Rebirth of the Disgraced Noble-Chapter 28: Flexing On A Weird Guard
Aden’s eyes lingered on Kaelthorn’s option longer than usual, a conflicting expression forming on his face.
The option was painfully obvious, yet Aden still couldn’t bring himself to do what was necessary.
"Master..." He whispered, his expression suddenly vulnerable.
A cold wind blew past his face, plastering strands of his hair to his forehead.
With a troubled expression, he shoved the hair out of his view and refocused on the haunting options before him.
Call it sentiment, but Aden couldn’t physically bring himself to absorb the remains of his master for a small powerboost.
Then again, the world didn’t care for sentiment.
Aden’s clenched his fists and clicked on his Master’s option.
______
[SYSTEM SELECTION: CONFIRMED]
[INTEGRATING ORIGIN-SEED: THE SILENCE OF THE VOID]
[PROCESS: SUBTRACTIVE RESONANCE HARMONIZATION]
Analyzing Host Vitality... [STABLE]
Purging Ambient Heat... [100% COMPLETE]
Nullifying Kinetic Footprint... [ACTIVE]
[NEW SKILL ACQUIRED: VOID-CLOAK (RANK: ANCIENT)]
Description: You have embraced the frequency of the "End." Your existence is now a ’Subtractive Event’ in the world’s sensory record.
Active Effect: When stationary, your visibility drops to 0%. When moving, you appear as a blurred "glitch" that the human brain is wired to ignore.
Passive Effect: [HEART-STILL]
Your heartbeat has dropped to 1 beat per minute.
You no longer emit a thermal signature. To infrared or heat-based tracking, you are a corpse.
[PASSIVE TRAIT ACQUIRED: UNTRACEABLE]
Aura Signature: [ERASED]
Scent/Sound/Vibration: [Muffled by 98%]
Note: You can now walk through a field of dry leaves without a single rustle.
[PASSIVE EVOLUTION: FREQUENCY MASKING]
Effect: Even when [VOID-CLOAK] is OFF, your baseline resonance is permanently altered.
Benefit: You no longer leak energy like a "Fourth Stage Attuned." You appear to others as a ’Normal Human / Non-Cultivator’ unless you intentionally flare your power.
[NOTIFICATION]
[ADAPTIVE PREDATION] has recorded the conflict between your ’Human Presence’ and the ’Void Frequency.’
[NEW SUB-SKILL GATHERING]: [GHOST-FEINT]
>Allows for a split-second activation of the Cloak during a physical strike to bypass armor/shields before re-solidifying.
>(Progress: 0%)
[WARNING: CRITICAL ADAPTATION REQUIRED]
Because your body is "Substracting" its presence, your connection to the physical world is thinning.
Status Update: You are now a [LIVING GHOST].
[INTEGRATION COMPLETE.]
[DURATION: NULL]
ACTIVATION COST: 5% Resonance per minute
[The skill can be turned off when deemed necessary by the host.]
_____
To say Aden had an expression of sheer shock was an understatement.
His mind had already begun calculating thousands of possibilities that could be explored with the number of skills he’d been awarded.
Two of his fingers formed a V under his chin as he faced downwards in thought.
’These are all priceless skills. I could be the most successful assasin in the world if I utilized these efficiently.’
His eyes suddenly grew cold.
’But I hate assasins.’
The anger that threatened to consume him quickly dissipated as several life signatures brushed past his senses.
The cold wind blew past him again, but this time it didn’t come naturally.
His head snapped upwards and hovering above him was an owl like creature, except this owl had four eyes and was twice the size of the largest bird Aden knew in his past life.
With his advanced eyesight, he easily spotted a man dressed in finely carved armor perched on its back.
’How convenient...’
The beast hovered above him for a while, then suddenly, four of its golden eyes locked on his.
Aden’s heart skipped a beat, but he remained rooted to his spot.
The bird shot downwards with its wings clipped to its side, much to the surprise of the driver.
The bird landed a few meters away from Aden with a thud, a large crater of sand forming beneath it’s feet as it did so.
Aden had already begun circulating his energy in preparation for the inevitable, but what happened next surprised him.
The bird cocked its head to the left, and let out a strange clicking sound before it began pecking on the sand leisurely.
"Brissy? Are you feeling alright?" the man cooed.
