Fun Fact: There are six continents in this world; North, South, East, West, Middle, and Bottom. They were named as such in reference to the earliest seafarers from the Old Pegasus empire, who labelled their own continent as ‘Middle Continent’.

Surone is part of the East Continent.

----------------------------------------

Felix left the bathroom, drying his hair absentmindedly. He trudged along the corridor in a daze, ignoring the long queue of people waiting for their turn in the shower. The boy closed his eyes in regret.

Was I wrong to believe that there was any hope for us? Are the differences between our two races really so irreconcilable that coexistence is not an option?

He continued his slow walk towards the common room, observing people scurrying around and passing supplies to their neighbours. Metas, as frail as they were, willingly giving their arcani to the wounded magis still bound to their makeshift mattresses. Isis’ words rang in his mind again.

Is uniting the world under one standard truly the only way? Must peace be achieved solely by bloodied conquest? Should such a world borne of blood be just scrapped and done over again?

Felix’s footsteps slowed down as he entered the doorway of the common room. Aglaia had gotten there before him, and was sharing her arcani with more than half of the entire room. Artificers, or so he assumed, were also passing out handmade prosthetics to those who lost their limbs in the disaster. Despite their horrible circumstances, both races never seemed more cordial before.

“No. Not if I can help it.” The boy walked into the room. “I won’t let the despairs of this world blind me to its light anymore. All these people… they have a stake in this cruel world. A choice to keep on living despite the suffering all around them. No one should decide how we live, or if we should die. I won’t let them.”

A clatter of footsteps broke his train of thought.

“Pagonis! Oh, thank the ancestors you’re alright!” Nero and his family were scurrying towards him. Felix gave them a warm smile.

“You sacrificed yourself so that we could go free…” Missus Doukas’ voice was trembling. “You did that even though you barely knew us.”

Felix stepped in shock as the three people fell to their knees before him.

“Thank you… A thousand times, thank you…” Nero bowed at his feet. “We can never repay you for the good you did for our family.”

“I was wrong, good sir.” Even his son was keeping his head low. “You truly are our Guardians. The heroes of our city. I’m sorry for saying that you were bad people.”

“Here. On your feet, everyone.” Felix helped them up. “I’m just a guy trying to do some good; I don’t deserve such reverence. Seeing you alive and well is all the thanks I need. If you want to repay me, stay safe. That’s all I need from you.”

“May the Bards sing your praises forever,” Nero said, his eyes shimmering with tears.

Felix waited for the family to return to their quarters, before walking towards Aglaia. The crowd around her had largely dispersed, leaving her kneeling beside her parents. They were breathing heavily and looked paler than usual.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I don’t know what’s happening…” the girl answered between choked sobs. “I’m giving arcani the same way as I did, but their pain isn’t going away this time.”

“Let me take over.” Felix gently pulled her away, hiding his shock at how cold and clammy her hands had become. A warm glow left his hands, illuminating the enlarged veins of the couple. They stopped heaving after a while, and they closed their eyes seemingly in relief.

And then danger went off in his mind.

Oh no… Not again…

He whipped around. An abnormally violent swirl of psychic energy was churning around the little girl this time, almost to the point of being visible to the naked eye. Felix reached for her-

NO! This is all wrong!

The boy fell to the ground before he could touch her, almost paralysed by the sheer magnitude of the psychic pressure in his mind. Screams of pain exploded around him as he forced his body to crawl towards Aglaia.

It can’t be… Not him too… Why? He doesn’t deserve this!

“Aglaia… let me… in…” Felix’s brain sizzled with effort as he held firmly onto her ankle, trying to break through her telepathic shield.

Aglaia screamed in anguish, breaking the psychic connection as she fell over her feet. She backed away from the boy.

“Aglaia… it’s okay.” Felix approached her slowly. “That thing is in your mind again, right? Take my hand, we’ll fight it together…”

The girl shook her head fearfully. “N-no… I can’t let them see you. They want to make you suffer so badly. They want to make all of us suffer! I can’t let that happen… I won’t let it happen!”

“Aglaia, who are they? Who wants to-”

Aglaia vanished into thin air.

“What the- Where’d she go?” Kleopatra’s voice drifted in, apparently bearing witness to everything that had just occurred. “You alright, Felix?”

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Felix held his hand tenderly; fighting an Omnipath really was no joke. But he had no choice. Aglaia still needed his help.

“She must’ve employed a passive mind block,” he grunted, feeling for her presence with his hand outstretched. “A frustratingly effective one too. All traces of her presence, not just the visual ones, have been blotted out from our minds.”

“Damn… how can such a young girl be so powerful?” Kleopatra commented. “Can you counter her?”

“I’ll try… But her telepathy is much stronger than mine.” The boy closed his eyes to focus his mind.

C’mon, Felix… Gotta save her. You can’t lose her too…

The world around him faded into nothingness as his telekinetic senses took over, mapping out every object in his immediate vicinity. It was still not enough.

