Unduh Aplikasi
27.35% Supreme Truth of Chaos / Chapter 29: CHAPTER 29: MR. CARMINE

Bab 29: CHAPTER 29: MR. CARMINE

Karine seemed to be in a panic as soon as she heard the news about change of leadership at the Carmine Corporation. She instantly thought that something had happened to her father. Before David or the new guy could say another word, Karine immediately pulled out her cell phone and began trying to call her father. Even after a few attempts, she couldn't get an answer. The lack of an answer to her question had made her anxiety even worse. In a matter of seconds, Karine had decided to leave the party early after the news about William Carmine delivered and she couldn't find out what was going on.

While Karine was panicking in her head, David was honestly debating if he should hit the guy or not. Between this Gabriel ruining his date's evening and even hijacking David's favorite way to address Karine.....David going to, at least, confront the man for being rude. Just as he was beginning to open his mouth, he felt a tug at the sleeve of his jacket.

Realizing that he may have just cause and issue, the guy named Gabriel started, "Lady Karine....if I could have a moment, I could....."

Not waiting on Gabriel to finish speaking, Karine suddenly threw her phone in her purse and grabbed David by the arm.

"Excuse us. We need to go. I need to talk with my dad," Karine said in one long string of words. Then she turned and quickly started walking towards the exit.

As David hurried along behind Karine, he couldn't resist turning around to see Gabriel chuckling with the other three guys next to him. They seemed to be having a great time without a care that they just messed up Karine's evening. All of a sudden, David felt a burst of threat coming from one of the men to Gabriel's side. Their eyes made contact and a devilish grin appeared on the man's face....and the man thumbed his nose at David.

"Who the hell are these guys? Why would they show such an aggressive look toward me?" David thought to himself turned back around to catch up to Karine at the door.

_______________________________________________

As the limousine pulled up at the Carmine's home, Karine basically didn't even wait for it to stop before she was out the door and running up the entrance way staircase. She had been a mess the entire ride and nothing David could say would calm her down. The woman was really worried for her father. David guess that since she had lost her mother when younger then she must have had a slight complex toward the safety of her dad.

Bursting through the door, Karine was greeted by a few people that she didn't recognize. David was only a few steps behind and almost ran into Karine's back when she suddenly stopped in the doorway.

Standing just inside the doorway, David looked up and saw three men standing in the foyer. One of the men was Mr. Carmine and the two other men were unfamiliar and appeared to be slightly younger than Mr. Carmine.

"Karine," Mr. Carmine said, "Why are you in such as rush? We have some special guests. Take a moment to talk to us."

Ignoring the guests comment, Karine responded to her father, "I was in a rush to see if you were okay. Some guy named Gabriel ran into us at the Grand Opening Gala and said that you are leaving to go to The Other. Is everything okay?"

Before Mr. Carmine could respond, one of the men standing next to him stepped up and said, "Apologies, Lady Karine. My son, Gabriel, can be a bit loose tongued when he is excited. When we arrived earlier, he had rushed out to find you."

David looked at the man in evaluation. The older man had a similar bearing as Mr. Carmine and was slightly taller then the other two men standing by his side.

The tall man bowed and lifted Karine's hand and kissed it.....then he paused and said, "My name is Vincent Carmine and I will be taking over control of the Carmine Corporation once your father transitions to The Other."

"My adopted son, Gabriel, was very excited at the chance of meeting Lady Karine, whose famed beauty even manages to reach the ears of those in The Other," Vincent Carmine said in a leading manner.

Realizing that someone else had spoiled his chances of breaking the news easily to his daughter, Mr. Carmine started to grow a bit agitated. Realizing that he wouldn't be able to keep his daughter at bay much longer, William Carmine decided it was best to end the tour short.

"That's enough for now, Vincent. I haven't even had a chance to explain what is happening to my daughter and your son has caused her to be in such a worried state," Mr. Carmine said in a slightly peeved manner, "Karine, you and David go over to the study and I will join you shortly to explain. Let me finish getting these gentlemen settled in for the evening then I will come back to speak with you."

