As Kole was wondering about Rosalie, the doors of the study opened, and his mom entered.
He glanced at her for a moment and then turned back to reading the book in his hands while leaning back in the chair.
Faneia nonchalantly went to her seat and calmly sat down on the study's main seat.
Kole was about to start a conversation when Caroline, with a tray full of cookies and a teapot came over.
However, Caroline's expressions had already settled, and it didn't look like she flashed Kole in the morning.
She placed the tray on the table as Kole adjusted him to sit more appropriately and threw the half-burned cigar into the Subspace.
When Caroline noticed his actions, her eyelids twitched, "Y-you are using Subspace as a dustbin?"
"Um. Yeah?" Kole nodded with an awkward smile.
His sister gave him an incredulous look.
Nevertheless, she contained herself and poured three cups of tea onto the table.
Calming herself, Caroline sat by Kole's side while Faneia sat opposite, facing them.
After a moment of deliberation, she looked at her mother and said lightly, "Mom, I was thinking we should rent a manor in West Grovebourne for little brother's coming-of-age ceremony."
Kole's ears perked up as he chewed the cookies.
As she said this, her face displayed a helpless expression, "Our manor is too small for such a grand event, and not to mention it is so far away from most noble families of Stormwatch."
Faneia raised an eyebrow, "Why didn't you think about all this at your ceremony almost two years ago?"
Caroline froze.
A curious expression etched over Kole's face.
He has always been confused about why his sister ran away from the house. She didn't even have a ceremony before she left in a hurry.
Did she have that much devotion for protecting the innocents?
Recovering from the sudden critical damage, Caroline smiled, "I just followed what my heart wanted me to…"
"Really?" Faneia's narrowed.
Caroline broke out in cold sweat.
She knew she couldn't hide her hidden feelings from her mother…
Fortunately, Faneia didn't push the topic and went back to talking about their needed funds, location, etc.
Kole took a sip of the tea, not understanding what they were talking about, and started reading the books.
He had no intentions of interfering in whatever plans Caroline made because he never doubted her in the first place.
Suddenly, he habitually took out the watch from under his vest and glanced at it briefly.
!!!
Kole's eyes opened wide.
It was almost evening! What in the Goddess's name is happening?
How did so much time pass?
Why didn't I feel anything abnormal?
He looked around to see Caroline staring at the wall clock in the corner with a serious expression on her face.
Meanwhile, Faneia was calmly nibbling on cookies.
Kole felt a sense of déjà vu engulfing himself.[1]
His deep orbs flew open, staring at his mother with a mixture of shock and distress.
He has felt this before—The day he experienced torture… Cough!... training for the first time to increase his pain endurance levels.
"Mom… You!" Caroline stood up abruptly and opened her mouth to say something, but the words got caught in her throat.
Faneia's expression slightly twisted as a lopsided grin stretched over her face.
Despite the creepy grin, she looked even more entrancing.
The shadows beneath her feet twirled and distorted. It rapidly extended, covering the entire study.
The pair of siblings gulped a mouthful of saliva in apprehension and horror.
Kole could swear he saw hundreds… no thousand pairs of red eyes opening in the shadows.
As the pair of siblings looked at those eyes, the eyes 'glanced' back.
"!!!"
The hair on the back of Kole's neck stood up. He felt his heart plunging into the deepest and coldest parts of the abyss.
Each pair of eyes seemed as powerful as Faneia. Just one Faneia was enough to blow a hole in Stormwatch. Merely thinking a thousand or so Faneias going wild… made his scalp tingle in sheer terror.
He only hoped that these eyes were like manifestations or projections… And that is where Kole decided to draw the line for his wildly running imagination.
Unfortunately, he was wrong...
On the hand, Caroline wasn't doing much better as she saw her mother breathing roughly.
After a moment of rising coldness in the study, Faneia's expression returned to calm as the heavy air around her vanished like the morning breeze.
"Phew~" Faneia's expression returned to her impassive nature.
That expression put the poor heart of her children at ease.
Soon the rolling shadows meekly retracted below Faneia.
"Madness and corruption can be resisted… but they are inevitable." She muttered as she stood up slowly and walked out of the study, leaving the siblings behind in a daze.
"That…" Kole had an expression of disbelief as his thoughts returned to the matter at hand.
No wonder the last time Faneia displayed her strength and the level of madness an Ascendant goes through, he had experienced something akin to time-lapse!
Maybe Faneia's powers didn't let him notice the passage of time as it passed, or perhaps she really put him in a zone where time passes faster than normal!
Regardless of the reason, it was evident Faneia was losing control and unintentionally making use of her powers. It was a common occurrence for Ascendants, and in most cases, they would recover over time...
"Sis…?" He could only look toward the one who knew the most about their mother.
Caroline sighed, "She'll be fine… probably."
With that, she also left as she had a lot of planning to do.
After seeing the departing back of his sister, Kole's eyes narrowed.
Corruption can be resisted—but it's Inevitable…
Was she reminding me not to get ahead of myself? I am only resisting 'corruption' and have not completely defeated it...?
In the future, will there come a time when even the Canvas of Felony will fail me?... Various thoughts churned in Kole's mind.
He highly believed in learning from other people's mistake rather than testing it out for yourself.
He didn't want to fall into a trap of no return.
Hah~ Too many troubles, too little solution… Kole sighed internally.
…
[1]: Kole experienced something similar in 'Chapter 9: MURAL'. You can go back and re-read it. Haha, bow before my genius for hiding sneaky foreshadowing!