Minutes passed while that story was projected into my mind, and at a certain point, two of the old men quickly jumped into the room where they threw me. At that exact moment, the memories stopped and those monsters charged towards me when I got up.

Weird enough they seemed slower than before and I easily grabbed them for their arms and threw them off the building.

I was feeling a slight burning feeling on the palm of my hands and looked at them, those symbols were glowing with a bright red light.

‘Does this mean I can use her powers..?’

I looked through the hole my body made before and looked down, to where the old men were, but as soon as my eyes met theirs, they started shaking and the same happened when I looked up at the giant.

‘Something happened when I ate the kid-...Emperor’s flesh. I don’t feel like I obtained a new power and I don’t have that hunger for more. I just…feel different…’

My body was feeling heavy and I thought I was just really tired.

“Let’s see what I can do with this power.” I pointed my palm towards the men, closed my eyes and concentrated. I could hear their heartbeat and feel their blood flowing in the veins, it was like my body was connected to theirs; when I opened my eyes, I closed my hand in a fist and they started convulsing, I could feel their blood as if it was in my hand and I was compressing it.

As I opened the hand, their body stopped convulsing but blood started flowing out of them, from every single hole, pores of the skin included and it started flying towards me and stopped before my palm, after some seconds I had in front of me a ball of compressed blood…but something wasn’t feeling right again.

I was slowly losing control over my body and I was feeling someone else aura surrounding me. My hand touched the blood and as the word “Shape” came out of my mouth, the ball of blood started stretching and hardening, taking the form of a spear. My hand grabbed it and my legs jumped high, breaking through the floors of the building and reaching the rooftop.

My eyes looked at the giant and he seemed prone to escape. My body quickly moved in a javelin-throwing position and threw the lance at the giant at sonic speed and with incredible force, all of this without even using aura to strengthen the throw.

The lance passed through the giant’s head, leaving a massive hole and his blood painted in red all near buildings; when his massive body fell it shook the earth a bit and proceeded to become an enormous puddle of blood.

Shortly after that, the girl appeared before me, looking at me with a lot of sadness. I wanted to say something but different words came out of my mouth

“Nysilia…a lot of time has passed…”

She didn’t speak.

“Come on, say something. It’s been years since we last saw each o-”

Nysilia interrupted him “Don’t say anything else. He’s listening.”

“Oh right.” My eyes closed and a male voice spoke in my mind

‘Sorry kid, I’ll give you your body back later, but for now sleep please.’

As the voice spoke, he slowly took over my mind and body completely.

———

When I woke up I was laying on a rooftop and having a bad headache, meanwhile, Nysilia was sitting close to me with her legs against her chest and looking at nothing. As I tried to sit I could feel every part hurting

“Ugh…”

Nysilia heard my lament and looked at me “Good morning. You surely sleep a lot.”

“How long did I sleep?” I asked her while still feeling pain.

“Almost a week here. Almost two days in the human realm and it’s Monday evening there.” she said with a calm voice.

“Oh..ok…” At first, I wasn’t bothered by it, then I slowly realized “Wait, that’s still a lot!”

“Yeah, but it’s normal since you had accumulated too much fatigue.” she got up “Anyway, you have to work tomorrow right? I’ll bring you back to your house-”

“Wait a minute!” I interrupted her “You promised you were going to answer my questions, did you forget?”

She stayed for a moment in silence, then replied “Fine…” as she sat again she said “But just 6 questions and I can refuse to answer if I don’t like the topic, in that case, you will have wasted a question.”

“Wait, that’s not fair-” I tried to say but I quickly gave up knowing she wouldn’t have listened anyway. I sighed and looked at the city while thinking about what to ask first. We were on a different rooftop from before, it was a skyscraper this time and from there the city looked endless.

“You promised me to explain what the colours of souls mean. And you won’t count that as a question!” I said.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Yes yes, I know.” she replied and seemed bored already. “Someone who did a lot of bad things in their previous lives will have a red soul, meanwhile someone who did a lot of good things will have a blue soul. There are exceptions like black souls, like mine and white souls, but for the latter one, they don’t exist anymore because of…reasons” She stopped for a second and then finished “I won’t explain anything else, go with the first question. It will surely be more interesting”

I wasn’t totally satisfied with the explanation but I decided to not say anything as she probably wouldn’t have added any more details about white souls and that would have been a wasted question.

“And what about the old man’s power? Of the 4 powers I thought, I was right about one only, what was it? You said you were going to give me a proper answer.”

“Your memory is sharp even after all of that beating…” she said resignedly “You can strengthen the object you surround with your aura, that’s his power. Strength, speed and high physical endurance are all things every person with powers has.”

“I see…” I then went with the first question I thought “What is this city and why did I feel like it was familiar the first day I was here?” I asked first.

