Forus frowned as he witnessed the one-sided beating. Instead of helping the kids, he looked around once more, trying to prove his conjunction. The scenery began to grow blurry as the landscape outside of the house faded into whiteness. The white mist magically appeared to block his view, telling him to focus on the central part of the event.
"Be obedient and come with us!" The Thugs yelled before landing their fists onto the Big Bro, knocking him onto the ground before stomping onto his leg. Their smile widened as the kid screamed, savouring in their dominating way of bullying. However, seeing that the kid curled his body into a ball, not begging for help or retaliating, the thugs quickly lost their interest as they hit his head, knocking him unconscious.
"The kid sure is weak. He would break before we even have our fun!" The group casually walked towards the Younger Bro. He was rushing into his house, crying for help. However, because of their weak hut, the thugs easily knocked down the door and went in for the kid.
Several seconds later, the thugs carried kids while licking their lip, thinking about how much money they could make after selling them.
Seeing the scene, Forus frowned even stronger. He looked into the direction of the kid-selling thugs and waved his hand. According to his will, dense Ice Element condensed into a spear of ice, hovering above his head. As he swiped his hand downwards, the icy spear shot towards the group of thugs, piercing into the head of a blad thug.
His head shattered like a melon, spilling brain matter and internal fluid everywhere, sending out foul smell into all directions. All of the organs on his face either popped like the balloons or froze into ice scripture before falling onto the ground, breaking into pieces. The body became instantly frozen before it could react, becoming a work of art where crimson and blue blended in naturally.
However, before the thugs could admire the art, the spear that impaled the ground exploded into ice spikes, stabbing everyone in the surrounding. Their figures turned into beehives as holes were visible for all to see. Blood gushed out like when one squished a wet sponge, shooting high to the sky.
Descending from the sky, Forus walked into the piles of corpses, looking at the two kids who managed to survive the ordeal. The Younger Bro was holding the Big Bro who was unconscious, crying while bleeding all over his body. He was the one who shielded his brother when the ices stabbed his back. However, because there were thugs behind them, they naturally became the meatshield for the two, allowing them to survive.
"Mister, thank you for helping us." While stumbling, the Younger Bro looked at the silhouette in front of him. His eyes faintly glowed as he silently admired the supernatural power of Forus. There was no fear in his eyes.
However, Forus didn't say anything and instead shifted his attention towards the faint Big Bro. He raised his hand and sent out a tiny bit of sorcery energy, healing the wounds of the two. Not only that, but he also created a drop of liquified Ice Element and implanted it into the kids as a protective measure.
Before the Little Bro could recover from his shock and say anything, Forus had already disappeared from his view. However, not only did he feel disappointed, his admiration instead grew greater as well as his yearning for power. Looking at his Big Bro, he slowly dragged him back into the house.
Suddenly, the scene distorted and turned white, filling Forus' vision with nothingness and covered all of his perceptions.
Forus began to shake violently as much new information forcefully injected into his head. His bones snapped as he kneeled onto the ground, coughing out blood. Viens inside his body started popping, creating a cracking sound all over his body. Fortunately, after advancing, his body had become much stronger than his previous state and could withstand the pressure. Coupled with the abundant sorcery energy, Forus didn't suffer any internal or lasting injury.
He saw a future that didn't exist. Like a dream, the world played out as usual. However, in this dream-like memory, Intor became much more muscular and stronger than him, training his physical body every day after the incident. The initial phase of his life was still the same, other than the fact that Intor didn't get to enrol to the faraway school.
Instead, Intor took on and displayed his talents in swordsmanship and arts of combat, successfully becoming an imperial knight. With his younger brother's connection, Forus became an influential scholar. With their effort, the two were the founder of their Ander Family, a noble family.
In the future, Intor fell in love with a female scholar and started his family, where he got two sons. Without any elements of supernatural, the Ander Family lived happily under their ignorance.
However, after becoming a scholar, Forus never met Meria and didn't have any love in his life. In the end, he died peacefully alone with only Intor to accompany him. His last words were that he felt like he had forgotten something important. Nevertheless, no matter how he tried to recall it, he could not remember anything.
Processing the information, Forus sweated as he understood the nature of this impossible test. Opening his eyes again, Forus found that the same scenery appeared once again, detailing the same landscape and weather. Not only did the action of the kids the same, everything that he could remember matched perfectly.
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Smiling faintly, Forus decided to take his time and try every idea he could think off.
...
"Who are you...?" An Elder of the Ninguis Family dropped down in front of Ocelia, uttering his last words before fading into a corpse. Behind him, remains of many youngsters from the Ninguis Family piled up, burning into ashes by the flame. Despite the damage, there was no trace of alarm from the outside as if the slaughter had never happened.
Gazing at the perfectly intact building, Ocelia stepped towards it. With a light touch from her finger, the door crumbled into dust from the intense heat. The invisible array manifested itself and trembled under her presence before releasing icy glow towards her, aiming to repel the intruder from entering the restricted area.
