56. The Truth?

"So, what's the plan, Rei?" Lyria asks me as we finally see the Empire's airship.

"It's simple. We just need to land there, find Freesia, and then I'll steal her memories about the location of Akasha. After that, we'll head to that place," I tell Lyria.

"The woman who previously ordered to hand me over to them?" Lyria recalls the woman we encountered before.

"Yep, that woman."

Soon we arrive above the parked Empire airship. Then Lyria and I can see many soldiers bustling about on the deck.

However I don't see Freesia or Pommern. Oddly enough we do see "Rei, there's Orchis!" Lyria says while pointing to the far end of the airship's deck.

"Orchid? That's strange. Why is she here? Do you see Black Knight, Lyria?" I ask while scanning the area since Orchid and Black Knight are usually together.

Lyria try to examines the airship from our position but doesn't spot Black Knight.

"Well, how about we say hello to her?"

"Sure, last time we didn't get to say goodbye when we met her," Lyria agrees, and I quickly fly toward Orchis.

Meanwhile Orchis sits on a barrel while hugging her doll as She gazes at the scenery in front of her while stroking the doll absentmindedly. As a tool meant to control the Primal Beast, she has no desires other than to follow orders. After all, she's the fake one and a fake has no right to want anything.

But suddenly Orchis felt a strong gust of wind and heard a man's voice accompanied by the wind, "Hello little princess. Nice to meet you."

Startled by the voice Orchis immediately looked up to see where it was coming from, only to see a familiar girl. "Lyria?"

"Hello Orchis" Lyria waved at her.

I then landed in front of her, and soon the soldiers around us began to panic and shout, "Intruders!!" "Wings?? Is he a primal beast!?" "Prepare your weapons!!!"

I set Lyria down so she could stand and approach Orchis, who is still sitting on the barrel. Before long we were now surrounded by the soldiers.

"The primal beast has brought our subject experiment! Quickly, we must capture her!" I heard someone shout.

It seems they think I'm a primal beast, but how dare they call Lyria an subject experiment.

I turned to face them all with their weapons aimed at me. With a stomp of my foot they were immediately get bound tightly by green thorns.

"Uwaaghhhh!" they all cried out in pain as the thorns easily pierced through the metal armor they were wearing.

But when Orchis sees me do that, she can feel the power of a primal beast from the thorns. Strangely, she can't sense any primal beast power from me, even though I use it right in front of her.

"Who are you? You're not a primal beast, but you can use their power?" Orchis asks, eyeing the green thorns.

"Well... you can say... Rei is... Rei is pretty unique," Lyria seems confused about how to answer Orchid, as she is terrible at lying.

I can only sigh at Lyria's response... because Orchid doesn't seem to believe her at all and just stares at me suspiciously.

"Well, like Lyria said, I'm pretty special... So what are you doing here? Where is your pal Black Knight?" I turn to Orchid and ask about the Black Knight's whereabouts.

When Orchid hears my question, she falls silent again and looks down making us both think something bad has happened to Black Knight.

But before Lyria can ask her what happened to the Black Knight, I quickly use the green thorns to deflect a bullet that someone fires at us.

"Such an interesting ability you have," we hear a woman's voice, making Lyria and me turn towards it.

The voice comes from Freesia who has just arrived. Accompanying her is Pommern with his eyes wide open as he stares at my wings.

"Human with wings? I've never heard of creatures like you before, and I don't think you're a primal beast either because if you were that doll would have told me," Freesia says to me while staring at Orchid who is still looking down.

"Come here, doll!"

Hearing this startles Orchid and she seems ready to get up from the barrel and approach Freesia, but before she can Lyria grabs her hand to stop her.

"What are you doing, Orchis? Why are you listening to that woman?? You know they don't care about you!" Lyria asks Orchid with a very worried expression.

However, Orchid seems to ignore Lyria's words and tries to free her hand from Lyria's grip. Unfortunately for her Lyria isn't about to let her go.

"Hahaha, that doll won't listen to you because she is merely a tool for the advancement of the empire," Freesia looks pleased to see Orchid trying to escape from Lyria.

