Chapter 138: His Second Gift

Raziel sat on the floor of his room and looked at his own hands.

The physical blood was gone, but the memory of Gideon’s mind stuck to his brain.

Soul Resonance flexed for the very first time inside that bathroom.

He did not control it because it triggered itself.

Gideon hit absolute rock bottom and possessed zero mental defenses, so the boy became a total void.

Raziel understood the mechanics now.

The magic required direct physical contact and a genuine emotional connection.

You cannot punch your way into another consciousness. You have to walk through an open door.

He needed to tame the Gift and he needed a conscious partner to practice.

***

He found Lara in the abandoned storage room near the old armory. She sat cross-legged on a dusty wool blanket.

She was the perfect candidate because her natural empathy made her mind very receptive to outside connections.

Raziel sat down right in front of her. He reached out and took her hands.

Her fingers felt warm against his scarred palms. He channeled his Umbral core and pushed his intent forward.

He tried to force the connection using willpower.

FZZT!

The magic sparked and died, so a sharp headache hit the base of his skull.

He tried again and failed again.

He pushed the magic with hostile intent, and it refused to work. The dark energy bounced off her mental presence.

Lara squeezed his hands.

“Stop trying to enter my mind,” Lara instructed. “Let your mind open.”

Raziel swallowed hard.

Opening his mind meant dropping the heavy mental walls he built to contain the Shadow Parasite. It meant exposing the abyss to her.

He took a deep breath and let the walls fall, the Umbral Paragon flared inside his chest. The cold numbness of his seventy-three percent empathy radiated outward.

Lara gasped and her shoulders went rigid.

“It is there,” Lara whispered. “I see it. It is big and cold.”

Raziel tried to pull his hands away to protect her, but Lara held on tight. She refused to retreat.

“But you are bigger,” she stated.

Raziel stopped fighting the connection and allowed his consciousness to merge with hers.

VMMMM!

The physical room vanished from their perception.

Raziel felt Lara’s mind directly.

He felt her silent courage and the heavy burden she carried from absorbing the pain of others. He felt her unwavering loyalty to him and Lucian.

Lara felt his freezing determination and the crushing weight of the ticking clock.

She felt the massive fear of the upcoming war. They shared one single second of absolute clarity.

They understood each other without speaking a single word.

The connection broke. They both gasped for air and dropped their hands.

The blue interface exploded in Raziel’s vision.

[GIFT MASTERED: SOUL RESONANCE — LEVEL 1]

[DESCRIPTION: Direct communication between consciousnesses via physical contact.]

[LIMITATION: Requires both parties to be receptive. Fails against active resistance.]

[GIFTS MASTERED: 2/6]

Lara looked at her own trembling hands and then looked at Raziel.

“I saw something,” Lara said. “Inside you. Behind the darkness and the cold.”

Raziel wiped sweat from his forehead. “What did you see?”

“A boy. He sat in a library. He read a book about stars.” Lara tilted her head. “Was that you?”

Raziel closed his eyes.

The memory belonged to the previous cycle.

It happened before Zion walked into the cathedral and slaughtered everyone.

It happened before the System, before the time loop, and before the Shadow Parasite. He was just a normal novice with a book.

“It was me, a long time ago.”

Lara reached out and touched his hand again.

“Not that long ago,” Lara replied. “He is still there, Raziel. The boy in the library. He is still reading.”

Raziel reached into his tunic and pulled out the bronze map.

The heavy metal plate glowed in the dim light of the storage room.

The second mark illuminated completely and turned a solid bright silver.

The chamber beneath the chapel did not open because he did not need it anymore.

He tamed the Gift using his own method without following the designated path.

The Academy pulsed beneath their feet, the stone floor vibrated with a new sensation.

The foundation felt genuine surprise. The original builders designed the chambers as mandatory trials, but Raziel found a shortcut and bypassed the architecture.

He secured the second weapon. He had four more to go.

***

Later that night, Raziel stood in the East Basement with Zorya.

The silver runes on the wall shifted and formed a brand new message.

The geometric shapes looked erratic and rushed; it seems like the Academy wanted to communicate immediately.

Zorya dropped her canvas bag on the wooden table.

She walked over to the glowing bricks and traced the lines with her charcoal pencil.

Zorya read the glowing lines and her voice trembled.

“We did not expect this.”

Zorya stepped closer to the wall to read the next sequence. The silver light reflected in her brown eyes.

“You are different from the previous one. The previous one followed the path. You create your own.”

Raziel frowned and stared at the ancient text.

The previous Paragon failed to stop the end of the world five hundred years ago.

The old hero played by the rules and died for it.

Raziel refused to repeat that failure, he knew that he needed to break the rules to beat the game.

Zorya moved her pencil to the final glowing sentence, but she hesitated before speaking.

“The third trial will not be what you expect.”

Raziel crossed his arms. “What does that mean?”

“I do not know,” Zorya answered.

She turned around to face him. “The third Gift is Bond Forging. It creates unbreakable connections between living beings and physical objects. It binds souls to weapons.”

Raziel thought about the bronze map.

The third marker flickered and lacked a fixed physical location.

The coordinates shifted constantly on the metal plate.

The chamber required a specific trigger to anchor itself in reality.

“The first two Gifts tested my mind,” Raziel stated.

“Architectural Inscription tested my logic. Soul Resonance tested my empathy. What does Bond Forging test?”

Zorya looked back at the wall.

The silver runes dimmed and faded into the dark stone.

The Academy delivered the warning and ended the conversation.

“It tests your sacrifices,” Zorya whispered. “You have to give up a piece of yourself to forge a permanent bond.”

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