He rubbed his face against the nape of the beast while whispering things Aden would’ve gladly ignored. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶
The man jumped from the back of the beast, the sound of his boots crushing the sand causing Aden’s heart to jump.
’I think I could take him on, but they’re too many people in the perimeter, and I might get found out.’
The closer the man got to his general position, the more Aden’s expression tightened.
The man was two steps away from him, then he...
Passed through.
"Damn, Brissy," the man whistled as he looked around. "The monsters that fought here could wipe out the whole nation in their sleep"
The bird cooed in response as it ruffled its feathers.
Meanwhile, Aden just stood there with a weird expression on his face.
Aden hesitated for a moment before he walked behind the man and whispered in his ear:
"I think the way you talk to your bird is weird"
There was no change in the man’s expression as he looked upwards.
"Say, Brissy, we could build ourselves our little nest here, don’t you think?"
Aden took several steps back with a strange expression.
"He doesn’t see me..." He mumbled. "This is broken as hell!"
Aden cut his celebration short as the guard turned back whilst stretching.
His eyes flickered before he sent a mental message to turn the skill off.
The guards eyes immediately widened, then he screamed as he drew his sword. "Who goes there? Identify yourself, survivor!"
The guard immediately charged at Aden, his expression parts confusion.
Aden’s eyes flickered again before switching the skill back on.
The Scout blinked. One moment, there was a silver-haired boy standing there. The next, the air simply... smoothed over. He rubbed his eyes while stabilizing his trembling sword.
"I... I could have sworn..."
The Scout walked right through the spot where Aden was standing. Aden feels the Ghost-Cold as the man’s armor passes through his conceptual space. It doesn’t hurt. It just feels... lonely.
The Scout turned his neck to Aden’s position for the last time before he jumped on the beast and flew away while muttering something under his breath.
"I think we both need a break, don’t you agree, Brissy?"
The large gusts of wind lightened Aden’s heart beyond measure.
Letting out a large sigh, Aden sat on the sand cross–legged.
"Come to think of it, this is my first time making contact with other humans without them losing their lives"
Aden hummed with raised eyebrows before his expression turned contemplative.
’I can’t stay here forever. There’s literally nothing left...’
Aden sighed and rested on his back, his silver hair covering part of the sand around him.
His arm covering his eyes, his whispered:
"I miss you already..."
***
The meeting hall in the kingdom was suffocatingly silent, the members of the High Council escaped the room with the excuse that they had to handle the ’Economic impact’ of the attack.
The Queen left the hall after whispering something to her husband, leaving just the King and the heads of the noble houses in the vast hall.
The king cleared his throat, the sound echoing round the building.
"I trust we have calmed down considerably?"
Eight people sat at the table, the king positioned at its head, while the others wore varying expressions on their faces.
The king nodded in satisfaction.
"The kingdom recorded two major casualties," he started.
Everyone’s expression grew solemn as those words left the king’s lips.
Redwyn’s expression was comparably grimmer compared to the rest.
Letting the information settle amongst them, the king continued:
"Baldric, the Royal Arbiter who served this kingdom with utmost devotion and maintained its peace and balance, has sadly lost his life during an expedition gone awry."
Redwyn’s fists clenched under the table.
"And his cousin, Cedric, who assisted him in that capacity, was also caught in the crossfire and lost his life."
The king stood from his throne and placed his right hand on his large chest.
"I, Alavric Solstice, hereby pay a tribute to the families of the deceased and pray that the Goddess Calyra guides their valiant souls safely to the afterlife."
The members bowed their heads customarily.
The king returned to his sitting position, his expression blank.
"The scouts have returned and recorded no trace of any other person in that vicinity." He added.
A flicker of alarm flashed in Redwyn’s eyes as he fumbled with a orb within his fingers beneath his table.
’His soul core hasn’t shattered yet...’
Ever since returning from his meeting with the king some months ago, Redwyn had reopened the vault containing the soul cores of every branch of the Redwyn family, down to the collateral lines, and what he discovered shook him to his core.
The previously shattered soul core of his useless son had magically reassembled itself.
It was worth noting that no Mage or Resonance Practitioner had the capacity to reassemble a shattered soul core, unless that person had been fully resurrected.
And that was impossible.
Yet, Redwyn carried the soul core with him wherever he went. Whether to deny reality or to confirm it, he wasn’t sure.
But there was one thing he couldn’t deny:
His son was still alive and backed by someone immensely powerful.
