The sound of arrows piercing through leather and flesh echoed in an abandoned old building, signaling the beginning of a gruesome massacre.
A man with silver hair caught the body of two of his comrades that were hit by the arrows and made a translucent barrier appear in front of him before removing the arrows from their bodies and bandaging their wounds skillfully. The barriers stopped all of the arrows in their tracks then suddenly disappeared to appear in the hands of the man as a sword.
The archers only saw the man staring at them before they saw the world spinning around them, gradually turning black.
The silver-haired man was the 17 years old Zuriel and he was currently undergoing the test of the Darkblood Academy.
As an academy that was very tightly related to the military, the tests always contained bloodshed. This year, students had to prove their worth by repelling rebels that operated in the borders of the great empire. Normal students would only get to fight human beings now, but Zuriel was already used to this sort of dirty work.
As someone who wanted to create a legitimate and legal guild in the future, he had to get into the army's good spot. Only then would an organization be able to expand lawfully.
For that purpose, Zuriel always chose missions that gave merit in the army while Vega did the networking, and until now it proved to be a success.
Zuriel was highly valued by the army simply because of how versatile his ability was. He could completely focus on defense and create barriers around him to protect his allies, focus on offense and work as both a ranged and melee unit, or combine both defense and offense by using half of his energy on a barrier and the remaining half on his blade. The army was willing to invest in making him an ally.
Currently, he was the leader of the group of students and everything was seemingly going smoothly, but his expression was grave.
He couldn't feel his connexion with his Vega, and that should've been impossible except if someone that perfectly countered the core ability of his sister existed.
"This will be more dangerous than I thought..." He murmured under his breath.
After determining that no enemy was hiding in the vicinity of the building, he decided to use it as a decoy to draw the opponents. In normal circumstances, he would use the building as a shield and slowly bait the opponents in one by one and finish the job cleanly, but this time he wasn't willing to take the risk of letting their opponents overwhelm their defense.
Put simply, he would force the attackers to take a defensive position inside of the building while his team that was hiding would attack them by surprise.
His plan was great but there was one main problem. His team sucked!
From the eleven members of his team, one was dead, three injured, five were too traumatized to fight, and the rest were people he personally recruited to become the first members of his guild.
"You two, come with me. The rest... Just tend to the injured and try to stabilize your own conditions. This will be your present from now on, get used to it." Zuriel said in an authoritative tone.
His two allies nodded, while the others lowered their heads in shame.
"So here's what we'll do..." He then explained his plan before concluding, ignoring their shocked faces "We'll succeed or we'll die, so do your best."
The two persons looked at each other and gulped silently when they saw the creepy smile that was plastered on their leader's face.
That day would probably traumatize them forever.
----------------------
While Zuriel was facing a death or life scenario, Sirius was currently facing one of the most difficult dilemmas of his entire lives.
It was good to know he was opening a café on Agosmore's first floor, but what was the first drink he would make?
Coffee or tea, what a difficult choice...
The reason he had to choose was simply that since the tea leaves and coffee beans he knew belonged to another world's ecosystem, their value was way too high in the world he was currently living in.
Put simply, he needed to use twenty trees for the equivalent of a cup of coffee or tea, and... that was a lot.
After an intense round of thinking, he finally decided on going with coffee first. How could a "café" not offer coffee after all?
It was definitely not because Nova liked the taste of the coffee from his memories more.
Definitely not...
After making his choice, he just grabbed all the trees Agosmore absorbed and used them to make roasted coffee beans, then made some plastic, metal, and heat-proof glass before throwing them at Nova and letting her do her magic.
Abyssal Shapeshifters could absorb materials and shape them to their will. Nova had all of Sirius's memories, and even if he didn't really know how to actually make a coffee machine, she had to find a way since she was the one that urged him to choose coffee in the first place...
Sirius didn't wait for long before a coffee machine, a manual coffee grinder, and even an insulated container appeared in front of him, completely dazzling his eyes.
"How?" He muttered weakly.
Nova didn't have eyes in her slime form but Sirius could feel the smugness radiating from her gelatinous body as she talked in their mind link.
[Ha, if you used the knowledge you acquired from school and all of your pointless researches on the internet you could have been able to create a vehicle. A coffee machine is not even a challenge.]
Sirius praised her helplessly and gave all of the equipment to Agosmore. Apparently, the "great cook" part of the story he wrote also included the way to make drinks, so that was an unexpected bonus.
Minutes passed, and the beautiful smell of coffee drifted toward Sirius making him feel a bit nostalgic. In his first life, he discovered that he had cancer at the young age of fifteen, and thus dropped from school early to live his life to the fullest, since he wouldn't live for long anyway.
He experienced a lot of things in the short period following the diagnosis and one of them was working in a café as a barista. Well, he was nothing but an amateur that was granted this post because the owner was a kind person, but that didn't matter.