Unfazed, Ocelia waved her hand, creating an incorporeal leaning tower using her Fire Element. Within its first moment, the said tower began increasing in size before it became slightly smaller than the hall. The enormous tower slammed itself onto the array, breaking it into pieces.
Without its protector, the hall dimmed down and degraded from its magical appearance into an ordinary one, allowing Ocelia to walk in without any concern. She strolled towards the dome of Ice Element, unafraid of its destructiveness. When the Ice Element contacted her skin, it would melt away before it could do anything.
Inside of the hall was rolls of bookshelves, containing details about political secrets and sorcery cultivation methods. Although most of them were only the external matter that didn't worth much for Ocelia who was at the first-ranked sorcerer stage, the information would have an impact on Ninguis Family when Coruscare Family used it carefully.
Seeing that there was no danger presented, Ocelia signalled for a figure to come out of her hiding place, and walked into the hall. Despite her fierce-looking eyes and fair hair, her expressionless face gave off the aura of aloofness and coldness. With her elegant demeanour, the girl disregarded the disgusting remains of the deads and walked into the building without any pity for them.
Watching her younger self, Ocelia could easily see the large gap in their personality. Before meeting Forus, she would remain ruthless and unfeeling, not caring for anyone other than her father and the ancient ancestors, which was because of their unchallengeable authority within the family.
As everything faded into whiteness, Ocelia gripped her chest as she endured the injection of new memory silently. However, because she had suffered this type of torture for many times before, she could easily pass through it without much trouble. Compared to the first time, Ocelia almost fainted from the unexpected information.
In this fake world, Ocelia quickly became the favourite successor of Coruscare without any equal. Due to her merits in obtaining secrets from Ninguis Family, her father personally requested the ancestors to guide Ocelia in her sorcery. The story ended when the timeline reached the present, which was when fake Ocelia advanced into a second-ranked sorcerer and replaced her father as the Family Head.
However, in this reality, Ocelia never met Forus, resulting in her aloof demeanour to continue its existence. Later, she developed into a heartless person who enjoyed torturing powerless sorcerers. From collecting eyes because of their beauty to abusing people for their screams, everyone in the family began to fear her. Even the ancestors started to disapprove her behaviour.
As Ocelia watched the scenery unfolded again, she didn't do anything and let them processed as it should be. In the end, the young Ocelia walked out with the agreement in engaging with Glacies Ninguis.
As soon as young Ocelia walked out from the area, the scenery crumbled into nothingness, turning from vivid vision to a blurry one. As soon as the illusion got broken, Ocelia opened her eyes to see the original reality, which existed as the exact timeline that followed all details of her memory.
Although the mist had covered every bit of the ladders, Ocelia could instinctively know that she was at the twentieth step of the Mind Burial Lane. Silently, Ocelia took one more step forward, landing on the twenty-first step.
Like usual, her eyes became clouded as her consciousness got dragged into a perfect illusion, showing her a regret of her past, letting her decide if she wished to change it or harden her mind and allowed it to continue as it was. Either she succeeded in letting go of her regrets, calming her mind and silently moved on, or failed to endure the deep wounds from her heart, forever trapped within the illusion of a glorious future.
Without any care, Ocelia continued to manipulate her past to gain more knowledge about the futures in the hope to find the best way for both her and her husband to survive from this world. Any bit of sorcery and experience about strange phenomenon would hugely increase their safety against them.
...
Despite without any source of light other than the dimly-lit touches, Glacies Ninguis and his companions could see through the darkness without any problems. The sorcerers had numerous spells to counter the unpredictable events that could happen within the ruins.
Seeing the end of the long hallway, Glacies raised his hand and waved it in a strange motion, leaving afterimages along the way despite not moving fast. The afterimages glowed as they slowly dissipated into the air, attracting the gazes of the two behind him.
The trio stopped in their place and observed the door before them. It took almost all of the surface of the wall, leaving only the edge of the wall to hold it in place. The surface of the door was a special material that absorbed all of the light that reflected onto it, making it appeared twisted and black, giving off the feeling of isolation and strangeness.
"Avidas, go open that door." Sensing something amiss, Glacies ordered his servant to test the water first. Although he knew that the place should have no more traps after several usages of the trap-checking spell, the ruin was unpredictable. He didn't want to bet his life on his arrogant.
Avidas cursed in his mind before slowly walking towards the door, keeping his hand on the silver disk that he acquired from the ruin. If anything happened, he would immediately activate its transportation ability and move to safety.
Reaching the door, Avidas caressed its surface, feeling its toughness while trying to see any hidden meanings. However, the engravement that was on the door was unreadable to his knowledge of ancient languages.
"Young master, Miss Abicel, this Avidas has already checked the surrounding and found that there was no trap hidden within it." He shouted and gave the signal for the other two to follow suit.