My Living Shadow System Devours To Make Me Stronger Chapter 812 - 813: New Outcome

The sky above looked hauntingly familiar. This was a sight she had witnessed before. Seeing it twice felt like too much, yet once was certainly not enough.

The metallic tang of blood lingered on her tongue, and the echoes of a fierce struggle still haunted her thoughts. She remembered a colossal darkness clashing with a celestial angel. There were screams, the blinding flash of shattering light, and a terrifying feeling that the fabric of reality was tearing apart.

Twice was far too often, yet she had survived that gruesome nightmare more than once.

Lilith stood in the middle of a dense forest. It was midday, with rays of sun filtering through the canopy of leaves.

By now, a specific voice should have echoed in her mind.

"You are dreaming the Nightmare of Lazarak."

"Overcome from this Nightmare and receive the boon of the fourth class."

This was the standard proclamation heard by anyone who found themselves consumed by nightmares and trapped in this realm.

It was all supposedly a dream, yet it felt more visceral and vivid than actual life.

Lilith understood the situation perfectly. There were no secrets left for her in this place. This exact moment had been her starting point four times now.

In every previous attempt, she had failed at the same pathetic hurdle, unable to overcome the obstacle in her path.

Slowly, she sank to her knees. If things followed the script, a fruit would soon drop from the branches and hit her on the head.

During the previous three cycles, she had caught it, having learned her lesson after being struck the very first time.

She waited with a hollow, resigned look. The fall of the fruit was a certainty. It was an event woven into the established timeline. Nothing changed. Nothing was ever challenged.

Time was an absolute force. No matter how much one struggled against it, the tide could not be pushed back.

She reached her hand out to catch the falling object.

However, her fingers closed around empty air. Her emerald-colored eyes flickered with confusion.

"Hmm." A soft murmur escaped her lips. Had her timing been off?

Squinting, she shifted her gaze upward toward the tree limbs. Her pupils began to tremble.

"The tree..." she breathed.

There was no fruit on the tree. It bore nothing but vibrant green leaves. Not a single piece of fruit could be found. She scanned the surrounding trees, but they were all the same—completely barren.

Lilith’s chest tightened as her breathing grew shallow. This was a deviation from the pattern. The trees were always laden with fruit, but now they were empty.

Her hand moved slowly toward the small bloom tucked into her hair.

It was a gardenia with six petals. However, four of those petals had turned a dull, lifeless grey, leaving only two vibrant ones behind.

This single flower represented both her salvation and her agony.

Its history was straightforward; it was a gift from the Unknown God. Considering how casually he had handed it over, she realized she should have been much more suspicious of his charity.

Yet, even if she had understood the consequences, she still would have accepted it.

The flower possessed a singular power. While it wasn't a physical weapon, it was a vast source of mysteries that Lilith couldn't fully grasp.

It functioned by pulling her back to a fixed point in time, allowing her—and only her—to retain the memories of everything she had experienced.

But it was also a source of despair, for time was heartless and the omniverse was indifferent. Her choices seemed unable to alter the fates of others.

Above all else, Lilith’s wish was simple. She wanted to prevent Damon’s death, because she alone realized he was obsessed with his own demise.

She failed during the first attempt. Using the flower, she returned to the moment she initially entered the Nightmare.

Armed with everything she had learned and every mystery she had unraveled, she believed she could rewrite his destiny.

She had been so foolishly ambitious. He died a second time.

During the next attempt, she confessed everything to Damon, believing with her whole heart that honesty would save him.

In the end, he simply exploited her. He betrayed her. Using her knowledge of the future, he orchestrated the exact chain of events that ensured his own end.

The fourth time, she tried to act alone. She was no longer naive enough to think her words could change his mind.

But the result remained the same. Damon died regardless, a black spear piercing him as a faint smile played on his lips.

He couldn't be stopped by persuasion or by strength.

That was the source of her hopelessness. How do you save a man who refuses to be saved?

The Unknown God maintained that fate was merely the sum of our choices.

She bit her lip. "In the end, I was unable to defy his fate because he chose it himself. To live, to struggle, and to survive were his choices. And so was his death."

Her voice wavered and cracked. There was no one around to hear her lament.

Lilith then noticed a fundamental truth regarding the nameless flower.

With every passing cycle, the modifications to the world became more apparent.

In the beginning, the trees were heavy with hundreds of fruits.

Now, they were empty.

"The world transforms with every regression. The shifts are subtle, but..." She plucked the flower from her hair.

"This flower isn't just regressing me. It is attempting to force a different result."

But the evolution was agonizingly slow. Lilith’s choices were a factor, as were the actions of everyone else. All things were intertwined; the small flap of a butterfly’s wings could eventually trigger a distant storm.

Even so, the change wasn't happening fast enough. With only two petals remaining, the necessary shift would arrive too late.

She pulled her knees to her chest. For the first time since she had made that vow to Damon, she felt truly abandoned and lost.

Lilith felt the urge to weep, but she couldn't. She was loath to admit it, but she was terrified.

Yet, giving up wasn't an option.

Defeating the enemy was a simple task.

Defeating Damon, however, was nearly impossible.

"I have to find him... and I have to stop him..."

She started to stand up, then paused.

Wasn't this exactly what she had done every single time, clinging to the belief that she could intervene?

"No." She shook her head slowly.

"Repeating the same actions while expecting a different outcome is nothing but madness."

She stared intensely at the flower in her palm.

"I’ve been approaching this from the wrong angle. First, I must uncover the true nature of this flower."

Knowledge was the only path to success. And the only individual who would have the answers was...

She bit her lip until it hurt.

How absolutely loathsome.