The scent of coffee made him feel as if he was back in that small café, with its calm and relaxing atmosphere. The feeling didn't last long, however, because a little slime was nudging at his foot with a voracious expression.
[Hey, hey! Let's go, Sirius! What are you standing here for? This is coffee!]
Sirius sighed with a wry smile, lifted Nova in his arms, then went toward Agosmore that was currently pouring the black liquid into wooden cups.
Sirius took a sip and closed his eyes in enjoyment. It wasn't the best coffee he tasted in his life, but it's been so long since he last had a cup that it felt like a gift from heaven.
[Ew. It's so bitter!]
Sirius and Agosmore ignored Nova's complaints and sipped their drinks in silence.
After finishing his cup, Sirius looked at Agosmore with a thoughtful expression and asked him in the mental network.
'Your body is made from that weird black stone right? How can you taste things when your body is made of stone, isn't that weird?'
Agosmore wasn't surprised or offended by his question and answered calmly.
[An abomination is an organism that goes against the rules of this world. We don't have a body that contains a soul like every other living being. Instead, you can say that we "control" our bodies with our souls. It sounds like it's the same thing, but it's not. For example, an abomination doesn't need sensory receptors to feel pain, because everything is felt in the soul, directly. I don't know how it works, but when I drank my cup, for example, the texture, taste, and temperature were all felt at the level of my soul.]
Sirius nodded with realization before telling him to not disturb him for a day or two and do whatever he wanted, before opening the door of the staff room to begin the final stage of Aspiration.
Aspiration, as the core of a Silence's abilities, had three stages.
The first was called Realization, where a person could discover what was the desire of their soul.
The second was called Fulfillment, where a person needed to fulfill that desire and uncover the aspects of the Aspiration.
The last was called Satiation, where the soul was finally satisfied and would merge with the body of the Silence.
Satiation was quite weird because the user would lose all their powers, but in compensation, they would reach a whole new stage of existence.
As an analogy, one could think of the powers as hot weapons and the "new stage of existence" as being impervious to bullets, projectiles, and explosions.
Would one care about losing the ability to use firearms if they could tank bullets with the power of their lone body?
The answer was obviously no.
Sirius didn't really know what caused the change, but one day, after waking up, he just felt as if his soul stopped "wanting". It was hard to explain in words, but he knew that he finally reached the last stage and could advance.
He sat on the ground as comfortably as he could and began reaching inside of his mind. Three fragments were floating in his soul, forming a complete structure that was the aspiration of Hedonism.
Satiation was considered a mythical stage, so all methods of reaching it were considered as nothing but folklore because no Silence managed to reach that stage aside from the old leader that was obsessed with fishing and farming and didn't have any interest in helping his subordinates get stronger.
Now that Sirius reached that stage, he understood why the leader didn't help his subordinates get stronger. He simply couldn't!
Sirius instinctively knew how to merge his soul with his body, and also knew that it would only work for someone with the exact same Aspiration and Aspects.
People could have the same Aspiration, but different aspects. For example, someone with "Justice" could have the Judge aspect, while another could have Hero. It all depended on the mentality of the person.
Sirius closed his eyes and began moving the three fragments following his instinct.
The process was a long one, and Sirius felt like he spent years trying to merge with his soul when he suddenly opened his eye.
He succeeded!
He felt a void in his mind because of the inability to use the abilities that accompanied during multiple lives, but the feeling of his body that was brimming with power completely overshadowed that void.
As someone that knew his body perfectly, Sirius determined that his body was completely different from a human's, beginning from the bone structure to the fact that he currently had two hearts. His soul was also so strong that he didn't need to fear most mental attacks and curse ever again.
He stood up and made a mirror made from ice appear in front of him using magic.
His face was still the same except for his eyes that had an additional shade of red. After looking at his reflection in awe for a while he suddenly gasped in shock.
Two hearts, eyes with a shade of red, an exceedingly strong body...
'The Demons of that world was a whole civilization of people that reached the new stage of existence?!'
After thousands of years, he finally discovered the secret to the powers of the Demons that annihilated the Silences back then.
'That world definitely hides a lot of secrets. Dying so soon there was probably the unluckiest thing that happened to me in all of my lives, and I didn't even realize that until now...'
Sirius stood up with a fire burning in his hearts. He was stronger and had more reliable companions than ever. This life was really promising.
"I will definitely find a way to travel between worlds and to become immortal! It's nothing but a matter of time..."
Before he could finish his monologue, however, an irritated voice sounded in his mind.
[It's great to be motivated, but you better take a shower first! You stink!]
Sirius's motivation immediately disappeared as he lowered his head to stare at the slime at his feet, before going toward the shower in silence.
'Women are scary...'