Lylas was plagued by a terrible fever for the rest of the night and Alana stayed up all night trying to nurse him back to health. He had woken up every three hours, hallucinating that she was that woman. Alana bore it and told herself to play the role. If she wanted him healthy again. She had to appease him.

Two more days of this and still Lylas wasn't getting better. Alana was besides herself. She didn't know what to do. She was stranded in that island of nowhere with him. He was also her only means of transport and communication. How could she alert anyone for help?

She didn't have any powers to contact anybody outside of this lone island.

Alana cried with anxiety, until finally, like a literal beacon from heaven, Derak broke and entered Lylas's seal that was surrounding and protecting the island.

"Derak, oh thank god, you've come! He's unwell and I don't know what to do!" Alana cried as she ran up to him. He was brushing off golden dust on his shoulders.

Although she had barely spoke to Derak since first time meeting him, although they were barely acquainted. Alana felt desperate as she grabbed on to him.

Derak held her weak body, his jaw clenching before calming.

"Take me to him."

And so Alana took him to asses Lylas whom was still slumbering as if dead on their bed.

Alana stood anxiously watching as Derak examinined him. Checking his pulse and breathing and using magic to check his vitality.

A bright golden light shone from Lylas's forehead, blinding Alana's iris. It was as if she was staring directly at the sun and so on reflex Alana closed her eyes and looked away.

"Can't believe he's been at that place again!" Derak muttered to himself in derision, making Alana open her eyes again. "I clearly told him it would be dangerous going against heaven's will!"

"What place?" Alana asked, pleadingly. "What happened to him."

Derak stared at Alana, his eyes filled with pity. He appreciated the efforts the mortal tried in nursing him, but this affected her health more than Lylas. Then he shook his head to answer her.

"Derak, tell me! I want to know...If he's truly hurt I'm willing to stay with him even I have to nurse him for the rest of my life." She demanded weakly.

Seeing her this way, Derak was moved. He wondered when she last slept.

"Lylas will be fine, he's strong, he will recuperate soon enough. I'm more worried about the health of yours and your child's. When did you last sleep, Alana?" He asked.

"I couldn't sleep. I was worried." Alana stared at Lylas, hauntedly reliving the last two days.

"Alana think about the baby, you need to be healthy in order for the baby to be healthy."

"Derak, I know you're trying to steer me from knowing what happened to him, but I can handle it. Tell me." She pleaded once more.

"Alright. I'll tell you... I'll tell you." He relented.

Seeing her anticipated expression, Derak sighed.

"Alana, you know it well, that if it came to it, whom Lylas would willingly lose all his powers for."

Alana pressed her lips. She understood instantly, there was only one woman in his heart. Lylas would willingly lose all of his powers for that woman if it came to it.

"No one knows this except the people involved...but this idiot of a man to this day is still preserving Naala's body. For the past fifteen thousand years in every thirty years he's been visiting the underworld to draw in heavenly aura so Naala's body can receive cultivation." Derak explained.

"This process requires a sacrifice each time. And so, Lylas for the past fifteen thousand years has been chirping pieces of his heart as sacrifice."

Alana gaped, feeling a curbing deep in the chambers of her heart.

Derak continued, "To any normal immortal the process of physically breaking one's heart would kill them. But you must know by now that Lylas isn't a normal immortal... And so he managed to recover everytime."

Then Derak explained how even to remarkable immortals such as Lylas who managed to bypass the laws of nature, there was always drawbacks. His actions would retaliate on his fate.

For five hundred times, Lylas has chirped his heart and replaced every piece with an artificial one to sustain himself. These artificial pieces worked normally like his own heart would, but five hundred artificial pieces have impacted his primordial essence.

"Thirty years ago, I warned him that the will of heaven was going to make him receive retributive karma. I warned him that if he continued in this route he will lose himself completely. But everytime I warned him, he always said, 'better she's alive than I am.'

