CHAPTER 63 -MOTION-
ALTER VIOLET
Upon opening my eyes, various things came running down on them. A very bright light which reminded me of my old world–how bright the hospital would be after I would fight those powerful beings, especially that doctor. The soreness that had been accumulating for how many days I’ve been asleep counted as, erupted to hit me now that I was awake.
I ignored it and instead viewed my surroundings, expecting some crazy doctor to already have a crazy tool to open me up. An unwise life I had…one that I still hold dear too. Turning my head side to side, still trying to get full awareness of it, a voice came through my ears. “The angel Sammel is awake, go alert the Queen of it while I check his health!”
Commanded one of the angels who, from what I saw, wore a white long coat like the ones in my previous world. I forced my body to sit even though it protested against me and my mind. Causing major sharp pains once every moment, the angel doctor walked fastly when he noticed this.
The halo above his head shined more than before, almost as if he was using it for something or like an ability. The orange light from his halo transferred to his hands and then he pushed it towards me, a warmth entered my body like mana.
“Don’t be afraid, this is my ability, to sense anything wrong with the angel body–” He stopped suddenly without regard to his ability, with blue eyes that widened when he noticed something else in my body.
I opened my mouth in hopes of finding out what he had seen but he instantly continued, erasing the astonished emotion he had. “Though you’ve been asleep for three days, your body seems fine.”
The warmth retracted from my body and into his hands to later into his halo. At that moment, the entrance door slammed open revealing about seven people. Though, all I could see were silhouettes and not any detailed features of who it had been in front of me. Even mana to me was superficial to even notice the traces left in the atmosphere or around my body.
Three halos, a pair of horns, three different sources of mana? I tried squinting my eyes to get a better view but these mana sources were unfamiliar to me in every way. The more thought I tried to put on it, the less effective it was to respond as I’d wished it did.
I had to act as I could see them to not make these people worry any more than they had to. I thought in my mind as I closed my eyes hard enough to see white static and open them again. It was terrifying to not be able to see, but it was more terrifying to let those who worry about you worry more than they have to.
““Alter!””
“Young Master!”
“Sammael!”
Looking at every direction that the voices came from, seemingly like I was seeing and recognizing them. However, not even the voices could I even recognize.
My two plans have failed now, and there isn’t a third one either. I don’t think there will be one… No, I could just play along and find out who they are.
Let’s just see how things play out. My own self said to me like it was whispering in my left ear and holding both of my shoulders while leaning.
I felt an aura grow from behind me like some sort of fire in a dry forest, growing little but rapidly, multiplying itself with a vast amount of power. Turning my head–not fully–still was unable to process the dark red aura.
In the background, muffled voices–which lowered when I noticed the aura–had their volumes increased by many fold, catching by surprised my ears and myself alike that I jolt to the full volume entering my ears.
Everyone present gave me a concerned look, their tones lowered. Then complete silence reigned over the room, the doctor from before walked up to me again but I dismissed him quickly saying that I was okay.
Another voice, one that sounded like a male without any experience in battles to the death, broke the silence and got everyone talking back again. I quickly followed up the voice and gave that person a thankful nod, I felt his gaze land on me.
***
After some hours of talking–in the infirmary–I decided to take my leave to my room of course, though I needed some help find my room from a maid.
[How do you feel?]
Oh, it’s you. Well, at the moment I could feel something’s off but nothing too serious. I responded with a heavy wall of concrete between her thoughts and mine.
How are you guys over there? Feeling curious about the ‘other side’ as other people call it–or how I call it now.
[As you might know or not, the terrain changed the moment you left. Everything around us went back to what it was before, a beautiful scenery of green and blue all over the place.]
The emotion in her tone told me it was true, her excitement was over the roof as it was her first time being able to roam around the spatial compartment there was, or at least offered. Sirjana couldn’t leave the space she was trapped in, if she did it was an order of mine from my subconscious to help me or take order over that castle that is in the middle of the terrain.
…the castle, huh?
Sirjana? I called out.
[Yes.]
Is the castle still there?
A moment of silence or thinking came, since it was telepathic or something similar to that. I could hear the static noise from her end of consciousness. Afterwards of her silent thinking, she finally answered, hesitant of her words and intentions.
[Y-Yes, the castle still remains…]
Stolen novel; please report.
Is that so?
