“You know…” Winston took a sip of his iced tea and released a satisfied sigh. “I was a real loner back then.”
“I could tell,” Anna said teasingly as she munched on some delicious crispy pork meat and felt the juices explode into her mouth.
“Damn girl, you’re really not holding back,” said Winston with a pained look. He then grabbed another piece of fried pork with his oily hand and took a bite. “But the truth is the truth.”
“It’s not like you’re the only loner here,” Anna mumbled as she first looked at Noel, then stared at her reflection from the glass of iced tea with a dazed stare.
“Hmph, so what if you have no friends?” Noel snorted and used his magic to control a piece of fried pork to levitate into his mouth. “Friendship means nothing when it comes to uncovering the perplexities of magic and achieving the pinnacle of the arcane.”
“Who are you to tell that?” Anna asked with a smug grin. “Don’t you know about Pope Soter, the leader of the Holy Church in the 500s who’s renowned for his special magic that could harness the spiritual wills of over a million men?”
“That’s literally the power of friendship!” Anna exclaimed and spread out her arms.
“It’s surprising that you know something as far as a hundred years back…” A subtle glint flashed in Noel’s eyes as he immediately connected the dots. “Hmph, acting smart. You only heard about that from the random tidbits Rob had taught to Elaine, right?”
“Uh…” Anna’s face turned bright red as she looked away. “Who knows?”
“Pfft, what an amateur!” Winston pointed his nose to the sky and laughed smugly. “I could easily create a lie much more convincing than that at a moment’s notice.”
“Oh, really?” Anna rolled her eyes and took another bite from her fried pork. She then asked while munching, “Then go tell a fabulous lie, dear liar.”
“A lie?” Winston’s grin deepened as he answered with a straight face and a mysterious tone, “I’m a student of the Royal Academy.”
“Huh?” Anna looked at Winston as if he were a buffoon and shook her head. “You and your strange humor.”
“See? I told you I’m a great liar,” Winston laughed conceitedly and drank all of his iced tea in one go. “Anyways, I’ll be seeing you guys tomorrow. I gotta go now since it’s getting late and I still have some stuff to do.”
“Oh?” Anna raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Well, be safe then! Hope you get home safe.”
“Oh, I don’t need those well wishes, although my enemies do need them when they meet the edge of my fearsome blades,” Winston answered with a sarcastic tone and grabbed the sheathed sword placed on a nearby table as he stood up with a burp.
Noel, who was silently drinking his tea in silence, gave a cursory nod to Winston as a way of saying goodbye.
Winston expected this to be the end, when all of a sudden, Noel grabbed something from his pocket and tossed a strange metal ring to Winston. Grabbing it by reflex, he inspected the intricate silver ring covered in dense runic lines that gave it a mystical aura full of magic and sorcery.
“This is?” He looked up and asked with a confused stare.
“Oh, it’s the same one I have!” Anna exclaimed and raised her right hand, revealing the same copy of that magically encrypted ring.
“I placed a couple of protective enchants on there. In case you’re in danger, it should at least help you a lot even against a Royal-level foe,” Noel explained monotonously, but Winston could feel the care hidden behind this casual gesture of his.
Winston almost grinned from the abrupt burst of joy he felt inside his mind, but kept his cool on the outside and lightly smiled. “Thanks, I guess?”
“Ha, now I kind of feel indebted to you because of this ring.” Putting on the ring slowly, Winston inspected it more for a moment before rubbing the back of his head. “I guess I’ll make sure to go easy on you the next time we fight then.”
Although his face remained stagnant like stone, a subtle grin cracked open on his ice-cold expression as Noel said blandly, “Not going all out is just a foolish move. Even a lion would hunt with its all against a mere rabbit.”
“Yes, yes, I get it,” said Winston. He then grabbed his bag and turned around, facing his back against them while he approached the door. “See you guys later!”
“Later!” said Anna as she waved her hands.
With one last brief look at the cozy living room, Winston opened the door and left.
He proceeded to walk down the lively night streets of the capital, with a slow and steady pace. A subtle grin remained plastered on his ordinary face and he turned into a shadowy corner.
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In the next moment, Winston fully disappeared from the lightly crowded streets, disappearing into who knows where.
…
“Oooh boy! What a luck boost!” Winston exclaimed the moment he arrived inside Mammon’s pristine white lab and activated Fortune Stealer to inspect his luck. Just like before, his luck remained as a strange dark purple ball of compactly dense space, but its size had expanded by a lot.
“50-S… Just because I achieved a true friend status with the future protagonist over there,” Winston laughed as he took off the ring on his hand and tossed it to Mammon. “But boy is luck really whimsical. This random act of kindness would inadvertently allow him to break through my later preparations and participate in the chaos to come early on.”
“Indeed…” Mammon smiled mysteriously and gave the ring a cursory glance before focusing in on the signal sender array which, when the possessor of the ring activates the signal sender, would send a signal to the creator of the ring and warn them that the possessor of the ring was in danger. “A vital act that would change the tides was done just like that.”
