Aodhán and Daruk soon parted ways, each one heading to their individual residences in silence. Aodhán’s heart was heavy as he made his way to house 14, and his mind swirled with troubling thoughts. When he got to the house, though, he decided to fly up to his window rather than go through the living room, where he would most likely be drawn into one conversation or the other.
He floated up to his window and crawled into the cramped opening, accidentally denting the window’s metallic edge as he forced his way through. He didn’t bother adjusting it, leaving it for the self-repair runes to take care of. Instead, he made his way to his training room and settled into one corner of it.
He stared at the wooden walls for a moment, letting his swirling thoughts calm before closing his eyes to visualize his spirit. The essence threads revealed themselves almost immediately, and Aodhán smiled when he saw the bundle of threads connected to his eyes shining brightly. They stood out from the others like a beacon, and with only a hint of caution, Aodhán infused them with a burst of energized willpower.
He was careful this time, keeping a firm hold on the energy and forcing it to move slowly. The energy crawled through the thread, and when it finally reached his eye, Aodhán gasped as the world sharpened. This time, it wasn’t the overwhelming burst of clarity he’d felt earlier; rather, it seemed as if his sight had been cleared of a fog. The world appeared brighter and more colorful, a disparity that became very clear when he closed his now enhanced eye and stared at the world out of his left eye.
Aodhán spent the next few minutes testing out the difference and degree of enhancement the essence threads afforded. It was impressive, and Aodhán estimated that the infusion of energy into the essence threads had advanced his sight about two or three tiers. Not only was the world brighter and sharper, Aodhán could see slightly farther too. He experimented with the threads for a few more minutes before harnessing his seal once more to begin searching for the bundle of threads connected to his left eye.
He let out the seal’s quintessence by unleashing a beam of red electricity at the opposite wall, ignoring the intense flare of runes and crackling electricity as the skill was forcibly drained and torn apart. Instead, he focused on his spirit, tracing the highlighted bunch of essence threads in search of its starting point.
He found it pretty quickly, and without wasting time, he began the widening process. He continued the process for hours, opening and closing his spirit to the origin plane until he no longer could. In five hours, he had widened the essence threads more than halfway through, and already, it glowed brightly enough that Aodhán could easily identify it without the help of his seal.
With that sorted, Aodhán left the training room and returned to his room, hoping to have a good night's sleep. However, despite how worn out his spirit felt, his mind and body refused to rest. He had made his peace with his new status as an Inheritor and the dangers that came with it, so that was currently the farthest thing from his mind in that moment.
Instead, it was the thought of soft, warm skin that clouded his mind and the coy smiles of a certain water awakened.
“It’s nearly midnight.” He muttered, trying to shake some sense into himself, but it was ultimately futile, and before he knew it, his feet were already moving. He soon found himself standing face to face with Meredith, who was dressed in a piece of fabric so sheer it could barely be called clothing.
“You’re awake.” He stated dumbly, and Meredith smiled.
“I was training... but I’m not in the mood to train anymore.”
Before Aodhán could even utter a word, she pulled him in, shut the door, and pressed her lips against his with a ferocity that drove all thoughts out of his mind. Aodhán reciprocated. With feverish fingers, he pulled her close and severed the thin dress from her body, eliciting a choked gasp from her as tiny arcs of lightning licked her skin.
The sound excited Aodhán greatly, and that was when he lost all reason, abandoning any urge to be gentle whilst allowing his baser instincts to take over.
It was many hours before Aodhán finally stepped out of Meredith’s room and walked back to his, collapsing onto his bed almost immediately as sleep forcefully took him.
***
He woke up early the next morning, feeling very well rested despite running on only a few hours of sleep. He lay on his bed for a long moment, dreading what would come if he stood up. First, he attempted to count the amount of damage Varéc had wrought in his room that was yet to be repaired, but he soon found the number to be innumerable. Frustrated, he directed his gaze to his curtains and began counting the number of creases.
Unfortunately, that number wasn’t infinite, and before long, Aodhán was done counting, bringing him back to where he’d started from in the beginning.
Aodhán groaned and draped his arms across his eyes in annoyance. Of all the days of the week, Sundays were the days he hated most, and it was all because of Principal Zatya and Eldrith. Peeking between his fingers, Aodhán stared at the clock on the bedside table, watching it tick down until only about fifteen minutes remained until his training session before finally standing up.
First, he made his way to the roof to find Varéc sleeping peacefully, curled around a sparkling tier 17 emerald core that shone with nature essence. He had let the familiar out after his training session yesterday and was quite glad Varéc had chosen to sleep on the roof rather than wake him after he had returned. After accepting his bribe and taking Varéc back into his spirit, he returned to his room and began making his way to the bathroom.