Felix concentrated harder. His senses reached further and felt more. Every sensation, from the bubbling oil in the nearby kitchen to the slightest shift in the outside air pressure, was within his reach now. He could almost feel his brain overheating from the effort.

Wait, there!

A subtle but constant weight was moving steadily away from the Guardian Council Headquarters. The psychic focused his mind on that object, until he broke through the blockage in his mind. It felt like a crack in an impossibly thick layer of steel, of which only a tiny hole was formed. But it was still big enough for him to lock onto the escaping telepath.

“I have you,” Felix muttered and opened his eyes. Kleopatra looked at him wildly, but he motioned for her to stay.

“Protect these people in case anything else happens.” He got ready to burst forward. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

----------------------------------------

The psychic landed in the middle of the woods and stretched out his hand.

“Aglaia, stop! You’re lost, aren’t you?” His eyes flickered with psionic energy, revealing the frightened girl frozen by his telekinetic grip.

“S-stay away from me! Please!” she yelled. “This is all my fault… My sins have killed the world…”

Felix collapsed once again as his body lost all sensation. He grunted in realisation; Aglaia was blocking his motor functions to stop him from reaching her. Pink bindings wrapped around himself instead.

“No! Felix, you don’t understand!” Aglaia screamed desperately at the boy levitating his limp body towards her. “Everyone in this world is going to suffer after they die! Including you! It can’t be… You’re a good person. You don’t deserve it…”

The psychic boy stretched his hand out slowly, fending off Aglaia’s relentless telepathic attempts to push him away. He made contact with her head.

“Get out of here! Quickly, before they see you!”

Aglaia’s mindscape felt oppressive, to say the least. The air was thick with malice and confusion, despair and nihility. Her voice cried out in fear once more.

“No, no… Don’t go near him!”

A thick fog gushed in and enveloped the struggling boy. His mind flared with power, throwing out desperate blasts of psionic energy against the dark entity. But it was no use. Felix screamed as the fog pushed him out of the girl’s mind.

“No!” the boy yelled as his eyes burned with magenta light fiercely. Trees snapped off their roots were swirling around the two psychics now, carried by the tornado caused by Felix’s psychokinetic struggle.

The fog assaulted his mind again.

“We are all so full of sin. We are all deserving of condemnation.”

“Who are you?” Felix yelled at the fog. “You’re not Aglaia; Aglaia would never say such things!”

“See for yourself.”

His mind exploded in pain, and he thought he was going to pass out there and then. It felt as though he was feeling every living being in the world writhing in eternal torment at the same time. The fog cleared, giving way to a vision of his friends screaming in pain.

Gaius. Kleopatra. Cybele. Orpheus. Marcia. Aglaia.

“No…” Felix breathed. “No, this can’t be. This can’t be our destiny.”

Millions of hands materialised, pulling and dragging him down. The boy’s eyes widened in fear as pink burst from them, but the light was quickly covered by the hands piling up on his body. The ground below him sank downwards.

Felix gasped for air, finding himself standing in a small space now. He looked around. Copies of Aglaia surrounded him for as far as the eye could see, and all of them harboured the same forlorn expression.

“We are all dead,” they spoke in unison. “There is no escape.”

The boy stared at them in confusion. Their psychic energy were almost similar, but every trace of their arcani was foreign to him. Were they all different versions of Aglaia from alternate universes?

“Our worlds have all perished,” they continued in the same creepy tone. “Yours is next.”

“I can’t let this happen,” a small voice whimpered. Felix turned his attention to it. It was unmistakable this time.

“Aglaia! Are you there? Is that you?” he called out. The malice exuding from her doppelgangers was suffocating, but he could still sense a tiny spark of fear within them.

“I must go back. I need to save everyone from this horrible fate before it begins.”

Felix burst towards the source of the voice-

“Guh!” He tumbled to the ground, feeling the prick of shattered twigs press against his skin. The boy quickly stood back up, but Aglaia vanished again before he could do anything else.

“Please… Don’t follow me.” Her voice echoed in his head. “Let me atone for my sins myself. Let me make this right for everyone.”

Footsteps rushed towards him again.

“By the gods, what happened?” Kleopatra helped the dazed boy up. “Where’s Aglaia?”

“I- We had a psychic battle. And I lost.”

“W-what? You lost?” the girl exclaimed. “You’re a Tier Five meta. You don’t lose!”

“So is she.” Felix gave her a pained smile. “But what are you doing here? And how did you find me?”

“The HQ is in trouble,” Kleopatra said urgently. “More than half of the people in the common room transformed into abominations for some reason, and the Guardians are trying to keep the situation under control. We could really use your help.”

“Crap. You should’ve led with that.” Felix scooped the girl into a psionic sphere as he hovered off the ground. “Let’s head back quickly.”

They flew off towards the refugee camp.