Two days had passed since that night and things had actually been pretty normal for Zen since then . except for the fact that he had to deal with those chaotic voices popping up at any time they so pleased , nothing else had happened and he had been repeating the same schedule. Wake up, take a bath, eat breakfast,lay around,eat lunch,lay around then eat dinner with celia. Overall it was quite boring but also relaxing. The only things Zen could actually complain about were the voices, the occasional static in his mind which was followed by a brief mechanical voice which for some reason seemed different from the the others his reflection and one other thing. The reflection had bothered him for a while so he wasn't especially fazed by it however the one thing he couldn't shake was the sinking feeling in his stomach that kept telling him that something wasn't right. His body would suddenly get tense at random intervals and his heart beat would quicken for no reason at all. As the days went by he could feel his mind getting less and less hazy almost like the fog covering it was beginning to clear up and he couldn't help getting a bit suspicious about his situation.
It was currently nighttime although not too late. Zen and celia were currently having dinner together and the air surrounding them seemed different this night. They both seemed either tense or lost if not both at once . As Zen was eating he noticed that his hands would occasionally twitch. It got to the point where he dropped his spoon and had to pick it up. Celia looked at this and flashed a nervous smile
"Are you okay?" She asked knowing exactly what was happening. Whatever had been done to dull Zen's mind was wearing off and he was beginning to suspect. Although she looked somewhat calm she was seriously thinking
"I don't have much time left, i have to do this tonight or tomorrow or else he might leave"
Although she didn't know if he was even capable of leaving she wasn't willing to risk her mission. She couldn't help but internally groan thinking that Zen was only one of her potential targets . She had gotten to a good number of those who could have "it" with them and none of them had caused her this much trouble , and even if he was there was no way it would have responded to him already he was just a human,at least to her knowledge he was just a human.
Celia suddenly got up and got ready to leave
"Well it's been fun. See you tomorrow Zen?"
Zen didn't reply. The voices had popped up again as celia had started talking and he couldn't hear her. He didn't even see her get up as he was far too focused on tuning out those voices in his head.
Celia had seen this as a sign of the spell failing and had left without speaking. Zen on the other hand kept dealing with the voices that seemed much louder and angrier today for some reason,having completely forgotten about her he spent the next ten minutes trying to tune them out but to no avail.
Ten minutes later Zen managed to hear a knock on the door despite the chaos in his mind. The voices suddenly started raging violently forcing him to hold his head and fall to the floor as he groaned due to the unusual amount of pain it was causing him.
Celia walked in and seeing Zen's current state she knew she had to hurry up.
On her wrists were a pair of golden bracelets with a gemstone at the center of each. Without hesitation celia activated what she had planted on Zen . Her eyes suddenly glowed with a Pink light and she locked on to Zen. Out of her bracelets a burst of light came out and landed on Zen.
Zen suddenly stopped moving and groaning in pain not because the voices had stopped but he simply couldn't, his body was frozen.
Celia smiled with a crazy look in her eyes. The bracelets on her wrists briefly shone and Zen mechanically got up from the floor.
Celia internally groaned as this was her least favorite part of the act. She suddenly spoke to thin air sounding a bit remorseful
" I've got him"
Out of thin air a figure suddenly materialised. It was the woman who was in Murphy's office, Murphy's sister and Celia's aunt although something about her seemed different.
Celia in a tone that portrayed disgust in her actions and the person who had appeared said
"He's here, you've got what you wanted right?".
The person almost rolled their eyes seeing how devoted celia was to this to role but decided not to and communicated with celia using their psychic connection.
"You know what to do"
Celia's face lit up briefly before falling as she tried to recreate an expression of sadness as best as she could.
"I'm sorry Zen she's forcing me to do this. I don't want to do this longer than I have to so please be completely honest with me. What is your true name"
"My name is Zen"
Celia was flabbergasted. There should have been no way Zen, a useless waste of space without an ability would be able to lie to her .with what she had done she was meant to have complete influence over his mind and body so she just couldn't understand how he could have answered her question like that.
She and the woman next to her exchanged glances and and she could tell they were both thinking the same thing. They had both done this a few times yet it was the first time someone had answered that question in such a way. They both began to suspect that he wasn't the one they were looking for.
Celia not wanting to let her confusion show decided to test something and asked a different question
"Where are the survivors hiding?"
This time Zen suddenly went completely quiet. Shocked, celia repeated the question but the result was the same.
Celia's confusion quickly turned into rage as she looked at his blank expression. She mentally ordered Zen to kneel before her.
Zen began to bend slowly as he was about to go on his knees but as his feet neared the ground his body instinctively stopped. At this point Zen wasn't even conscious yet his body had instinctively rejected the order to kneel before someone else and he slowly stood up before staying in place as celia watched him horrified .
Celia's anger only intensified as she decided that it would be better to simply kill him here and now. She activated one of the active skills of the bracelets and Zen's mind was suddenly invaded by something foreign that began causing havoc seeking to destroy him from the inside out.
On the outside Zen suddenly started bleeding from his eyes,ears, nose and mouth. The person next to celia was originally surprised but seeing how they had wasted so much time on him and he wasn't even the one they were looking for although they had wanted experiment a bit more they just decided to let celia finish him. Although he was special he wasn't special enough to earn their mercy .
Celia and her accomplice watched on as Zen kept bleeding but for some reason they didn't notice that as the ridiculous amount of blood flowed out it all flowed towards the Yin necklace on his neck which began to glow brighter and brighter before it released a spectacular burst of light in all directions which temporarily blinded celia and the person next to her.
Zen suddenly heard a familiar female voice in his mind
"Not on my watch bitch!" .
