Chapter 24: Horrifying Possibilities

"This is nonsense! The soul that came from Earth belonging to Reilly is Liana?" 

I pointed at Nicola and yelled loudly, then suddenly felt a bit amused.

Hearing the name Liana, it was a woman's name, but what kind of person was Reilly? Surrounded by countless young ladies from good families, known as the Prince for Ladies! Yet I was told not only was she a woman now, but her former soul was a woman too.

"Be honest and tell me when you secretly went to Thailand. Let me take a look..." 

I held her head pretending to inspect it.

"Go away! I'm a pure man! Also, souls have no gender!" 

Nicola's face turned black upon hearing this. She slapped my hand away.

"Be serious! Isn't this what we came to discuss?"

"How are you pure?" 

I looked her up and down disapprovingly.

"What other reason could there be? I feel we should still stick to the initial inference - there may be another soul living in your angel body, Liana's soul, so it unknowingly affects your abilities. Even Elara did not completely deny this possibility."

"But unlike you, I have never shown another personality." 

Nicola did not seem to agree with this explanation. She suddenly came up with another hypothesis.

"Could we have gone down the wrong path? What if the ability to control time doesn't necessarily belong only to Liana? Or perhaps Michelle was simply mistaken? Moreover, even my future self said she wasn't Liana!"

"But how could she possibly mistake that Condensation Sword? That sword can only be used by you."

I immediately shook my head and denied it upon hearing this.

"Who said only I can use it?" 

To my surprise, Nicola smiled mysteriously and pointed at me, saying:

"You can use it too!"

"Huh? Me?"

I pointed at myself, puzzled. I was about to say she was wrong when I suddenly recalled that she did say before that when I was unconscious, I had summoned a long sword identical to the Condensation Sword, only the colour was slightly different.

"You can't be saying I'm Liana right?"

I instantly felt confused. How did our discussion become more chaotic the more we talked? Many clues could be discovered, yet we couldn't make any sense of them.

"Not to that extent." 

Nicola shook her head and explained:

"What I mean is, perhaps there are many people who can use this weapon, not just the two of us. Did you forget? Even Michelle's weapon looks the same."

"But that still feels like too much of a stretch..."

I thought about it and did not agree with her view, rebutting:

"Firstly, the colours of the weapons we each summoned are different. Michelle couldn't have mistaken them. According to Elara, such colour differences should relate to the element types. So the grayish-white color of the Condensation Sword fits the wind element theory very well. Furthermore, you also can control time. Taken together, it seems even less likely she was mistaken."

"Unless it can be proven there is a necessary connection between the wind element and time control. If a user of the wind element can create the Condensation Sword and control time, and this is not just an isolated case, then we could reasonably say Michelle mistook the person from the start."

There was another point I did not mention. Based on the ambiguous attitude of Nicola's future self, there was probably some secret between Nicola and Liana. Looking at it the other way, if they had no relationship, why didn't she directly tell us back then?

"Wind element and time?"

Nicola pondered for a moment, unable to come up with an answer for the time being. She could only try saying: 

"I thought of another possibility, it's just that this possibility is rather frightening, so I didn't dare conclude on my own... "

"Oh? So terrible huh? Tell me about it?" 

Hearing her say this piqued my curiosity instead. I urged her on.

"I'm serious, not joking!" 

Seeing my silly grin, Nicola said sternly.

"Didn't Michelle mention it before? Liana reincarnated, and the cycle of rebirth is also closely related to the Angel Descend Formation. So, any ideas on the connection?"

"Isn't it the same reasoning as two souls sharing one angel body that I mentioned?"

I was a bit confused. The possibility that the formation malfunctioned and obtained the soul even before connecting to Earth, had already been brought up once in front of Elara. Did she not hear it at that time?

"What if it's not two coexisting souls, but a fusion?" 

After hesitating for a moment, Nicola ignored my words and continued voicing her speculation.

"Or rather, I've long been dead. It's just that some memory fragments attached themselves to Liana's soul. What do you think, is this possibility conceivable?"

".....You must be joking right? Too abstract and completely speculative! This is the kind of crappy cliffhanger ending you only see in third-rate web novels!"

