Chapter 85: Interesting, but die.
Katty hissed.
She's a human, but her power is that of a cat. The reason she came back to life was also directly because of that. She has nine lives to live, and right then there are only four left.
Rinex waved her hand. "Interesting, but die."
The fog formed around her head and turned into a block of ice. Katty's hand went up to break the ice around her head, but her power was lacking.
The ice exploded, and her body flopped to the ground, lifeless.
As they watched, the body twitched once more, and then its head was back. One moment Katty was dead, and the next she was back to life, as if there was a reset.
Rinex nodded thoughtfully. "I see a useful power. Then, how about now?"
A wall of ice, so thin it was like black paper, rose up from the ground and sliced her in two, her intestines steaming in the cold.
Lito shuddered. She used her remaining strength to raise her hand. "Stop! Please, stop. I will follow you. Let her leave, take me instead of this..."
Rinex frowned. "Eh? I'm going to take you, so why should I leave her be? Did you have the power to resist me before?"
Before she finished speaking, Katty was back to life. Her face was filled with true fear. She leaped forward, but again a rod of ice passed through where her heart was, and she was dead again.
She had only one more life.
Lito gritted her teeth and raised her hand once more. Purple sparks gathered but fizzled away the next instant. Her eyes turned hollow. Her real family was taken away by Etherion users. And now, the family she made herself was taken as well.
No! She wouldn't allow it! She would save her, yes! She had to save Katty and preserve what she found and nurtured.
Katty formed again. "Lito, I'm..."
The ground opened beneath her, and she fell into a hole that was filled with spinning blades of ice that shredded her to pieces.
That was her last life.
When she formed again, she shook her head. "Don't cry, Lito."
And then she was dead again. A ball of ice crushed her chest.
"Ah," Lito said, the tears on her cheek frozen. "This world is really cruel."
"I know," Rinex said.
She walked forward, her hand stretched to grip Lito.
And that was when it happened.
A beam of purple light fell from above and hit her like a bolt of lightning.
Her body bent at an unnatural angle, and a twisted scream left her lips, purple light spilling from her mouth and nose like smoke.
Rinex took several steps back, and her eyes glowed. She understood what was happening.
The greatest way to move forward as an Etherion user is to walk at the edge of danger.
Not only for advancement, but for the Talent Ability itself.
The way we think affects the way Talent Ability works and evolves.
"Her Talent is evolving," Rinex muttered. She should know; her Talent had evolved and grown even without climbing an advancement.
But the problem was that, if it wasn't properly managed, or if the user was weak, then the Talent Ability might overload or turn into something else that would destroy the user.
So Rinex took some steps back. Anything might happen during that process, and even she was wary.
The purple energy continued to dance around her body, pulling her tight as if she might be ripped apart by the energy. Suddenly, the energy intensified. Lito bent her head to glance at Rinex, eyes that burned with hatred. Eyes that were filled with promises.
Then the energy began to constrict, and with a soft popping sound, she was gone, leaving only a trace of charred ground and melted ice behind.
Rinex shook her head. "I hope we meet again. You have such potential."
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It had been a week since the kidnapper Zigi was captured. So far, no official news had been provided by the Academy, only that the people missing had been found.
When the missing students were released, it caused such a buzz in the academy that everyone was talking about it. They wanted to know what went wrong and how they were taken in the first place.
But for some curious reason, the people refused to talk. Their memories of what happened were fuzzy, almost as if they had hit their heads.
Or their memories were tampered with.
Severin knew what must have happened, but he had no interest in all of that.
One thing he was glad for, with all the shit that Zigi and the Scar pulled off, was the fact that Zigi had motivated his team.
They all saw power that day, how it would have been easy for them to die, and how easily Head Instructor Darius Faulkner solved the situation.
With undeniable power.
Even Julius was affected. He came to Severin much later with a glow in his eyes. It was the first time he would be fighting, the first time he would actually do something to change how a fight would go.
He loved it, and he wanted more.
It was exactly what Severin was waiting for.
With his increase in power, Julius's situation as a cursed strategist hadn't changed. He still got distracted and tangled in his own strategy if he tried to use his powers.
But that had no effect on his mental powers. In fact, as if a dam was opened, they had grown since he used them against Zigi.
The mental powers of the Crane family go hand in hand with their strategist power, but because their powers were made to be used in war, in battlefields to keep their army in check, protect them from other mental powers, and give them courage.
But they had since turned to strategists for the Emperor, planning politics instead of war. Their mental powers had regressed, turning almost non-existent.
It was what Severin needed to bring out from Julius.
It was what made Julius into a terrifying figure in the book's future, part of it at least.
Julius had said to Severin, "I want to fight. I just don't want to be planning how people fight."
Severin had nodded. "If that's what you want."freēwebnovel.com