"Now kill him and bring Lyria back to us," Freesia commands the many soldiers who have arrived with her.

"But ma'am, I'm sure this is a bad idea..." Pommern seems reluctant to attack me because he knows how strong I am.

"Shut up! You just keep dirtying our empire with your cowardice. Just use your dark essence if you're not strong enough."

After that, all the empire soldiers seem ready to charge at me with their various weapons.

But as they take a few steps forward, they all suddenly bend over or fall as if something is pressing down on them.

"AGHHHHHH!" All the soldiers begin to scream in pain from the pressure they feel, which is enough to crush their bones.

Even Freesia and Pommern fall under the pressure. "What... is this..." Freesia struggling to get up but the pressure only get stronger the more she tries.

"This feeling!!" Pommern seems to recognize the pressure and with all his strength tries to turn to look at me.

Orchid has also stopped trying to escape from Lyria after seeing me because I am now using all six of my wings.

Four black wings and the other two a purple color, just like when I communicated with Celeste.

"Rei? Did you lose control again?" Lyria asked me in a panic when she sees my two wings enveloped in a purple aura.

"I'm not Lyria. Just stay there and make sure you don't let go of Orchid" I told Lyria as I walked closer to Freesia and Pommern.

The closer I get, the stronger the pressure they feel from me. I can see that some of them have already fainted.

I don't even need to use the green thorny roots anymore because they have all passed out from the intense pain.

"Freesia Von Bismarck," I began speaking when I am near the two of them.

"You!! Is this your doing??? Stop this at once!" Freesia shouted at me, and I can hear the anger in her voice.

"And then what? So you can continue destroying your own empire?"

Hearing that Freesia immediately fell silent and Pommern is confused by what I said. "What do you mean?" Pommern asked me.

"Freesia, the woman who killed her own king and queen, and then used their daughter as a tool to control primal beasts," I continued speaking to her.

All the soldiers who are still conscious look very shocked when they hear what I said, and Pommern seemed more shocked than when he saw my wings.

"What the hell do you mean? My priority is always for the empire; you're just making baseless accusations," Freesia tried to deny what I am saying.

"For the empire? You're so funny. Did you know your plan to use Akasha to rewrite history to erase the Astrals will make your empire disappear?" I laughed when I heard her reasoning.

Freesia's reason for wanting to change history by using Akasha is to erase the Astrals so they would never have existed, but unfortunately, if she does that, her beloved empire will also disappear.

Because the Erste Empire is built by Astrals who decided to settle in the Sky Realm.

"What!?" Pommern shouted in shock and turned to look at his superior.

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about! Remove this pressure at once!!!" Freesia still tried to get up and stop me.

Still in denial, huh? In that case, I'll use Celeste and steal her memories.

"Celeste," I called for Celeste, and soon, a purple mist began to appear behind me.

"Is that Celeste??" Orchis murmured when she felt the power of a primal beast from the woman who appeared behind me.

"Lyria," I turned around and looked at Lyria.

Understanding what I meant, Lyria nodded. "Okay," she said, then pulled Orchid to move a little further away from this place.

After that, Celeste fully appeared behind me still in the form of the woman I had met before.

"Please do it."

Upon hearing my command, Celeste without hesitation began emitting purple mist from her feet, then the mist moved toward Freesia who is pinned to the floor because of my pressure.

"Stay away!!!" Freesia panicked as she saw the purple mist getting closer, her instincts telling her that everything would be over if she is touched by that mist.

But unfortunately for her, the mist didn't heed her screams and eventually touched her body.

"Aaaaaaaaaa," Freesia began to scream as she saw the purple mist envelop her.

"...Why is she screaming? Hey Celeste, does that hurt?" I asked Celeste who is behind me.

Celeste just tilted her head towards me as if she was confused...

"So, it doesn't hurt?"

Celeste shook her head in response.

I then turned back to Freesia. "Aaaaaaaaaaa," she continued to scream while being watched by the other soldiers and Pommern...