Whenever he slept, the sa dreams haunted him.
Dreams of every progression that the other Brandon had experienced.
From the ti of his birth, when past mories hadn't flooded yet. To when he had fully manifested his curse affinity and the mories had finally surfaced.
It was the sa throughout every dream.
As if Brandon was experiencing the progressions himself.
At first, it felt as if his mories were locked, like trudging every experience he had until he had turned ten years old.
As soon as he turned ten, and the curse affinity manifested, Brandon saw everything.
Akin to a fever dream, the entire progression flashed before his eyes.
And in every progression, Jin…. Or rather, Raven had always found him.
—Mom!
Spurt!
—Dad!
Boom—!
—Sis!
Slash—!
He had witnessed their deaths.
—Ukh!
And he too, had died.
Then….
Another reset.
His mory was completely wiped of it.
The scenery shifted.
It was now most probably, the second progression.
His childhood flashed before his eyes.
Once again, by the ti he turned ten, he had seen all of it.
And as his entire lifespan of the second progression flooded his thoughts….
—Akh!
He had died once again.
It repeated.
—Please!
Again.
—Raven, please save them!
Boom—!
And again.
—Binding vow!
And again.
—Sis, don't go. Just stay here, please!
And again.
He had felt the other Brandon's desperation.
His struggles.
His sorrows.
His pain.
Every heavy emotion that had gripped his heart, tearing it apart….
Tearing him apart.
And in one of the regressions.
—What's the fucking point.
—I'm powerless.
—I can't save them.
—So many fucking tries, and yet it all ends up the sa.
Every thod he had done, trying to make things different.
—It's all the fucking sa!
—Ah. Even they….. They've given up.
Spurt!
And yet again, he had ended up the sa way as his family.
Dead.
Another one.
—I'm tired.
—I'm useless.
—I should just die.
—At least that's the difference I'll make.
As soon as he received the mories…..
—.....
.….He offed himself.
Then again, another progression.
—Useless, useless, useless.
—Yet I'm a fucking pussy….. Why do I even keep trying?
Despite giving up, he couldn't find the courage to stop transferring his mories to his ten year old self.
Throughout every progression, slowly, he had started feeling numb to the feeling.
Towards everyone, everything.
—Ah, a way for to pass the torch?
—A version of you, huh?
—I'm tired anyway.
—It'll take a couple hundred more, huh?
And a few more progressions passed.
—Ah. Haha.
—So it was them this whole ti.
—They had given up trying to save my family.
Brandon could feel all the sorrowful thoughts that echoed within his mind.
—That makes them responsible for their deaths.
—They killed them.
—The blood is on their hands.
He was insane, shifting the bla onto others.
Those sches….. They were never even sches at all.
Just that, Brandon Locke had gaslighted himself that Raven should shoulder the bla.
—They tricked .
—No, I fell for their tricks.
—No, there were no tricks.
—No, they tricked .
It was his own experiences that had pushed him past the point of no return.
And in a different progression before he started scheming, preparing certain vows for the current progression….
—Hey. You can see this can't you?
—You've probably taken over my body, right? Yeah. I can see myself agreeing to their proposal soon.
—In the future, I plan on making a vow that lets stay dormant inside my own body.
—Whatever my future self tells you, I hope you take it as a grain of salt.
—Anyway, let tell you one last thing before I lose all sense of rationality.
His last words….
—Give up.
But that begs the question.
"Mori?"
What was he offering in exchange for such binding vows?
".....His soul."
"Hey….?"
Throughout every progression, he had been sacrificing fragnts of his soul.
In the end, he beca nothing but a hollow shell.
And for his last performance….
"To look for ."
He whispered.
"To take my soul and blend it with his."
"Mori….?"
As soon as he received Brandon Locke's mories, he had seen all of these mories flood his thoughts like a fever dream.
And everyday, he would always ponder on them.
"Mori…."
Even haunting him in his sleep.
And everyday, he would find himself in a daze as he pondered on the thoughts.
Everyday he would always wonder to himself.
'Who truly are my enemies?'
It could've been Jin…. Ciel…. Or even…..
'Brandon Locke himself.'
It was all too convoluted.
Everyone had their own agendas to fulfill, a clash of ideals that differed from his.