“Well, we’ve already dealt with shit like that more than we could count, so it’s nothing new.” Winston shrugged his shoulders and approached the pod embedded to the wall and saw his other body floating within a strange colorless goop.
Groaning, he pulled back his hand and his mana coagulated to form sharp claws at the tip of his nails. Channeling his mana through his shoulders, elbows, forearms, and fist, he punched his hand forward at breakneck speeds and punctured through the glass container of his pod, piercing through the goopy goop and crashing his fist right against his other body’s chest.
But, rather than piercing through it and causing a show of extreme blood and gore, the chest of his other body caved in and swallowed his fist. Next, his other body transformed into a strange black substance and slowly stretched out dark tentacles that latched onto his hand.
Slowly but surely, they crept up to his elbows and shoulders, up to his neck and head, and down to his torso and legs. Like a cocoon of slime, Winston found himself clad in complete darkness as his two bodies completely fused into one.
Nerve endings connected with one another as his skeletal structure completely changed. His muscles roared with newfound vitality while his senses turned clear and sharp unlike what any human could ever hope to achieve naturally.
Mana flowed in and out of his body like it was a well-cleaned tunnel, allowing his soul to be nourished and enhanced with every waking moment. Taking a deep breath, Winston grinned and stretched his limbs.
Tossing the ring back, Mammon watched as a strange dark purple sphere surrounded the ring in midair, and space warped to Winston’s whim. The ring then reappeared on his finger and his appearance returned back to normal; a young boy with brown hair and brown eyes, an ordinary face, and an average stature.
Caressing the ring on his hand, Winston smiled lightly and took a step back, causing a human-sized portal to form behind him. Taking one last glance at Mammon, he asked, “So you’re going to reveal the prophecy you stole today to her?”
“Hmm… Maybe later, around midnight to fuck with her sleep schedule,” Mammon laughed sheepishly and fiddled around with the strange orb of white light in his hand. If one looks closely, one’ll notice vague images and scenes flashing in the orb, depicting a strange vision of blood and gore. “After all, it will be all up to the original to succeed on his end of the plan with his long-ass Holly operation.”
“Ugh, Holly operation. How holy indeed,” groaned Winston. Then, as he chuckled, he murmured, “See you later,” and walked through the portal, leaving Mammon alone in the pristine white lab.
Shrugging his shoulders, Mammon eyed the clock ticking on his monitor and silently waited for the time to past.
…
Anna arrived back at her home after a quick teleport from Noel, and she lazily took off her clothes under the darkness of the night. Flicking on the light switch, she walked up the stairs and into the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash her face.
After feeling more refresh than before, she clutched her aching stomach and looked around the kitchen for a certain potion.
“Aha!” She exclaimed upon seeing the mysterious yellow liquid with a label saying Stomach Ache and drank a small dosage of the potion. Feeling the pain in her belly go away, she nodded her head blistfully and sighed, “Magic really is amazing with all these weird concoctions running around.”
Then, she looked out of the window and saw the moon hanging high in the sky. Cursing inwardly over her need to go to school tomorrow, she groaned and returned to her bathroom to freshen up for the night.
When all was said and done, she changed into a comfortable pair of pajamas, drank a small dosage of sleeping potion, a recent product she had horded for future usage, and plop herself down on her bed with an audible thud.
Turning and twisting around, she turned off the lights with the aid of wind spirits, and murmured to herself, “Good night.”
Night slowly descended and the moon hung right in the middle of the starry night sky. Through the microscopic organisms floating all around her sleeping figure, Mammon was able to observe her perfectly without any issues and casually threw the orb of white light forward.
The instance the orb met the fabrics of reality, it was as if the world corrected itself and a strange, hazy dream surfaced in Anna’s mind.
…
Anna woke up from her peaceful dream with a strange daze as she looked around the strangely large room similar to that of an infirmary, with beds and white sheets scattered all around. But other than the ordinary furniture, everything else was far from normal.
Cracks spread throughout the ground as fissures in space formed. All around the space, darkness and shadows formed long tendrils while blood flooded the ground. In front of Anna, a lone figure stood stall with long silver hair and wearing a luxurious black robe.
The figure emanated a terrifyingly strong pressure comporable to those of Archmages like Christopher Laum, and with the signs seen all around, she could tell the man was a vampire, a vampire who’s very well known around the empire! A famous Duke who reigns over all vampires that resides within the empire’s domain - Duke Bloodthorn!
And in that very same moment, the famous Duke Bloodthorn’s body was split in half with a clean dark purple line running along his head down to his torso. Through the gap, she saw the maniacal face of a man covered in blood, with dark purple eyes and raven black hair.
He appeared rather damaged with deep wounds and gash covering his ceramic white skin, but overall, he seemed to be fine and far from fatal danger. The claws extending out his fingers then retracted back into his hands as he glanced at Lance Bloodthorn sitting in the corner of the wide room and murmured, “You’re next.”
Crack!
The dream shattered into countless fragments as Anna woke up with cold sweat on her forehead and back. Clutching her rapidly beating heart, she hyperventilated and vividly recalled the vision replaying back and forth in her mind.
“Lance Bloodthorn… Arvil Bloodthorn… They both died…”