Chapter 137: His Reluctant Bond

The dark red blood soaked through Raziel’s trousers and pooled around his knees.

The magic burned the severed arteries shut and the flesh knitted together under his glowing palms.

HISSS!

The physical wounds closed.

Raziel pulled his hands back to cut the mana flow, but the dark energy refused to let go.

The fusion of holy light and abyss bypassed the physical tissue and sank straight into Gideon’s spiritual core.

It hit a massive void.

The Church purged Gideon’s artificial Gift weeks ago and left an empty crater inside the boy’s soul.

The Umbral energy poured into that exact empty space, and the void resonated with the intrusion.

VMMMM!

A brutal shockwave of pure emotion traveled up Raziel’s arms and slammed into his brain.

Raziel gasped and his eyes rolled back in his head. He did not feel his own suppressed seventy-three percent empathy. He felt a thought bled into his consciousness without any spoken sound.

’I am worth nothing.’

The despair crushed Raziel’s chest. He felt like he was suffocating.

’I was never worth anything. I wish I never woke up today. I wish the darkness would just swallow me. Mom packed a bag and left me at the gate. She never came back. She never came back.’

Raziel felt the cold iron of that gate.

He felt the ache of a child waiting for a carriage that never arrives.

The pain belonged entirely to Gideon, but Raziel experienced the trauma firsthand.

Raziel forced his arms backward with physical effort and ripped his bloody hands away from Gideon’s wrists.

SNAP!

The connection broke.

Raziel collapsed backward onto the wet tiles.

He panted hard and grabbed his own head to stop the room from spinning.

He just felt another human soul from the inside.

It was real.

The Umbral Paragon did not generate a hallucination.

This was an entirely new magic.

The blue interface materialized in his vision. The text blinked with urgent processing speeds.

[ANOMALOUS EVENT: CONSCIOUSNESS CONNECTION DETECTED]

[TYPE: SOUL RESONANCE]

[NOTE: Gift activated by direct physical contact with a consciousness in extreme crisis.]

[VERIFYING STATUS]

Raziel stared at the blue screens while he caught his breath. The system loaded the data.

[RESULT: The second Gift requires a CONNECTION. It does not require a physical chamber.]

Raziel read the red text and the truth hit him hard.

He misunderstood the entire nature of the bronze map.

He thought the six hidden rooms beneath the academy operated as magical classrooms.

He thought he had to break into the chamber beneath the Main Chapel to learn Soul Resonance.

The underground chambers were mirrors, not classrooms.

They held examples of the magic to show the user how it looked, but they did not grant the actual power.

He learned Architectural Inscription because he established a direct conversation with the living foundation of St. Celeste.

He learned Soul Resonance by connecting with a broken human soul.

The Forbidden Gifts demanded relationships and extreme emotional stakes.

You do not study them.

You bleed for them.

A low groan broke his concentration.

Gideon opened his eyes.

The boy lay flat on the bloody tiles and blinked at the stone ceiling.

His skin looked the color of dirty snow from the massive blood loss, but he was alive.

Raziel lowered his hands and stayed seated on the floor. He waited for Gideon to panic or scream.

Gideon did not scream.

He turned his head and looked at Raziel sitting in the puddle of blood.

“I saw you.” Gideon’s voice sounded weak. “I saw you inside my head and I saw what you feel.”

Raziel froze. He spent months building walls to hide his corrupted core from the world.

He hid his dropping empathy from his best friends to keep them safe.

Now this broken boy knew exactly how his humanity rots.

“What did I feel?”

Gideon looked at him with new eyes. The anger and the deep depression vanished. Pure understanding replaced the rage.

“Cold. You feel cold inside. You feel things shutting down piece by piece but in a very small corner, there is a spark that refuses to die.”

The dripping water from the brass sink provided the only background noise in the bathroom.

“What is that spark?”

Raziel looked down at his own hands.

But Gideon found the exact piece of him that still cared enough to save a rival’s life.

“It is what is left of me.”

Footsteps slammed against the stone corridor outside. Someone ran toward the bathroom at full speed.

THUMP!

THUMP!

Brother Thomas burst through the wooden door holding a leather medical bag.

He wore his sleep tunic and his hair stood up in messy clumps. The first-year novice finally found him in his quarters.

Thomas stopped in the doorway and took in the scene.

He saw Gideon stabilized on the floor.

He saw Raziel pale and covered in blood.

He saw the massive red puddle coating the grout.

Thomas dropped to his knees. He opened his leather bag and pulled out clean bandages and a flask of restorative tonic.

He lifted Gideon’s arms and inspected the wrists. The flesh healed completely and left only thin jagged scars behind.

Thomas exhaled a long breath and wiped sweat from his forehead.

He propped Gideon up against the wooden cabinet and handed him the flask of tonic to drink.

Raziel stood up and wiped his bloody hands on his dark trousers.

He turned around to leave and give the healer space to work.

Thomas grabbed Raziel’s arm. The healer kept his grip tight and leaned closer.

“That energy you used to heal him.”

Raziel tensed his muscles.

“It was golden with black veins.”

Raziel stopped breathing.

He masked the Umbral magic before Thomas entered the room, but the residual energy lingered in the air. Thomas recognized the visual signature.

“No cataloged Gift produces that color. I am not going to ask about it. I do not want to know the truth.”

Raziel nodded once. He appreciated the unspoken protection.

Thomas chose to ignore the heresy to protect his student.

“But you must know something else.” Thomas adjusted his wire glasses and looked Raziel straight in the eyes. “Sister Nefeli felt it from the chapel.”

Raziel felt his stomach drop, he knew that she lied to everyone about feeling zero emotions to survive her own trauma.

She felt everything and she just detected the Umbral Paragon at work.

“She walked all the way across the courtyard and came to my quarters right before the screaming started. She asked me what that massive spike of anomalous mana was.”

“What did you tell her?”

“I told her a novice fainted and I used a strong stimulant spell.”

Thomas let go of Raziel’s arm.

“She did not believe me.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep