Chapter 68: Chapter 68 - Message
[Elijah Knight POV]
It was late afternoon, around 4 to 5 pm. I was earlier in my room, putting the finishing touches on some of the projects that Emily and I were doing on our own. It was an artifact that emitted light when near any mana remnant and a gauntlet with a device to hide blades. A more casual design, and another design for battles.
"I really want everything to be in order when I deliver this to her tomorrow." I talked to myself, but soon I felt hungry and so I left my room.
I went straight to the kitchen part of our section, and ended up seeing the most important girls in the entire academy, student president Tessia Eralith and my captain, Claire Bladeheart. The two seemed to be having a casual conversation as I just noticed... Arthur... Cooking?
"Yo! I didn't know you cooked! I thought that was something Luz was an expert at among the Leywins." I commented, making the three of them aware of my presence.
"Good afternoon, Elijah. Were you resting?" Claire commented, while Art laughed at what I said.
"I was just finishing up some stuff for tomorrow. What about you guys?" I asked walking over to a cupboard that was kept cold thanks to a magic ice stone, and took out a jug of milk, filling a glass for me.
"We were here talking about possible places for Tessia to have a great date~" Claire said teasingly, making the student president blush while my friend, the vice captain, was completely embarrassed.
"C-claire?! I already told you, I just wanted to thank him!" Tessia pouted, still flushed.
"Hm... What kind of ancient magic do you Leywins have? Really. You have the elven princess and the human princess is clearly attracted to your brother. I want you to teach me that." I said teasing Arthur, which made him turn to face me almost immediately, while Tessia hid her face and Claire looked in the other direction.
"First, don't go down to the playground if you can't take it! Second, I thought you were already satisfied with Emily!" the auburn hair boy spoke, now making my cheeks feel extremely hot.
"W-well... She's awesome... B-but she's not my girlfriend!... S-she's my friend and is a girl!" I stuttered, making Arthur and Tessia look at me with a sly smile.
"Damn... Looks like now they have ways to fight back." I thought as I drank half a glass of milk.
After that, we went to the main room's table and talked about some things. Claire and Tessia took advantage of the fact that there weren't many people there, to talk about some possible situations that we could find during the school year, due to the union of the three races. Clearly, they were both asking for the opinion that Art and I had on these situations, even giving some ideas and us asking who would represent more priority in each of the two groups.
It wasn't even half an hour into those conversations we were having, and we saw a great acquaintance of ours opening the door and entering the main committee room. He was tired-eyed, carrying the top of his uniform in his hands, while wearing a tank top. His black pants were slightly ripped at the knee area and there were shards of ice and glass on his arm, causing some blood to flow out.
We were freaked out, especially by the fact that he was heading towards his room, just waving at us. But Claire got up and approached him, to ask what happened.
The four of us were confused and shocked by what he said. "Did he tell Professor Glory about his power with ice? That doesn't sound very smart..." I thought for a bit, but that's weird, he's super smart, so was there a reason behind it?
I questioned him about the fact that he revealed his powers, after all, he himself said he wanted to be hidden. But he replied that he only told about the ice, not about the plant magic. It was even understandable, apart from the four of us, the royal children of Sapin, the Leywin and Eralith families and the Elven Lances, from what I hear, no one else knows about the full potential of the elements he has access to.
The most other people know is about him being a Lightning/Ice/Sound mage. While the most common people and outside his circle of acquaintances, see him only as a Fire/Wind mage.
"So that just means Luz has put Professor Glory in the third tier of trust." Yeah, that thought was the simplest way to separate.
For example, Art and I, as far as I know, are the only ones in Luz's first trusted tier, knowing about him being reincarnated and his elemental potential. People like Curtis, Tessia, and Claire were in the second tier because they only knew about the fact that he was anomalous. King Blaine, Professor Gideon and now Professor Glory, were in the third tier, because they knew about normal deviant abilities. While everyone else is in lower tiers, not knowing him nor knowing his magic skills in depth.
He said he was apparently tired and went into his own room to sleep. I took a long breath and looked at Claire. "Well, we can add one more person who knows about him using ice without being a water mage."
"From the way he said it, maybe Glory is assuming he's a tri-elemental, rather than an anomalous duo-elemental." Claire commented, eating a cupcake we'd left on the table.
"If he trusts her to the point where he even tells her that part of the secret, I don't see anything wrong... But I bet whoever found out about the 'other secret'.... Will faint." Tessia said, making her and Claire laugh.
"Little do they know there's something more secret than a human using plant magic" I thought, as I finished my glass of milk.