A quarter hour later, he stepped into Principal Zatya’s office, fully expecting her to scold him on his tardiness (not like he particularly cared at this point); however, it didn’t seem like she particularly cared or even noticed. She was reading a letter with Agent Kaelith, who stood slightly behind her, face creased in worry.
Principal Zatya glanced up from the letter when he walked in and waved a hand subtly at Agent Kaelith. “You may go, Kaelith. Thank you for the news.”
Agent Kaelith bowed, his dark robes fluttering in an invisible breeze, but before he could teleport out, Aodhán asked. “How did my parents take it?”
Principal Zatya scowled, but when agent Kaelith stared at her, she gestured for him to speak, muttering something about vexatious students under her breath.
“Your parents are fine, Mr. Brystion.” Agent Kaelith replied after a slight pause. “They have been briefed on the situation and encouraged to avoid the press at all costs. Unsurprisingly, the news of your identity has spread through the kingdom like wildfire, which puts a target on your back, as I’m sure you’re well aware. Some of the other academies are concerned about your participation in the tournament, while others are calling out for your prompt removal, citing inheritors as a breach to the spirit of the tournament. The bigger academies are even more willing to poach you than ever, and even the royals—
“I think that’s quite enough, Kaelith.” Principal Zatya cut him off and waved him off again. “You may go.”
A portal appeared, and Aodhán watched Kaelith go through it without a word, his mind overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information Kaelith had just dumped in him. Of course, he hadn’t expected the news to be kept secret, but he hadn’t expected it to spread so fast.
After Kaelith left, Principal Zatya placed the letter she had been reading in her storage ring and turned to glare at him. “You’re the most rebellious and irksome project I’ve ever taken.”
“Then let me go.” Aodhán smirked, knowing exactly what she was referring to. “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m not exactly doing any of this willingly.”
Principal Zatya scowled and shook her head. “You don’t know the gravity of what you’ve done. You don’t know the extent to which I and ascendant candidate Lightus have gone to protect you. What we’ve had to do to keep you safe! What you’ve painted on your back with this announcement isn’t just a target but an entire billboard, and I’ve been running helter skelter since yesterday to put out the fires that you have created.”
Aodhán shuffled uncomfortably and said, “I’m sorry that my decision has inconvenienced you, but I really didn’t have much of a choice.”
“You had all the choices, Aodhán!” Principal Zatya gritted out and pushed herself to her feet, her mythical eyes glowing with anger. “You had all the fucking choices! You could have chosen to open your spirit up to the origin plane of storm, harnessed your seal, or even released Varéc to deal with that pesky girl, yet You Chose to brawl it out with her like a common elite. You put yourself in this mess!”
Aodhán grimaced. “I wanted to prove something to myself.”
“Well, congratulations! You’ve certainly proven your faux status to the entire kingdom while I’m here cleaning up the mess you’ve made.”
“It’s still a good decision.” Aodhán scowled. “No matter how bad things turn out, being an inheritor is still safer than... than the other option.”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Principal Zatya paused and nodded. “You know what? You’re right. It is a good idea, but you’ve executed it so terribly and at such bad timing that it might as well be trash. There’s so much going on with the war right now that literally any other time would have been better timing.”
Aodhán sighed and lifted his hands to placate her. “Look, I’m sorry. I seized an opportunity. I wasn’t really thinking about the execution or the timing at the time. I’m just surprised you’re not, like, angry about it.”
Principal Zatya scoffed. “You’re not the first pet I’ve ever taken, and although most of them knew the value of what I was trying to offer them, there were a few like you who usually required a few months to come to terms with it. If I said I didn’t see this foolishness coming, I’d be lying, but I had planned on deceiving the world the right way and at the right time. You’re so strong that people would have questioned your strength one way or the other.”
She sat back down, her face still creased with worry, and Aodhán asked. “Are the children after me now?”
“Certainly.” Principal Zatya responded without hesitation. “Even if they haven’t started planning ways to start hunting you down, it’s safe to assume you’re definitely on their radar.”
Aodhán squeezed the bridge of his nose in frustration. “What can I do?”
“Nothing. Absolutely nothing. You will continue with your studies and training as if this never happened because anything you say or do now will be swept up in this whole mess.” She eyed the necklace around his neck and asked. “I hope the original is well secured.”
Aodhán reached up to finger the lightning pendant and nodded. “It is well secured.”
Principal Zatya nodded, sighed, and created another portal, this one leading to a room he was intimately familiar with.
“Go on,” she said. “Your training is even more important now. I’ll deal with the other academies, and remember: do not do anything. Do not text anyone about this to prevent anything from leaking out. I already have too many problems as it is.”