"Nice meeting you, Lady Karine," Vincent Carmine said while giving David a glare that could almost burn holes in his face.

The group of four men walked off and left Karine and David standing there in the entrance way. After recovering from the rapid delivery of new information, the two made their way over to the study to wait for Mr. Carmine. Karine was still a mess. She kept pacing back and forth in the study.....and wouldn't really even pause for a second to talk with David.

__________________________________________

After about 20 minutes, Mr. Carmine showed up with both Mr. Gauge and Mr. Lester in tow. He must have called them on his walk back to the room. David knew that Mr. Gauge lived in the main Carmine residence, so he wouldn't have been far away. But why was Mr. Lester here?

Each man proceeded to walk over to a small mini-bar that was situated at a corner of the study. After each pouring themselves a glass of some type of liqueur, the three men walked over and began explaining the situation in an alternating fashion.

Mr. Carmine started, "Two weeks ago, I had a few lucky insights when sparing with Mr. Lester. I have been at the peak of the Foundation stage for only a year. For me to have the insight to develop a sword concept and become a Level 1 Sword Demigod...it is basically a miracle for it to happen that fast. My first concept is even the 'slash' concept which is very beneficial to battle."

David could tell that the old man was excited. Who wouldn't be happy about increasing in strength?

Mr. Carmine had stopped talking, so Mr. Gauge picked up, "Since William needed to focus on consolidating his concept, I decided that it would be best to send notice to the Carmine Family in The Other to begin preparation for the transfer. I only sent over the notice last week. How was I supposed to know that they would send someone over so fast? It is not like William needs to leave tomorrow. He should have around 3 months before he would be negatively influenced by his presence here."

Mr. Carmine continued, "Vincent Carmine is the only son of my uncle Phillip Carmine. Phillip is slightly older than my father by about 30 years, but technically Vincent and I are in the same generation. Because Vincent is at the Level 5 Fire Foundation Stage and is 10 years younger than me, then the family thinks that he will be another stable person to lead the Carmine Family on Earth."

"It doesn't hurt his stance either that his adopted son is an exceptional talent. Vincent said that he is already a Level 4 Fire Foundation Stage. He is almost as strong as Vincent," Mr. Lester said.

"Dad, why don't they just put Uncle Gauge in charge or even Mr. Lester? They have more than enough knowledge and power to keep everything under control here," Karine said questioningly.

"The Carmine Family in The Other always want someone of the direct Carmine Family line to lead their forces here on Earth. This is a policy that great grandfather established long ago to secure our family's status on earth. No exceptions can be made," Mr. Carmine explained.

"Why don't you just come back after you progress to Demigod Stage?" David interjected a question.

"I wish it were that easy," Mr. Carmine said, "there is a treaty amount all 9 gatekeepers on Earth. No Demigod Stage can come back to the planet from The Other. In the past, a few of the Demigods had come back and ruled over part of Earth. After spending time here, they soon realized that the heavenly energy in their bodies was dissipating. Because the Earth's atmosphere lacks heavenly energy so much, the heavenly energy stored in the body of a Demigod slowly dissipates over time. Although Demigods are relatively common in The Other, the 9 gatekeepers had seen extended Earth stay as too risky and outlawed it."

"The gates even have rune restrictions placed on them that prevent a demi-god from transferring over," Mr. Lester said to back it up, "Only Gods could override those restrictions."

"So how much is this going to shake things up?" David said.

He didn't receive a response.

"David, why don't you give us a few minutes to speak with Karine alone? We have a few important family issues to discuss," Mr. Carmine said.

"Sure....I'll just wait outside," David said. He realized he was being asked to leave.

_______________________

After about ten minutes, Karine came walking out of the room with her father and the two other men.

"Karine, remember to consider your future," Mr. Carmine said before glancing at David. Then, Mr. Carmine, Mr. Gauge, and Mr. Lester walked off.

Karine was left standing in front of David with a disheartened look on her face.

Trying to cheer her up, David proposed a change of scenery.

