The cold stone floor of the suite absorbed the warmth of their prone bodies as a suffocating silence wrapped around the room like a shroud.
Suddenly, Elliot shifted in her female form, her eyes darting around in panic. She couldn’t bear the thought of passively waiting to watch their consciousness get stolen and their loins occupied by cursed souls.
"Michael.. We can’t just sit here like sheep lined up for slaughter!" Elliot exhaled in a sharp, shaky voice, pushing herself up with difficulty. "We have to escape immediately, no matter the cost!.. I’ll use my spatial ability to teleport us, even if its current range is no more than five meters!.. We can try to sneak out, phase through walls, and escape any way we can, no matter the risk!"
Lying on the cold floor, Michael kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling. He responded only by slowly and bitterly shaking his head toward the panicked Elliot, speaking in a faint voice laden with harsh reality:
"You don’t even know the actual limits of that power after incarnation.. It’s not just a matter of needing to jump out of this room, Elliot. We are completely ignorant of the Demon Realm’s geography, and we don’t have a single map! Do you honestly think that if we make it past this door, they won’t hunt us down and find us in seconds? The even greater catastrophe is that the moment they discover your miraculous spatial ability in this form, they’ll inevitably assume you’ve become a complete ’Child of Destiny’ in your androgynous entity!.. Then they won’t kill you; they’ll lock you in the deepest laboratory in the castle to run thousands of dissection and magical experiments on you without end!"
Elliot’s feminine fist clenched tightly as a muffled sob of anger escaped her, listening to Michael’s words that radiated complete surrender and total hopelessness.
Elliot thought back to her current body—an androgynous vessel veiled in apparent female beauty... In truth, this body was nothing like the traditional Children of Destiny at all!
The Children of Destiny in the novel volumes possessed both male and female reproductive organs, even though their external appearance appeared androgynous and neutral.
Elliot’s current androgynous form, however, was entirely devoid of any reproductive organs!
Elliot had already checked that spot on his body, only to be startled to find it completely smooth—soft skin devoid of even a vulva or a penis.. just a seamless, solid surface of skin!
It was neither male nor female in the biological sense, yet it carried the extraordinary magical traits unique to the Children of Destiny. Elliot didn’t understand the exact magical rationale behind this contradiction, but deep down, he felt it was tied to a sort of ideal cosmic fusion between the male and female axes—without any need for biological reproduction!
Elliot clutched his head between his hands. After miraculously surviving yesterday’s ritual, were they really going to fall today under the weight of a waxy capsule?!
Yet.. as he pondered deeply on the nature of his neutral, organless, androgynous form...
Crack!
As if a flash of lightning split the darkness of his mind, a sudden, dangerous tactical idea ignited in the deepest layers of his thoughts!
Elliot bolted upright from the floor, sitting on his knees before leaning his body forward over the lying Michael, staring into his eyes with a sudden spark:
"Michael!.. Try to transform into that form right now!.. Shift into the androgynous form immediately!"
Hearing this bizarre request, Michael let out a mocking, dismissive laugh, turning his head away from Elliot’s face:
"Are you kidding me or what?! Do you want a third personality to form inside my mind that thinks it’s me, acting completely independently in a way I don’t want?! Impossible!.. Last time, my female form refused to switch back to being male.. Simply put, I won’t even entertain the thought of that transformation!"
Elliot didn’t stand idly by in the face of this rejection. He leaned down toward Michael, his hands grabbing the collar of his demon robe tightly as he lay there, shouting straight at his face with urgency:
"You’re an idiot, Michael!.. Listen to what I’m saying carefully! That androgynous form has no reproductive organs to begin with! No vulva, no penis!.. So if we’re forced to swallow those cursed waxy pills, the possessing souls inside them—even if they hijack our consciousness for a whole night—won’t find any organs to perform mating! They won’t find sperm or eggs in our loins to hide in and slip into embryos!.. That way, we display the superficial therapeutic effects of the pill in front of the guards, while the cursed souls fail to settle, leaving our hollow bodies in peace without leaving a trace!"
Michael’s eyes widened dramatically, his breath catching for a few seconds.. Re-analyzing Elliot’s plan in his head, he realized that this magical logic might actually succeed in neutralizing the capsule’s greatest danger!
However, the moment Michael ran the plan through his mind from a different tactical angle, a new flaw surfaced. He spoke in a anxious tone:
"You wretched fool!.. What if.. what if that possessing soul, while controlling your androgynous body, discovers your extraordinary ability to open dimensional portals? Wouldn’t it activate and show off that power instantly, exposing your secret right in front of the guards and castle administration?!"
The question landed like a sledgehammer on Elliot’s head. He recoiled slightly, his brows furrowing in deadly confusion. At this moment, he didn’t have the faintest idea how deep possessing souls could access the host body’s innate abilities.. It was a insane gamble that could ruin everything!
Suddenly, Elliot raised his head upward, shouting into the empty air with a desperate tone:
"Hey, you damn System!.. Answer us right now! If an external soul controls our bodies, can it also use our unique magical and spatial abilities?!"
Silence dominated the room.. A few heavy seconds passed without any magical response or interactive interface appearing!
Michael and Elliot exchanged bewildered, stunned looks. Where on earth did this damn System go at this exact critical moment?!
"You cursed System.. Did you drop dead and finally give us peace?!" Elliot yelled, provoked and angry.
At that exact second, a blue light screen framed in gold materialised in midair, emitting a cold, mockingly mechanical voice:
[The System cannot die or cease to function.. I was merely in a state of temporary sleep and energy rest.]
Elliot and Michael felt a surge of intense irritation toward this petty phantom screen that treated their fate with such levity.
Elliot gritted his teeth and pressed on: "Then what about my previous question, you numb System?! If we swallow those pills, can any creature or soul controlling the androgynous body use its special magical abilities besides us?"
The light screen flickered dimly, and the mechanical response came through, laced with pure arrogance and condescension:
[Huh?.. Did you wake me from my deep sleep just for a trivial question like that?! It’s extremely simple.. Try swallowing the pill and you’ll find out the answer for yourself!]
The expressions on Michael and Elliot’s faces darkened in unison, their features freezing from the sheer mechanical cheekiness!
Both struggled to bite their tongues and restrain themselves from showering this infuriating System with vulgar curses..
Elliot took a deep breath, speaking in a sarcastic tone mixed with manufactured pleading: "Right.. That’s definitely the smartest solution and greatest suggestion in the history of magical worlds!.. But we are consulting your vast, revered cosmic wisdom here.. Could you please just answer the question directly without playing games?"
The light screen flashed with dry indifference, displaying concise, final words:
[No... I am not interested in answering.]
The moment the words appeared, the System screen faded from before their eyes, dissipating into thin air as if it had never existed, leaving the two in even greater confusion and a shock no less brutal than the cursed soul pills!