Primordial Expanse: I have the Strongest Talent! - Chapter 426

Chapter 426: Grief
Alex held Mira’s frail body close, feeling the last remnants of her life force slowly draining away.

Her golden hair returned back to its usual black as the effects of her Golden Presence talent started to wear off.

Her once vibrant body, full of life, now hung limp.

Her skin was deathly pale and cracked all over the place like porcelain.

She was so weak, too exhausted to even speak.

All she could manage was a deep, meaningful smile, tears slipping silently from her eyes as she looked at Alex, a gaze filled with pure, unfiltered selfless love.

“Mira…”

Alex’s voice trembled as he held her tighter.

His heart was breaking in many ways he didn’t think possible.

He could feel her life slipping away, and there was nothing he could do.

He, the one who wielded immense power, heralded as the most talented awakened the human race had to offer, was utterly helpless now.

“Why… why did you do this?”

His voice cracked, tears spilling from his own eyes.

But Mira, whether out of choice or a simple inability to speak, remained silent.

Her smile, however faint it was, was radiant, and her tears mirrored his. Her love for him was clear even as her body failed her.

She was beyond words now — beyond the need to explain why — Alex already knew.

Beat…

Beat…

…Beat…

…

…

And then… she was gone.

Alex felt the exact moment her breath stopped, her life slipped away, her body going limp in his arms.

His chest constricted, and a deep, hollow emptiness started to fill him, consuming him from the inside out.

Mira was gone.

The woman who had stood beside him through everything, the one who had shown him a love he never thought he would experience again — was dead…

Something inside Alex shattered.

“No!”

His voice erupted in a raw, anguished scream that tore through the quiet of the ship.

His grief surged wildly and uncontrollably, and the very air around him seemed to ripple with his fury.

He was angry.

Angry at the world, the Red Demons, the System that had dragged the human race into this hell.

But mostly, he was angry at Mira.

She didn’t have to do that!

The energy Mira had poured into him started to surge uncontrollably, mixing with his fury and grief.

His body started to glow a deep crimson light that radiated from his very core.

He became brighter and hotter with each passing moment.

The ship around him trembled under the pressure of his power, and instinctively, without even thinking, it was willed back into his spatial storage.

Alex stood alone in the void of space now, holding Mira’s lifeless body as Eldaris finally imploded.

The explosion that followed scattered the remains of the planet in every direction.

It was an apocalyptic spectacle of destruction.

Yet somehow, Alex and Mira’s body remained untouched.

The force of the planet’s destruction swirled around them, yet it didn’t harm them.

Instead, Alex noticed something strange — some of the residual energy from the explosion began to drift towards him.

The energy entered his body, merging with the overflowing power that already radiated from within him.

His crimson glow became even brighter, hotter than the Telorn system’s own sun, burning with the raw intensity of his grief and rage.

And then, in the midst of it all, a voice echoed in his mind.

[Hidden ability [Phoenix Rebirth] unlocked… finding sufficient power source to activate…]

The monotone voice of the System rang throughout his thoughts, and a holographic notification appeared before his eyes relaying that same small message, though Alex barely registered it.

However, the next second, his one and only King class soul orb flew out of his inventory involuntarily, drawn to him much like the energy surrounding him.

His body began to absorb it, and even if Alex wanted to stop it, he couldn’t have.

The moment the orb started fusing with him, everything changed.

The world faded to black, and Alex felt his consciousness being pulled somewhere else.

It was a strange sensation, but it was one Alex had experienced before.

For a moment, Alex felt like all his worries, all his grief was washed away as he realised something.

‘A remnant soul…’

He recognised the rare phenomenon that was taking place.

This was an incredibly rare and exciting event, a remnant soul of the King of Evermoor actually resided in the soul orb!

But at that moment, none of that mattered.

The joy he might have felt at such an occurrence was gone.

In fact, he felt some anger over it.

He was being forced away from Mira…

[Enough energy has been absorbed… activating Hidden ability [Phoenix Rebirth]]

In the final moment, Alex thought he heard something, a voice perhaps, but his vision had completely faded to black now before he could find out, and it was like he had gone to sleep.

His mind had been transported to the memory contained in the remnant soul.

***

Gradually, Alex’s consciousness started to return.

He blinked slowly, not sure what he was expecting to see, but no longer being able to see Mira’s face, no matter how withered, bothered him quite a lot.

Instead, his vision was filled with a warm, golden light.

His eyes adjusted, he realised that he was… somewhere small.

All he could see was the inside of what looked like a big egg, and he, or rather the ‘thing’ his mind was occupying, was floating inside the gooey substance that took up a major part of the space inside the egg.

At first, Alex felt disoriented.

The overwhelming grief still clouded his thoughts, and he struggled to make sense of what he was seeing.

He wanted to scream, to lash out, to break free of this strange memory that he was forced into witnessing.

But he couldn’t.

He was powerless to interact with anything in there.

All he could do was watch.

And thankfully for his sanity, it didn’t take long for something to happen.

From the inside of the egg, a silhouette appeared.

The ground underneath the egg trembled, and the silhouette grew bigger.

Until it came into view.

Alex’s perspective from within the egg didn’t allow him to see much, but he was sure about one thing.

The silhouette of the creature outside sure looked like many fantasy depictions of dragons he had seen in fiction…