"Karine, how about we go for a walk in the woods in the back of the estate?" David asked, "With the news from tonight, I would really like to go for a nighttime walk in the woods right now and you said that you loved walking in the woods with your mom."

After standing there for another minute, Karine looked up at David's face and said, "No, David. I have so many things going through my mind right now. I just don't know what to do."

Karine continued, "I know my father isn't dying or anything and that this is actually a good thing.....but I don't want to lose him. It seems like I won't be going with him to The Other right away. I need to stay here to help the new group from the Carmine Family adjust to life on Earth and the inner operations of the Carmine Corporation."

"I understand Karine. I guess I will probably just head back to my apartment," David said as he leaned forward to give her a kiss.

Leaning away as David moved in, Karine said, "David, I'm not really sure about us at the moment. With everything going on a lot is going to be changing in the next couple of months. I need some time to think. Sorry."

Karine just turned around an left at a quick pace.

David was left standing in the entrance of the Carmine's house with only the two door attendants present.

"What the hell?" David said to himself.

How had tonight went from being a fun celebration to an absolute shit hole of a mess.


Bab 30: CHAPTER 30: FAMILY VISIT

When David arrived back at his apartment, he felt angry and worried at the same time. Things had finally started to feel stable in his life. He was happy and enjoying it all. Now, the whole situation had been turned upside down.

The reason he had wanted to talk to Karine on a night time stroll on her family's property was selfish....he just wanted to take a walk at night himself and didn't have anywhere to do it. Now, he didn't even know the status of his relationship with Karine. The only other place he had that gave him that absolute feeling of care was when he was in the woods at night. He wanted that feeling. Since Karine's estate was out of question at this point, his only other option was his parents' house and property.

Having an idea, David looked at his phone to check the time. David was checking to see if it was before 10:00 PM. The clock read 9:55 PM. Their time at the zoo's Gala was really limited. They had arrived at around 6:00 PM and it was now only 4 hours later. How could everything go to shit so quickly?

"They shouldn't be in bed yet," David thought while tapping the screen of his cell phone. In a second, the phone started ringing.

"David, is everything okay?", his mom's voice immediately came over the phone line.

"Everything is fine, Mom," David said, "I was just thinking that I needed a break from this place and wanted to visit home for a few days."

"Oh, are you bringing Karine along?" Kathy Knox asked her son.

"No, mom. She is having some problems at her house and can't come with me," David answered his mom's question although he never asked Karine...she rejected him for a simple walk around her family's property why would she go on a trip for a few days with him.

"Okay David," David's mom said in a tone that said she knew something more was going on,"When are you leaving?"

"Probably first thing in the morning. If I leave around 6 AM, we should be able to have lunch together," David said.

"Okay sweetie. See you then. Drive safe. Love you," she said through the phone.

"Okay, love you too Mom," David said back into the phone before hanging up.

Before leaving the Carmine's complex, David was required to 'check out' with the details of his travels. This condition was part of David's and most other guard's contracts with the Carmine Family. Essentially, they wanted to put some sort of restrictions on people from having them run off an become rouge cultivators and risk exposing the existence of the other to the general public.

David sort of disliked the contract clause because it meant that he could leave town without informing the Carmine Family. However, he did not have any restrictions against him so he could freely travel anywhere he wanted.

Picking up his cell phone, he text messaged Mr. Gauge the information about his trip. He would be driving to his parents house to visit due to personal reasons and would be staying for three days.

David decided to have a few snacks and get ready for bed.

After waiting for about 20 minutes, David was interrupted while brushing his teeth with a phone buzz. After rinsing his mouth out, David picked up the phone for Mr. Gauge's response.

"Request received. Processing should take about an hour," read the text from Mr. Gauge.

After getting the formalities in process, David started packing up his overnight backpack. He assumed that the request for leave process would go through smoothly. Why wouldn't it?

After about 20 minutes of packing, David had finished up getting ready for his trip tomorrow and decided to sit down and train. He always had a feeling that he needed to be stronger. If he was strong, he wouldn't have been dismissed so much tonight. He would have been respected.