We talked a little longer, until out of nowhere, Princess Eralith started coughing and Arthur got her a glass of water. "Are you okay, Tess?" her knight in shining armor asked.
"I don't know... I'm feeling a little pain..." She said, tears starting to flow from her eyes, but her expression didn't match that, it was as if she was crying without realizing it.
"Tessia....?" Claire was worried, I mean, we were all worried and soon the princess noticed that she was crying.
"What is it?" She said extremely confused, without stuttering, it was really like the tears weren't hers.
Suddenly we started to hear a loud scream, it even sounded like a roar. "Did something happen to Curtis or Grawder?" I thought, since that roar was quite animalistic, the prince and his bond were the only ones that came to my mind.
But we looked around and saw that roar, scream, whatever it was... It was coming from Luz's room. But it was strange, it didn't seem to be his voice, it didn't resemble his voice at all
"B-Brother?!" Tessia exclaimed, running towards the door, Arthur and I followed shortly thereafter as Claire seemed to be calling out to all the other Disciplinary Committee members using the artifact attached to her knife.
As we approached the door, Tessia tried to touch the handle, but she screamed in pain and pulled her hand away. "IT'S HOT!?!" She exclaimed, waving her hand that looked like it had received a slight burn.
"Hot???" Arthur was confused, but soon created an ice gauntlet using his deviant magic, he also tried to touch the doorknob, but the gauntlet seemed to melt instantly just by approaching it.
My head started to hurt out of nowhere, but for some reason, in the midst of that headache I had an idea, I put my hand in front of my body. "I think I know how to open the door without breaking it." I said, as I felt something strange happening.
A voice out of nowhere started to appear, no, not just one, there were multiple voices, they all seemed to whisper and order me different things, that was extremely confusing, but one of the voices spoke loud and clear.
"Decay... Earth..." the voice said, repeatedly and slowly in front of me, out of nowhere, appeared a kind of dark and extremely beautiful metal, in a spherical shape.
I passed my right hand through that sphere, and it covered my wrist, forming a glove that looked elastic and malleable, but no, it was rigid and hard, the only reason I used that glove fluidly, maybe it was because I was manipulating the foreign metal in it, unconsciously. Having it in my hand, I managed to open the door, not feeling the warmth that Arthur and Tessia proved to be, but the sight inside my friend's room was not pleasant.
The floor and walls were covered in ominous black flames, but strangely they didn't seem to burn anything there, they were just existing and moving aggressively. And on the bed, was Luz, lying with his back slightly arched up, letting out that bizarre roar, while he seemed to be crying a lot. His eyes were open, but I couldn't see the ordinary cyan blue, not even the divine yellow, or the three colors that are left when he activates his special power. No, his eyes were colorless, completely white as he cried and screamed more, looking like he was in complete pain.
I froze for a moment, watching that scene and feeling the headache come back and get stronger, while Tessia walked away in fear of it and Arthur walked into the place, creating an ice floor to be able to move.
"What a failure!"
"Really, useless!"
"I thought you would be of some use..."
"Do not talk to me anymore!"
"You exist for one thing, and you still do it wrong!!"
Voices echoed again, but now it was different, it was like my own voice saying it with a deep and frightening echo. I concentrated hard, and after a few seconds, the voices were gone, but the headache remained.
I watched what was happening now. Arthur seemed to be looking for some way to wake up his brother, as if calling him obviously wasn't working, but then another idea came into the pain I felt.
"Punch him in the stomach! He'll wake up like this!" I exclaimed, Tessia seemed to scream at me in the background because she didn't want her 'Brother' hurt, but Art seemed to accept the idea, punching him squarely in the stomach, with an ice gauntlet around his hand.
Luz seemed to wake up almost instantly upon receiving the punch, with those dark flames seeming to be sucked into his body, entering through the tips of his fingers, toes and through his mouth. It was as if the simple fact of taking a deep breath when taking that damage, made all that chaos dissipate. He got up quickly, sitting on the bed, his breath still heavy and he seemed to be sweating cold, one of his eyes was cyan and the other was pure yellow.
He turned to all of us, watching us in confusion. "W-what happened here?!?... And what happened to you?!?" He pointed at me.
"Uh...? What do you mean what happened to me?.... It was Art who hit you. You should be asking him that." I said, confused by all the shape that story was in, but luckily, the headaches were gone.
"I'm talking about your appearance!?!" Luz exclaimed, still pointing at me, that's when Arthur also turned to me with an astonished face.
