After a night of rushing, he summoned the bird yet again. It seemed that his mana pool knew no bounds, as explained by Iris, he has probably one of the largest mana pools, if not the most.

A being's mana pool was decided by their body, the soul amasses the mana and the body acts as a medium, if the body's capacity was small, then the amount of mana available for use would be affected, but with Mana blood, every cell has been genetically modified to contain mana, even his skin cells were absorbing them right now.

Though, one can never assume to be the best, as there will always be another to surpass you.

Within only 3 days, he reached far north without any interruption from any pursuers he could have, the village did not seem particularly wealthy and could probably only produce out a small amount of money for his bounty, if pursuers were to come, they probably would be rather weak.

However, playing safe was one of Noctus's habits, after being promised by Iris who has no reason to harm them, he still had a few worries, after all, you can only trust yourself.

Purchasing a hat from one of the peddling merchant, he covered his face and attempted to enter the city.

Walking through the open gates of the large walls that enclosed the city, he was greeted with the sights of another open gate guarded by multiple officers, at his sides were various rooms.

"Name, age and reason for entering the city!" one of the officers asked.

"Noctus, 7 and I'm here for touring." he replied without hesitation with a child like smile, if he were to act his age, he should be able to work through this easily.

As he spoke, he saw from the corner of his eye that a few officers were bumping each other with their elbows while another hurriedly tapped his fingers speedily on a strange metal device.

'Ah~ It's a phone~' she called out with interest.

'Pfo-phone?' Argo repeated, 'W-what does it.....it do?'

'Communication~'

As she spoke that single word, the officers ran over and one of them spoke, "I need you to stay here for a while, please."

"For what reason, mister?" Noctus asked with a innocent smile and his tilted head.

"That's...."

"If it's nothing, can you please let me through?" He asked again thinking that all this were related to the murder Argo had committed.

"....Okay, I'll issue you a temporary pass to enter the city, however it will take quite a while, so please follow me to one of the rooms."

"No it's quite alright, mister, I'll wait here." He replied.

If anything were to happen, he could easily escape through the large gate behind him.

"Okay then, please wait here." he said before turning around.

Noctus was pretty confident, his mannerisms is different from Argo as well as the aura of his mana, if anything, they would just write him off as a child similar to the murderer.

Though if anything were to happen, he was prepared to run at a moment's notice.

Waiting for quite a while, who appeared before him was not only the officers he had seen earlier, but a man and a woman.

Instantly, he was covered in a barrier type magic the woman had casted.

Though he could not explain why, he felt fearful of the pair, especially towards the man, his legs gave out and he fell to the ground.

Looking straight at the pair, because of the sun that had positioned behind them casted a shadow upon their face, he couldn't see their faces.

"Who.....is he! Iris!" He screamed at Iris.

Noticing her lack of a reply, he started to stand up while attempting to keep his emotions under control, turning, he instantly absorbed her magic with his body and ran.

After running for quite a while, he hid behind the tree as he took out one of the bottles, he knew if he did not calm down, Vulpecular would take over, he would quickly eat them and run even more until they were gone. Even now, he could hear their footsteps.

With shaky hands, he tried to pour out a few of the pills, but his trembling hands caused the bottle to fall to the ground and it's contents to spill onto the grass covered ground.

As he was trying to pick them up, his body became limp and his head touched the tree's trunk, perhaps the stress that had been induced from the situation caused him to fall unconscious.

In his stead, Lepus took over.

In fear, he did not run, he merely pulled his knees to his body and cradled his head.

The man was here to beat him, he needed to protect torso and his face, because it was vulnerable.

Within seconds of his control, the pair caught up to him, seeing his protective posture, the woman broke into tears while the man attempted to calm him down by touching his head.

His body shook with fear non stop, he instinctively knew that the man was closing towards him. Closing his eyes, he silently prayed for the man's rage to be easily quelled today and that the beatings would not go on for a long time.

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With tears flowing down from his face, he prayed and prayed, but the beating that he knew would come, didn't.

For a few moments, the man's hand lingered near him, but it never made contact.

He didn't stop, after all, he had learned that the man despised him and that since they had hurt him and ran away, he came for him.

It was crazy for them to ever think that they could beat that man, he was much stronger than them, all they had did was to anger him and now that he's here, Lepus was to take in all the fear and pain, that was all he could do.

He was just here to take the pain away for them.

He hated them.

If only they stayed at that place and endured the beatings, than this wouldn't have happened.

The man would beat him until he was half dead and only he will feel all the pain, they're all asleep so that only he will be hurt.

It's unfair.

If only the man will just kill him.

With that thought, his hands dropped to the side.

Let him kill them, it's fair then.

After what seemed to be eternity, he looked up at the man's eyes, he wanted to scream at him, ask him why he isn't doing anything, but as he opened his mouth, no sound came out.

Looking at the man while his eyelids felt like lid, he slowly closed his eyes, ignoring the rest of the fear in his heart.

It was strange how he could never see faces anymore after the woman died, everyone seemed to have black holes for their faces.

Let them kill me, he thought before falling unconscious, the stress had burnt him out and the fear that kept him awake left.

If he was lucky, he wouldn't wake up ever again.

=========================================

When he awoke again he was in a room by himself while the other personalities were on the brink of awakening now that the threat was gone.

If they were to awake, then he would go to sleep, wouldn't he.

He would be asleep until the threat returns.

The man would probably return soon, so they won't stay awake for long and he'll be pulled back to withstand whatever the man had in store for them.

Returning to his previous thought, he gathered the resolution for death and stood up, hitting his forehead against the wall with a thud, he threw his head back while taking a deep breath.

"Bang!"

The wall collapsed.

Strangely enough, it didn't hurt. Rubbing his bleeding forehead that had been scratched by the fragments of the broken wall, he wondered to himself.

'Ouuuuuchhh! What are you doing! It's dangerous!' A pesky woman called out.

When did she get into his head? He didn't know.

As she spoke, she took over and casted a healing spell whilst mumbling to herself in upset, though her ramblings were stopped as the man ran over towards her after hearing the commotion.

"Are you alright?!" He asked with worry in his voice, his hands placed on her shoulders.

"I'm not, you fool." She replied, still rubbing her forehead with displeasure.

"Eh?" Shocked by the change of the boy, he fell on his butt.

"You find your long lost son and you decide to lock him in a room? Wonderful parenting." She commented, "Give me a chair, I'll explain."

As she issued the request, he nodded with a dumbfounded expression and led her to another room where the woman was, seeing from her red nose and eyes, it was evident she was crying.

"Afternoon.....no  it's night isn't it?" looking at the dark scenery through the window, she greeted the woman half-heartedly.

Seeing her son who had changed drastically, she had the same dumbfounded expression.

"I'm sure you have a lot of questions, however, first and foremost, get me a chair." she said with a annoyed expression.

After receiving a chair, she promptly sat down and started to explain, "Where should I begin? I suppose since the letter I sent you already had the details regarding how I took your son, I'll just go about explaining the details regarding his growth and the end results, keep in mind I don't have much time," She said pointing to her temple, "they're waking up soon."