ALL NOVEL 429. Undeserving
Undeserving.
Shen embraced E'livia and felt utterly undeserving of being alive. He had died twice already. The first time, he had been brought back to life by the Gardener, obviously with some help from the drow, if his Persona's race was any indication. Now, he had been revived because dying was the right thing to do.
A bunch of coincidences. He hadn't earned any of that.
He was also undeserving of his power.
Sure, he had trained hard, but how many things had been given to him for free? For starters, he had been born with a golden spoon. Although he suffered from crippled meridians and the lack of a mother, even then, he was allowed to learn some techniques of the Feng Clan. When no solution was found for his meridians, his father sacrificed himself for Shen. It just happened that the Alliance was coming and healed him. There, he grew fast.
His meteoric rise was partially because of his solid martial arts foundations. Partially because Lagoth's High Heavens had given him great talent so they could use him. Partially because he met the right mentors at the right time.
Now, even Reality itself had been rearranged for him—because he succeeded in a tribulation that he had been pushed into when the Gardener forced the Baptism of Unmaking upon him. Shen could tell the Baptism wasn't meant to happen until he at least mastered his Path's Laws. Ideally, he should've been a B-rank to survive it and the ensuing tribulation. But he survived the Baptism itself because of his high willpower—also honed with other people's help—and the tribulation because of the True Heavens' ploy, which had twisted the Primordials' command to allow Realizators to survive after they shattered their Realization, which, in turn, allowed him to survive his Essence Confluence.
More coincidences. More unearned things.
So, what right did he have to look down upon the weak as beings to be dominated, as he had done before he killed himself? Everything he had had been given to him. Sure, he had some participation in it, but was he any different from a weapon that just happened to be crafted by a high-level artisan? Take his spear, Un'Re. It was glorious because it had been formed like that. It had no right to look down on weapons that just happened not to have the same opportunities as it had.
Even now, he was undeserving of his company.
E'livia wasn't perfect, but she was there for him. She had saved his life and had been exiled because of him. Although part of the reason she remained with him was not to feel so lonely, she did care for him. Not to mention that she was a Demi-Dominator, a peak combatant in the Overlord Realm. So, the Gardener even gave Shen a bodyguard when he teleported him away. A bodyguard who had romantic feelings for him.
Shen deserved absolutely nothing he had, and it humbled him.
Half the reason for the change of perspective was having his Will of Absolute Power attached to his essence. It was both weird and logical. Absolute Power was now such a deep part of himself that it became the lens through which he saw the world and himself. It was pathetically easy to see where he stood in the power hierarchy of Reality relative to the strong beings he had seen—and how he had gotten there.
The other half of the reason was his recovered memories. They humbled him further than he had already done in the Myriad Worlds. They rearranged his priorities, including the reason why he sought Absolute Power. It wasn't for power itself or for his benefit. His Will wanted power for power's sake, but when he mixed his Will with his essence, it was given perspective on... grander and more profound things.
Shen sought Absolute Power to Improve Reality one day. That's where his Domain Infinite Improvement had come from. That's the direction he would develop his Realization one day.
His focus on improvement, especially self-improvement, also helped him not dwell on his smallness for too long right now. He was weak and undeserving, but he still had the time to become someone worthy of what he had been given.
E'livia felt comforted in his arms when he embraced her, but she also tensed. She was lost and confused. He wanted to help her with that, but Shen realized he was also crushed by overwhelming loneliness.
He had lost them all. Again and again, everything and everyone he cared about was taken from him. In fact, he had also abandoned them in the end, before he died, seeking his own survival.
He wasn't just undeserving; he was a pile of steaming garbage—and he wanted validation, to feel cared for, and to lose himself in something beyond him.
Shen knew caressing E'livia's face might be a mistake, but he did it anyway, just as he knew he shouldn't make her look at him. But, as he told her when he looked into her eyes, "I won't regret this. If this is a mistake, it's my mistake to make, and I'll deal with the consequences." He kissed her forehead and closed his eyes, keeping his mouth there, then whispered, "Do you want to do something potentially stupid with me?"
He had focused so much on the future throughout his entire life! On the Absolute Power he would achieve in a very distant day. On the things he would fix when he could. On the perfect relationship he would develop when both parties were sure it was the undoubtably right thing to do.
The most valuable thing he gained with his One Self was understanding the importance of his feelings and of being true to himself. He was nowhere perfect. He wasn't even particularly special. Everything had been given to him. Why the hell was he focusing on a perfect ideal he couldn't achieve?
"By the Gardener, I do," E'livia said as she turned her head up. "I really want to be stupid right now."
They kissed.
The truth was that Shen had been sabotaging himself his whole life. He had always focused so much on the future that he forgot to live the present. And he was such an idiot that it took him two deaths to finally grasp the value of living a life worth living.
He wasn't sure how long the kiss lasted, but when it ended, they quickly found an inn to spend the night together.
"I'm sorry," Shen said.
It had been a week already, and this was the first time they stopped to talk about anything meaningful. It turned out he had a lot of pent-up stress to release, and so did E'livia. She also had a lot of anger and sadness to drown. He did his best to assist her, and she did his best to assist him.
