to hear such a fact from the man, the young man continued with his questioning.
"Then, how…?"
"More testing, of course." Vaughn faintly smiled. "Since me cohabitating with a Herald meant that an Anomaly would arise, I checked if an Anomaly would also arise if I were to do it with a normal human created through Operation Hope."
"It took a long time, but the machines in the laboratory eventually gave me an answer," replied the man. "They said that an Anomaly would only come about after a few Heralds had appeared in that Anomaly's lineage."
"After a bit more checking, I found out that the magic number was seven Heralds, which equates to who knows how many years after I established the Zeihardt clan."
"In any case, I've figured it out from the start that you're asking all of these to answer a question you've long wanted the answers to," said Vaughn after that, prompting Valyr to nod as he remained silent.
Smiling back, Vaughn then nodded. "That Imperial Alchemist was correct. She might have called you a Harbinger, but I will call you an Anomaly."
"However, if I were to phrase your identity more nicely…"
"Then you're the true inheritor... the sole inheritor of my… no."
"The sole inheritor of the Darkstar lineage."
Ding!