Amaterasu froze for a second at Eva’s rude greeting. She had known that Eva was quite harsh and forceful, but she didn’t think it would be to the point of insulting her in such a crude way.

  Amaterasu felt no anger towards her descendant. She just felt depressed deep down, and it showed on her face. However, she soon corrected her expression and stood before Eva grandly.

  The two of them were the same height, with the same features, yet somehow one was looking like the epitome of holiness and femininity while the other looked wild and murderous. The contrast couldn’t have been greater in this scenario.

  Eva continued to sneer derisively at Amaterasu, while the Sun Goddess sighed and a mix of frustration and incomprehension started to settle in.

  "Why do you fight against yourself? Why do you reject what you should truly become?" Amaterasu asked the question that had been bothering her all this while.

  Eva replied lazily: "I’m not fighting against myself. I’m maintaining who I am before the efforts of a pretentious ’Goddess’ who seeks to rewrite herself onto me."

  Amaterasu’s face dropped at this accusation and she shook her head. "I’m not trying to do anything. It’s you who is doing this to yourself. Your blood, body, and soul are rejecting who you claim to be, yearning to return to the origin."

  Eva’s face contorted at this accusation. After all, she knew that Amaterasu was right in this case. The one before her wasn’t a remnant consciousness of the Sun Goddess trying to take over or any cliche nonsense like that.

  Amaterasu was too far above that. Her personality also strictly forbade such underhanded means in harming her own reincarnation/clone. This was a part of Eva herself trying to purge her conscious mind and return to how she should be.

  Still, Eva refused to be overwritten, hence the current conflict. Amaterasu could see this, which was why she had stepped out in order to talk to Eva and help her if possible, as it would pain her to watch her second incarnation cripple herself.

  However, Eva was far too…… unhinged. In this state, she was quite problematic and violent, and Amaterasu knew that she would have a headache dealing with her, but it had to be done.

  "Eva, why do you cling to madness? Why do you perform such horrendous acts of evil and relish them? These are things that do not coincide with the true state of your blood, body, and soul." Amaterasu asked once again.

  "I do not cling to anything. This is who I am. This is who I’ve become after living two lifetimes, where the first started out nice and peachy then became a living hell." Eva answered slowly.

  "Certainly not something you can understand." Eva finished while staring into Amaterasu’s eyes.

  The Celestial Maiden sighed once more. She had access to all of Eva’s memories obviously, so she knew about the suffering Eva had gone through thanks to one wrong decision.

  If Amaterasu had faced such a situation from her own soulmate, Lucifer…… she didn’t think she would have fared any better than Eva truthfully. It was far likelier that she would have committed suicide the moment her soulmate had left her in a fit of rage…… and yet Eva had persevered.

  Eva had continued with her life and had become a version of herself she thought Draco would need to overcome, thereby punishing herself with each passing day.

  "I might not be able to understand the quality of the suffering you went through, but I can certainly see that the current you is flawed and improper…… and I’m not the only one who thinks so." Amaterasu stated without mincing her words. Instead, she directly hit the nail on the head and opened the can of worms Eva had kept hidden.

  Eva trembled when Amaterasu finished her statement and her eyes became slightly bloodshot. "Don’t you dare……"

  Amaterasu ignored Eva’s hateful glance and continued. "Your soulmate, the second-generation Lucifer, has accepted you for who you are and is okay with the current you."

  "But acceptance is not wanting or needing. Acceptance is tolerance. To accept something means one must dislike or not want the subject in question, instead choosing to take it as it was and live with it."

  "He doesn’t want the current you, who kills anything she sees that crosses his lane, who always hides her beauty behind a veil, who uses a dark and evil profession to achieve her goals. In a way it be might be more correct to say that he merely tolerates the current you."

  Eva shivered badly at Amaterasu’s words, as the Sun Goddess had pried out Eva’s biggest fear and insecurity that had been buried in the depths of her psyche. It was something Eva was desperate to forget and never consider, but now she was forced to.

  Eva knew that her current self wasn’t perfect, far from it. She had many problems, liker her over-reliance on Draco, her heart and mind both of which were colder than the Devil himself, and a face always hidden in shadow, that should be in the light.

  A Celestial Maiden that hid her face and refused to accept the adoration of all mortals. A Goddess of Light whose heart and mind were darker than the blackest night. An Abyssal Gatekeeper that could not even control the whisperings in her mind. Everything she currently was contradicted who she ideally should be.

  Eva knew much more about her bloodline than Draco, which was only natural given their upbringing. She had access to their Lineage’s library where she had read up on Amaterasu’s history, even including the direct writings Amaterasu had left behind.

  She had learned the purpose and secrets of her own Inheritances as well as the Inheritances in general, so she understood how she got herself into her predicament. Only, Eva had hoped that she could at least control it when the time came for her to take the next step.

  Clearly…… life was not that sweet.

