As the bell rang students slowly filtered out the class room including Morpheus. As Morpheus began walking down the hall a chill went down his spine, there was a lethal amount of killing intent being directed at him. Someone was about to take his life, it was was feeling he had grown accustomed to.
He threw his hand back and caught the attack that was coming at his neck. He instinctively turned around and threw his fist out wards, which was deflected easily by the blonde assailant.
"What the hell Sam, are you trying to get killed. You are lucky I sensed your presence and weakened my attack" scolded Morpheus with a look of annoyance as he rubbed his eyes.
"Morrow, don't joke like that. Do you genuinely believe you can beat me and with a dull attack like that" replied his sister with an offended look on her face. To any of the students watching it seemed like a run of the mill sibling exchange but one of the teachers in the hallway knew better.
To the weaker students, they may have just felt a strange chill but he was advanced enough to feel the waves of killing intent that rolled of the girls attack.
For a third year student who was at the top of her class, power like that was surprising but not entirely unexpected but what had surprised him was the ease at which the first year student had caught and retaliated with his own equally powerful attack. The teacher knew that if any of the other students were to even accidentally get hit by one of those attacks they would have been sent straight to the medical ward with little hope of surviving.
The teacher stroked his beard and decided to make it his point of duty to watch this freshman who demonstrated such excellent battle prowess. He may have found a legendary prodigy on the first day of school, this was the best his luck had been in years
"Whatever, lets just head home"
said Morpheus wondering whether he would actually be able to beat his older sister or not.
"I actually have a job to take care of in the next town over, so I won't be home until maybe the day after tomorrow".
"Hmmmm, is it a solo or are you bringing help." wondered Morpheus as he pushed open the doors and left the school.
"Yeah, I got confirmation from the Elder. Kelly and Sean are coming with me. It is a B++ mission so might as well take the extra hand".
"Ohh, okay be careful sis".
"Yep, I am always careful" and as she said that she became a blurr then disappeared and as Morpheus turned his head he saw a blurr appear and disappeared from a nearby roof top.
Morpheus looked around and took in the scene around him. This academy was completely different from his previous school, there were kids flying around using their different powers while others were super speeding around.
During middle school using your powers outside of designated time was against the rules and would result in serious punishment but here at the academy you were actually encouraged to use your powers however you see fit.
And believe it or not, you were actually incentivized to fight with other students as long as it was not lethal. It was almost like a prestige system, the better your win record the more under the table perks you got at the school. But at the end of the day it encouraged students to get stronger to change their standing in the school and it was the reason why Oxford Academy was known for breeding powerful top teir knights and hunters.
Morpheus stopped walking as soon as he was far enough that no other students would be caught in what he was about to do. The purple earing hanging out his ear suddenly started glowing and after about 2 minutes of waiting a purple portal opened at his feet and he slowly descended into it. This was a soul weapon he was given as soon as he proved his loyalty towards the Nightwalkers.
This was one of the many copies of the earnings that were given to him and his siblings. Soul weapons were weapons made from the bodies of slain monsters, the weapons retained some of the inate powers and properties of whatever beast they were made from.
These weapons in particular were made from the blood of a young void serpent, they had the ability to open a portal back to the serpent but because the serpent is no longer alive the blood teleports the user back to the serpent remains. Quite useful for a one way teleportion to a designated location.
The other earring Morpheus wore is made from the blood of an elder void dragon, which was like an evolved version of the void serpent. This dragons soul weapon had the same teleporting ability as the other except it was much faster almost instantaneous due to the fact that is was made from a more powerful monster, the earring also instead of teleporting to remains it teleported to another earring that is in beacon mode.
After Morpheus was completely swallowed by the portal he was left suspended in a purple void for a couple minutes before he appeared in a new location. He was teleported to what looked like a white and purple alter in the middle of a field full of other alters. His alter was made of white marble with purple symbols etched into it. Below the alter was where the remains of his void serpent was buried and the other alters belonged to his siblings, this open field was the front part of the Nightwalkers property.
The Nightwalkers are a quiet wealthy clan that operate throughout the continent. This was the head branch that Morpheus was a part of. The Nightwalkers dealt mostly in the underworld and came into their fortune as assassin. But they take other jobs not pertaining to assassination as well and the Nightwalker clan has also produced some quite powerful warriors who serve the country as well, who keep their loyalty to the clan though they are no longer affiliated.
The clan also had a bunch of their side branches that handle non-underworld business but they all reported and paid a tithe to this main branch.
......