His mouth suddenly opened up and he said something or more like an external force had spoken with his voice as he hadn't uttered a word. The two people in the room heard it despite still not being able to see.
Bright colorful runes resembling cracks suddenly appeared on the necklace as it glowed brightly
The chaotic voices suddenly appeared once again and began to clash against what was causing havoc in Zen's mind and the damage came to a halt as the voices seemed to be protecting his mind from harm and amidst all the chaos Zen was able to make something out clearly, almost like it was speaking to his very soul
[Requirements have been fulfilled]
[System-host sync sufficient for communication]
[Detected that host is currently compromised]
[ unknown anomaly blocking host's aether]
[Anomaly recognized as dark frost seal]
[Breaking dark frost seal..... successful]
As soon as Zen head that he could suddenly feel something inside him churning and swirling violently within him almost as if being liberated after a long period of imprisonment. A sudden wave of energy suddenly burst out through every pore in his body as Zen let out a fierce and bestial roar. The energy released from him violently rushed out almost as if with the intention to destroy everything in it's path as the entire room rumbled from Zen's destructive aether .
Celia raised her hands in front of her to shield herself and said in disbelief
"There's no way....He... he's an automaton?!"
In order to awaken aether humans had to go through an awakening process which required certain tools and machines. Automatons were people who skipped this process entirely and did it themselves without outside assistance . Whenever someone awakened this way it was always very destructive and chaotic as their aether would violently and randomly shoot out uncontrollably. People could only awaken this way before the age of sixteen and once they had reached that age they had to go through the process, that plus the benefits that came with it caused a good number of people to consider waiting as long as possible before going through the process however the chances of one appearing were so low that most people simply went through the process as soon as possible . Infact each year the number of automatons among humans had been recorded, with the lowest being zero percent and the highest being five.
As Zen's energy was raging out of control the messages didn't stop coming
[Host has successfully awakened aether]
[Quest completed ,distributing rewards]
[Reward 1: removal of all negative stats]
Zen's eyes suddenly became clear and he realized he could move again, whatever it was that celia had done seemed to have lost effect but that wasn't all there was more
[Reward 2: restore HP fully]
All the wounds on zen's body quickly disappeared and even the effect of blood loss seemed to have been negated
[Reward 3: A random skill]
[Spinning skill roulette.... error]
[System-host sync required to be 100%]
[Current sync progress 70%]
[Host has completed requirements]
[Attempting to complete syncing .... failed]
[Reattempting... failed... failed.... failed... failed]
[Multiple attempts failed]
[Anomaly detected]
[Anomaly attempting to bind with system]
[Successful]
[System reboot initiated]
[Estimated time:75 hours,29minutes,34seconds]
[Notice: while the system reboots Host's soul will be transported to.....]
That was all Zen heard before he blacked out.
The very next moment Murphy appeared in the room and saw the mess that had happened in the room. The moment Zen's aether had violently awakened, Murphy had felt the disturbance of his turbulent energy and had used his ability to teleport directly to the room although even with teleportation he was too late to do anything.
Murphy looked around the ruin which couldn't even be called a room anymore as anything and everything was destroyed . The entire place could fall apart any minute. He looked through the giant hole in the building which destroyed everything all the way up to the roof of the sky scraper and even dispersed the clouds around the city with violent winds his thoughts somewhat calm
"Was this due to an automaton awakening?. I know their awakenings are messy but this is something else. Half the entire building is in ruins "
. He looked around and could feel the remnant energy in the air. He looked at Zen on the ground and thought
"Was it the boy?"
He tried to feel Zen's aether but suddenly noticed that the boy was exuding no energy. Terrified, Murphy tried again and suddenly felt an energy signature. Murphy breathed a sigh of relief as he thought maybe he had done something wrong. Murphy knew it was impossible for a person to have no energy. Even dead people had their own energy they exuded albeit different from others so for a living being to have none even for a second would be ridiculous.
Morpheus however didn't notice that the unique energy signature that Zen currently had was Very different from what he always did.
Celia looked to her side and noticing her accomplice was gone she ran towards Zen who was in her father's arms and touched him trying to put on another act. Murphy looked at her with restrained anger.
"What happened here" he asked.
What neither of them noticed was that when celia touched Zen the necklace glowed slightly.
Celia suddenly felt exhausted and fell to the ground, immediately becoming unconscious.
Murphy didn't help her up as he was still confused. He suddenly noticed the bracelets on Celia's wrists and an expression of rage made it's way to his face . He suddenly yelled while using aether to boost his voice
"Alma what have you done!"
He used his ability and teleported everyone in the room including himself to his office where his sister alma was sitting in his chair .
"Oh you're back.... well this looks interesting"
Murphy pointed to the bracelets and asked
"What did you do?" However alma nonchalantly replied
"What are you so angry about. You know very well what i did. I gave my neice a gift and told her to use it on a dangerous criminal"
"But he's not a dangerous criminal he's a child just like you once were "
"Oh please. Anyone that has anything to do with them is a criminal "
Murphy looked at his sister and couldn't refute what she said or call it false
"Is Freya a criminal?, what about Riley?" Asked Murphy looking deep into her eyes.
Alma looked a bit conflicted for a second before she answered resolutely
"Yes they are...They deserved what they got"
"They didn't deserve death. Especially not by our hands"
Alma simply snorted and disappeared into thin air. Murphy simply sighed and the next second he as well as the two unconscious teens disappeared from the office in the building that was currently collapsing.
They all appeared in a room identical to the one Zen destroyed. Murphy placed Zen on the bed before lifting up celia and vanishing the take her somewhere else