Rhea watched Darian's back as he walked off and let out a heavy sigh. She felt a bit relieved—she'd have been seriously disappointed if he chose to back off just to avoid the risk. Still, she knew the situation wasn't simple.
She quickly caught up to him. "Why are you running? Just use the plane."
Darian stopped—he really wasn't thinking straight, totally consud by anger and the urgency to save the two. Back during the whole ss at the Abyssal Nest, he'd stayed calm, thinking clearly... or at least most of the ti. Maybe it was because he always felt like he could do anything with his partner by his side—all he had to do was find the path.
Within minutes, the two of them circled back and left the city, boarding the plane.
Darian gave the coordinates—they'd be there in just a few minutes.
"In my clan, we have ergency artifacts. They're used when sothing needs to be done behind the scenes. We've got stuff that can detect hidden communication or surveillance artifacts... and also... I have sothing that can erase the mories of regular humans," Rhea said seriously. "I'm sending a ssage to have soone bring it right now."
Darian was surprised she had sothing like that, but since she was helping, it was better not to ask too much. Thinking about it, though, he asked, tense:
"Does mory-erasing have any side effects?" He was staring straight ahead in the plane, anxious to arrive.
Rhea sighed. "It's a kind of light you can aim at soone. It can completely wipe out several months or even a few years of recent mory. Unfortunately, it's super random—you can't control it at all. But... they're still really young, depending on what they went through..."
"Shit... how am I supposed to do that?" Darian clenched his fists tightly. "They're only 13. That thing could wipe out years of their childhood for good. What if it erases their last mories of our mom? They might not even know she died and have to grieve all over again..."
Rhea heard that and could only sigh. Honestly, even losing just a few mories would already be extrely lucky. But there wasn't any other option besides taking the risk.
Less than five minutes later, the plane approached a small abandoned town.
Most of the bigger buildings had collapsed after centuries of abandonnt. Only one five-story structure was still standing, almost dead-center in the city.
As soon as they landed, the doors opened and Darian jumped out.
He looked toward the horizon. It was early morning, but a storm filled with lightning lood directly above the city, making everything look dark and grim. He took a deep breath, trying to focus.
"In the central area... there are 32 people... are they all inside that building?" Rhea said beside him, her eyes glowing with a yellow aura.
She could only sense the living—part of her blessing. She focused harder on the central building, pushing her power to the limit to try and understand more.
Suddenly... her eyes widened.
"What?!"
Darian turned toward her, alard.
"What the hell..."
*BOOOM!!*
They both snapped their heads toward the building. It was far off, but being the tallest, it was easy to spot. The glass windows at the top floor exploded violently. A loud rumble echoed from inside the structure, booming across the city.
Their eyes went wide.
From the shattered windows, a blinding blue light burst out like a beacon in the middle of the stormy darkness.
"Your siblings are in danger!!" Rhea shouted, tense. "That's the power of a legendary awakening. An ancestral awakening!"
Darian's eyes went wide. He'd heard about that from Niara for the first ti. The Spiritual Guardians that ca after an ancestral awakening were all legendary beings—no random Summoner could handle them.
"Awakening?! How can sothing like that just happen out of nowhere?" Darian asked, freaked out.
"Almost all awakenings happen quietly, barely noticeable. But this one's huge and super rare." Rhea thought quickly, then her wings burst out from her back. "There's no ti to waste!"
She grabbed his arm, and in a blink, they were flying straight toward the city center, heading for the building that still pulsed with intense light through its windows.
When they reached the top, she flapped her wings, hovering midair. A dense yellowish aura started radiating from her body, quickly wrapping around the whole structure below.
"The awakening's still happening," she explained quickly. "Usually it lasts a few minutes, but this kind is unpredictable. Basically, after the awakening, the laws of the world hand over their power to the person—but they can't control it, and it causes all this. It might take a while for them to absorb it, and in the anti, everything around turns to ruins. As for the people nearby..."
Darian took a deep breath. His mind flashed with old stories from Earth—strange tales about unexplainable events that ended in mass destruction. Always sudden, always with no clear reason. Now it all made sense.
In that instant, her yellowish energy shifted into the wind elent. A faint green aura covered everything, but it wasn't by itself. Small, glowing blue specks were swirling around too.
That definitely wasn't a regular elent or so natural power. It was a driving force that distorted reality itself. It was what made a Spiritual Guardian's blessing even possible. But... Darian felt a weird sense of familiarity when he noticed it.
"I'm gonna tell you a secret about the Empires, sothing very few people know," she continued, her voice serious. "The main trigger behind a High Human's awakening... is the person's imagination. That's the key that makes the world's laws hand over their power. Tons of experints were done in the past to try to force awakenings, but only people who lived through extre conditions and had minds capable of detaching from reality could actually do it."
Darian's mind started racing.
Living in extre conditions?
So... the Empires separated High Humans from regular people... and let normal folks live in horrible conditions... they didn't help at all, and even seed to secretly encourage their lives to get worse and worse...
Was it all on purpose?
Was their goal to create awakened ones? Even if that ant causing endless suffering?
"Anyway, I'm gonna hit everyone in that building with my power. I can ss with their minds. Doesn't matter who's awakening—it'll slow it down and hold back the fallout. I can only keep this up for five more minutes. You need to get in there and save your siblings in ti."
He nodded, and she dropped him off on the building's balcony.
Darian shoved all his questions aside. No ti for that. With a grunt, a reddish aura burst out around him. Thanks to the power of the ring, he could see through the blinding light, sense the nearby presences, and even pinpoint the epicenter.
Luckily, it all seed to be concentrated on the top floor—right near where he was.
From the balcony, he spotted a staircase and rushed down it.
He ca up to a door and kicked it hard—blasting it to pieces.
As he burst into the room—
"!"
His steps froze instantly, eyes wide in shock.
"No... no way..."
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