Chapter 111 Volume III – Chapter 32: Cycle of Thinking and Not Thinking

I looked at the man in his mid-twenties with brown hair, brown eyes, and stubble sitting in front of me as if I wasn’t his leader. I thought about what he had said, and then my brow furrowed.

“So you’re saying Aiden Tenebra is a wiera?”

He was sprawled out in his seat. He was quite comfortable in front of me, but there was both anger and seriousness in his face.

“Yes, and a hybrid.”

His eyebrows furrowed for a moment, and an ugly expression appeared on his face, showing that he was even more annoyed.

“I can accept that he’s a wiera, as hard as that is to believe, but do you really think that makes sense, Marcus?”

“Do I look like someone who would lie, sister? Not both eyes, just his left eye turned purple. In fact, that’s why the caora split him into two personalities instead of changing who he was. I saw it with my own eyes, and he knew how to solidify the caora and patch it to his body. And he used the chains of sin, even though it took a lot out of him. You know what that means, don’t you?”

I didn’t even have to think about it.

“That thing that was temporarily given to Larry was passed on to him…”

“Exactly.”

I leaned back in my chair and an involuntary smile appeared on my face.

Coincidence? Chance? Or an opportunity given to us?

“It was rumored that the dead representative was experimenting on himself, maybe that’s why he was a hybrid, but it’s still ridiculous. If he’s a hybrid, logically he should be weaker than normal wieras, but it doesn’t seem that way from the report you gave me.”

“The previous representative was really seriously insane. I could use caora for ten hours straight and still not get as high as him. Aiden had a caora limit almost as high as mine, that maniac definitely did something the organization didn’t even know about.”

Marcus looked thoughtful and I sighed.

“At least we won’t have to look for that thing, but the fact that it’s Aiden Tenebra… If what you say is true, it won’t take long for it to be exposed, we need to get him on our side before the virtue guardians find him, but thanks to what you’ve done, that won’t be easy.”

Marcus rolled his eyes.

“I was bored, you wouldn’t let me do anything. I’m using so much caora but I can’t satisfy my hunger, what did you expect?”

He waited a moment, then a smile appeared on his face.

“No lie, it was quite fun. I gave a good blow to all the nobles who were tortured there, especially Potenbea’s daughter, who will probably never go out properly again. I don’t regret what I did. And we don’t necessarily need to get Aiden Tenebra on our side. He’s a hybrid, which means half of his body is still human. Just think…”

The smile on his face widened.

“If half of his body is human and he has no problem using caora, the other half of his body is wiera and he can use ordea. It’s not him we need, it’s his DNA.”

My eyes widened as I realized what he was saying.

“If we use his blood to make a clone of him with that jewel and teach it to use ordea, the caora will drive it mad while the ordea will fix it. Then we’ll have a super weapon that is not negatively affected by caora in any way, and can even use two opposite energies at the same time! You’re a genius, Marcus!”

After what he’s been through, getting Aiden into the organization is next to impossible. We either have to threaten him or brainwash him, but both options are risky… But that’s as long as we need him! Actually, we don’t even need him… We just need to take blood from him, a lot of blood.

I paused.

“All the mysteries of that jewel have been solved, right? We shouldn’t go into something we’re not sure of the outcome.”

“I’m the one who found the jewel, identified it, and studied it. I’m not sure if there’s anything extra about it, but do you think I would have suggested the idea in the first place if I wasn’t sure it would at least work?”

“Good… Very good!”

“By the way…”

I gave Marcus a sharp look when he interrupted me.

“Since I came up with the idea, I deserve a reward, don’t I? Leave that boy to me when the time comes, my fun with him was cut short… I crushed him badly, but in the end, he almost humiliated me.”

He clenched his fist, gritted his teeth.

“When I catch him, I won’t simply kill him, I’ll go through every single one of his cells to understand how he managed to become a hybrid, and I’ll do experiments that even the previous representative wouldn’t have thought of… He’ll learn what it means to play with me.”

He daydreamed and a broad smile appeared on his face. He resembled a serial killer. He already was…

“For that, we need to take care of the jewel thing first, after that you can do whatever you want, but…”

I paused again.

How do we approach Aiden? The academy will protect him, very much so. It will be difficult for us to reach him directly at this point…

“Ah…”

A smile appeared on my face again and I remembered someone who had been catching my eye a lot lately.

That’s right! We can use that boy!

*******

When I opened my eyes, I was greeted by the darkness of the night seen through the tree leaves. As I slowly sat up, with pain radiating throughout my body, I remembered what had happened.

