Celia yawned,bored with this whole ordeal. She had been killing for a while now and none of this excited her, not to mention this bland and rocky terrain wasn't to her style.
She suddenly felt her heart skip a beat as she saw a golden pillar of light escaping into the sky.
"Fuuuuckk!!!" She immediately lost her composure and cursed out loud.
"I'm too late!" She screamed out, attracting the attention of the rest of her team.
"Babe,is something wron-"
"Shut up!" She immediately cut Gary off.
Of course he couldn't see it. These foolish humans never saw anything.
"Okay okay, this can still be salvaged. Whoever had found and used the spark would most likely be dead, and if not, severely wounded. Now all she had to do was find them,kill them, and take it"
She looked at Gary who had kept shut. He was now useless to her. She considered killing him off since he knew too much, but she eventually refrained from it since she could still use him in some other way.
Far away in another group,a boy with curly blonde hair suddenly stopped as he saw the light.
"That's.... not good, right?"
"It depends" A masculine voice answered from seemingly behind him.
*************
A place covered completely by fog.
Everything was peaceful for a moment until a pair of huge eyes suddenly opened up,each of them pitch black and darker than night.
The size of whatever creature those eyes belonged to was unfathomable, as each of those eyes eclipsed entire cities easily. Just the act of opening those eyes had created a huge storm.
A deep raspy voice that sounded like it could rip apart mountains slowly came out of the creature's mouth.
"Interesting"
After that, the creature closed its eyes and went back to sleep, probably for the benefit of everyone.
***********
Z! You're okay!"
Jade didn't seem to care about what had just happened as she jumped towards Zen and gave him a hug, nearly causing him to tumble over. He was quite weak after using all his energy on that attack combo.
He raised a brow, but didn't do anything. This wouldn't hurt him.
According to Theia,that whole plan was riding on the possibility that the skill that had been activated would give them the extra boost they needed to finish it. Without it, he would have only gotten half way before he was drained.
Xavier limped over and put his arm around Neo.
"Good job. You could have come a little sooner though"
"Hehe, yeah. Sorry about that. We were dealing with some old demons."
Maximilian sighed and fell to the ground. He was in dire need of a rest. He looked over to where the rock Zen and Neo were sleeping on but only saw a pile of dust.
"Woah...Z, your eye"
Zen was confused. What was wrong with his eye,had it mutated again?.
At the same time, Xavier managed to see Neo's face clearly, and his reaction was something similar.
Zen's left eye which was already mesmerizing enough had become even more strange . His mutated eye was still the same but now his regular one was no longer so regular.
His sclera was still normal, but it looked almost like his iris and pupil had fused to become one. He no longer had a pupil or iris, just a deep black circle in his eyes that seemed to pull people in like a black hole.
"Oh yeah. That's either from the stone or your evolution"
Theia said
"You don't know?" Zen asked telepathically.
"Most of these things are random. Your evolution was supposed to change you a lot more than this, but its hard to get any big cosmetic changes when you start out with fifty points in charm at the first evolution."
Meanwhile Neo's eyes had a more distinct change. His irises were now an unnatural orange, reminiscent of the sun, and his pupils a dark blue. Looking into his eyes, one could almost see stars twinkling and shining. It was so overwhelming that just looking into his eyes was a hassle as the dazzling display would be straining on someone's eyes.
That wasn't his only change as his hair seemed to have taken on a lighter hue of its previous color, and his skin had become a little pale and soft. And those were only the changes you could see, inside,he was completely different.
"Hohoho, what's this?" Theia flew over to Neo, and stopped directly in front of him, but he couldn't see her.
"Lucky son of a gun. He piggybacked off your evolution"
"Hmm? So is he like me now?" Zen asked
"Oh no, he's still very much human, but while you two were so close during your evolution, his body instinctively absorbed all the excess cosmic energy your body released, strengthening him"
"Cosmic energy?"
"Yes, it's what the system calls SP, and what the people of your race call Astral energy,or just Astra. You know what,i think I should change that"
Theia snapped her fingers, and the two tabs that said aether and SP disappeared and were replaced with one: Astra.
"Impeccable naming sense" Lilith sarcastically said.
"Hey. What do you know?" Freya objected.
Zen suddenly realized he could hear Freya again.
"Freya?"
"Yeah. It's me kiddo. Sorry I couldn't help. I wasn't allowed to interfere. Awesome place you've got here though"
"Wait... you're in the castle?"
"Yeah, I can see everything you see through one of the windows. There's even a library! Eeeek!!!" Freya shrieked like a little girl.
"Ugh, man. Am I really going to spend the rest of my afterlife with her?" Lilith complained , and Zen could somehow tell she was facepalming.
Theia and Zen suddenly looked at each other with an understanding look in their eyes, and almost immediately Theia started laughing. They could both tell that their lives had just got a little more interesting, and a lot more dangerous.
Maximilian slowly got up after catching his breath a bit.
"So do you have an ability now too...or...?"
Neo shrugged.
He had just woken up feeling stronger. In fact the whole thing still felt like a dream, but something deep in his mind told him it wasn't. He looked at Zen and felt actual hope. If Zen had woken up with all those,then there was no reason for him to have nothing.