Aodhán eyed the swirling portal with distaste before squaring up his shoulders and stepping into the portal. Immediately he arrived within the training hall, Aodhán sucked in a deep breath as the environmental energy density suddenly tripled.
The training room looked just like it did the first time he’d walked into it, all magically treated wood and dangerous energy crystals. The hall was beautiful, but it was tainted by so many memories of pain that he just couldn’t help but hate it.
Toward the left of the hall, Eldrith stood with his hands clasped behind his back as he discussed with a not-so-surprising individual, Helzarvauth. They both turned to stare at him as he stepped out of the portal, and although Helzarvauth gave him a friendly smile, Eldrith just looked at him blankly as if he was unsure how to react in this situation. If anyone had suspected his identity, it would be Eldrith, as Aodhán had used the most amount of willpower in his presence, going so far as to bottom himself out once. Granted, his pool of willpower had more than doubled since then.
Eldrith finally settled on a scowl and folded his arms in annoyance. “You’re late.”
Aodhán rolled his eyes. “Well, pardon me for not being so eager to have myself tortured incessantly with pain after almost two weeks of break.”
Eldrith smiled at that, but Aodhán had learned not to trust the pain awakened, and this time, his mistrust paid off. In an instant, Eldrith blinked forward, his hands glowing with ominous light, but Aodhán had been on guard, and he quickly dodged. Eldrith’s fist soared a hairsbreadth from his cheeks, and Aodhán immediately launched himself backwards, a bolt of red electricity crackling in his fingers.
“Mr. Inheritor,” Eldrith’s grin widened, and he stared at his still glowing fist with a raised eyebrow. “You’ve gotten faster. Good. I was tired of limiting myself to the 20th tier anyway.” With that very threatening statement, Eldrith rushed forward, and this time, Aodhán couldn’t have dodged even if he tried.
The punch connected with his jaw and sent him flying backwards, smashing him against the wall faster than he could blink. Pain exploded on his jaw, and he swallowed a cry of pain as his body shuddered and runes flared behind him. He collapsed to the floor, his entire body groaning and creaking in pain.
While Aodhán lay on the floor, trying to get his body back up, Eldrith shouted to Helzavauth. “Are you sure about this?”
“Certainly. Physical pain should create an eruption of emotional trauma too deep for me to access. After that happens, I’ll take it up from there.”
Aodhán pushed himself to his feet and glared at the two maniacs Principal Zatya asked to train him. He cursed himself for thinking Helzarvauth’s intentions were anything less than crazy and gritted out. “You are both insane if you think I’ll go along with this.”
Eldrith looked back at him and grinned. “Unfortunately for you, you do not have a choice.”
Before Aodhán could respond, Eldrith’s hands darted to his side, a move Aodhán had seen a hundred times before and had learned to dread. Eldrith launched himself forward, and Aodhán ran. He barely made it more than a few steps before he was flying through the air again, his back exploding with pain.
Gritting his teeth, he immediately flooded his body with willpower, but it was all for naught, because Eldrith switched from attacking his body to attacking his mind, dredging every painful experience and memory to the surface. Aodhán collapsed to the floor, coughing out blood as his willpower drained away like water in a sieve.
Eldrith tsked as he walked closer. “I really do not like to do this, but Helzarvauth says this will help you. We’re trying to help you.”
“Fuck you.” Aodhán wiped his lips and glanced at Helzarvauth, who was now seated on a wooden chair jotting something down in a small note. When he noticed Aodhán’s gaze, he waved cheerfully as if he couldn’t feel the pure malice radiating off Aodhán.
Fighting the demons Eldrith had dredged up from the recesses of his mind, Aodhán cursed and forcefully harnessed his willpower again. He might not be able to beat these two lunatics, but if he could just injure them, stab each one of them in the brain, and give them a lobotomy, perhaps he could cure them of their insanity.
With a cry of growing rage and malice, Aodhán willed a storm cloud into existence and activated {Lightning Spear Rain—Red}. He empowered the skill with willpower but didn’t stop there even as memories of broken bodies flashed across his mind.
One skill wasn’t enough. No, if he was to have even a remote chance at injuring these two, he needed to utilize all of his power. Tapping into the rage simmering within him, Aodhán proceeded to activate every single skill he had, draining more than half his energy in an instant.
Thunder roared as storm clouds took over the entire hall and lightning bathed his vision. Varéc’s emotions bled into his own, and as the rage he was feeling climbed higher, Aodhán opened his spirit to the origin plane of storm and invited chaos. Skills and attacks flew in every direction, explosions rocked every corner, and Aodhán almost burst out laughing when Helzarvauth suddenly jerked to his feet, eyes wide in alarm as he was forced to dodge a host of lightning spears that slammed against his chair and exploded with a boom of thunder.