While looking at the city she replied “This is a city from a forgotten world and you visited it in your previous life.”

I asked without thinking twice “What do you mean by “forgotten world”?”

She remained in silence for a moment and then replied “I can’t tell you that yet. You wasted your second question, go with your third one.”

I thought for a while this time “The person who took over my body was what remained of the Emperor’s soul I could feel it and his will was much stronger than mine. Before that, I saw his memories and…what he was going to say before dying?”

“Why do you think should I know that?” she looked at me and seemed curious.

I explained, “Well, the way he spoke to you, you two seemed friends so maybe you know something I didn’t see from those memories.”

She remained in silence for a moment again and said “Please, don’t die for me…that’s what he wanted to say.”

At that moment, a feeling of pure sadness pervaded me and I couldn’t think of anything else. Why things had to finish like that, that’s what I wanted to ask but I stopped thinking when Nysilia put a hand on my shoulder and said

“I will not answer any other question regarding him or his world.”

I simply nodded and thought of another question.

“Are there other categories of entities? Like, if I’m a Nylict, what was the old man?”

“Zonnikies, that’s what we are called.” she replied.

“...damn, that “we” threw me off a lot.”

She giggled “‘ll be kind this time and tell you that, I’m not a devil, but a Zonniki just like the old man, the Emperor and you. Because yes, while you are a Nylict for reasons I already told you, you are still a Zonnikies because you have powers. So, Nylict is basically a subcategory.”

“And what do they mean?” I asked and then facepalmed myself when I realized I wasted my last question.

She smiled “You know, you are cute when you act so dumb”

I looked at her confused “Was that supposed to be a compliment?”

She shrugged her shoulder and said “I’ll let you decide on that. Anyway, Zonnikies is a term part of a really old language and it means Son of the gods. Zon means Son and Nikies means gods. Meanwhile, Nylict means No Light, Ny is “No” and Lict is “Light”. Simple, no?

I nodded once she finished explaining, then suddenly said

“Nysilia?”

“Mh?” she looked at me while inclining her head a bit.

“Nothing. I just wanted to be sure that I heard your name correctly. I guess I was right.”

She looked surprised, almost upset “You tricked me! That’s not fair!”

“I should be the one to say that phrase since until now you were the one who tricked me and made me fight all those monsters.” what I just said was something I was feeling in my heart

She wanted to say something but stayed silent.

‘I can’t believe it, I managed to leave her speechless’

…but it only lasted for a few seconds

“You would have seen through that if you were less dumb.” she continued mocking me for a few minutes and I tried (and failed) to counterattack a bit. This went on until she got up and said

“It’s getting late in your world, you should return home.” with a snap of her finger a red portal opened at her right.

“Won’t you come with me?” I asked while getting up.

She shook her head and said sarcastically “Why? Did you get attached to me?”

I simply remained silent, a bit embarrassed. “Well, no but-”

She immediately laughed but it sounded a bit forced, it was more to break that air of embarrassment

“Of course not, after this torture I called training. Anyway, I have some important matters to attend to, that’s it. I’ll see you again this weekend for your training.”

“O-oh ok…then see you soon..” I was a bit sad about it for some reason, being angry was reasonable after all of this but... something was stopping this anger but I didn't know what. I waved a hand and went through the portal which transported me into my house.

———

Nysilia remained there, looking at the portal closing, and then spoke

“I know you are there, Messenger. Come out.”

Out of nowhere, a completely black figure like a shadow appeared behind her and he was releasing a powerful smell of rotten corpses and Nysilia had to cover her nose. The only visible thing on his body was his smile with those yellowish teeth.

The figure spoke with a rough and ringing voice “Your senses are always so good, I’m so jealous. This weak body of mine can’t compete with your always young and beautiful body…”

“Cut the chase, Dog of the Council. What do you want?” she questioned coldly.

“Cold as usual…but with that boy, you aren’t like this. What is your objective?” he asked while coming closer to Nysilia.

“It’s not important.” she simply answered while moving away from him.

“Oh it is, it is! You know it would be pretty bad if you were trying to interfere, you know right? Right?” he asked her while smiling creepily.

“...yes, I know. I’m just following the Council’s plans.” she looked at him for a moment and then looked away.

The rotten man clapped his hands “Perfect! Then I can just tell you the news!” he coughed and then continued “The girl has awakened…and for a moment she remembered her past.”

“What…? That’s impossible…” she replied concerned.

“But nothing to worry about. Arismis managed to delete her memories again. Everything will go as the Council planned and they just wanted to let you know this. Now, I must go.” after said that he simply disappeared in a hurry and without leaving a trace.

Nysilia closed her hands in a fist and bit her lips for the frustration, she knew from experience that something was off.