E'livia, in her holin form—she could retract her wings—raised from his side and held her head in her hands, her elbows on the floor. She smiled at him. "Now you tell me you're sorry about making me the happiest woman in the multiverse? Too late."
He smiled back as he put one elbow on the floor and rested his head on his closed fist. He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear with the other hand. "No, I mean it. I'm sorry. I was so lost in my grief and the desire to just live... I'm not even the same Shen you met in the Myriad Worlds. It was unfair of me to bed you."
She playfully bit the finger he had used to push his hair...
...and, to his shame, that's all it took for him to realize he really, really had a lot of pent-up stress, and it wasn't all gone.
"I lied to you," E'livia said a few days later.
They were sitting on the floor, E'livia in his embrace, her back to him. The entire room had been destroyed, just as the ones below, causing significant structural damage to the inn. Nmara had appeared to form a protective energy bubble in the area for them. Shen was confident she had also paid for the damages. But that was a problem for future Shen to deal with—and the same could be said for his guilt about destroying someone's building.
Fortunately, the city's obsidian ground—which could be found a few feet below the D-tier stone slabs someone had covered it with—was C-tier and had withstood Shen's and E'livia's passion. She insisted doing it in the clouds would be better, but it would also make them too vulnerable, so they kept to the ground.
"You lied?" Shen asked.
"I don't feel that lonely," she replied. "I never did. I have you." She rested the back of her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I... I can see now how obsessive I was acting. It wasn't fair to you."
"That is an issue," Shen conceded. "But as I was saying, I'm sorry, too. I think we're both a bit egotistical in the end."
"That reminds me: what did you mean by not being the same Shen I met?"
He smiled. "That is a long story. The most relevant part starts with the Gardener resurrecting me..."
Shen told her everything about his latest tribulation. He also said a few things about his past in the Alliance and his enmity with the Primordials, whom he still considered assholes. They wanted to Purge the Alliance, and that would include the few people he cared about. He hoped to grow strong enough to fight for the drow when Lagoth's Co-Ruler, a Primordial, tried to get an Investiture. The drow deserved it for their involvement in reviving him, whatever they had done, and those Primordial bastards had it coming.
"That is a bit troublesome," E'livia replied after he was done. "To have mated with someone I know so little..." She sighed as she turned to face him. "It looks like I'll have to do my best to get to know you more, Mister Mystery."
Shen chucked. "Mister Mystery? Really? And to say it so sexily... You call that a line?"
E'livia smiled wickedly before approaching his ear and whispering. "Oh, are you unsatisfied, Mister Mystery? And here was I willing to let you explore those mysterious places in my body I had been unwilling—"
Shen immediately interrupted. "Mister Mystery presenting himself for duty!" He got to exploring right after.
Shen and E'livia actually talked for a few days in between their love-making sessions. Eventually, Shen commented how his almost-girlfriend Liya had been absolutely wrong about how sex wasn't all that compared to the wonders of the universe.
He expected E'livia to get jealous when he mentioned that, and while she got very slightly jealous, she reacted to that with a, "I'm monogamous, but I'm willing to look however you want to keep you into me."
That was weird to him, but she revealed it was a common practice in holin culture. Almost all of them were strictly monogamous, and even mortals of their race lived for thousands of years. So, they were taught to detach themselves from their physical image in case their partners grew bored in the future—that way, they wouldn't feel offended as they changed their looks in private to please. It happened a lot, and they had learned to find fun in that.
Shen replied, "I get not feeling attached to a body, believe me. I told you about my Persona. But also believe me in this: you'll suffice. Have you looked at yourself?"
She smiled pleasedly but wasn't convinced. "You say that now, but what in a thousand years? Ten thousand? A million? I also think this marvelous body of yours will be enough for me, but we'll see in a few hundred years."
He smiled back. "Oh. Is that a challenge? So be it. I'll prove to you that I can keep you entertained and wholly fulfilled with this body of mine to the day we part."
They never discussed how serious their relationship was or wasn't. There was no need to. They implicitly understood they were finding companionship in each other for now. If a new factor ever interfered with that—be it internal or external, good or bad—then they would talk about it.
E'livia chuckled as he pulled her. "I don't doubt you, Mister Mystery. But if I don't see wrong, Nmara will die when that sneaky assassin finally strikes. From what you told me of your old-new personality, you'll feel bad about it, won't you?"
Shen sighed. The energy bubble around them only blocked physical senses, not metaphysical ones. E'livia could feel everything outside with her Path, and he could see it with his Allvision.
He had been ready to protect Nmara but still wanted to have a last round with E'livia. As he had told her, touching someone's soul during sex was a unique and indescribable experience when you could feel your soul. He was almost addicted to it. He wanted at least a few months of reclusion to get used to it before dealing with the real world.
Alas, it wasn't to be.
Shen stood up and deployed his Domain of Infinite Improvement. It didn't push any of his Laws to mastery, but it covered the space the assassin was in, and his Law of True Boundlessness was close enough to mastery that it sufficed. Shen removed the limits of space forced upon the physicaa world by the Axiom of Spacetime between him and the assassin, teleported behind the guy, and gripped his neck in a swift move.
"Your clothes!" E'livia yelled right before Specetime mended back together behind Shen.