"How...how could this have happened?"
They all suddenly turned to look at the cracked crystal ball in a corner of the room on the floor.
"Do you realize what you've done?"
Frowns appeared on the faces of Maximilian and Xavier, Jade on the other hand still didn't know how to feel about this thing.
"This thing tried to get us to kill you. It kept spitting shit about Zen being the destroyer of worlds and some other crazy stuff"
Zen reacted to that as he turned to look at Xavier who nodded at him.
He walked towards the orb and picked it up in his hand, almost immediately, his mutation started to affect it as he'd lost his gloves long ago, and it began losing its glow.
"Mark my words evil one, I will...."
It suddenly paused.
"Wait! That's not possible! You can't be both,how can you be both? Even he wasn't that insane"
Before the crystal could say anything else, it had lost all its glow and crystalline properties, resembling a regular rock before turning to ash"
Zen waited for the regular notification but nothing happened.
"Theia?"
"Don't look at me. Nothing to report "
Zen shrugged and dusted the ash off his hands.
"Good riddance. Shame she escaped though "
Zen suddenly heard the same voice he had heard when the portal malfunctioned.
"Who...?"
The voice suddenly disappeared and didn't react no matter how much Zen called it out.
Zen suddenly felt someone patting him on the shoulder.
"Damn, no matter how many times I see you use that,it still freaks me out" Xavier said.
"Guys " Jade suddenly walked out of a discreet corner, carrying Sable in her arms.
"I don't know what's wrong with her. I gave her a few tonics and potions to help her heal, but she won't wake up"
They examined her for a few minutes and by the end of it, they found out she was mostly fine except for a grazes, there was nothing serious.
"She should be fine, but we need to get some professional help fast. Tonics and potions don't really heal,all they do is speed up the body's natural healing process, and that takes energy from the body too. She barely has any energy left so the tonics won't work "
Maximilian brought out a food pill from the storage ring he had and put it in Sable's mouth.
After a few seconds, she suddenly began to convulse and gag like she was choking on something.
"She's choking"
"But that's impossible, the pill dissolves almost immediately it enters the mouth"
Jade quickly started patting her on the back firmly to help dislodge whatever she was choking on.
A few seconds later, she threw up all over the floor, luckily not getting any of it on herself or anyone else.
They all sighed in relief as she stopped retching.
"What do we do now?"
Zen suddenly walked closer to Sable.
"Are you sure?" He asked Lilith.
"Positive" She replied.
Zen suddenly bent his arm and put his forearm against Sable's lips, and the next second she suddenly bit down on his forearm drawing blood while Zen watched unfazed.
"Fascinating" Lilith said.
"The girl possesses a vampiric soul, but not the body. Poor thing, she's suffering "
Zen had no idea what she meant and really didn't feel like asking. After a few seconds Zen tried to pull back his arm, but the moment he did, she started crying and mumbling like a baby,much to her classmates' surprise.
Zen returned his arm to her and allowed her to drink for another few minutes before taking back his arm. Luckily this time she seemed content .
"Uhhhh"
Zen turned around to see the shocked looks on the other's faces and shrugged.
"So...is she a-?"
"No she's not!" Jade interrupted Maximilian.
"But...even if she is, she's still one of us, she's still our friend...right?"
Maximilian and Xavier looked at each other for a while and shrugged.
"If we can accept Zen, I'm pretty sure a vampire is a downgrade on the crazy scale "
"Yeah, after all the crazy stuff that happened today, I can accept this "
Maximilian and Xavier replied respectively as Jade sighed in relief.
Zen suddenly touched his chin with a suspicious look. His eyes suddenly started thoroughly scrutinizing every corner of room instinctively.
He looked at the others, but other than Neo who was looking around suspiciously, none of them seemed to have noticed anything.
"What's up?" Theia asked, suddenly now sitting on his shoulder.
"Nothing"
Theia shook her head
"Of course it is. So, what's your story?"
"Hmm?"
"Oh come on,i wasn't just spawned into existence with all your memories and stuff, although I can read your mind to an extent,i still don't know who you are"
Theia jumped off his shoulder and flew a few circles around him before stopping directly in front of his face and poking his nose.
"Boop!"
She flew up and sat on top of Zen's head, kicking her feet playfully.
"If we're going to be together forever, the least we can do is get to know each other"
************
Zen was sitting down in a corner checking the changes to the system and talking with Theia who had insisted on knowing more about him.
On another side,Jade was keeping an eye on Sable while Xavier sat down recovering.
Maximilian and Neo were standing at the center of the room while Maximilian tried teaching Neo how to use the ability they suspected he had.
Maximilian had given them all food pills,much to their displeasure. They weren't exactly the most flavorful things in the world.
Neo had his hand aimed forward as Maximilian constantly instructed him on what to do ,what to feel, and how to use the power inside him.
After a few minutes of fruitless endeavors, Neo's orange irises suddenly glowed as he suddenly felt like a piece of him was leaving his body.
Everyone in the room suddenly looked at Neo in shock, and even Maximilian took a few steps back.
"What the...?"
Everyone stood up to look at where Neo was pointing to and looked back at him in shock.
"Damn! Can you do that?" Theia asked Zen to which he shook his head.