"What do you mean, my appearance?"
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[Luz Leywin POV]
"Hello~"
Hearing that voice, the first second I closed my eyes, my body shivered completely. It was peaceful, calming, welcoming, but at the same time it made me feel like countless blades of scythes and swords were an inch away from touching my skin.
That made me open my eyes, to now see a... Dark ceiling? Something was wrong, my bedroom ceiling is brown, I mean the colors of my bedroom as a whole are within the spectrum of beige and brown, why is a dark ceiling what I find when I open my eyes?
Slowly I decided to get up, and in that movement, I could already make things weird even more. That ceiling, it wasn't a ceiling, it was an absolute void above me. And I wasn't in my room, I was in a kind of room that was open from the top, it was completely decorated with expensive, fancy stuff.
The colors of that place were divided into three palettes, one with red and gold, another with blue and green, and a last one with black and white. And why did I say that? Why did everything seem to be divided between these colors, as if there wasn't a specific theme in that ghost room, it was a mixture of themes, mixture of intentions, mixtures of... Lives...
I looked at the ground, and I came across something interesting and even beautiful so to speak. It was as if the floor was made of glass and separated an epic battle between three energies colored in amethyst, black and blood red. The three of them trying to completely dominate that floor, as if it were something personal.
Why can I feel this? I can really feel like the three of them are sentient and are fighting each other for completely personal reasons.
"How crazy..." When I commented on what I saw, my voice came out doubled, no... Tripled... No, quadrupled... No... It was like an extensive and infinite echo of several different voices, female, male and androgynous, that only lasted while I moved my lips and stopped when I closed them.
Finally, I stopped looking at the floor and realized that there were now a number of chairs all arranged to face me, around my bed, in three curved rows. And in the center seat of the first row, there was a young woman with pale skin, soft blue eyes, like a clear sky, green clothes like healthy grass, and wavy hair at the ends, blond and vibrant that made it impossible to mistake it for white hair.
"Confused to see me?" The voice I heard at the very beginning of that situation I found myself in, that same voice came out of that girl's mouth.
"Not so much... The last time I saw you was having a nightmare where I was forced to kill you... Marylin." I said, still with my voice having that echo, as I watched that figure that represented my first love of all my lives, of course, it might not be her, but still, I couldn't stop my body from saying her name when I see her .
"Marylin....? So that's the name of the person who looks like that?.. Interesting. And you talk like everything here is normal... Even more interesting." That young lady said.
That person saying that, made me get out of bed, stepping on that supposedly glass floor. "Does that mean... You're someone wanting to communicate with me, and that form of communication automatically made you look like someone dear to me?" I asked, with my eyes focusing right on that 'Marylin', as I try to activate Soul Speed, in case of any battle situation.
When I did that, the three colors on the floor seemed to change, they didn't change color, but it looked like the blood red was starting to gain more territory. I disabled SoulSpeed and tried to force some temporal magic that I couldn't do in the real world, but that I still did within my mind realm. This time, the amethyst color seemed to dominate the floor more.
"Interesting, looks like you've understood one of the things here in this place." The female-looking being said, as I deactivated my spells and the colors returned to their common struggle.
"But before answering your question... Are you sure you shouldn't use 'what' instead of 'who'...?" That being smiled softly at me.
Suddenly, the lighting coming from the chandeliers and the floor began to flicker, and when stability returned, the situation there was already different. All those empty chairs were now filled with people, all staring dead, looking just like ultra-realistic mannequins.
Elijah, Claire, Theodore, Feyrith...
Arthur, Alice, Reynolds, Ellie...
Tessia, Virion, Alduin, Merial...
Curtis, Kathyln, Blaine, Priscilla...
Lilia, Vincent, Tabitha, Emily...
There was even a copy of me, which possibly represented Sirius, with a white-haired, long-horned woman beside him. The two of them were the only ones that seemed to interact with each other, as their mannequins were holding hands, even though they were dolls, I could feel it was a firm grip.
But what caught my attention the most were seven other people there that I didn't recognize from anywhere... I mean, four of those people were actually silhouettes, shadows, with nothing to identify, while the other three had their completely detailed appearances, but still, I didn't recognize them.
"So tell me... WHAT are you?..." I asked, looking towards the being, but I noticed that, the chair he was in, now there was a disturbing mannequin, it was my appearance from my first world, but it was cut in half, the other half being sewn into a human-looking mannequin of Zalgnity.
"You have to be careful, oh... Great cursed one." I turned around, that being was now sitting on the bed.
