The residues that were desperately trying to get out of his heart like little monsters spat out as acid aura – bitter, mad, and lethal.
Slowly, Toren stepped in and made his presence known to his brother.
His feet gradually neared Coen, carefully and gently striding.
When Coen turned his head around and saw his little brother, Toren immediately stopped in his tracks. He froze from a frighteningly strong spirit flourishing off from his brother's shell.
"Coen," He called out to him, almost as if trying to tame him. "What are you doing here? Where are father and mother? Were you with them?"
There was no immediate response.
It was awfully dead quiet, but Coen's eyes were roaring with an incomprehensible language – a deep-rooted emotion that was impossible to tie down.
Toren nervously glanced around him and saw at the burned ashes of his sheets, there was a shotgun. Over Coen's waist was a wrapped belt where his blade hung beside.
Toren knew they had been taught of such preparations in case of danger.
But in this place, who was the danger?
He was wondering, but the slow, seething, and silent anger would begin answering it for him.
The next moment, Coen was rushing up to him with the blade on his hand, purposely trying to kill him. Bile was squeezed out of his liver, Toren instinctively dodged the first attack. The second one came up rather quickly, which he barely escaped from. His left cheek was scratched and slightly bled.
"What are you doing, Coen?!" He asked with panic. "You must calm down!"
His pleas fell off to deaf ears as Coen started accusing him of being a traitor.
Toren was confused because he could not talk out of his way.
He tried retaliating, but his brother was far too skillful and trained with battles that Toren had completely no chance of winning.
Coen was out of his league, he thought. The years apart with the grueling training had molded his brother into something like this.
When the blade was thrust unto Toren's chest, the two of them got frozen at their positions.
Instead of a red, grizzly blood that was supposed to drip out, there was a flowing bluish fluid which softly came out from his wound.
It seemed like a ghost attempting to elude the cage of his body.
"What have you done to your soul?" Coen whisperingly asked, wide-eyed.
Toren slowly shook his head and gripped on the blade.
"I do not know what you are talking about. Why are you doing this, brother? I have not betrayed my country. I did nothing but paint for the world..."
Toren's breath was almost shortening to a lethal extent.
Soon, the bluish fluid grew larger and it felt cold.
They could not physically grab it to jam back inside Toren's flesh, but it was damn cold. There was a symbol of intricate horns that were embedded at the borders of it – like a branded tattoo drilled on it.
Coen slowly stepped backward, letting loose his grip to the blade.
He kept staring at the wound where the strange bluish fluid was coming out from.
He felt so entranced and beguile as he had never seen such a thing.
There was a hint of beauty and addictive sense from it that kept him from turning his head away and going on with his anger.
Soon, a tear fell out from Coen's eye.
It was followed by another sad and hot liquid and another until he was silently crying before his brother. "I cannot understand," Coen stammered. "Why must my enemy be you? Why did you have to be the traitor?"
Toren spitefully took out the blade from his chest and glared at him.
"Are you really upset that I was the traitor?" He asked, staring at the invisible soul lingering above his brother's head. "Or are you relieved that I am?"
Right at the exact moment, the butler had arrived with the beaded necklace of Madam Lumen.
Gripping on the shaman item allowed him to see the things that were only once visible from Toren's eyes.
And with that, he finally understood the misery that Toren had always burdened to have.
The knowledge, the ability, the things he saw that were out of his control.
He saw the bluish fluid, the drilled horns, and the mischievous soul coming out of Coen's shell.