Regardless, he had made up his mind.
To go against the ones who had failed.
To make a difference.
"Uh….?"
To accomplish what they had failed to do.
To stop the world from collapsing.
Not out of heroism, nor out of patriotic ideals.
Simply, just for his own survival.
He had been thrusted into this world out of his own volition. A world that was dood to collapse.
Nobody would bla for such a simplistic goal.
And if he had the power to save the people he had ford bonds with, then it was for the better.
It was his life from now on.
'And if I were to get my hands dirty, then it's a small price to pay.'
But those mories….
They weren't his, and yet,
'It hurts.'
He had felt lancholic about the entire ordeal.
"Annoying."
Is all he could say.
"Mori!"
"Ah?"
He was snapped out of these thoughts as a voice called out to him. Raising his head to et Evelyn's gaze—who stood in front of him, he massaged his temple.
"Annoying?"
"Hm?"
"What's annoying….?"
"Life."
"...."
In the past few days, Brandon had started learning swordsmanship from Evelyn.
He had nearly mastered the previous technique Evelyn had taught him.
In three days, the auction would start.
At the mont, it was dusk.
The other guards had already left.
'Not like there were a lot that trained to begin with.'
It was only occasional, but either one or two would stop by to quickly let off so steam, letting their magic out.
Most of the ti, Brandon could notice glares Evelyn's way. But as for him, they had ignored him.
After all, he was now a part of their cause.
"Again."
At Evelyn's instructions, Brandon rushed towards her and swung the wooden sword.
Thack!
The swords clashed and a loud banging sound echoed throughout the entire training hall.
As soon as the swords t, Brandon imdiately poured mana into the sword and shifted it to the side.
Ducking down, the air rippled and he felt Evelyn's blade on the strand of his hair, narrowly missing.
However, her attack abruptly stopped right on the top of his head.
"Ah—Ukeh!"
The wooden sword forcefully struck his head and Brandon let out a pained groan.
Rubbing his head, he went on to say,
".....Ouch."
"Your fault for losing focus."
"Haha."
He laughed to himself.
If he had to be honest, this psuedo swordsmanship of Evelyn's…. There was nothing special about it.
It relied on feints and misdirection. And that was what Evelyn did.
It was a technique she had taught him.
To make it seem like she had exerted enough force, just for her to halt her attack and change the trajectory with its speed assisted by subtly pouring mana and dismantling the said mana.
Just like that, it was hard to guess just how strong, or how fast the attack would be once it was actually upon you.
However, it was the perfect swordsmanship for him.
Tricks and feints were all he could do to match with actual duelists with real experience.
The only reason he was even able to match Lumian was because he had played it safe, and of the sacrifices in exchange for a temporary surge of power.
However, he knew he couldn't rely on those sacrifices in the future.
There was only so much of himself that he could lose.
"Let's stop here. Make sure you keep practicing your control. You've improved trendously in a week. If you keep up that pace, not just your strength, but your overall mana output would have quite a boost."
It was true.
He felt his overall constitution rise.
In the A ranks, it was hard to progress his status. This was especially so, as most mages and duelists had been capped at the A tier.
And it was even harder to progress in the later stages.
The S category.
Evelyn herself was an anomaly amongst mages, one of the youngest to have reached SS- at only 24 years–old.
After bidding their farewells, Evelyn went ahead and left before him.
Brandon turned around slightly, and the familiar sight of the system appeared before him.
——[Status]——
∟ STR: A —[23%]
∟ MP: S —[11%]
∟ DEF: B —[55%]
∟ AGI: A- —[12%]
∟ INT: S- —[66%]
∟ CHA: SS —[77%]
[AVG: A]
————————
Of course, [CHARISMA] wasn't part of the weighted average.
He had felt it.
Soon, he was about to break into the A ranks. A pseudo rank of the S- ranking.
All of that aside, Brandon continued training. By the end, it was already night.
Sweat trickled down his cheek as he continued his training, taking in the mana around him, and subtly pouring it into his sword, dispersing it in a fraction of a second.
All of a sudden, he was halted in his training as he felt soone's presence coming from behind.
Turning around, what greeted his sight was the familiar sight of the man who seed to have just entered the training hall.
"Zed."
"Yo, traitor."
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