1945 Betrayed By One's Self...

Many years later...

Felix was seen crucified on a holy golden cross.

His head idled forward while his golden hair dampened and fell over his closed eyes, as though shielding him from the radiance above.

His chest rose and fell faintly, the only sign of life in a body that appeared utterly surrendered. While his body showed no physical injuries, the same couldn't be said about his mind and soul.

He was currently blacked out after surviving another grueling experimental session by the three celestials.

Meanwhile, the three rulers were outside of the mansion, which was built specifically for Felix's occupation. But, for Felix, it felt like nothing more than a luxurious dungeon...

"It's been five thousand years already...We have tried everything there is." Amun-Ra sighed, "I think it's time we call it a quit and focus our energy on another approach unrelated to the tablet."

"While I admit that the results have been far from satisfactory, we haven't tried everything." Ymir uttered calmly, "We can still attempt to possess the boy's body and forcefully make it our vessel."

"If we succeed in doing this, we can find a way to integrate with the other hearts."

"Are you sure about this?" Medusa questioned, "It's almost guaranteed that the boy's soul will perish. If his soul dies so as the prophecy."

"At this point, the soul no longer matters." Ymir replied, "We have already used every means possible to increase its strength to unbelievable realms. Yet, both the celestial hearts we found refused to be inhabited by it...A total rejection."

"This could mean only one thing, an entity can't become a celestial without originating from a celestial roots." "There is no such thing as impossible, I just don't think this boy can do it." Medusa shook her head, "His soul and body are too limited and nothing can help them grow to a celestial level."

"Maybe, maybe not." Ymir said, "At the moment, all I know is that our approach has to change."

The three rulers have gone through hell back and forth to find a way for Felix to become a celestial, yet, he failed every single experiment.

They tried bestowing divinity upon him, putting his soul inside a celestial core, and even tried to use their celestial cores to make it happen.

Unfortunately, besides some success in increasing his strength, those thousands of years were for naught.

Seeing that no one had any problem with it, Ymir appeared before Felix's crucified body and woke him up.

Felix slowly opened his muddled deadpan eyes and looked at them without an ounce of emotion in them.

It was an abyssal look of utter despair, where one understood that their life was gone forever... All Felix did was keep looking at them, saying nothing. It was like he was awaiting them to start their new experiment and get it over with.

"Boy, you don't have to look at us like that." Amun-Ra uttered coldly, "It's your lucky day, you will be released soon."

Although Felix heard the miracle that he was praying for, he still hadn't batted an eyelid.

Three thousand years...

Felix was kidnapped while he was a young boy in his twenties and now he was over three thousand years old...For the bulk of his life, he served it as nothing but an experimental rat.

Although he was charmed, his senses or identity weren't robbed of him. Meaning, he felt everything happening to him.

Release? Freedom? He wanted none of it.

"Make it quick..." He mumbled with a husky voice, not carrying an ounce of joy or relief.

"We will do it as we would like." Amun-Ra sneered coldly, "You got a problem with it?"

"..."

Felix went silent and lowered his eyelids again, showing a little bitter smile. Throughout his entire stay here, Felix always wondered and questioned the reason for being chosen by the tablet.

Sadly, when not even the three rulers knew, who could explain it to him?

Thus, all he could do was accept his unfortunate luck.

'At least, it's ending...At least.'

As Felix murmured those soft weary words in his mind, Medusa had already started the process of possession.

"It's going to sting for a bit," Medusa warned, but her voice carried not an ounce of compassion.

Before Felix could react, she held his forehead and pushed a wisp in the shape of a snake into Felix's consciousness space!

The snake enlarged itself and snared Felix's soul barrier, seemingly putting it in a cocoon crafted out of its long serpentine body.

Then, it started squeezing the soul barrier with just enough force to make tiny fissures appear.

Those fissures didn't come without a price as Felix felt like his entire existence was put into the grinder.

"Arrrrrrghhhh..."

He groaned in agony with his raspy quiet voice, but no one was there to save him or alleviate his pain...

He felt like an invisible force grinding against the core of his being, as though the universe itself was pressing down upon his spirit.

Each of those cracks left a fracturing sensation of his memories, hopes, and every shred of his identity being wrenched apart.

It was a suffocating hollowness and a searing ache all at once, a feeling of being undone at the seams of reality.

It was the torment of feeling less than yourself, of knowing you were breaking and unable to stop it.

Yet, the worst part...When the cracks reached their tipping point, Medusa relaxed her grasp and the pressure faded away, leaving his soul barrier to start its tedious recovery process.

"Try to stay awake with us...We have to do it as many times as possible to facilitate the possession."

Medusa shared with a faint gentle smile as she caressed Felix's face, smearing the blood coming from his pores all over his cheek...Her charming spell existed fully activated.

All Felix could do after hearing this existed stifled his tears while uttering with quivering lips.

"I understand, my Queen..."

"Good boy."

***

The Original Timeline...

Felix was seen sitting motionless in his living room, his bloodshot eyes wide and unblinking as if held open by invisible hands.

His chest heaved with shallow, erratic breaths, but his gaze existed elsewhere; trapped in the unrelenting flood of memories within his fractured mind.

The images surged like a storm.

The Three Celestials loomed in his memories, their forms shifting between divine radiance and monstrous cruelty.

Their punishments were etched into him; fire that never burned out, whispers that devoured his sanity, and the crushing isolation of eternity spent under their gaze.

"This...This...This..."

A tremor began in his hands, spreading quickly as the memories intensified. His breaths turned to gasps, his chest rising and falling like a man drowning in invisible waters.

Then, without warning, Felix folded over as his body convulsed, vomiting onto the cold floor.

Tears mingled with the sweat on his face, but he existed blind to both.

His rugged breathing filled the room, each inhale was a desperate attempt to claw his way back to the present...Back to his true self.

Alas, the damage was too severe to look past.

The things done to him might be too much for a mortal's mind to comprehend, but what ruined him existed the fact he was the person responsible for it...

Why.

This word responded a billion times, a trillion times, inside Felix's mind during his imprisonment.

Yet, not in a million years would he have imagined that he existed the one putting himself in this hellish agony.

It existed the worst feeling in the entire universe...The feeling of being betrayed by yourself.