If the castle is still there, then that means… Never mind, I shouldn’t involve myself with things I can’t control but hopefully, just some grim hope that the castle is not there when Onyx leaves the spatial realm.
‘Or it could just be me.’
Again, the chilling in the air came around and the sudden pressure on my shoulders came to effect. The mana–that somehow I could sense a little of–ran in fear as some red crimson aura that resembled that of fire came for them. It was being hunted by this aura that came from behind me, the acknowledgement of it was out of the question.
Sirjana, I will contact you later.
I said, feeling that she too heard those words. And like a string that was tied up together was now cut and fled to the opposite sides. The connection between her mind and mine were dismissed like the waves of the ocean, no longer to be seen as the same but as different.
Simultaneously so did the waves of dark energy that came from behind me, dissipating into the ground and mana then slowly began to move around me and closer to me without any apparent danger of what there was before.
“This is going to be troublesome,” I lightly said, having only myself and my shadow hear it. I have lost my ability to use and manipulate mana to how I used to, not only that but my mana ring seemed to be in an entirely different form.
Feeling mana became a little more familiar to me but to distinguish between mana wasn’t even in my mind to grasp it, and now things became much worse with my only source of even being able to control it to my own advantage.
The indigo colored mana ring had big noticeable changes as well as cracks. I felt a tinge of the mana capacity slipping from it like water being trapped inside a dam.
Presuming that I continued to use this ring for mana control, things would escalate to me losing the capability of mana control and manipulation over it.
Meaning I would no longer be a Quadra-Elemental being but a mana less human with no power whatsoever.
However if I don’t use it, my chances of being able to grow stronger decreases significantly and will be stuck in this position forever.
It’s exactly the same way on how I can’t use Abeyance for anything. Even thinking about the ability was useless to me as it could no longer be in the deck of cards I would have to use to fight these uphill battles, and now the same would be with mana.
Unless…
My eyes stared at the bracelet in my arm, mana dancing around it like it was some sort of majestic object. Bringing joy to the energy sources, I call out for a single thing which I hadn’t used in a very long time.
Red, the bright red color object which was ready to transcend into the next stage of its potential. A transcendency which I had prolonged for years. One that I’d never hoped to achieve with it.
A long sense of guilt entered me as I eyed it for some time, a minute or two had passed before I could even notice it. But I decided to put it away, again.
It’s time of need will come and it is not now. Though it pains me to use this ring—that is the only memory of my long gone partner—for the greater good of those around me I must use it to the end of its motion.
Afterwards, I argued with my mind over the things in my dimension storage. If some things were useful or not—that, I didn’t know—until I had to see them.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen what dimension storage had over the years.
I called for everything in it—including the mana ring, putting it aside from the rest—and laying them down in the fluffy bed.
To me, it looked as if I was a merchant trying to sell sketchy items to some dumb people who had no clue what they were, setting some sort of high price for them unknowingly.
The atmospheric mana then came to some objects—and like the bracelet—it danced around some of them. Maybe the mana can see its value, something that the naked eye can’t see. I thought, checking each and every item they danced over: three Eternal crystal shards. A giant demon arm. Four basilisk horns. Seventeen elixirs of mana replenishment. A gold and purple medallion.
Why?
I pondered over the explanation of why mana would dance over these things. I could understand the crystal shards but the rest, it’s uneven in this case.
These items don’t require spells or anything like that, so why would mana favor them like it’s the same methods? There shouldn't be mana reacting to them like this in any way, mana only surrounds those who are capable of wielding it or some mana in it, but it doesn’t, none of them do.
Wait, my halo…
I reminisced about my old and newly acquired power, when I had chanted for it as I fought Michael and the other angels next. Perhaps I could use it to understand the reason why mana is favoring these items.
The feeling of warmth–the same feeling I had when the doctor used his ability–above my head as the sense of mana came back to me and my ability to see mana did as well. The image was clear now, the reason why mana was circling around these items was because Divine mana was imbued into them.
Since when?
When were these items imbued with Divine mana? The basilisk’s horns were from the bastard that ambushed us near the Royal basilisk castle, in the village where Albert was. As well as Yuzath…
My eyes didn’t leave the horns alone, not for a minute or two until I couldn’t understand what his motive was or intentions were. But there's one thing that is still on his list, and that is to ‘awaken’ me no matter the cost.
