She replied carefully, "How can we be sure that the ability does what you say it will do? What if it has side effects?"
Kelvin shook his head. "It doesn't have any side effects on you or me. You can trust me on that."
She insisted, "We can't rush things. Let's take time to do more research."
He began to understand what was going on. His face had a look of dawning realization as he said, "Wait a minute. You don't trust me. You're not concerned about side effects. You're only concerned if I am lying to you or not."
Wrath didn't refute him. Instead she gave an excuse. "Let me explain. This kind of thing shouldn't be possible. None of my paragons could manage it and I have never heard any human achieve it. But you say it is possible, and I'm supposed to believe you just like that."
"I would believe you if I didn't have the hopes of a whole world resting on my shoulders. But I have too much to risk to believe you."
"Even if you're right and it doesn't have any inherent side effects. But there can be other side effects, such as others using you to find me. Or using you to seal me."
"They tried that with my last paragon after he was captured after failing to kill the Patriarch. They imprisoned him to seal him. But it didn't work. He just died, and I found another one. But if I link my existence to yours, I won't be able to do that anymore. So I can't let you bind with my existence. I just can't allow anything to interfere with my existence."
Kelvin was so angry that he was laughing. He laughed so hard that he had to find a couch to sit on, or he would fall on his ass.
He shook his head and said, "What a fool I've been."
He laughed and said, "I thought I was the one who needed to trust you. I thought I was the one delaying the cooperation between us because I had issues with trust. It turned out that you don't trust me either."
She spoke out. "Don't be like that."
He asked her, "Why can't I be like that? Why didn't you tell me all of this the first time I found the Gemini ability? Why did you give me the silly excuse that it might not work just to stop me?"
"The truth is that you don't trust me. You keep secrets from me and trick me with lies. What a fool I've been!"
Wrath didn't say anything anymore. She didn't speak because she wanted him to relax and because he was right.
It is the truth that she didn't trust him. Not after knowing that Aganju had been speaking with him and knowing that he is capable of cooking up different kinds of abilities with his Power Shifting ability.
She just couldn't take what he said as the complete and honest truth. Even if he was speaking the truth, linking with him will bring danger to herself.
The two of them were silent. Wrath was mainly silent. Kelvin was grumbling to himself. He kept saying, "This can't work. It won't work. I don't need anyone."
He was saying gibberish and some unintelligible things that she didn't understand. It seemed her rejection had truly gotten to him.
Actually, Kelvin was considering a momentous decision. He didn't know if he should give it a try since he had a lot to lose if he failed.
Eventually he made up his mind and looked at her. He said, "Cooperation can't work between us. I'll never trust you, and you will never trust me. But hope is not lost."
Wrath felt uneasy as she asked, "What do you mean?"
He replied with a sinister smile, "My father always said that if you truly want something, you should take it by force."
He stopped using the Life Bond ability and withdrew it. But this only increased the unease that she was feeling.
She said, "Don't do anything rash."
He said coldly, "We are well past rash. Rash was when I gambled 350 game points on an ability that might not work. We have gone beyond that to the domain of treachery."
He wasn't looking at her when he said that. Instead he had his eyes closed as he concentrated his focus on his abilities.
His focus was mainly on two abilities. He was looking at the Life Core ability and the Life Bond ability. One of them is a parasitic ability. The other is a symbiotic ability.
With one ability, he can steal life force and plant life hooks in others to use them as an emergency battery for life force. He uses this ability without permission.
With the other ability, he can acquire stamina, focus, abilities, and resurrection from others. He just needs the target to be connected to him and also grant him their permission.
The two abilities are both Omega abilities. They also do similar things except for a few differences. Those differences are why he is considering fusing the two of them.
It is something he has never done before. He has never fused two slots together. It is mostly because the abilities in different slots aren't compatible with each other.
This time, the two abilities are highly compatible with each other. They even have similar functions. But there is a risk to fusing them.
The fusion is not reversible and can't be stopped. If he fails to fuse them, he will lose one of the abilities or both. So it is a risky gamble for him to fuse them.
The reasonable part of him says he should calm down and think about it. But he is not going to listen to it because Wrath is saying the same thing.
He thought to himself, "Let me sacrifice the Life Bond ability. At least, if I lose it, I can recover it."
He is bitter and wants to make Wrath regret her choice. But he is not yet completely blinded by anger. He is only partially blinded by it.
The partial blindness is making him willing to lose the 350 game points and 100 merit points he just spent for the Life Bond ability. But he is willing to make that sacrifice if he can get what he wants.
The ability he is most likely to lose is the ability that he uses as the additive in the fusion. He is still logical enough to prioritize the most important ability.
He might not lose the Life Core ability in case of failure if he uses it as the basis. But he will definitely lose the Life Bond ability because he will have to remove it from its slot and move over to the fifth slot where the Life Core ability is.
This is a real risk that he bore willingly as he started the fusion. What he didn't expect was the pain that came after.
The pain started as soon as he made the Life Bond ability leave its slot. It was as if he was using the destiny steal ability on himself.
It was so painful that he screamed. His body spasmed and convulsed in the ground. His consciousness screamed that he should stop what he was doing.
He felt as if he was dying. All he needed to do to stop this terrible feeling was to stop the fusion. The Life Bond ability would go to waste, but anything was better than death.
Even his irrational side believed this. It had sobered up and was telling him to stop his madness. But he heard Wrath's words of concern, and it rekindled his hatred.
She asked him, "Are you ok? Please, stop whatever you're doing. Don't kill yourself just because I refused to let you bind your life to mine."
He heard this, and his rational side that was trying to convince him not to make the gamble earlier began encouraging him to go through with it.
The pain made him froth at the mouth. His involuntary muscle spasms made him choke. The muscles of his lungs stopped working, and he even had a heart attack.
Even if the pain didn't kill him, the repercussions of his actions would. But he was too determined to get his way to stop.
Life Bond entered the fifth slot and fused with Life Core. Most of the pain stopped then. But some of it still lingered.
His body felt weak, and he felt as if he had been hollowed out. He felt as if he had lost something important. Even Wrath felt it.
She asked in shock, "What did you do?"
He didn't reply. His eyes glared at her with hatred and coldness.
He sat up and closed his eyes. He wanted to see the product of all the pain he had just gone through.
He saw the new ability. It was called Life Domination. It had the same functions as the two abilities, but the way it performed those functions has changed now.
For instance, Life Hook doesn't need part of his flesh to work anymore. He can just use a life mark, and he will still be able to siphon life force from the entity across distances.