  Amaterasu brutally continued. "In a relationship such as yours, the two of you are fundamentally different from Lucifer and I. We could never mate to bear offspring, and our control over our powers was never as refined as you two. Although right now you two might be 50 times weaker at your peak than we were at our weakest, you still have endless room to grow."

  "Lucifer and I were plagued with issues like our duty towards the Gerdo Galaxy, our genetic incompatibility, and our supremacy. We were not like you two, where one could not live without the other. Lucifer has done something to both of you at the last minute that he himself did not fully understand, but it led to this outcome."

  "We were both equals. I dare to say that I was the most beautiful and powerful female in the universe whereas he was the most handsome and powerful male in the universe."

  "It was natural that we would be attracted to each other like magnets. Even from a genetic point of view, I and Lucifer were far more compatible than any other combination of the nine of us."

  Amaterasu had a weird smile on her face at this point. "I didn’t reject Pangu because he was ugly or weak, but because we were far too incompatible. Lucifer also rejected Morrigan, leading to her fixation on Pangu, for the same reason."

  "As his equal, he respected my opinion and I, his. We worked together, side by side, hand in hand."

  Amaterasu frowned as she gazed at Eva. "However, you……"

  "You are also supposed to be equals, yet you have purposefully lowered yourself below him, as a form of support. You walk behind him, always gazing at his back and making sure your footsteps are covered."

  "You sometimes jump in front, clearing his path and making it smoother for him. This would be fine if you were a normal or lesser mortal girl who was infatuated with him, but you are not."

  "You are his equal, his other half, the flipside of the same coin. You have continually spent all your effort clearing his path for him, but what about your own? Do you think your road is any less thorny than his?"

  Eva’s face remained contorted as Amaterasu continued to berate her, not finding the words to easily retort because Amaterasu was simply baring all the facts that Eva had forcefully ignored, all the flaws in her current train of thinking and actions that she did not want to acknowledge.

  "No, by doing what you do, you make your own road harder to cross. Once he reaches the end of his path, you will find that you have barely walked across yours, and then how will you feel?" Amaterasu asked seriously.

  Eva raised her head and her black eyes swirled with the barely concealed madness she had kept at bay. "How will I feel? How will I feel? WHY SHOULD I CARE HOW I FEEL?!"

  Amaterasu stepped back in surprise at Eva’s outburst. "You don’t seem to understand something, O’ ’Great’ Primogenitor. I am not you. I am different from you. I don’t care about this equality bullshit and how one should walk their own path, together or not."

  "My life serves but one purpose: Ensuring Draco succeeds!"

  "To reach that goal, any price is worth it! Any action I must take, I’ll perform without any hesitation! Any sacrifice I must make, I will do so gladly! Any choice I make, will be to his benefit!"

  "That is all that matters to me. And unlike you, I don’t have an interest in showing off or being in the light, for the shadows are far more welcoming of me and my insanity than your so-called light and holiness could ever be."

  Amaterasu was left speechless for a long while. Looking into those pitch-black eyes - the same color that she herself had - she realized that Eva’s intensity was far greater than hers had ever been in the past.

  Amaterasu paused to think about how she should approach this issue with Eva before it was too late, but was startled when Eva spoke to her slowly.

  "Do you know why I called you a prissy bitch?" She asked while staring Amaterasu in the eye.

  Amaterasu shook her head and adopted a curious expression. While she might not be in the body of Draco, Amaterasu knew that he and her own soulmate had no conflicts. In fact, they were so similar that he was technically a perfect reincarnation.

  And yet Eva was so averse to her, though she had never been like this before. She had always been reverent to her, just like Draco revered Lucifer. So, what had changed?

  Eva enlightened her. "I have read all your writings and even partaken in the most secret of messages you left behind. I had been convinced I understood my bloodline fully, as well as the history of how we came to be."

  "Yet after performing this ceremony, I realized that I was truly naive."

  "You walked in here in a grand and imposing manner, the holy light radiating off you enough to purify the world and all evil. It was truly befitting what the bloodline should entail…… on the surface."

  Eva sneered at this point. "But to my eyes, it couldn’t have looked more pretentious and fake."

  Amaterasu was stunned by her words. "What do you mean? I don’t intentionally do that to impress anyone, it’s just how I’ve always been."

  Eva nodded. "I realized that, which is why I stopped insulting you after you spoke, because through our talk, I realized even more."

  Eva’s eyes flashed with a chilling light. "I learned that we are actually one and the same, even if you try to hide behind a veil of false purity in order to live up to a standard put forward but none other than you yourself!"

  Amaterasu frowned deeply, wondering what the hell Eva meant. No one liked being told they were fake, and would always demand an explanation as to why others felt that way.

  Eva simply pointed behind her, towards the statues that were still kneeling up to now. "Those effigies represent our bloodline’s three main inheritances, or at least, what you’ve crafted for us in order to stabilize the bloodline."

  "They indubitably represent what we are, who we are, and what we can do. You though, failed to understand them and recognize them, even going as far as misinterpreting them!"