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Eastside of Summer city, the shabby run-down town near Luner circle. Near the entrances to the forest of the fog, stood a young man dressed in luxurious clothing, too young for his age to be alone.
This young man, most people, would expect him to be frightened by the eerie surrounding has not even shivered or slightly hesitant. The abandoned town that was left to ruin has no exploited changes. Birds made their nest, and wild creatures bedded their homes.
This young man is Alden, the cripple son of the Von farrow, the lord of Summer city. He stood near the forefront entryway to the forest of the fog...
*sigh* he sounded
[I felt it back there]
[that instinct reaction to override me] Alden thought,
He recalled what Lucas had hinted that his mother would be of excellent help to free his grandfather, although it's not much of a task to do for Alden. He could have just made his way to his father's domain and sought an audience with the Von Farrows. It has been years, but he is still one of them.
They could listen to him and do as he asked. If they said no, he could run to his mother and make things easier for him and Lucas, right?
NO
The deceased Alden reacted within. Noone felt it, but Alden from earth did. It came like a bolt of lightning. So fast in, so fast out.
At that moment, Alden finally realized that the deceased Alden had been holding on to and not leaving was his mother. Like a child who had grown too attached.
[Listen to me, kid]
[she didn't earn your sympathy]
[So why are you making it difficult for me?] Alden thought
The deceased Alden cannot be removed easily now. Alden had tried to extract the shattered soul before. Although the system had analyzed the probability of a conscious soul is 10% and would grow if left unattended, Alden neglected it. He let it be, and when it was time to remove it, he felt unbearable pain that even the system had forcefully stopped the operation.
With no option left, the system advised that the shattered is a lingering soul now, one that needs clarifications before a successful removal. To have that done, the system suggests Alden search for what makes the lingering soul react, ultimately, what makes the lingering soul stay.
After many months of experiment on what or who is keeping the deceased Alden to the realm of the living, he had no lead. He gave up after trying and thought that with time, he will figure it out. Yet time he does not have after knowing the truth.
Every day as the lingering soul attached itself to him, it sucked the nutrient or, better yet, it ate its way toward a complete takeover.
Forcing Alden to panic and create a barrier around the shattered soul, a barrier that costs ten credits a day. Corning Alden to desperation and searching for anything to help him absorb a large amount of dark Aura to sustain this unfair perquisite.
At first, he thought he should find any mage weak enough to take their accumulated powers. Mages that he thought were around him in abundance and to ease his worries for the time being. It may put him in danger. Yes, yet it's the only solution he could do for now.
Alden searched the entire summer city day and night. He found nothing. He grew desperate, but eventually, with the help of the system, Alden's result came to fruition. One mage was found. Confused about why his city lacked defensive mages, Alden pushed to the back of his mind and proceeded to solve his predicament. He found a noble by the name of crutchdt, a Seven-star mage.
Unlike Sir Dandelion, an excellent Grand mage, Sir crutchdt is the weakest. He was a very old man at his 129 of age and had given up on making a breakthrough to the next realm of eight-star mage.
The older a mage gets, the scarcer the chances of a breakthrough. They say mages who do not break the barrier to make a breakthrough to a Grand mage by the age of 150, they would have no other choice but to accept a slow death. A slow death that no mage would choose to do.
Alden found him at his home. Although Sir crutchdt is the weakest mage, he is by no means is the richest.
He was a man with wealth and fine dining. Alden sneaked into his home and was utterly shocked at how the man lived.
Sir crutchdt had set up countless magic alert systems and defensive mechanisms. It took Alden an entire week to develop a full-proof plan to not get discovered. Besides that, Alden did his research on him. He asked my people how sir Sir crutchdt acted and lived. To his bewilderedness, most would say that "it's hard to describe a complex person like Sir crutchdt" or "he is very optimistic and focused," and "his outspoken and forthright."
Positive statements that could not end with just that. Even rumors that told Sir crutchdt is a good-natured man, which leads Alden to believe it too, and although Sir crutchdt is a good man, Alden still would not back down. His desperation to save himself made him look like an agitated drug addict, so fuck Sir crutchdt, is what Alden said.
After much consideration, Alden set his mind to end Sir crutchdt, and therefore in the middle of the night, he left for Sir crutchdt home. Before killing Sir crutchdt, Alden was prepared to give him a reasonable explanation, and he, in fact, would even promise to take care of his next of kin, seeing he is Alden's citizen after all.
But all that ended when Alden discovered Sir crutchdt's gruesome act that made him puke his stomach out.
On the outside, Sir crutchdt may be seen as a loved and respected old man by many nobles around his home, but on the inside, he is the personification of the demon in the flesh.
Sacrilege is the violation, and the disposition of the sacred itself varies with the beliefs, doctrines, and practices that characterize particular religious cultures... In early western European Christianity, blasphemy is the stepping stone over the boundaries of inhuman acts towards their own. Alden witnessed Sir crutchdt with two young women, not even 15 years of age, being defiled.
He watched as the old hunch-back, white-haired, naked man inside an underground chamber that no one except himself knew.
In the hidden chamber that is decorated with much putrid blood, skeletal's and rotting flesh, an ink of blood of an unknown human or beast were written on the two young woman's body. The two young women were tied to a stone table, dead.
Sir crutchdt had a young woman's intestines and stomach cut open. He was feasting on the young woman and having his ways with her dead body. Sir crutchdt eyes black as Alden in his shadow form.
It sickens Alden seeing this. Inside the hidden chamber, in a corner where the light of the candles could not reach, a humanoid shadow stood and watched as things unfolded in the dark. Alden could not take it any longer. He walked silently behind the decrepit old man and stood behind.
He stretched his hand and caught the back head of the old man. Sir crutchdt screamed with surprise and before registering who or what was happening to him. Alden squeezed the back of his head and burst it like a balloon.
*pop*
Alden concluded that it was better to kill him rather than to absorb his dirty energy. He looked around and decided just to set everything in a blaze and end the man's lineage family later.
As the flame doused the flesh and rotten skulls, Alden contemplated whether the inner circle of summer city accepted this kind of activity. Nobles always hide terrible secrets that would most likely question the authenticity of their moral compass.
As the blaze sets the hidden chamber, the system alerted Alden that something was inside the table stone where the two dead young women lay. Alden moves the dead body and opens the stone tablet. He was shocked. There was dark murky-like water full to the brim, and it was bobbling with a heinous aura that resembles and resonated with his shadow form.
The system analyzed the Dark Aura as the Curse of spring. A type of water that transformed into a curse that infects any creature. Granting them the dark affinity-like powers.
It overjoyed Alden; With no further ado, the system converted it into 1000 credits, no less. After no time had passed, with nothing left of the Curse of spring, except a clear crystal ball, Alden did not know what it was and how to use it; he stored it in dimensional storage and left Sir crutchdt home.
Before he left, however, Alden took whatever value the mage had and let the blazing flames end his abode.
In the middle of the night, Sir crutchdt home illuminated the neighborhood with flames, and many people were rushing with buckets of water trying to put it out. The maid and servant escaped Sir's crutchdt home before turning into a complete bonfire. High above them, Alden shook his head and thought [if only you people knew Sir crutchdt]