Most of the internal damage to my body had been prevented with the help of the potions, but just as I had expected, I was now finding it more difficult to even take a step. Moreover, there was a general aching in my body, it was not hard to realize that I had fucked up my body again.

I stayed where I was for a while, just… thinking.

When I finally, with difficulty, managed to stand up, I didn’t go to Ulka. I simply went back to my room, went to the bathroom, and looked at myself in the mirror, not bothering to change my bloody clothes or take a shower.

I looked normal, no different from an ordinary person. At least… that’s how it looked on the outside.

I squinted, looking into the gray eyes of my reflection in the mirror.

To become someone I wasn’t, to go crazy without even realizing that it was a strange thing, to enjoy terrorizing someone…

I clenched my fist. The thought of punching the mirror sprouted in my mind, but these thoughts were soon driven away by the influence of the Absolute Mind.

I do not even have proper control over my own emotions… I have turned into a monster without even realizing it.

I splashed cold water on my face several times and threw myself on my bed.

I’m scared, scared of hurting someone without even realizing I’ve done something wrong, scared of ‘going crazy’ in front of Clara, in front of my friends. I’m… scared of myself.

Should I get away from them?

Isn’t it better not to see anyone until I find a solution to this problem?

Absolute Mind was activated again. Then, with a deep sigh, I started thinking.

I kept thinking and thinking, and after this whole sequence of thoughts, it was as if the world stopped moving. Everything started to seem meaningless and a slight smile appeared on my face in this meaninglessness. In the silent room, first there was a chuckle, and then I started to laugh.

I thought it was funny. It annoyed me that my goal was to protect my loved ones, but on the contrary, I had the potential to harm them, and that the probability of this happening was not at all low.

“Hahaha… It’s really funny, isn’t it?”

‘Aid-‘

“No need, Sith. Really, there’s no need. I don’t want to fool myself, I know what I am and what I can do, I just… I need some time. I’d better get some sleep. Don’t disturb me. Just… please, okay?”

‘O- okay…’

I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to think anymore, thinking was tiring and gave me a headache. So I poured mana into the Absolute Mind and tried to sleep with all my thoughts purified.

The more the thoughts flooded my mind, the more mana I poured into the Absolute Mind. Eventually, I got into a cycle. Absolute Mind was an addictive thing. It was so relaxing not to think, not to have anything in my mind, that after a while I would automatically give myself over to this feeling.

So I slowly surrendered myself to sleep. The meaninglessness I had just felt was replaced by nothingness. My world went black, I felt peaceful, I realized that I wanted to stay like this forever.

But… my peace was disturbed by a sound that echoed in the nothingness I was in.

It was the voice of a child. A voice that became clearer and clearer in the nothingness, a voice that felt… familiar to me.

‘Are you hurt?’

There was tenderness and a soullessness, a seriousness in his voice at the same time.

‘N- no, not at all!’

The voice of the person who gave him this answer sounded like a little girl. She was not as soulless as the first child, her emotions were evident in her tone.

‘Are you sure? It doesn’t hurt at all what they did to you? Are you really okay?

She was lying, it wasn’t hard to understand. And yet… she continued.

‘I’m… fine!’

‘Why are you lying?’

‘B- but I… I’m not lying…’

‘I am your brother, Clara. You don’t need to hide anything from me. Siblings always listen to each other and share each other’s secrets.’

‘I- I…’

‘It’s okay. You don’t have to pretend. You can be yourself around me.’

An intense silence…

What broke the silence was a small sob.

‘He-‘

For a moment I felt as if time had stopped. I felt a heat enveloping my whole body, warming me.

‘Help me…’

My eyes slowly opened. My vision cleared and what I saw next was not ‘nothingness’. It was simply the smooth white ceiling of my room.

I put my hand on my chest, listening to my heart.

It was fast, faster and more real than I had ever felt. It was the source of the warmth spreading through my body.

“Clara…”

I felt the heat intensify and my mind was suddenly filled with images of my sister. I heard her voice, I saw her laughing, I saw her crying, begging for help, I saw her writhing on the bed in pain, pulling so hard on the duvet that she tore the fabric. She was crying so loud that her throat seemed to tear.

“Clara…”

Suddenly the images disappeared as if they had never existed and I realized that tears were streaming from my eyes.

I got out of bed, I looked around, I looked for her but I couldn’t find her, I wanted to see her, I wanted to hear her voice, the heat was burning my body. I couldn’t stand it.

I quickly opened my watch, I pressed the wrong button a few times because my hand was shaking, but I finally managed to make a video call. Every second that passed was like torture. Every cell, every part of me was focused on the call on the watch. Every second that went unanswered was agonizing.

Eventually… the call was picked up.

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