Endless Evolution: Last Star

Chapter 1832: Last Battle of Her Life (Part 1)

This wasn’t what Adam had expected when he set out in search of the Glass Root, but he had no other choice.

Also, he had to find out if he could set this girl free, help her escape from the crystal, and finally let her die completely.

After all, her energy was still strong enough to allow Adam to enter her inner space, even though it had long since been empty.

“Hey, can you hear me?” Adam asked, looking at the girl floating in the darkness.

However, there was no answer.

“I see…” Adam bit his lip. “I should have expected this, right?”

He knew it was impossible, but deep down he’d hoped she might still have her mind. But now, Adam was convinced that the girl before him was nothing more than an empty shell of energy.

Step.

Suddenly, the girl took a step forward as her eyes slowly opened.

“What the…”

For some reason, the color of her eyes kept changing until it settled on green. It looked as if the energy was trying to remember what color her eyes had been when she was alive.

“Who… Who… are you…”

Her hoarse but still human voice rang out, sending a shiver down Adam’s spine.

“Is that her voice? The real one?” Adam frowned. “No, something’s not right here.”

Her voice gave him a strange feeling. In some ways, it was like looking at a lifelike robot that could speak and even smile, but instead of positive emotions, he felt only aversion, realizing that what stood before him was something alien, not a human.

This realization allowed Adam to reach a conclusion quite easily.

‘That’s not her voice, or rather, she’s not the one speaking. Someone or something is controlling her. That’s probably why her eye color changed in the first place.’

Adam frowned as he stared at the girl.

“Who are you? What’s your name?”

Strangely enough, the girl responded to his question as her right arm twitched. In a jerky motion, as if she were a broken doll, she pressed her palm to her chest and bowed deeply.

“My name… My name is Lakma… My name is Lakma… What… What about you?”

Adam narrowed his eyes.

“Adam. My name is Adam Vinter. What happened to you? Why are you here?”

However, this time Lakma didn’t answer.

“Answer me!”

She ignored him even after his second attempt.

Sure, Adam could have attacked her. That was supposed to be his way of getting the Glass Root, but something was stopping him from acting right away.

‘Something’s not right. This is her inner space, right? But… How can her inner space be so powerful and sustain energy within her without the Evolution Tree? It doesn’t make any sense!’

Adam’s eyes darted from side to side, trying to find a clue.

‘Right, the Evolution Tree, there must be at least something left of it!’

In a heartbeat, Adam released his entire aura, which shot out as a white ring through the endless darkness.

In the distance, he sensed something unusual. It made both his and Lakma’s eyes widen, but for different reasons.

Whooooooosh!

Adam dashed toward the source as fast as he could, only to stop a few seconds later with a frightened look on his face.

“Hell.”

He had found Lakma’s Evolution Tree, or what was left of it.

Instead of the majestic tree through which all of Lakma’s energy was supposed to flow, only the lower base remained: a hollow stump of black, energy-depleted bark.

There were only a few roots. They were twisted and seemed to be crumbling into fragments right before Adam’s eyes.

But the most important thing was at the center, a bright, slender object full of energy, resembling a branch, or rather-

“Glass Root.”

Adam gulped, realizing what he was looking at.

“So this is what it looks like. This is the last thing left of a Phantom like Lakma. That means… It’s an incredibly rare resource.”

True, Adam still didn’t know how this process worked, or why it had happened to Lakma specifically and not to the hundreds of other Phantoms that had tried to survive in the face of death. Moreover, he had no idea why, even in such a rare scenario, Queen Elisa’s situation was unique.

But now it was clear to Adam why Krador wanted to get it.

“It contains all the energy she has left, the densest and purest kind… It’s the only thing sustaining the crystal and the iron tree, as well as the energy within this inner space.”

Usually, when a person dies, the inner space collapses. It couldn’t exist without a living Phantom.

However… that wasn’t entirely true.

If there was enough energy, the energy itself could sustain the inner space, thereby saving itself from dissipating into the world.

“All this energy has is the Glass Root. If the energy loses it, this inner space will collapse.” Adam sighed deeply as he touched his temples.

Deep down, he felt that if he did this, he would kill Lakma, because by taking the Glass Root, he would destroy her inner space.

“But… that’s already happened, hasn’t it? She died long before we met, and I wasn’t the first Phantom to end up here.”

Adam looked back.

Lakma was still standing in the same spot. She wasn’t trying to chase after Adam.

“Hmm. I should try doing this.”

Channeling his energy into his legs, Adam leaned forward, aiming straight for the Glass Root.

His body shuddered as he surged forward, racing through the darkness at tremendous speed. It wouldn’t take even half a second for him to reach the Glass Root.

Just as he was about to reach out and touch it, Lakma appeared before him, holding a long, elegant rapier engulfed in flames.

She said nothing, but Adam understood everything from her gaze.

She had appeared here for one purpose only, to kill him as an intruder.

Whoooooooosh!

The rapier thrusted forward, aiming straight for Adam’s throat.

However, instead of fear in Adam’s eyes, Lakma saw only his smirk.

“Huh, I knew it couldn’t be that easy!”

In the next moment, the black needle blocked the rapier’s tip, causing the long weapon to tremble.

“Trying to protect her world even though she’s long dead? You have to accept that it’s already happened!”