Chapter 24: Waking up

  Shade woke up to a familiar ceiling. It brought back memories that wasn’t far back in the past… What happened?

  As if following a protocol, Shade started to search his latest memories to find out what had led up to this situation… After shooting that criminal, what did I do?

  The horrific experience of having killed another person shock Shade to his core. He couldn’t control himself from vomiting, but nothing came out.

  He remembered cannibalising the criminal and doing everything within his power as to not eat any flesh. Shade started to tremble. He didn’t remember anything that led to him losing consciousness. Shade decided to look at his surroundings.

  He saw no other mystic in the room and felt his already depressed emotions worsen.

  Thoughts welled up in his mind as time passed… What have I done? Why is no one watching me?

  “Wait a minute. She is on her way.”

  An ethereal voice entered Shade’s mind, it was the goddess. Her kind but sad tone made Shade calm down. He waited like he was told to do in complete silence. He didn’t even think of who was coming, he simply sat up in bed, waiting.

  “Entering.”

  A calm but monotonous voice called out to Shade behind the door. Shade had an easy time recognizing the voice. The owner of the voice was the first mystic Shade had met… Ms. Silver.

  Ms. Silver walked into the room, she had a white and silver robe that wasn’t dissimilar to a dress. Shade had trouble looking her in the eyes, he was worried about if what he had done had troubled the saintes and other mystics.

  “Wait for a moment.”

  Ms. Silver’s voice sounded calm and kind. She brought up her hand and started to focus. Shade turned his gaze to look up at the beautiful saintes and noticed that part of her hair had turned white… How is her hair white?

  With a flip of her hand, the temperature dropped, and a spiritual barrier was created surrounding the room. Shade felt a bit envious, he wanted to be able to do something similar instead of having to use the ceremonial dagger for when he created a spiritual barrier

  “How is your body? Does it hurt anywhere?”

  The saintess was the first one to speak. Shade inspected his body for a moment before answering.

  “I’m fine. Nothing hurts except my head.”

  Shade stretched his arms before touching the back of his head. He touched where the pain was in hopes of the pain going away, before continuing to speak.

  “Did I get hit on the back of my head?”

  “Who knows?”

  Unbeknownst to Shade, the saintess lied with ease. She looked at the young man and noticed his haggard expression. She deliberated on what to say and decided to explain what had happened to him.

  “When one forgets their morals, when one forgets their ethics, when one forgets themselves… That is what we mystics call madness. Morals and ethics are what influences one’s choices in life.

  The choices you make in life is what decides your personality and who you are. However, as mystics, at times, we have the unfortunate curse of having those choices made by something else, someone else.”

  Shade listened blankly while Ms. Silver continued to speak.

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  “Contracts, the act of eating or absorbing a demon or spirit. Just like spirits when they absorb each other, when we make contracts with them, we become one entity. A mystic is as much a spirit or demon as they are themselves.

  There are times when the spirits or demons take over control from the mystic. Technically, the entities a mystic has contracted has the same right over the body as the original owner, but most mystics don’t want to think about that fact and simply denies it.”

  Shade’s body quivered, as if he felt that something within him was laughing. He ignored the entity within his body and decided to preoccupy his mind by listening intently to Ms. Silver’s explanation.

  “As you already know, spirits and demons have no intelligence like humans and animals have. They have only instincts of self-preservation in the most ideal way.

  Except from self-preservation, their strongest instinct is to grow by eating each other.

  While spirits and demons can’t differentiate from themselves and other entities when they are one, humans can. And spirits and demons can differentiate between themselves and humans.

  They understand that when they are part of a mystic, when they take over, they need some sort of personality to make choices to survive.

  That is why they try to mimic the human part and slowly separate the two until the mystic experiences something we call dual personality disorder.”

  Ms. Silver sat down next to Shade while continuing her explanation.

  “That is similar to what happened to you. Without us knowing, you chose to slowly separate yourself and the person we all call Mr. Magician. This accelerated the development of another personality made of spirits.

  This personality was simply waiting for a chance to take over, but that should only have happened after another year or two. Something happened to cause the personality’s development to accelerate even further. Though that shouldn’t had caused you to become unconscious.”

  Ms. Silver looked Shade straight in his eyes while asking him an important question.

  “Do you remember what happened when you became a mystic?”

  “Could you be more specific?”

  Much happened when Shade became a mystic. He remained unconscious for most of the two days after he became a mystic but that didn’t narrow it down… Which part does she want me to remember?

  Ms. Silver thought for a moment but answered shortly.

  “You should have herd her voice before it happened.”

  Shade let out a sound of surprise…Her voice? As in the goddess’s voice?

  Shade didn’t think much of it at the time, but he knew that something was off. He didn’t completely feel like himself after that moment. It was as if he was reliving a past part of his life.

  Everything, though surprising, didn’t feel completely new. Though he had never been outside of Aurel before, after becoming a mystic and doing everything that led up to this point, he felt like he was returning to his hometown after a couple of years traveling.

  While much had changed, nothing was completely new for him. Shade shivered as he heard another laugh coming from inside of him.

  He started hyperventilating and it took a long time until he finally calmed down. Like before, he ignored the problem.

  After calming down, he noticed that Ms. Silver was stroking his back with a gentle touch… Silver light?

  “Do you mean the silver light that enveloped me?”

  Shade answered with heavy breaths. Ms. Silver continued to stroke his back as she nodded. She continued explaining after confirming that Shade was alright.

  “That light was a blessing-”

  “A blessing?”

  Shade cut off Ms. Silver’s explanation with surprise.

  Ms. Silver nodded and then continued her explanation without any interruptions.

  “All organizations with a godlike being as their central pillar knows the information which I am about to tell you. However, only a select few within the organizations knows about this.”

  Shade gulped and listened even more intently than before.

  “Blessings are just another type of characteristic. Though similar to the ones derived from spirits and demons, they are different in origin and power.”

  Questions started to appear from deep within Shade’s mind, just as he was about to ask a question, he finally started to understand something. That small bit of understanding gave way for more information.

  His instincts led him down a path that scared him to his very core as he shifted his focus to the spectator inside of him. It smiled as if confirming his guesses.

  “What are you thinking about?”

  Ms. Silver noticed that Shade was deep in thought, though she was the first mystic he had met, Ms. Silver still didn’t fully understand Shade. They had only known each other for little more than a week.

  Shade was about to say something, but he quickly pursed his lips. He thought for a moment, unsure of what to say.

  …

  The man drifting in space shifted his body… She sure was nice that day. I wish she was here to pat my back.

  The man felt that something was off. He stopped in space and then circulated his spirituality to his eyes. He saw an entity made of dead flesh and blood, rushing towards him from hundreds of miles away.

  “This galaxy sure has a lot of these mindless beings.”

  The man stretched out his arm and opened his hand then closed it with power. Spirituality rippled around him and the entity of dead flesh and blood exploded into tiny pieces then burned to ash.

  “A mere Zenith rank being dares to challenge me, interesting.”