Priya stood there for a moment, looking down at the corpse. This wasn't the first time she had killed. Or, rather, it wasn't the first time as far as she was aware.
Even until now, she didn't know that Zarek was the one who finished the fight with Sakks.
But that battle had been one where she had her back against the wall and had little choice but to do her best. This one… it felt like she had far more control, and every action in killing Belladoll was taken by her own hands, even until the final moment where she controlled the guillotine to accelerate through her body.
However… she still didn't feel anything.
Looking at the corpse, she only felt that her anger was slowly dissipating somewhat. Now, she suddenly just wanted Zarek to come back already so they could make up.
Maybe that big, overgrown loaf had known that, which was why he was so busy laughing and grinning all the time.
Belladoll was right about one thing, though. Zarek had left Priya behind to do this on her own because he knew from the start that Belladoll had always been perfectly countered by her.
Belladoll was simply an inferior form of Priya in every way, shape, and form.
In the final attack, Priya had just used the properties of Belladoll's own Godsfall against her.
When Priya initially formed the shield to block the first barrage, she got a gauge for the sort of wavelengths and frequencies Belladoll's refraction Talent was working on. From afar, Priya had already been able to replicate the pink hue, but this really helped her dial it in.
The reason Priya had revealed the fact she could copy Belladoll from the start was actually to get Belladoll to lower her guard. With Belladoll's own Talent, she could easily tell that Priya was close, but not quite there yet in regard to copying her perfectly.
In her previous lives, Belladoll would have been much more cautious in a battle against Priya. In fact, most times she just ran the other way. That was the same for most Godsfall specialists—but especially for those with easily countered abilities like her own.
But this time, Priya's lack of experience and Belladoll's own erratic state of mind came together to form a beautiful result.
Just when Belladoll thought Priya was going to die, Priya refracted her attack, using the earlier missed strike as the conduit.
As for the fact the guillotine was "falling" upward instead of downward, it didn't matter in the slightest. They were working with Godsfall with the properties of light; gravity had never played a factor to begin with.
Momentum, however, was a completely different matter.
Belladoll died due to a single mistake. And in the apocalypse…
That was well and truly all it took.
'Hm?'
Priya frowned as she sensed something around Belladoll's body. She had been planning on taking the pink diamond umbrella, as this was far better than any treasure she could get right now, but this wasn't what Priya was sensing.
There was something else.
'This is?'
Blinking, Priya slowly stepped forward. She could feel the energy scattering—and quite quickly at that—so she quickly used her abilities to stop it.
Originally, Priya just wanted to feel the energy, as she had never sensed it before. But as she was trying to control it, it zipped into her pores almost too naturally.
Priya was taken aback.
Godsfall came in three major categories as far as she knew. There was ambient Godsfall, Godsfall under the control of other people, and Godsfall under her own control.
In terms of difficulty in controlling, the last was by far the easiest, the middle by far the hardest, and the first somewhere between the two, but still on the easier side for someone like Priya.
The reason her counter against Belladoll took so much setup was precisely because it was Godsfall under Belladoll's control. The gap in their Intelligence wasn't wide enough for Priya to override her easily.
But this Godsfall… it came into Priya's body with the ease of Godsfall that was…
'My own?'
Why would Belladoll have Priya's Godsfall inside of her? This definitely wasn't the pink light Godsfall, it was something—.
Priya froze, her eyes glazing over. Flashes of one memory after another came to mind, memories she didn't understand at all.
They weren't her memories, but instead those of Belladoll's. But the moment she finished Belladoll's memories, it was like something else within her unlocked, streams of lifetimes that felt like her, but weren't quite her, coming back.
Tears streamed down Priya's face in quicker and quicker rivers. A sob escaped from the depths of her diaphragm, her body keeling over as she cried harder and harder.
Falling to the ground, her pants were soaked in blood, her palms caked in the liquid, but she didn't seem to realize at all.
It felt like something was stabbing her again and again. It wasn't a pain of the flesh, but instead one of the heart. Hundreds of years of emotions flooded her in continuous waves, and she couldn't make them stop even if she wanted to.
\\*\\*
In a distant location, Jiade came to a slow stop, looking up and into the skies.
"It seems it worked," he said calmly.
To his side, Suki was tinkering with something. They had just come out of a Godsfall Tear and seemed prepared to march to a new one soon.
The level of efficiency they had was beyond what Zarek could fathom. That, Jiade was sure of.
While Zarek was playing every life individually, Jiade had been moving puzzle pieces all for this opportunity to go all in. From the very start, this had been his plan.
The government might still think they were in control, but Jiade knew the truth of it. The Angels could take over whenever he so wanted. It just wasn't time yet.
"B Class?" Suki asked, not looking up.
"No. I'll enter B Class after this Godsfall Tear. Once there, the acceleration to A Class will take another few weeks at most."
If other Rebirthers heard this, there was no doubt they might just collapse. These were leaps that should take years—decades even, in some cases. How could it be possible to improve so fast?
Only Jiade and Suki knew the answer to that question.
"Then you mean she killed Belladoll."
"Yes. I thought after Crux died and nothing happened, there would be a problem. But it seems I thought too much. Now, the games can really begin."
Suki didn't reply, continuing to tinker.