Eldrith tried to amplify his emotional pain, but rather than break him, the pain only fed into his rage. Aodhán attacked relentlessly, wasting energy like it was water, but he wasn’t worried about his energy at the moment. In fact, he wasn’t worried about anything; he had only one goal, and that was to stab a spear into Eldrith’s and Helzarvauth’s brains. Multiple times.
He didn’t care about his energy, his willpower, or the effect of chaos on his spirit. He didn’t care about anything; all he wanted was to hurt them the way they had hurt him.
Rushing forward, Aodhán unleashed a devastating amount of electricity with {Lightning Surge}, aiming for Helzarvauth’s head, but when that failed, he spun around, transforming the surge into a vortex of red lightning that exploded with so much force that the runes flared.
Pain, both physical and emotional, erupted within him, and although Aodhán felt every attack keenly, he refused to give up without teaching these two a lesson.
He dodged a punch from Eldrith (barely) and retaliated with a condensed beam of black electricity. The beam barely even caused Eldrith to stagger, and that was when Aodhán absolutely lost it.
Without hesitation, he dug into his spirit, harnessed his seal, and channeled its power into the beam. It blasted Eldrith back this time, turning his clothes to ash and revealing a host of scars, some old, others recent, on Eldrith's chest.
The sight barely even slowed Aodhán down. He was past caring. Dashing forward, he raised his hands to the sky and activated {Lightning Descent}, pouring all that he had into the finisher skill.
Thunder rumbled ominously as the storm cloud was suddenly bathed in a river of red lightning. The river condensed into a point above Eldrith’s head, and Aodhán felt a spark of utmost joy when, for the first time since he had been training with Eldrith, he saw the maniac hesitate and then dodge. Dodge!
It wasn’t just the fact that Eldrith dodged his attack; it was the fact that he dodged in fear. Well, maybe not fear exactly, but caution. Utmost caution.
Aodhán laughed, and for the first time since gaining his first seal, he stopped fighting against the simmering rage. He made no attempt to suppress it or to hold on to his logic; instead, he let it grow unchecked, surrendered himself to it, and let the emotion engulf him.
Thunder boomed as his rage rose to the absolute peak. It consumed his senses and broke his logic, but rather than the explosion of berserking violence Aodhán had expected, the world suddenly stilled. The burning rage that had engulfed his senses calmed, and for the first time in a while, Aodhán’s mind was completely silent. The billowing rage still surrounded his mind, but somehow he had erected a bastion of peace, or perhaps it was more appropriate to say he had found it.
Rage and chaos surrounded his mind, yet Aodhán felt calm. Serene. Peaceful.
It didn’t take him long to figure out what he had found in this storm of rage and chaos. He had found the eye of the storm, a bastion of calm and control in the midst of turmoil. The world had frozen around him, but Aodhán didn’t notice, too busy relishing the peace and quiet he had suddenly found. He felt calm and detached even as chaos rampaged all around him.
He hadn’t understood it before when he had been thinking about his affinity in Awakened combat class. He had thought the storm was anything but calm. In fact, the words he had used at the time were tumultuous, turbulent, and chaotic. But now, for the first time, Aodhán felt like he truly understood his affinity. He could be surrounded by chaos and still be at peace. The storm was a herald of violence and chaos, yet it held a bastion of calm in its center.
It was an irony, yet it made perfect sense. The storm was both calm and violent at the same time. It was tranquility and turmoil, peace and chaos.
The words resounded in his mind like the tolling of church bells, and Aodhán suddenly felt his mind explode with understanding. An understanding of his element that he hadn’t possessed when he’d gained his first seal.
Something opened up within him like a yawning chasm, and suddenly the world crumbled away, replaced by the origin plane of storm. Chaos whispers exploded in his mind, and at the same time, the all-encompassing consciousness that was the origin plane dove into his mind.
It barely probed his mind for more than a few seconds before Aodhán felt an intense wave of approval and acceptance erupt from the consciousness. Heat flared on his chest as another seal was added to the first, this one seeming much more real and genuine than the last.
Energy surged into his core, filling it to the limit and eventually pushing past that into the next tier. The overflow of chaos surged out of his core and into his body, diffusing into his muscles and bones and soothing away every injury. Aodhán gasped in euphoria as the energy rushed through him, but the moment his advancement ended, reality rushed back in, and Aodhán found himself standing in a room drenched in lightning and chaos energy. Thunder boomed, and storm clouds roiled all around him, forming a dense haze that still failed to hinder his senses.
He only had a moment to stumble backwards in caution before the twisted effect took over his mind, and this time, it was so much worse.