"If you try to save more lives than necessary. Everything will fall into chaos..... Tell me, the honor of doing everything right... Is it worth it... When everyone suffers?" the lights began to flicker again, demonstrating an even more disturbing scene than before.
Arthur, Elijah and Tessia had their heads completely cremated, showing only the completely black skull, but with the rest intact. Claire had a smile on her face, but blood was pouring from her eyes as there seemed to be a huge hole in her stomach. Kathyln was completely blown out of her eyes, with a maniacal open-mouthed smile plastered on her face and shards of ice sticking out of her shoulders.
Lilia and Ellie were hanging from a rope tied to their feet, leaving them together upside down, with drops of blood running down their bodies, the rope seemed to come from a possible ceiling, but that void made it I couldn't see where it ended. The same could be said of Theodore, Curtis, and Feyrith, for these were hanging. Emily didn't look too good either, with dark spikes having pierced her body, impaling her.
Sirius was unharmed, but his horns were exposed and incredibly longer than usual, while the white haired woman was missing her horns. All the others were headless, with the exception of Virion who was showing signs of having had part of his body devoured, and the four shadowy figures who decided to just disappear.
I took a deep breath after seeing that disturbing and grotesque scene, but I was used to seeing it, or so I thought. Because my body started to hyperventilate at the exact moment I looked back at the being with the appearance of Marylin.
"You really like to deliver a brutal message. But answer me, what are you?!" my voice made me sound angry, but I wasn't feeling it.
"You will know what I am later... But know... This world may be full of mana... But you have to prepare yourself against those who have nothing... An eye for an eye... A tooth for tooth.." I was confused as to what that meant by that... this mf is really using this type of sentence?
"And you can literally be god. But being something that powerful... People focused on who you know... Including..." again the lights flicker, I look around and now there are no chairs and no mannequins, with the exception of one.
There was also a chair and on it was the sewn mannequin representing me and Zalgnity. That seam looked like it had been undone, causing half of the zalgnity to still sit, while my half was lying on the floor.
"I wish you luck in maintaining this emotional little theater of yours... When you're forced to stop acting... That's when it really starts..." The lights flashed again and there was no more bed, not even chairs. There was only a large rimless mirror, which floated without touching the wall.
I started to get closer to it, only to see that I had my first look, dark messy hair, tired, dead eyes, and sharp face. I looked at my hands and noticed that the clothes were different from the ones in the reflection, I may have looked like Sirius, but the mirror showed my true form.
In the background, I began to hear the sound of something slightly high-pitched, as the seconds passed, that sound seemed to get clearer and cleaner, it was someone screaming with all the air that existed in their lungs. I looked around, and nothing, but when I looked down, there it was. Amidst the colors there, caused by the three strange energies, was Sirius.
He looked like he was being slowly and painfully disintegrated by those energies trying to consume him, he screamed non-stop with a frightened expression. There was only the horn on the left side of his head. But what was going on? Where's the other one?
My answers were given when I looked back into the mirror, seeing myself now with the look I was having in this new world, with a horn on my right side, dark flames rising from the ground and trying to climb up my body. "A-aaah?!?!"
The flames were running quickly through my body, starting to envelop me in them, I felt no pain, or was I supposed to feel no pain. Those flames somehow passed through my physical and psychological resistance, causing me to give a loud scream of pain, which echoed in the infinite void above me.
Screaming, kneeling in pain, hands braced against that floating mirror, a noise louder than my screams came up, and my vision went weird, as if I was losing focus. It wasn't unusual, because when I looked at my reflection, my left eye had exploded, and the right one had an extremely small and quivering pupil. That could take anyone's sanity, lucky me I was insane centuries before I came into this world.
A sharp pain surged through my stomach, making me close my remaining eye and take a deep breath. When I opened my eyes, I was lying on my bed, with Arthur at my side and an ice gauntlet slipping from his right hand.
I was sitting up quickly on the bed, still panting from what had happened, and soon I saw Elijah there inside my room too. But there was something very wrong with my fellow geek, something that made him not look like himself, even though I'm pretty sure it was him.
There was a dark energy around him, slightly similar to what Sirius gave me access to when in risky situations. His eyes, once dark green, were now red and glowing, his skin was slightly paler and his dark hair seemed to float upwards due to the aura that that energy gave him.
"W-what happened here?!?... And what happened to you?!?" I pointed at him.
"Uh...? What do you mean what happened to me?.... It was Art who hit you. You should be asking him that." He said, with a confused expression, apparently he didn't even notice that? Am I still delusional?