I strongly denied it, but her words still gave me goosebumps all over. The more I thought about it, the more terrifying it became. I actually couldn't find any loopholes.

Moreover, this theory perfectly explained why Cyra and Reed had not shown any anomalies until now. Perhaps they were the only two who truly survived.

"If what you said is true, doesn't that apply to me as well?"

I could no longer remain calm. I didn't want to hear this kind of inference that completely ruined my previously happy mood.

"That's why I said it's frightening. After all, it's just speculation without a shred of evidence. Don't take it too seriously..."

Nicola looked at me helplessly, but I could still see that she desperately hoped I could refute this conclusion.

"Don't look at me. The one who makes the claim should provide the proof! You're clear about your own life experiences. Do you feel like your past is just some memory fragments?"

I turned away, not wanting to look at her. My mind was in complete chaos now.

Nicola was fine. Even if Reilly died, at least she still knew her name was Liana. But what about me? Was I the same? Or rather, if Flynn had already died long ago, who was I? Who was my past self?

Unknowingly, it had risen to the philosophical level.

But to be fair, I felt my memories of my life on Earth were still very complete, with no missing fragmented parts, let alone anything resembling mere fragments. Unfortunately, this did not constitute definitive contrary evidence.

"Forget it, stop thinking so much! Let's summarize first..."

Nicola sighed, interrupting my random thoughts.

"With the limited information we have now, we can only temporarily categorize the explanations for our anomalous abilities, Liana's relationship to all this, and the reason your wings turned blue into four possibilities."

"First: Elara is lying or mistaken. In that case, there is no discussion and perhaps it still relates to the body. We'd have to uncover the truth from scratch."

"Second: What Elara said is correct. Our abilities stem from our souls and relate to crossing over. But time manipulation isn't unique to Liana. Wind element wielders may also control time. It all goes back to Michelle misidentifying the person."

"Third: What you said, about two souls residing in our bodies, constantly influencing us."

"Fourth: What I just now mentioned..."

With her laying it out one by one like this, I only realized none of the options seemed very optimistic. The only slightly better one was the second possibility. The other three had considerable troubles. 

But could Michelle have mistaken the person that easily? Personally, I didn't quite believe it. My instinct told me things could not be so simple.

"Let's put these issues aside for now. Perhaps once we arrive at the Council of Sages, we'll get some clarity."

Nicola stood up. She could only place her hopes on those sages.

"Unfortunately, Reed doesn't understand souls. Otherwise, with all those books she's read, she might have found some clues."

Good point. I had great trust in Reed. Her knowledge had always left me in awe. But three of the four possibilities related to souls, it was clearly beyond her ability to help.

"Time to go for class!" 

Nicola looked at her watch, then left the room.

Fortunately, the afternoon classes were still interesting. 

Athena perhaps sensed our impatience to graduate sooner. Although it was still held at the Battle Arena, she did not continue the high-speed flight course in the morning. Instead, she switched to lessons about defence.

"This time we'll talk about how to defend against enemies' magical attacks. Unlike high-speed flying, this is a very fundamental skill originally set to be infused into your memories too. So you must learn it."

Athena glanced at me and Nicola. She then turned to ask Cyra:

"Cyra, you learned this before, right? Tell us about it?"

"Of course, I know. An angel's body has immunity to magic, no need to defend at all."

Cyra stepped forward and answered very confidently. Finally, a chance for her to show off. She looked proudly at me. 

"Wrong! We only have absolute immunity with light element magic, hence no need to defend. But only near total immunity with other magic elements. Forbidden curse-level magic can still inflict damage. So when you see an enemy chanting big spells it's best to get away!"

Athena gently knocked Cyra's head, signalling her to remember this well. She then continued asking:

"But wings do not have the immunity trait as they need to absorb external elements. So how to defend them?"

Now this hit the crux of the issue. Since learning angels' bodies were immune to magic, I'd always felt the wings could become a fatal weakness. Finding out there were defence methods instantly piqued my interest. 

"Simple! Look!" To save her pride, Cyra took two steps back and spread out her wings behind her, not waiting for the teacher to call her. Facing us, she said:

"Well? You don't know about this trick, right?"

"Huh??????"

I thought she was going to demonstrate some kind of special spell. But all she did was spread her wings?