My frowned expression because of my total lack of understanding of the mana’s reaction which soonly changed into a smile of satisfaction. “Now I can turn the tables in his regard for pursuing me into my old self.”
Yuzath can’t fight me with my old power back, he only won because of my lack of immature decision in fighting, and because I didn’t have my halo.
If only I had my Halo King powers then, things might have been different. The battle between me and the basilisk would have ended in another way, his death and my victory. Isabella’s survival, my peaceful life here.
However, fate had other plans for me and everyone else around me like back then.
‘And that is the reason why you should listen to me…’
‘You can win every battle, every war, with just my words and my orders.’
“You’re insane to think I would listen to you at this time.” I shot back with impatience and annoyance when he interrupted my plan against Yuzath. “You are nothing more but a past memory, one that I’m not very proud of in any way, so just lay low before I myself exterminate you.”
Then, I let go of my Halo King ability, the light above my head was gone as well as the warm feeling. Mana was no longer clear to me but was instead blurry to the point where It irritated me to even look at it.
Each and every one of the items that laid on the bed were soon gone when I grew tired of the aftermath that my defective–soon to be destroyed mana ring–gave me.
The motes of energy sources were gone as well, relieving my eyesight even if it was just for an instant before I’d see a handful of bright and dark particles clash against each other.
Like I could see through walls, a darker mana source emitted from the chambers of what appeared to be where the Angel Queen resided. This mana…could it be?!
After I had awakened from my battle in the real world and then my fight in the spatial realm, my recognition of mana sources and auras were unidentified. Hours and hours of me talking to each and every single one of the people who came with me from Ezar, felt a little more distant from me like strangers.
However, this mana source–the being in front of Angel God–felt familiar. Someone I’ve met before all of this happened, somewhere where wars existed.
I need to meet this being. I said to myself, relaunching Halo King with hopes of containing it to the brim. My body converted from peaceful to aggressive when it touched the power, the ring pulsated like a swollen wound as it felt seconds from blowing up.
It was telling me something. The mana ring–though it had no mouth to speak–its intentions told me otherwise as my view of mana collapsed to the ground little by little. I tried to push the mana in the atmosphere into my own Halo but was unsuccessful, since it didn’t use normal mana as much as it did with Divine mana. An energy source that I couldn’t control or even have knowledge of.
Divine mana to me was very different from normal mana–elemental mana–which is more like a master-servant relationship. Elemental mana listens and acts like your will, unyielding loyalty to the brim.
On the other hand, Divine mana doesn’t listen to you and wielding it doesn’t require your will but understandment over it.
Anything more than that is unrecognizable to me, as I was never able to use or even move one particle of Divine mana to my will.
“Queen of Angels as well as their God. Daughter of the greatest leader in war and politics in the Serenitas Convivium and never backed down, even against the Sentinels. Betty Alexander, the newly appointed Queen who has ruled over six-hundred years and never entered war with anyone and resided in peace.”
The demon grin, showing his jagged yellow teeth with malicious intent. He held back though, something else came first than his own greed or intentions.
Queen Betty stepped forward as the guards did as well, pointing their spears and swords towards the powerful demon. They knew, they all knew that he could kill all of those guards without a sweat but still chose to step forward with their Queen.
The demonic aura owner pulled his hood down and showed his features, four black horns—two at each side of his head—pointing to the ceiling with the front ones being a little smaller than the other two. Reddish dark black hair, longer as it passed his shoulders. The dark eyes with yellow irises that resembled the irises of a green snake, stared at those around him with the calling of death around the corner.
My body stumbled into the corner wall, not far from the chamber but far enough for them to not sense me being there. Sweat from my body and forehead dropped into the red and white carpet leaving a stain on, making me feel really bad for the maids here.
I felt my legs shaking with weakness as Halo King began to leave my body, affecting everything in my system that pleaded for more of it. It was getting addicted to that power, the power of the crown, it’s affecting my thirst for power and dominance.
Making it grow more and more, hungry for more as it tries a little bit of the crown’s growth.
Then I heard Queen Betty’s voice, her tone was roughly tired and confused on the demon’s demand. “Speak your truth Marshal, who are you here for that even your Lord asks for that person so dearly to?” She held her hand up, the soldiers around the four horned demon let out a small grunt of fire as they walked to him, tempting the demon by swaying their spears forward and back with dominion. “Or you will die here without completing your goal that your Lord has given you.”