Oxford Academy is located in a large city called Saint Catherine, the city had a population of 600,000 people, not including the students at the academy who came from out of the city. St. Catherine was surrounded by a 10 meter stone wall that is being constantly patrolled by knights. This city itself has everything a person could need, the only drawback was that living in the city was quiet expensive unless you were a knight or were somehow affiliated with the capital. About 25 miles from St. Catherine there is a mountain called Cumberland (1 hr travel time by energy powered carriages or less if you have a mobility beast).
This mountain was owned by the Nightwalker clan, even though they own the place the people who lived in the village were not really aware because the Nightwalkers kept to themselves, isolated at the top of the mountain. After all they were ninjas, and as warriors of the night they had to keep a low profile.
As Morpheus left his alter, he followed a stone path until a large building came into view. The exterior of the building looked like a traditional Japanese temple but the interior was extremely modern even without electricity. This was the main hall, it was a large building that housed the general rooms of the clan that were accessible to everyone.
The rooms accessible to everyone include the mess hall which was where the clan came together to eat during special occasions, there was the council room where our elder and other leaders of different clan branches would come together to discuss business, the training hall where anyone can train and this was one of the exceptions to the rules which prevented the Nyx Cadmus from fighting one another.
The Nyx Cadmus were kids who were taken in and trained by the Head branch of the Nightwalkers clan, usually children from the side branches who showed great potential would be adopted and made into a Cadmus but there are exceptions like Morpheus who just had good potential and was adopted off the street. The main hall also had a Kitchen as well as a tea room. Plus a meditation and sauna room. There were also springs located behind the main hall that could literally wash pain away.
Morpheus passed through the main hall and reached a door. Beside the door there were two ninjas posted at the door to stand guard. They saw Morpheus, nodded to him and opened the door as he got close allowing him to pass through. This area was restricted to guests and even the other ninjas and maids on the estate were not allowed beyond this point.
As he exited the building there were three sets of buildings directly behind the main building. These were the weapon room, briefing room and a private training room. Morpheus walked in between the buildings and reached a very wide stream that he had to use a bridge to cross.
As Morpheus was crossing the bridge he could hear a slight giggling. He looked around and saw that a little bit upstream there was a small girl crouched over the pond with both her hands in the water.
"Claire, what are you doing out here" ask Morpheus as he wondered towards the girl.
"Ohhh hey bro-bro, I was trying to catch a fish so I can cook it. I asked the chef to do it but he didn't want to do it because they are poisonous or something like that. But I am not afraid of that" she said as she nodded and went back to fishing.
This was Morpheus' reckless 14 year old sister Claire, once she decided on doing something it was pointless to try and stop her.
"Well, the fish is poisonous to normal people but you should be fine. So you should be able to eat it without trouble but I'll send Adam to come and check on you later to make sure you are alright. Anyways I have some sleep to go look for so, I'm gonna go. Enjoy the fish" said Morpheus as he walked away waving to his sister.
It may have seemed heartless for Morpheus to allow his little sister to eat a known poisonous fish, but poison of that caliber would at most give her an itchy throat. After all even though she looked young she was a Cadmus and all Cadmuses from childhood were incrementally introduced to potent toxious substances to develop their immunity to poison making them still letal even if they had been poisoned.
After all the Nyx project has the aim to make the most effective group of killing machines the world has ever know, they wanted a 20 man army that could not be controlled. But even this was a dangerous precedent because after a certain point even the clan won't be able to control them but the elder made sure to instill an unbreakable familial bond between the Cadmuses ensuring no matter what we would never harm one another.
Morpheus continued walking for a while before he started passing large strange looking building that looked very impractical and even silly. A great perk of the deep pockets of the clan was that every one had their own separate living quarters. And because everyone in the world had these unique and sometimes bizare abilities construction was almost magical, alot of his siblings houses were insane.
Samantha's room was definitely one of the calmer ones, it was a house with a couple thousand stereos built into the walls and foundation of the house and she could play music through it, it was so loud that even at the base of the mountain you could hear her music but when she activates her ability no sound can be heard outside of the bubble.
Then there was Jane whose house was basically a tree house. And there was my house which looked like a gigantic pillow from the outside and on the inside it was completely white. The walls, roof and ceiling was made out of a soft cotton like material. There was no bed but there was a room full of pillows and blankets, the only thing in the house that did not contribute to sleep was the single katana that hung on the wall close to the door.
And as soon as Morpheus entered the room he instantly collapsed on the floor and drifted of to dreamland, without a care in the world.