A dark plan

Seth remained by Lisa’s side, silently waiting for her to wake up after covering her with a soft blanket. Due to Caitlin taking care of all the physical injuries, it was not long until she stirred awake from her sleep.

“Argh…” with a light groan, Lisa moved her hand to her forehead and opened her eyes, noticing that Seth was sitting by the side, staring straight at her.

Remembering what had happened, Lisa avoided Seth’s eyes and asked, “Are you alright?”

Seth nodded, pulling up the blanket covering her chest as he said, “I’m doing much better than you. Also, please don’t move too much. You’re still naked.”

Lisa lifted the chest part of her blanket before sighing and asking, “What are you going to do to me?”

“Do to you? Why would I do anything to you?” asked Seth with a confused look.

Lisa turned back at him, equally confused, “But I tried to kill you.”

“And you failed. I already told you what I intend to do. Now that I made sure you’re alright, I don’t care what you do next, but don’t try to stand in my way again. I wish things were different, but I don’t want to break my promise to your mother. There should be some clothes in the closet which you can wear for now.”

After Seth said what he had to say, he stood up and left the room under Lisa’s conflicted stare. After passing through the door, he found Caitlin waiting nearby, taking a bite of a large apple.

None of them said a single word to the other and started walking down the hallway shoulder to shoulder. A little further down the corridor, Caitlin finished her apple, and her body turned into energy, her source entering Seth right after.

‘I’ll return your sources to their rightful place.’

Seth nodded and teleported away, arriving at Henrietta’s room. Henrietta was now completely healed and sitting at a desk, typing on a laptop.

Feeling Seth teleport nearby, she closed the lid and turned around, giving him an anticipatory look.

Seth chuckled and sat down on the nearby sofa.

“I had Caitlin remove my sources before visiting Lisa in case anything like that happened, so if she attacked, I would not die. The worst that could happen was destroying my space source, but that was not that big of a risk.”

“Why did you even have to take a risk at all?” asked Henrietta with a quick nod, having already discovered what had happened.

When she fought Lisa, she was enraged and had even failed to notice that Seth’s energies were too weak to belong to a source, but now that Henrietta had time to think about it, she understood Seth must have relinquished his sources.

“Haaah, where to even start… there are many reasons, but the most important one is that I need Lisa.”

“You need her?”

“Despite everything that had happened, I know I can trust her, and I’ll need a darkness ascended I can trust when we reach the end.”

“I still don’t understand. Trust her? She had just tried to kill you just short of an hour ago. How can you say you trust her? Also, there are thousands of darkness ascended in the academy to choose from. Why does it have to be her?”

“Because she’s one of the first to ascend as a darkness ascended. For the rest of the energies, any ascended will do as long as I kill their divine crown owners or bring them to my side, but darkness and light are different.”

“Both energies are opposites and share a characteristic. That is the ability to awaken their consciousness much earlier than other energies. Leora did it and even managed to form a divinity. Lisa is the same. Her source already has a formed consciousness inside her soul.”

Henrietta lowered her head and thought for a moment before asking, “Are you saying that to get out, we need all divinities of the main energies? Do you plan to bear four of them yourself, while Hollie, Aleena, Maya, and Tiana carry the main elemental ones? Leora and Lisa will bear the Light and Darkness….”

Seth nodded with a sigh. “That was the plan at the start, but things had already changed too much for that plan to be viable… Since Lust said carrying multiple divinities comes with risks, I might have to stop at creation, destruction, perception, and lust.”

“For space and time, I need you to bear those divinities instead. I destroyed Iris’s fire source and ensured Tiana could carry it, but for Maya… I still don’t know.”

“I did plan on taking Razim’s divinity at the start, but since I owe her too much, I’ll have to consider simply having Razim fill Maya’s role. I’ll speak to Maya about it later and ask her opinion about it.”

Henrietta frowned and asked: “You destroyed Iris’s fire source for that?”

“Not exactly. I did it because its influence was too strong, but I would lie if I said I didn’t have a secondary objective.”

Henrietta suddenly realized something and asked in amazement: “Your behavior towards Lisa… You want her to act the way she does. You want her to succumb deeper into the darkness so that she awakens as Leora did.”

“I do, but I also can’t have her unconditionally hate me. I must lessen the hate she bears for me slowly.”

“But she only hates you….”

“She does, but things will change. That’s what the earlier show was about. I also didn’t tell you since I needed your reactions to be genuine..”

Henrietta just nodded, no longer doubting Seth after everything she had just realized today. After a slight pause, she asked, “When you changed my body so I could ascend, was I a backup plan in case you couldn’t bear too many divinities?”

