Nightblade (Darkest night)-Chapter 189: A lesson in humility

Morgan pierced Brant with a cold apathetic gaze, his eyes boring into his own with a disturbing intensity.

A small stream of liquid flowed onto the ground soaking through Brant's clothes.

Brant didn't even seem to register the fact that he'd wet himself.

On the ground, Anthony trembled, his eyes staring sightlessly into the distance. 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

In the mindscape, Kazarax gripped the Talented, tightening his grip around his neck.

Anthony chocked staring at the terrifying horned demon in disbelief.

Kazarax grinned, sharp rows of glinting fangs gleaming in the light of the flames pouring out of his maw.

"For a punk, you're quite audacious..." he hissed gently.

He leaned in, the flames licking at Anthony's face, and whispered.

"I've seen your little mind games...you think you're something, kid, but trust me, you're nothing... I've lived for hundreds of years...seen empires rise and fall, so I would know..."

Kazarax ground his fangs together, a cold metallic sound ringing out through the air.

"I could break your wicked little mind in so many different ways...you couldn't even begin to imagine, the countless possibilities..."

Kazarax extended his hand forward, a single claw slowly inching towards Anthony's forehead.

His eyes widened in fear at the sight.

"What you practice is nothing but a crude and mindless brutality with no refinement. What I do instead...is art..."

He offered him a dark smile.

"Allow me to demonstrate."

Anthony's eyes widened in shock, then ignited with brilliant white flames.

A terrified wail escaped his lips, the sound echoing through the void.

His entire mind churned in that instant, the privacy of the confines of his mind violently ripped apart without regard. His memories were brutally ripped apart and sifted through without any regard for him.

A wave of fiery blinding pain flared through his mind, then flooded his entire being.

Anothny screamed and then screamed until he couldn't recognize the sound of his own voice.

To the Talented watching, Morgan seemed to be inflicting pain on him without even touching him.

Worse still, the assassin seemed unperturbed, casually staring at the writhing boy like it was something ordinary.

Little known to them, even Talia and Lucian wore similar expressions of shock.

" Since when can he even do this?"

While awakened, capable of directly attacking the mind wasn't unheard of, for Morgan to be able to do it as well was an entirely different facet of his power, one that they hadn't seen before.

Staring at the cold expression on Morgan's face, Talia shuddered to think of what would happen once he actually mastered the powers he wielded.

Nothing much was known about the house of Thane.

But for the first time, Talia believed she was seeing why the great house was obscured in mystery and why.

Even though they were rarely associated with the other great houses, none of them dared to openly provoke them.

If the Thanes truly wielded this kind of power and had more awakened like Morgan, then the rest of the Great Houses truly didn't stand a chance at head-on conflict.

It was quite unthinkable that any organization could pose a threat to them.

The very thought of it was preposterous, laughable even.

It was a truly humbling experience a lesson in humility.

Her eyes widened in shock. Standing beside her, Lucian also quietly watched in silent disbelief.

With every day that passed, Morgan silently revealed more aspects of his power,

so much so that it was almost impossible to predict what would happen next around him.

The more they knew, the more they marveled and wondered how much they truly knew about him.

Watching the Talented scream, Lucian was quietly glad that he'd met Morgan when he did remembering when he did, the memory of that fateful evening fleeting through his mind.

The Talented's back arched in seemingly indescribable agony, his eyes widening in pain.

Blood, sweat, and tears mingled together rolling down his face in a grotesque pool.

In Anthony's mind, Kazarax laughed in a deep maniacal voice, the laughter washing over Anthony's struggling figure.

The laughter and screams mingled together until they became one discordant sound.

Anthony's struggles slowly became less and less pronounced until they ceased entirely.

Anthony found himself back home.

Waking up in the familiar warmth of his bed, he let out a weary sigh.

It had all been a dream after all.

The Pyreptar academy had temporarily closed for winter break.

He looked around, then picked up he small picture of his mother and Father by his bedside.

Seeingbthem both, a small smile appeared on his face.

His mother and Father were both Talented, and some of the most potently gifted Neural Types in the Praesagius.

But they were only class A4s.

No matter how much they'd struggled, they'd failed to breach the barrier, the indomitable threshold that separated class A4s from class A5s and acquire the sought-after fifth ability.

And worse yet,

their own son was a lowly class A2.

While they did their best not to show it, he would see it at times, in their eyes, the small shred of disappointment,

although they did their best not to show it.

In fact, his parents were so good at it so good that they'd manipulate others in the most subtle ways even him at times

But he'd learned to notice it

They were the reasons he was so good at manipulating others and the thoughts of others.

He'd learned from some of the best after all.

They were the reason why he pushed himself every day.

Neural manipulation wasn't simply about probing the thoughts of your victims after all. It was organized; you needed the willpower, the mental strength, not to succumb to the tide of thoughts and emotions that human beings ultimately were.

No, it was much more than that, much, much more.

And while it needed truth, there was a subtle amount of deception that was required.

Humans were truly sensitive creatures after all, and so to really affect them, one had to turn their truths against them.

That was where the deception came in.

The whole process was truly sublime.

And just when he'd been on the cusp of turning class A3, when he'd almost broken through that elusive barrier, the Brotherhood of Shadows had messed it all up.

Because of the assassins, they'd been sent to this profane plane of existence, trapped like animals with no real avenue of escape.

So yes, he truly resented them.

Did he resent them enough to want to kill them?

Absolutely!

But even then the creature that was holding him was something else entirely.

Anthony could feel it, deep within himself.

A cold sense of dread, every memory, every thought haunted by the sinister being that lurked in the periphery of his vision.

That 'thing' was hunting him.

Even in this 'dream' he was having.

And even with his ability, he felt powerless to stop it.

It was almost ridiculous.

He, a neural type, talented, trapped, a victim in his own mind.

"Anthony, you're back."

A tall woman came into view with a warm smile enveloping him in her hands before he could move out of his bed.

He froze in her embrace, shivering slightly.

"Mum?"

The woman pulled back beaming at him.

" Yes dear?"

Anthony moved back with a frown.

" Mum, is that really you?"

The woman stared at him frowning slightly.

" Of course, dear, why would you ask such a silly question?"

What the heck? Had it actually been a dream? What was going on here...

"Am I actually seeing things?"

In the next moment, she abruptly pulled him into a tight embrace.

Anthony gasped, his eyes widening in terror, then gasped once more.

Slowly he looked down, staring at the kitchen knife protruding from his stomach and the slowly spreading stain of blood soaking through his shirt.

" Of course it's me, dear, why would you ask such a silly question?" his mother asked with an innocent smile.