Chapter 18
The liquid burns my throat, going down my esophagus and leaving a trail of fire in its wake. As it reaches my stomach, a blinding pain erupts within. I double over in pain.
The vial drops from my hand, shattering on the ground.
I follow soon after, bent on my knees, heaving and retching.
Nothing comes out.
Heat accumulates in my stomach and I feel a blinding pain right above my belly button.
I gasp for air as the heat continues to tear through me, moving at lightning speed throughout my body. It spreads through my limbs, affecting me at a cellular level.
The wounds on my body knit together. The skin closes and mends as if there had never been a blemish on my body.
Energy I’d never felt before pulses in my veins, spreading through every single capillary of my body. I am overflowing with energy. It is to such an extent that for a moment I don’t think I can bear it.
The pressure becomes so unbearable, I crash to the floor, on my back, unable to properly breathe.
It lasts for a few seconds. It feels like an eternity.
The next time I open my eyes, a torrent of information crosses my mind. At first, it’s so much, so foreign, I have a hard time making sense of it. But as I try to focus, I notice that this information becomes legible—almost as if I had a prompter in front of me.
The person whose energy had been synthesized to create this batch of Zantrax was a level three—Adept— immortal whose main ability was force. But it is not that which I understood as force.
It encompasses gravity and telekinesis, the force behind movement in the universe.
Although his level was not high, his knowledge was pretty advanced. And by consuming this elixir, I not only gained his abilities, but also all of his previously acquired information.
Immediately, I wonder if this is normal.
But the answer comes right away: it is not.
Zantrax is almost strictly consumed by mortals.
Because of that, their compatibility with the energy source inside Zantrax is very low.
They can gain some abilities for a short amount of time, but only a small percentage of power compared to the true level of the source.
The information, too, is there, but because of the innate genetic differences, it cannot be translated and understood.
For someone like me to consume Zantrax, it was similar to consuming a portion of the soul of another immortal—an offense punishable by death.
As the knowledge continues to pour into me, I focus specifically on the aspects related to the powers: what they are and how to use them.
I analyze different attack types in my mind, learning from my predecessor. My breathing recovers. My body is brimming with energy, but now it has stabilized.
Getting to my feet, I look around, curious to try these newly acquired abilities. With a twist of my hand, the glass on my table shatters. One look at the entrance door, and it immediately opens for me.
Strutting outside, I continue to try these new powers. Bits of earth explode in the air with the proper pressure applied, even big trees can become uprooted with a thought.
“Wow,” I whisper to myself.
As much as I’d like to explore more of my powers, my mission awaits. Another ability of the original user is super-speed. With a mere thought, my feet become light and fast as sound. What would have taken me hours now takes me minutes as I arrive once more in front of that cursed manor.
Speed is of essence. I cannot allow anything to happen to Miss Moe.
The armed guards immediately notice me standing right in front of the main gates. Their expressions turn sour as yells of attack permeate the air.
My lips curl into a smile. When they charge toward me, I merely flip a finger and they go flying thousands of steps in the air. And as they reach the pinnacle of their flight, I use the gravitational ability to make their bodies heavier so they crash to the ground with a resounding thud.
Almost nothing remains of them.
Next, I open the gates.
Walking inside, I see the swarm of armed guards now focusing on me, running toward me, their swords pointed at me.
One hand sends half to one side while the other sends the other half to the other side. They slam into the paved paths, blood and guts spilling to the ground and staining it.
Without waiting for more enforcements to come, I focus my powers on the rune-filled door. It takes moments of concentration to undo the runes. But when that happens, the door explodes, breaking into a myriad of pieces and allowing me to walk freely inside.
A few maids stop in their tracks as they see me. Behind me they note the destruction so they don’t try to do anything.
“The girl. Where is the girl?”
Their eyes are wide with fear. They try to point to the right, but that’s not enough.
“Words. Where is she?”
“T-take the stairs on the right. S-second floor, third door…”
I’m gone before she can finish her words. On the way, I see more staff. Some put on a strong front and attempt to challenge me, but that quickly ends with them groaning on the ground.
On the second floor, I count the doors until the third one. The door opens before me, and even before I enter, a disgruntled voice rings out. A male’s voice.
My blood runs cold.
As I enter the room, my eyes quickly search for her. And there she is.
She’s huddled into a corner, dressed in a half-torn gown, a blunt knife in her hand that she’s slashing in front of her.
Only a few steps away from her is a middle-aged man with greyish hairs around his temples and a bald spot on the top of his head. He’s only wearing a pair of low hanging pants, his chest bare.
Immediately, I see red.
“N-Nykander?” Miss Moe’s voice reaches my ears, grounding me.
Her eyes are filled with fear, tears flowing down her face. She’s clutching onto that knife as if it’s her lifeline. She’s terrified. I don’t know what happened before I arrived, but I know what will happen now.
My anger has never known such heights.
The male swivels toward me.
“Who the fuck are you?”
I don’t answer him. My eyes are on her, needing to make sure she’s unhurt. She meets my gaze and gives me a tremulous smile.
Walking further into the room, I only glance once at the man, enough to send him flying against the wall, before I go directly to her.
“Are you alright?” I ask as I get down on one knee in front of her.
She’s so frail and small. Her body is trembling slightly, and I can tell she has a hard time speaking. But she nods her head.
“I’m getting you out of here,” I tell her. Taking my coat off, I swing it around her shoulders. It’s so big, it swallows her entirely, covering her from head to toe.
“N-nyk—” she whispers. I look at her questioningly, but her eyes move past me, to the spot where the other male had landed.
