Chapter 777

Lucifer waited in his room for the food to arrive, along with the information about his home planet being found, but he didn't leave all hopes on the others. 

He didn't lose sleep idly; instead, he lost himself in deep thoughts, trying to find a way for himself. He personally had many abilities which he believed could help him if he found the right way. 

He was wearing the ring that was supposed to stop him from attacking the owners of the ship, but that didn't mean it could stop him from using his abilities as long as he didn't have any hostile intentions towards the hosts. 

The people on this ship didn't even know what it meant to be a Variant. They couldn't sense much in him. They couldn't even detect his correct species. He was sure they weren't going to notice if he sneakily used some of his abilities. 

'Before I do anything, I need to think about what can help me. The Spatial ability can't help me since I'm too far from home. Its range is very small.'

'The lighting... I can bring forth the lightning from my body, but I can't take the help of any clouds in space to boost it. That's one useful in fighting, so that's out of the question.'

'Decay...? Wait, Decay can help me. It steals energy from things and transfers them to my body. I don't need to have hostile intentions to use it since it's always active. Can I use Decay to maybe... Destroy this ring? It should be possible...' 

He looked at the ring on his finger with an interesting gaze. 

'So that can be one way of destroying this ring without trying to take it out? Other than that, the wind can't help me either. The other abilities are useless. Maybe Energy Negation can be used, but I'm not even sure if it works or their energy signatures? I don't want to disrupt their work at the moment.'

'The only way out seems to be by using Time Control, but even that doesn't last. I don't have control over time. Even if it somehow sends me to the past, it doesn't take long before I'm back to my original time, which is right back on this ship.'

'And even in that case, it looks like time only sends my consciousness back in time. It doesn't take my real body. That isn't a permanent solution unless I can find a way to change the future.'

'It might be possible to do it permanently if I can master time? But this is easier said than done... Oh wait! Xaen! I forgot about him! He should be up soon! I need to do something about him. If he wakes up, he'll be out of my shadow re-'

Lost in thoughts, Lucifer just remembered that he had forgotten about one of the most important things as he was more worried about his way back. He had forgotten about Xaen entirely. 

Unfortunately, he remembered it too late. He looked inside his shadow realm but couldn't find Xaen's unconscious body inside. 

"He is up? He ran away? When?!"

Lucifer got off the bed, shocked. He remembered seeing Xaen in his shadow realm when he had ended up on this ship. If Xaen wasn't there now, that meant he was somewhere on this ship?

Stunned, Lucifer ran to the door. He needed to find Xaen or at least alert the people of this ship, so they didn't think that Lucifer and Xaen were working together and Lucifer was just a distraction to help Xaen sneak inside. 

Reaching the door, Lucifer extended his hand towards the door, only to find the door opening on its own. 

The door opened towards the outside, revealing a kid standing on the other side. 

"Xaen?!" 

"Oh, so you do recognize him. I thought that might be the case. We caught him sneaking around on our ship." A man's voice came from the side. 

Lucifer stepped out of the room, noticing Joana standing right there. He lowered his gaze, noticing the same time in the fingers of Xaen, which was in his. However, there was another ring in Xaen's hand which wasn't in his. 

"We took the liberty of interrogating your friend. I hope you don't mind."

"He isn't my friend." Before things could get bad, Lucifer explained. "He is someone who wanted to kill me. I took him as a hostage in my shadow realm. I don't know when he woke up and left."

"Well, you don't have to worry about us misunderstanding," Joana smirked, understanding why Lucifer was this impatient for an explanation. 

"As I said, we already interrogated him. And he already confessed some things as well. We know he isn't a friend of yours, and he escaped. However, one thing is interesting that we found."

"What?" Lucifer asked. 

Joana pushed Xaen inside the room and closed the room. "Stay inside."

Only Lucifer and Joana stood outside. "Let's take a walk."

He started walking away from Lucifer, showing his back to Lucifer as if he wasn't worried about a surprise attack despite knowing that Lucifer had some strange abilities. 

Lucifer walked behind the man. 

"Yeah?"

"Just like we scanned you, we scanned him as well. Is he a so-called Variant as well?"

"He is."

"I see. That's interesting. It seems like the Variants aren't what I thought."

"What?"

"I mean, when we scanned you, we found you matching with literally every species whose gene sampling data we have in our systems except humans. We thought that maybe all Variants on earth had this feature; however I was wrong."

"The scan results show Xaen matching a human. That means even though Variants are different from humans to some extent, their gene sampling is the same. But you... You are different."

"That means you aren't a Variant. Moreover, you aren't a human either. That leaves the question... What exactly are you?'

"What am I?" Lucifer asked, frowning. "As far as I know, I'm a Variant. Anything more than that, you'll have to tell me."

"Don't worry; we will find an answer to that question as well. We just need to make sure our system wasn't wrong. But if it turns out that our system was right when scanning you, things are going to become really amusing." Joana said, glancing back at Lucifer with a smirk on his face. 

"May I ask you something as well?" Lucifer asked, having some questions of his own. 

"Go ahead. No matter what you ask, I'll answer honestly."

"My question is simple. Why are you doing it?"

"Why am I doing what?"

"Why are you helping me?" Lucifer asked, matching the steps of Joana to walk right beside him.