Seth smiled and nodded, “Will you hate me?”

Henrietta smiled back and asked, “Do you love me?”

“You know I do.”

“Then it’s fine. I also used you to get away from my boring life. As long as you stay by my side, you can use me however you want,” said Henrietta, teleporting onto Seth’s lap and grabbing tightly onto his shirt. “But you’ll have to make it up to me for keeping it a secret all this time.”

As Henrietta was getting ready to take a slight advantage, a head poked out of Seth’s chest, Caitlin’s head, and she said, “When did you plan on telling her I’m here as well?”

Seth chuckled as he noticed Henrietta’s surprise and shook his head. “I was wondering how long you can take it before showing yourself.”

With her plans ruined, Henrietta let go of Seth and allowed herself to fall on her back, stretching along the large couch.

Caitlin ignored Henrietta’s pout and asked Seth, “What about me? What role do I have in this plan of yours?”

Seth pretended to ponder for a second before saying. “Personal doctor?”

Feeling his crotch area twisted painfully, Seth quickly said, “Wait, don’t. I don’t know how your energies will work, and you can’t form a divinity now. A certain tree floating through the simulation already has complete control over life and death.”

“Can’t we just burn Yggdrasil to the ground?” asked Henrietta, lifting her head to look at the two.

“We can, but I still don’t know what role perception, lust, life, and death will play. After we get the other divinities and more info from Lust, I’ll decide what to do….” Seth already knew that Lust had her own plan, which he didn’t know exactly. If Lust decided they needed to take the life-and-death divinities, he had no qualms about going against Yggdrasil.

While Seth was deeply thinking, Henrietta smiled and said, “I don’t know what’s more frightening, your knowledge, power, or the fact that you’ve been playing everyone around for all this time.”

Seth chuckled as he broke out of his short reverie and traced his arm along Henrietta’s thighs, “I might have had more intentions than I told everyone, but I love you, girls. I also already told you that I’ll bring you all along with me to the end of this path.”

“If I simply wanted to use you to break this simulation, there were easier ways to do that without going through so much trouble, but I want everyone to have no regrets when we get there.”

“I also can’t say I played everyone since Kronos did manage to pull one over me...”

Henrietta remembered everything he had done for her in Oath and stood back up, kissing Seth’s cheek while tracing her hand down his chest, “I know, and that’s why we love you too.”

“Hey…” Caitlin brought her source out of Seth’s body, appearing by the side. “Don’t act like I’m not even here.”

Henrietta giggled and rubbed Seth’s crotch as she said: “Don’t worry. There’s enough for us to share.”

Knowing that Henrietta and Caitlin were ready to assault him, Seth flicked their forehead and said, “Not now. We’re not done speaking.”

Caitlin pouted, and Henrietta looked at Seth’s face seriously before asking, “There’s a reason you told me all this now and not before, isn’t it?”

“There is. Your destruction will is starting to form a consciousness….”

Henrietta sighed and nodded, “I know. I felt it when I faced Lisa last time. I barely stopped myself from wiping her out….”

Caitlin also stopped pouting once she noticed the atmosphere turning serious, standing to the side not to disturb them.

“Don’t worry. Those are embers of a long-dead consciousness holding on inside your source. You must recycle the energy inside, and its influence will disappear.”

“Recycle?” asked Henrietta in confusion.

“It’s exactly what it sounds like. You need to empty your source, releasing all the energy inside from your control, before refilling it from scratch. After doing that a few times, you should feel the influence of the destruction will disappear.”

Seth’s answer did nothing to clear her confusion, prompting Henrietta to ask, “How would that work?”

“You’ll see.” Said Seth with a knowing smile. “Do what I told you to.”

Henrietta agreed with a sigh and asked, “You really like your secrets, don’t you? Do I have to do it now?”

“The sooner, the better, before it takes root in your soul.”

Henrietta let out a sad sigh and sat up from Seth’s lap.

“And I hoped I could have you to myself for a while…” said Henrietta with a sad sigh, using her energy to teleport away from the capital.

Caitlin smiled wide once Henrietta was gone, taking the chance to take her place on Seth’s lap, “Don’t I get a reward for helping you and keeping silent about your plan?”

Seth flicked her forehead, watching as Caitlin started pouting again.

“I have some prior arrangements. Keep an eye on Lisa for me. She shouldn’t be able to notice you if you’re careful,” said Seth, teleporting away from right under Caitlin, causing her to fall on the sofa.

Caitlin sighed and sat up as well, walking towards the door to the room.

“Meanie, he could have at least given me a small taste.”