I look back, surprised to see him still alive. I’d imbued as much of this new power as I could into that attack. An immortal would have a hard time getting up, never mind a mortal.
Is he…?
But soon I notice what’s wrong. He is a mortal. But based on the way his veins have a slightly black tinge, I can guess where his strength is coming from: Zantrax. And he confirms it further as he takes out a small vial from his pocket and empties it in his mouth.
“I’ll handle this,” I assure Miss Moe.
“Please be careful. He…” She swallows. “He has fire powers.”
Fire? That’s when I realize that her clothes hadn’t been torn, they’d been burned off.
That damned male!
I’ve never consciously killed anyone in my life. But it will be my pleasure for him to be the first.
But something else dawns on me. If Miss Moe witnessed his powers, he must have consumed Zantrax before, too.
From my own understanding and the condensed knowledge of the previous owner of my abilities, I know that mortals cannot withstand that much Zantrax.
Although the substance causes addiction in mortals and quickly prompts them to seek more the moment the effects wear off, the more they consume, the worse their bodies fare.
This male in front of me… He would have been using Zantrax for a while, so his constitution cannot be so strong.
As he gets to his feet, his palms heat up until small flames turn into wild ones that consume his flesh. He’s not hurt, though. He’s in control.
Damn!
“How dare you! I’ll teach you a lesson today!” He grits out.
As he sends a blast of fire toward me, I can only use my speed to dodge and grab Miss Moe. With her in my arms, I continue to dodge every flame blast he sends toward me.
I might have gotten semi-used to the gravitational abilities, but I only know how to attack. I have no idea how to go on the defensive.
Multi-tasking, I continue to dodge, holding Miss Moe close to me to guard her body, while also sifting through all the knowledge that came before me.
How can I use these powers against fire?
The previous owner only has theoretical knowledge about fire-users. No practical combat experience with them. That leaves everything up to me.
I must improvise.
Miss Moe’s arms are wrapped tightly around my neck, a shiver going down her body. Just feeling her so close to me gives me the strength to do something—try something different.
As long as I continue avoiding the blasts, I won’t be able to attack.
Taking a deep breath, I use the power of gravity to create a shield ten steps around us. Narrowly avoiding the next attack, I watch how the fire blast encounters the shield and dissipates.
Good. So this works.
“What?” The male cries out. “Who are you? What are you?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking the same?” I ask drily.
He summons more fire, and now the flames have covered him from head to toe. Using the momentum, he launches himself forward.
I only have a few seconds to act. It’s clear he’s putting all his strength into this one attack and I don’t know how my shield will react to that.
So I focus all the power into my hand, and just as he gets close to us, I manipulate gravity so half his body is light and half his body is extremely heavy.
“Don’t look,” I whisper to Miss Moe. As a reply, she just squeezes my neck lightly.
The heavy half gets pulled to the ground. The discrepancy in the weights makes it so that the flesh tears right at his midriff. His organs spill out as his upper half continues to float in the air. The flames have not been extinguished, now burning everything in their path.
I stare at my first kill and I cannot muster any regret. In fact, the only regret I have is that my ability is too low, that I could only kill him this way instead of giving him a slow and torturous death.
“Is he… Is he dead?” Miss Moe whispers in my ear.
“Yes. I’m getting you out of here,” I assure her.
The fire starts consuming the carpet and furniture in the room. Holding tightly onto Miss Moe, I walk out of the room.
More armed guards and other servants swarm into the house, but when they see us leaving the room, flames and smoke in our wake, they decide against being brave. They all flee.
We reach the first floor when Miss Moe stops me.
“Nykander…” she whispers. “Before we leave. Can we—” She gulps down uneasily.
“What is it?”
She leans back to look at me, and just seeing her tear-streaked face makes me angry again—frustrated I couldn’t do more.
“When we came here… My parents paid him all of our savings—all of my savings. Could we…?” Her voice is uncertain as she asks but I immediately nod. Anything for her.
“Where is it?”
“His office, I think. There.” She points to the end of the hallway.
“All right. We have to move fast though. The fire will spread quickly.”
“T-thank you.”
We enter the office, and without putting her down, I go through all the drawers of the study, though I don’t find anything.
“Are you sure it was here?”
“I think he put them in a safe,” she adds as she points to the bookcase.
Nodding, I walk around the wall-high bookcase, feeling my way around it.
With one hand I hold her in my arms, and with the other, I try to concentrate the energy within my body to probe for any secret space.
After a few moments, I feel something. Pulling the bookcase aside, I find a metal safe nestled within that’s powered by runes.
“I… Forget it. We should just leave,” she says when she sees we have no way to open it.
“No. We’re opening it.”
Taking a few steps back, I focus all of my power on the metal safe, pulling the door open and breaking the runes protecting it. It takes a lot of energy for me to do so. Though the runes are not the highest quality, they still exert a lot of force on the locking mechanism.
With a loud pop, the safe door becomes dislodged, and due to the force, its hinges fail and it falls to the ground.
My eyes widen when I see what’s inside.
Rows upon rows of vials containing a blueish substance.
Zantrax.
Damn! That’s quite the surprise.
On the bottom part of the safe, there is a pouch with money.
“That’s it,” Miss Moe says.
Grabbing it, I also stuff all the vials inside it before securing the pouch to my waist.
The fire is raging on the second floor, quickly consuming everything in its path. The wooden staircase that connects the floor is a dark color as the flames engulf it.
Holding tightly onto Miss Moe, I activate the speed and take us out of that burning hell.