Alana felt the tears before they rushed down her cheeks. That love was knitted to the bones. Too firm to break. Too hard to chirp and she had wanted to try. She couldn't believe she had attempted to try. Alana was in awe at how much this man loved that woman, he even sacrificed five hundred pieces of his heart for her.

"He's running on an artificial heart, Alana. And for what? Even the woman he's sacrificing his life for is receiving this karma. Every time he renews energy to persevere her body, she loses a fraction of her memories."

Derak then explained how Lylas realised the energy he got rid of always had a piece of Anala's memory. This was also Lylas' punishment for abusing the heavens and stealing from the heavenly realm. Every renewal meant, a small fraction of his wife's memory being lost.

However, that didn't stop Lylas. He created the moon, Dessim, to orbit right between the three realms and border perfectly with the underworld. It was so that the moon would catch every sentiment Naala lost in her memories. Those sentiments he would then refine and create as dream portals.

As long as her memories were stored safely with him, if she ever forgot him, there was always the dream portals to remind her of their love story.

Every thirty years, he would feed her these dream portals, so that even though each time her memory and his heart chirped. She would wake up at least to remember their life in her dreams.

Alana's heart was punctured again and again, she wondered how she could sustain the blows. So it turns out there was this sort of pain in the world.

"This is not all." Derak continued. "Thirty years ago was his second last piece of his original heart, this year he only had one piece remaining and then he won't have a heart anymore. I warned and reminded him of this for the last thirty years. But you know what he said?" Derak stared at Alana with a haunted expression.

"He said; 'My heart was never mine, she took it...it's always been hers."

The tears fell harder. Naala, you don't deserve that man. Even Alana felt undeserving of him.

"An artificial heart is not ones true heart and so every time he uses his cultivated strength, that is, every time he uses the powers from his essence, it affects his soul. It's a miracle he's still alive right now."

"But what does he do? He doesn't heed my warning and goes to that place again. This time he has chirped every last piece. Even if the heavens are moved by that sacrifice, they can only watch him suffer in retribution to his actions.

"Alana, he's lucky to be alive. But a man with his original heart removed, it's only a matter of time until he loses his life completely."

Alana felt her world shaking, crumbling in chaos as if detonating from existence.

"No. I don't believe it, he's not dying. I'm the one that's dying. He can't die as well!" She cried, shaking her head in disbelief.

Derak had never sympathised with anyone as he did that moment.

"What's the point then if he dies and I die. What would be the point, if that woman doesn't wake up? What would be the point of this child becoming parentless?!"

It felt as if she had cried a river that night.

Derak was very moved by Alana. He had sworn to secrecy to never reveal this to anyone. However, he thought since this mortal loved him and was very well giving up her life for him, she might as well know that man's true heart. She might as well know how much that man was losing, in the remainder of her days. She might as well love him to the fullest, even though she wouldn't receive his true love.

Derak had left after he transferred some of his powers to Lylas. Alana sat beside Lylas on the bed, still crying.

"She doesn't deserve you." She kept crying to him. "I hate her. She never deserved you."

It was true. Alana had never hated anyone as much as she detested Naala. That woman selfishly killed herself and for what? To leave the man that loved her in despair? To make him sacrifice so much to have her back? It was now obvious Lylas would never let go of her and accept her death.

Even when Alana got to know him within those first two weeks in his realm. He had refused to open his heart to anyone, because he still believed in his wife's return. Her body has always been preserved by him and so what was the point of moving on and falling in love with someone else.

Alana hugged her stomach, hugging her little bean. "I'm sorry." She apologised to the child.

"I'm sorry that your surrogate mother is so weak. I'm going to try my best to stay alive. We are a team aren't we?" She stroked her stomach.

At that moment, for the first time, Alana felt the child inside her kick. It was as if he was replying her, assuring her.

Alana was so moved, she sobbed tearlessly.

"So you do my part and I do mine. We try to stay alive for him, right? When you come to this world, don't hurt surrogate mommy. At least for you, one parent has to stay alive..."

***

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