Shades of the New World

A brief moment later Kyune was looking through Evin's memories like she was seeing a series of still images flashing past her eyes. She couldn't hear what Evin was saying in these moments, though she could guess at what he was feeling through how the memories looked.

She saw his meeting with Lord Kena, his fight with the lesser-imposer, his later meeting with the Authorities, his talk with Authority Helain about something and the events that transpired in the Ekhri Tribe.

But the thing that she wanted to learn the most, the most important part about how he got a group of intelligent World Sprites was not explained. Kyune tried very hard to learn about these events, but weirdly, a certain part of Evin's memories seemed to be completely blocked off from outside access, namely the one that came right after his meeting with Authority Twelve Jokes and before he randomly appeared in a cocoon of Time energy. There was a literal wall regarding this area in Evin's mind, one that even Kyune, one of the most powerful experts in the world on memory, could not bypass.

But since Evin had just met the Authority of Time before this wall started appearing, Kyune could guess that the latter had done something to the boy, so they could keep some kind of secret under the rugs. But whatever it was, Kyune could see that it was extremely beneficial to the boy. And not just the boy, but to her as well, as it solved the biggest with her compatibility with Evin.

She had given him her own scent alongside the blood's will, so that the World Sprites would refer to him as [Mother] when they decided to call him for some reason or another. Kyune also instructed the blood's will to call him [Mother] as well, all for the purpose of having Evin feel more feminine. She'd also given him a hint about the topic as well, telling him to think simply about the topic of compatibility, though Evin seemed to have forgotten about it soon after and hadn't bothered to worry about it too much.

Kyune even started to think in a more manly way herself, so that the chances of them meeting in the middle became higher.

'I'd like to think that my arrangements had done wonders to make him feel that way, but it's obvious that something happened during this lapse in his memories that caused him to act in a much more feminine way compared to before…'

It wasn't an exaggeration to say that a Beast Lord required their candidate to be almost identical with themselves, so that the two could have a small chance at merging together. 

This was also the reason why Kyune was so shocked and excited about Evin's existence. The two's lives could easily be called similar to the point of confusion.

Both of them had a cynical and humorous attitude when dealing with most matters and both of them had rather aloof and introverted personalities.

They both lived through many years of solitude, and they both experienced certain tragedies regarding loss. For Kyune, it was the suicide of her children and for Evin; it was the deaths of many people he stalked while he was a spirit. 

These two incidents might seem a bit different on the surface, but this lead the two to have a very similar approach to things. For example, in the case of family, they both didn't mind showing love and affection to their families, but something in their bones was violently opposed to deeply attaching themselves to these people, and in Kyune's case, the World Sprites. 

Aside from the focal points, there were many small similarities that popped up here and there: their affinity for the same Worlds of Magic, their heartless attitude to the lives of their enemies, their easiness to accept certain losses or setbacks, their random and spontaneous desire for vanity and attention… all these things culminated to form a once in a lifetime chance for Kyune.

'I once cursed the Empress for putting such a territorial handicap on Beast Lords, but thankfully, she was kind enough to bring a suitable candidate from Earth and set it up in such a way that he was to meet me one day or another,' Kyune allowed herself the occasional narcissism. 

At any rate, after Evin's mystery incident with Authority Twelve Jokes, the World Sprites started to develop intelligence. From Evin's thoughts, Kyune didn't quite understand everything perfectly, but she guessed that they've been infected by foreign souls, which cause them to develop with much more variation than otherwise considered possible. At least that was what she derived from the visual memories she saw from Evin's head.

'I suppose I can forgive him if it's just this,' Kyune thought with a sigh, 'After all, all this could be considered an accident.'

Shaking her head, she continued to delve through the boy's memories. Even though she didn't need to, she was still curious to the things that happened to him.

The next incident was the one with the Serpent Beast Lord. The fact that the red-haired boy was chosen as another candidate shook her a bit, but she knew that her kind wasn't so rare as people made it out to be. By her estimations, each country had at least five to ten Beast Lords in their territories. The boy stumbling upon a few of them wasn't something so weird.

During this incident though, the foreign souls inside the World Sprites started to act up, so Evin had to cull them out of the World Sprites' bodies. At this point, Kyune was sure that Evin stumbled upon some sort of magic that involved souls, most likely something before the Empire. As for Evin culling the souls of these intruders, truthfully, Kyune wasn't sure if this was the right call or not. After all, she wasn't an expert on the subject of souls.

The way Kyune used to make the World Sprites smarter was through some complicated and advanced use of the World of Thoughts. If she had to borrow a terminology from Evin's memories, her children could be called very smart Artificial Intelligence.

At any rate, a month passed once more and in the end, Evin met the Somaturgy expert and decided to give Kyune a visit, it seemed. Thankfully Evin decided to do so after the Development Crew was finished with the town, or it would've been a bit hard to keep things secret if such random bystanders caught sight of Kyune.

'Especially so after I let myself fall into rage and had his new dimension bathe in my energy…' Kyune thought with a sigh.

Slowly and carefully, she dislodged her mind from the boy and saw the latter fall to the ground with a thud.

'Probably should've supported his fall,' Kyune thought and molded the ground to become a bit softer on his body.

She then started weaving together the World Sprite that she used to converse with others. Sadly, her physique didn't allow for her to speak proper human words, and directly transmitting her thoughts would be too painful for Evin to bear.

"I'm sorry for the sudden outburst just now," Kyune said through the World Sprite, as Evin regained his consciousness back.