Luckily, David seemed to have a talent for cultivating. Since 9 months ago, he had progressed well in his "pretend" darkness training with Mr. Gauge. As far as everyone knew, he was at Level 2 Darkness Foundation Stage. This sort of progress was shocking to Mr. Gauge. If anyone knew that David was actually at Level 6 Darkness Foundation Stage, they would probably loose their mind. David also understood that his level of talent would bring him troubles if other knew about it, so he kept it to himself. After faking like he was inept in some of the darkness skills for so long, David had developed an ability to manipulate and control his darkness skills to a point that they were perfect. For example, he would perform the Darkness Shadow skill and could now create gradient shadows in the area around him. Mr. Gauge could only create a single shade of darkness at a time. For example, David could make part of a room darker than another. Mr. Guage could only make the room the same darkness throughout the entire room. Of course Mr. Gauge didn't know that David could do this exceptional skill control, David had practice this skill usage on his own.

Although his darkness skills were exceptional, David still knew that his body was his weakness.

With his lack of body strength on his mind, David decided to train his Body of Recovery skill. David's talent in darkness and his dreamworld didn't seem to carry over to his Body specialty training. David has always thought that must be the difference between a physical skill and elemental skill.

Elemental skills required a chant or hand motion to focus heavenly energy into a particular arrangement for the execution of an elemental skill externally.

Physical skills such as body, feet and fist skills are completely different. Physical skills trained the heavenly energy to function in a particular way inside the body. No hand gestures or chants were needed. The heavenly energy in the body just had to function in accordance with the skill peculiarities to train the body itself.

David knew that sword and saber skills were even more different. Those skills required both the internal and external focus of heavenly energy with a weapon as a conduit for the energy. Weapon skills were the most complicated to learn but were very special if executed appropriately.

Sitting down on the floor of his bedroom, David began to circulate his little bit of heavenly energy though his body. With a move of an knife, David slashed a long cut on his forearm. Immediately, David began concentrating on healing the rapidly bleeding wound. Although heavenly energy on Earth was sparse, it was still enough to begin practicing the basic body methods and perform basic skills.....it just took a significant amount of time to gather enough heavenly energy.

After a few minutes, the bleeding on David's forearm began to stop. After another minute, the skin began to crust over into a scab.

David stopped here and began to examine his injury. If he wanted to, he could stop here and let his bodies natural processes finish off the healing. However, he knew that if he continued focusing then he would eventually fully heal his wound.

After another 20 minutes of concentrating on healing, the scab on David's arm fell off to reveal perfectly smooth flesh. Seeing the lack of a scar, David decided to focus on his existing scars to see if he could heal them. Although he tried hard, the scars on his shoulders didn't show much improvement.

"Guess the damage is too deep," David thought before calling it a night. He had gotten the basics of the Body of Recovery skill down. Now he just need to get to the point where he performed it subconsciously.

When he was just about to cut him self again and continue training, his phone buzzed at his side.

David read the message. As expected, he was approved for his three day trip to his parents house.

"Time to go to bed," David actually said to himself out loud.

——————————————————-

The next morning David has actually showered and on the road 20 minutes before 6:00 AM. Considering that he was ahead of schedule, David stopped just outside of Three Rivers City in a roadside small town to have breakfast. David always enjoyed stopping in small towns to eat when he traveled. He felt that it gave him perspective.

Riding along the highway on a trip, he passed countless towns and cities that he would never visit. Each of these places had people just like him who were trying to live their lives. Everyone had problems just like him. When he visited these places, it made David feel like he wasn't special or unique.

After enjoying a moment of interacting with people in the diner for breakfast, David continued on his way with a full belly and somewhat content. Sometimes he just needed a little perspective to feel better. Everyone has their problems and issues. In the world, there is always someone who has it worse at that moment. David felt that perspective kept him grounded when his life hit troubles.

