Luna
Luna couldn't hear anything. That deafening roar still echoed in her ears.
All because of him.
She peeked at Noah through her right eye. From the day she failed to see his past, a strange curiosity about him had bloomed in her heart.
For two nights, she couldn't sleep because of this boy whose name she seemed to forget after a night.
So, when she extended her hand for a handshake today, she tried to peek at him again. And what she saw made her blood turn cold.
A mutated dungeon. Mutated monsters. He stood in the middle, surrounded by the corpses of countless monster carapaces.
Before him stood a huge monster.
A corrupted mini-boss.
Noah couldn't recognize it, but who was she? Someone who could even remember the past they forgot.
She saw everything about that monster, and it made her blood run cold. It wasn't an ordinary dungeon monster, but a minion of a Rift demon.
Rift demons… what kind of existence were they? She didn't know, but she knew even a Tier 5 Runner might be killed by one.
When she tried to return to Noah, the mini-boss turned to look at her. She watched its face change for a few seconds into a shapeless mass with only a mouth.
She read its lips as they moved.
'I saw you…'
Then, there was a roar. A roar directed at her spirit, which almost crushed her heart.
If not for the sudden intervention of an electric spark, she would be dead now.
She didn't know how she got the power to follow the unknown boy into his apartment. Her spirit were on the verge of collapse.
When she reached there, her mouth was filled with blood. Her vision blurred, and when she thought she was going to lose consciousness, she smelled a tea.
She drank it as the woman opposite motioned.
Like fresh rain after a summer drought, all her dizziness vanished after drinking it. The blood in her mouth dissipated, replaced by a soft energy flowing through her injured spirit and healing it.
She saw Kaia, the famous Legendary Zero, looking at her with a hidden smile.
So, after drinking the tea, she said, "Good tea."
That simple praise hid everything she wanted to speak out.
Not this time…
Luna turned to look at Noah, then turned away.
Not with him here. Kaia also seemed to hoped so. As she started to speak about her objectives.
* *
"How is that possible?" Noah asked aloud.
"Wouldn't that Rift allow only Runners between Tier 2 and Tier 5?" He stopped, recoiling his head back in surprise.
"Don't tell me these tutors are all between those tiers?"
Kaia smiled, a hearty laugh escaping her lips as she spoke,
"You are smart. Yes, every tutor allowed by the academy is a Tier 5 Runner with at least one Rift clearance."
Noah fell silent. His mind raced with the implications the Zenith lord wanted to convey with this decision to those on the planet.
These tutors weren't hired only to teach them, but to form teams and lead them in the Rift. To protect them and guide them.
Kaia seemed to read his mind as she began.
"The lord finds it better to have teams of three, with a Tier 5 lead, to run that multidimensional Rift.
That way, the mortality rate of lower-tier Runners can decrease. Also, it will improve the perception of Tier 5 Runners for their first ascension challenge.
I can't tell you about ascension challenges now, but 'perception' is something one needs most to successfully complete the challenge."
Noah and Luna nodded, lost in their own thoughts.
"Perception is needed for Tier 5 Runners. But aren't you…" Luna stopped in a slightly strained voice.
Kaia's face fell at the question, almost as if she were suffering a grievance. Noah was sure anyone saw her now might feel pity to this world class actress.
"I am forced to become one by the council members. This is the last chance they're going to give me to live here.
If I survive the Rift, then no one will ask about my qualifications to be on a Shooting Star. Else…" She trailed off, glancing at the two of them.
"I know it seems discriminatory to you two to get me as a tutor.
But trust me, the knowledge I have is more than enough for the three of us to survive."
Her words were convincing, like the desperate plea of someone ousted.
But Noah wasn't a fool to believe all that. He tried to recall something that would resolve the doubts he had now.
Why had she become their tutor?
Was it just a coincidence, or was there something more to it?
A few pointers appeared in his brain, like an electric current. These pointers slowly converged into a single point.
And so, Noah connected a significant, missing piece.
Legendary Zero, someone graded as 'impossible' by the system.
Him, the same as her. Someone graded as 'impossible'.
If his guess was correct…
Noah gazed at Luna, turbulent currents swirling in his mind.
'Another impossible…'
Now he understood why only the two of them were guided by Brandon when the rest of the guides had more than five Runners to guide.
Why they were allocated to a single building while the rest of the Runners were in other places, or…
'They are not on this main island…'
From the beginning, someone had been controlling things behind the scenes, ensuring that he and Luna would be on the same team.
Even if there were no dimension break, they would somehow form, or be made to form, the same team.
But why? Why go to such lengths for two anomalies? What was the reason? What was the agenda?
It felt like a maze, its walls closing in on him. He was trapped in some corner, searching for a way out. Noah hated this feeling.
To be controlled by lesser beings. Played by lesser beings.
'I will destroy all of you…'
'Sizzle'
His eyes widened, a blue streak flashing through them.
Again, that thought came from his spirit. The feeling of looking down on everything and everyone as lesser beings.
Like he was above all of them, and they dared to try to control him.
They done something blaspheming to him. So they all deserve death.
'Sizzle.'
Another scalding under the skin Noah came into his senses to see his scaled hand pinching a neck.
His eyes widened in horror when he saw scattered pieces of his dining table with unconscious Luna in the ground.
His pair of blue eyes met with the pair of eyes suffocated to red.
'What I have done?…'
A/N: From today onward chapter will release at IST 22.00.
Today onwards task to more chapters starting.
First task: For 20 powerstones, a chapter bonus!