"I'm talking about your appearance!?!" I exclaimed again, and Arthur looked with a surprised expression at Elijah. Showing me that this is not my delusion.
"What do you mean, my appearance?" he asked, still showing confusion in his eyes, but after I blinked my eyes, he was normal again.
Arthur looked strange about it all, rubbing his hands over his eyes to see if his mind was playing tricks. "I don't blame you, it really was confusing." I thought, but then I remembered something.
"Sirius, are you there?" I tried to mentally communicate with him, but nothing. Sylvia and Zalg didn't answer either, it looked like they were busy inside.
Soon I felt something jumping on me and hugging me, when I returned to pay attention to my surroundings, I noticed Claire. She hugged me tightly, with her red hair down, there was no crying, but she looked me deep into my eyes, she was clearly worried about me. I carefully placed my hand on top of her head, patting her.
"Guys, you didn't answer me, what happened here?" I asked again and Tessia approached me.
"We heard you scream in agony and went quickly to see what happened, but when we opened the door, everything was on fire and Arthur decided to wake you up with a punch." Tess spoke the last part, scowling at my broth
"On fire?... Is that why I felt so much pain during that dream? I wasn't just there that I was on fire, was it here too?" I thought, taking another look at my surroundings.
"But nothing caught fire." I said and everyone agreed.
"That's the weirdest part." Elijah commented.
"It looked like you were having a nightmare, remember something?" Arthur was the person who asked this time.
"..... No." It took a while for me to give that answer, he looked at me and nodded, possibly understanding that it was something related to my multiple lives or something else on that level, so I couldn't answer him since Claire and Tess were with us.
I heard more footsteps approaching, and soon, everyone on the disciplinary committee was there, asking what had happened. Claire explained to them what had happened, causing some to look at me with concern and others with curiosity.
Apparently, she'd called them when she saw something wrong had happened to me... What a nice girl.
We tried to explain the situation to them, and apparently they were able to understand. Maybe the fact that I'm a Light Yellow Mage at 13 is enough for them to think there's a chance for magic to externalize so much during nightmares, as a form of automatic protection. Really, seeing the level of concern, including from people like Doradrae and Theodore, shows how important or respectable I am, at least by my fellow committee members.
After a few hours, we were all having dinner on a great meal that Tessia and Arthur had prepared together. Tess unfortunately had to leave as she had a few things to do, but we promised her we'd deliver a portion to her later.
With the empty plate in front of me, I was watching my reflection in the water that was in my glass, thinking a lot about the message I received in my dream "hm... It's worth doing everything well, when will other people will suffer?..."
Another thing that didn't get out of my head was the way that being decided to address me. It knew that I had merged into my soul, the essence of a literal god, and that if I proved unreachable, people would try to hurt those close to me. But there was that situation too... The being mentioned as if people without mana were the biggest problem....? What does that mean?... And why use the expression "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" right after saying that? It's like it's random, but no, there must be some sense for it to say all of this in that order.
No... I shouldn't think too deeply about it for now... But it looks like... I'm really going to need to dig deep into my mind, to remember some specific spells... With this information, I should try to prepare myself, but without letting it show.
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[3rd person POV]
In a dark and dense place, two people were talking, sitting around a crystal that released a faint pink light. It was not possible for them to see their faces clearly themselves, due to the level of darkness, one of them wore a long greenish cloak, while the other had light black armor, with a hood included.
"Do you think the message you sent will work?" the person in armor asked.
"I think it will work just fine, so I warned the eldest about it." the person in the green cloak replied.
"But their power level is already acceptable?"
"No... Apparently the younger one has no way to control it, but the older one, it's like he's in perfect balance... But seeing how confused he was, it's like he didn't realize he has such a balance... Speaking of magic amount, they're still pretty weak, but they're still kids, as time goes by, I bet they'll be closer to the Integration Stage...."
"Are you serious?" the person in armor started laughing excitedly.
"Well, the youngest I don't know... But the oldest... Wow... I'm sure... The Asuras will wish they were exterminated when our plan works."
"But only if it works...right?"
"Yes. Of course... IF it works... But I could see the way he felt things as I delivered the message... When he discovers the true nature of the Asuras... He will surely interfere at the first chance that he has." A smile broke out on the person in the cloak.
"Finally, our companions, our families... All of them will be avenged... And may Justice prevail... Against these false deities... May a true god arise, to show them what Fate really is. " The armored man commented with a wide smile, while the crystal that was between them goes out due to lack of energy.
Weekly Power Status
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