He thought about the things he could be thankful for on his ride. His health. His parents. His freedom. Some people have poor health, have no family and have restrictions on their lives that limit what they can achieve. David felt that he had none of these. So he just had a little issue with his girlfriend...that didn't change his overall picture on life....it was just one of those things that everyone experiences.

____________________________________________________

As David pulled into the driveway of his parents' house, he felt good about his travels. This trip was already one of those special occasions that gave him some time to self reflect. It was already a successful trip.

David pulled up at his family home to be greeted by his mom sitting on the porch. After pulling up in his usual parking spot, he slammed the door shut and headed up to the porch to sit next to his mom.

"How you doing, mom?", David asked trying cut off the identical question he had coming his way.

"I'm doing okay. I like to sit on this porch and think about your sister," David's mom said in a solemn manner, "We used to sit here all the time together and discuss life."

"I miss her too," David said remember how his sister, Karen, had died one night years ago while coming home from college. She had fell asleep at the wheel and wrecked into a tree. More than half the town had turned out for her funeral. Karen was the nicest human being that he had ever know. She was in college to study nursing. It was her passion to help people. David had gotten pretty sick from a cold and his parents were on the verge of canceling a vacation to stay home with David. His sister had volunteered to come home for the weekend from school to watch her brother so her parents could go enjoy themselves. No one had expected it to end that way. Everyone had blamed themselves...David wasn't spared.

Realizing they were going down a route that would make both of them miserable the rest of the day, David tried to change the subject, "Hey mom, what are we having for lunch?"

David's mom looked at him. She knew that he would always try to change the subject when he realized the conversation was going awry. She was grateful that she had such a thoughtful son.

David and his mom had a wonderful lunch together. He enjoyed spending time with her alone. She was always helpful and gave great advice. The two spent the entire day chatting about general life. David told her about how his new job was going well, but the management was going through changes. He also told her that Karine did not care for showing affection most of the time and that the relationship was a little rocky. Of course, his mom offered all sorts of advice, but mostly David just felt good chatting with someone about his issues. It was good to talk about your troubles every now and then.

After chatting most of the day away, David's dad arrived home early from work. He joined the pair in their conversations about life and eventually it was time to settle in for the night. David's dad had work first thing in the morning and his mom even had to go do some of her part-time work for most of the day. David was kind of excited about having the day to himself at the house. He hadn't had a day like that since high school.

David went to his bedroom and relaxed a bit in his old bed. Nothing felt as good as visiting home. Well almost nothing. After about 30 minutes, David closed his eyes to check to see if his parents were sleeping. Sure enough the couple was already asleep.

David wanted to go for his night time hike in the woods. As usual, he grabbed his backpack and looped his knife on his belt.

David opened the window and was in the process of climbing out when an extremely intense sense of danger assaulted him.....then the house exploded in a deafening roar of heat and pressure.


PERTIMBANGAN PENCIPTA
BrokeButton BrokeButton

.....oh no....what a cliffhanger...

Bonus Chapter.

Thanks for reading!

Load failed, please RETRY

Status Power Mingguan

Membuka kunci kumpulan bab

Indeks

Opsi Tampilan

Latar Belakang

Font

Ukuran

Komentar pada bab

Tulis ulasan Status Membaca: C29
Gagal mengirim. Silakan coba lagi
  • Kualitas penulisan
  • Stabilitas Pembaruan
  • Pengembangan Cerita
  • Desain Karakter
  • Latar Belakang Dunia

Skor total 0.0

Ulasan berhasil diposting! Baca ulasan lebih lanjut
Pilih Power Stone
Rank 200+ Peringkat Power
Stone 0 Batu Daya
Laporkan konten yang tidak pantas
Tip kesalahan

Laporkan penyalahgunaan

Komentar paragraf

Masuk

tip Komentar Paragraf

Fitur komentar paragraf sekarang ada di Web! Arahkan kursor ke atas paragraf apa pun dan klik ikon untuk menambahkan komentar Anda.

Selain itu, Anda selalu dapat menonaktifkannya atau mengaktifkannya di Pengaturan.

MENGERTI