"Kyle!" Theodor shouted.
Kyle blinked. 'Did Boss just refer to me with my name?'
"Yeah?" he asked.
"Regain control!" Theodor shouted.
"It's fine. Let me do it," Kyle said.
"You're ruining your breakthrough!" Theodor shouted, enraged.
"I'm not," Kyle said. "My instincts tell me to do it like this."
"You're not a beast! You are a human! You underwent a ritual! Your body is not natural!" Theodor shouted. "Control your Ether!"
Kyle smiled. "Trust me. I have an idea."
Theodor was reminded of all the times Kyle had said that he had an idea.
"No, you must listen to me now! You can't advance like this!" Theodor shouted.
Kyle grew a bit annoyed. "My instincts are not like your instincts. Remember Magic Lady? Remember the instincts she gave me? Who knows more about becoming stronger, a talented Master Artificer, the King of Skysand, or a fucking interdimensional super God that can just teleport people across worlds and change their bodies without them even noticing?"
"Your Magic Lady did not know that you would get an Aristocrat's Body! She doesn't have all of the information to make an informed judgment!" Theodor shouted.
"How do you know?" Kyle asked. "Magic Lady dumped me directly above the entrance to your Inheritance Crypt. There was even a fucking drill right there!"
"Be silent!" Theodor shouted. "Listen to me and control your breakthrough! You've already wasted enough Ether!"
"No, you listen!" Kyle shouted.
"Did you kill a Mid Metal Elemental while still being in the Second Realm?!"
"Did you comprehend seven fucking Fragments in the Second Realm?!"
"Was your Momentum this powerful?!"
"Did you create your own fucking way to use Ether?!"
"No, you didn't!"
"I know what I am doing! This is my body, and I trust my instincts!"
Theodor remained silent for two seconds.
"This is not your body," he said. "You have grown, but you only achieved all of this because I've guided you!"
"You are not my friend. You are not my superior. You are not my inheritor."
"You are my tool!"
When Kyle heard that, his eyes narrowed.
He remembered the time Theodor had said something similar many years ago.
Kyle had asked Theodor about allies, and he had answered that there were no allies.
Only enemies.
After that, Kyle had asked what he was.
"A tool!" Theodor had shouted without hesitation.
When Theodor had repeated that phrase just now, Kyle had finally accepted it.
Deep inside his heart, he had already known, but it hadn't hit home until now.
Kyle had changed a lot over the year.
But Theodor?
Not a single bit.
Yes, he was not complaining as much, but that was because Kyle was doing a good job.
From the very beginning, Theodor had always only had one goal in mind.
Revenge.
As long as Kyle was approaching that goal, he didn't have to say anything.
For the past years, Kyle had done an excellent job, which was why Theodor hadn't said anything.
'It's not that he refuses to change.'
'It's that he can't.'
'After all, he is not a human.'
'Boss is not the actual Lord Theodor.'
'Boss is simply an Inheritance Crystal.'
'A machine.'
'An AI.'
That was when Kyle remembered his conversation with Silvester.
More specifically, the last comment Silvester had given Kyle.
"A piece of advice," Kyle had heard Silvester speak inside his mind. "What has never been alive cannot suffer."
"Control your Ether, or I will blow up," Theodor said at that moment. "This time, this is not an empty threat."
Kyle closed his eyes.
"Fine," he said.
"Good!" Theodor said. "Next time-"
"Hey, Boss," Kyle said casually. "You know what a lobotomy is?"
"What's with these-"
At that moment, a needle shot out of Kyle's hammer.
In an instant, that needle reached the inside of Kyle's right eye socket and entered.
As soon as it entered Kyle's brain, the needle started to become liquid and skillfully pushed through the openings in Kyle's brain.
Theodor realized what was going on when the needle was already approaching the stone in Kyle's brain.
He immediately turned the Ether in the stone unstable for the detona-
But then, Theodor's Ether turned chaotic.
The stone was made of a unique and complex alloy that Theodor had created himself.
Like this, nobody could mess with it without analyzing it first.
Kyle couldn't control the stone, but he could destabilize some of the components of the stone.
This messed with the fine control Theodor needed to detonate.
The actual Theodor had made it so that the self-destruction mechanism needed very complicated and detailed movements of Ether.
After all, he didn't want it to accidentally trigger, ruining his chances at getting revenge.
But exactly that was the reason why Kyle managed to stop the sequence for just a moment.
"Stop!" Theodor shouted as the slithering needle reached the stone.
Even though Kyle heard Theodor's shout, he could still feel how Theodor tried to gather the Ether to detonate. The next moment, the needle reached the stone and engulfed it.
As soon as it was engulfed, Kyle lost connection with Theodor, which also meant that he couldn't interfere with the Ether as well anymore.
Kyle yanked with all of his power.
CRKSH!
His right eyeball, a good chunk of bone, and a bit of brain shot out of Kyle's right eye socket.
BOOOOM!
A moment later, a small but intense explosion happened in front of Kyle.
Luckily, the explosion wasn't powerful enough to injure the outside of Kyle's body.
However, if it had happened inside his brain, he would have died without a doubt.
Kyle's thoughts turned chaotic as parts of his brain vanished.
Fortunately, the injury was not as horrible as it looked.
Even a normal would survive, albeit with quite a bit of permanent brain damage.
But Kyle was not a normal human.
A moment later, Kyle's vision turned blurry, and he couldn't make any coherent thoughts anymore.
He just looked into the empty space.
His brain needed some time to repair itself.
However, one shouldn't forget that he was still in the middle of an advancement.
Now, even if Kyle wanted to, he wouldn't be able to control the Ether anymore.
Kyle's instincts took full control of his Ether.
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