The Astral soul system-Chapter 164: Kale

Gary seemed a bit confused, scratching his head

"Seriously?"

Zyro shrugged

"I’m not very used to school life yet"

Gary facepalmed

"Dude, you’re in a military academy, literally all our teachers are veterans or war heroes, and miss Alaric is no different. Heck , she might be one of the most badass people in the school "

Gary leaned in like he was about to say something other people shouldn’t hear

"And I heard somewhere that she is even stronger than the dean himself "

That actually surprised Zyro. The dean wasn’t just some regular school executive,he was also the highest ranking member of Earth’s combined military forces. He was definitely very powerful, and here Gary was saying that Aurora might be even stronger?

"Interesting"

Gary looked around a bit

"Well i gotta go. Catch you later"

He suddenly leaned in again and whispered

"And I’ll tell you if I spot you know who"

He gave a friendly wave towards Jade before walking off, his voice echoing

"If anyone tries anything like that other loser, just give me a call"

Jade seemed a bit... stunned? As she watched him leave

"He’s nicer than i thought"

Zyro nodded

"Yeah, he’s just a bit intimidating. I don’t think he’s bad"

Jade looked at the rest of the group that was heading out under the lead of the teacher.

"Shouldn’t we catch up with the others?"

"Yeah, but I’m waiting for something first"

They both waited for a few more seconds and a few more students came and went until eventually the person he was waiting for showed up

"Sable."

"Come on, let’s go" she said in a hushed tone as they headed for the exit of the base, but they still didn’t go with the group

"You got him?"

Sable nodded, opening her backpack and releasing a large black raven from it.

"I managed to get past without getting searched. I’m still not sure why you want to hide him so bad. Sure it’d be akward to say you want to bring your pet along on a hunt, but avoiding security cameras and searches seems a bit extreme"

Zyro smiled sheepishly

"Yeah, sorry for bothering you. This was actually his request. He was getting really excited about leaving the planet and I didn’t wanna leave him alone again.

Sable sighed

"You act like you can talk to it"

"Hehe,I do, don’t I?"

Black immediately took off into the skies, flying in a random direction.

"Is that a good idea? This is a different planet and there are beast here"

"He’ll be fine. Now let’s go, the others are waiting "

A few seconds passed in silence as they headed towards the main group, and once they were about halfway there, Sable spoke.

"So we’re just going to pretend last night didn’t happen?"

"Yep!"

Sable sighed and looked at Jade

"Jade, could you please go on ahead and meet with the others. I need to talk with Zyro"

"Hmm? Okay, just hurry up "

Jade said before running off towards the main group.

"Well this is akward "

"I deserve to know. What was that thing last night?"

"An ill-fated "

"What?"

"It’s a special kind of creature,engineered to be a violent freak show of a killer by the arcade. I’m guessing the one we saw yesterday survivd the military’s raid, escaped from one of the bases and was attracted to my scent"

Zyro explained,half telling the truth.

"Wait, that thing was made? In a lab? On purpose?"

Zyro almost laughed from her tone.

"Not exactly in a lab but yes. I grew up having to deal with those"

"I don’t understand, how do you even make a beast?"

Zyro hesitated a bit before answering

"Well it’s not simple, and I’m not sure exactly how it was done, but I do know it wasn’t just science that did it"

"You mean... someone’s ability did that?"

Zyro nodded

"It played an important part,yes"

The one thing that Zyro didn’t mention was that the ill-fated were all originally people that had been enslaved and weaponized by the arcade. He felt like the illusion of it just being an artificial beast would weigh less heavy on her mind.

"Then how come only you could kill it, and what was that thing you did with the light from your mark"

"All i did was reveal the extent of its residual fate pulling it’s strings "

"What?"

"It’s...hard to explain. But yeah... normal people can’t easily kill those things"

Before she could ask another question, Zyro pointed out that they had arrived. The only one left was the teacher and their friends.

Seeing them show up, the teacher snorted.

"Good to see you took the time out of your busy day to show up "

The teacher named Berny spoke up

"If you have nothing better to do than waste everyone’s time then I suggest you stay out of this because you clearly aren’t qualified.

Sable and Zyro didn’t respond or even react and just waited for the teacher’s anger to pass.

After a few minutes of pointlessly yelling and even personally attacking them , he finally got satisfied, turning away and saying he couldn’t even bother to deal with them, and flippantly breifed them before walking off.

"Well that was weird"

"Yeah... don’t think I’m done with my questions" 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

Sable whispered as they joined the others.

"Frickin finally. Why’d you even bother showing up? Finally got tired of fucking in the back?"

Zaria elbowed Diane in the stomach somewhat forcefully. The Leonel family’s daughter really had no filter.

"You guys good?"

"Yeah, just had to deal with something real quick. What did we miss?"

"Not much. We can explore as we please since the surrounding area is filled with mostly low level beasts but the teachers and second years will be watching us to make sure nothing goes wrong. We don’t exactly have any more instructions so we can basically do whatever we want "

Zyro nodded.

"Cool. In that case,see you guys later"

They were all immediately stunned by that

"Wait, aren’t we going together? I thought we were hunting as a team"

Zyro nodded.

"Yep, but I’m honestly not even going to do any hunting. We’ve got two days,I’m just gonna stroll around the woods, and if I get attacked by a beast, I’ll kill it "

Maximilian nodded in agreement.

"Yeah. There’s no rush to this. Let’s go hunting ourselves for a while or just scout, and if we meet up later today or tomorrow, we’ll join up. Deal?"

Xavier didn’t seem to care much as long as he got to fight something,if anything,he seemed happier he’d have chance to enjoy the upcoming battles alone.

"No problem as long as we meet later for dinner tonight. And if anyone finds a very powerful beast you better call me"

Neo shrugged.

"I’m probably just gonna end up robbing somebody to be honest "

"Alright, looks like we’re in agreement. Jade, you coming with me?"

She seemed a bit suprised by the offer but she nodded and went to stand by his side.

"Alright everyone, meet up back here at six, and if you need help, just call and use the sos function on the watch to signal your location"

Although Sable and Zaria seemed a bit upset by the decision, they still split up,each going in a random direction.

"So what are we doing?"

Jade asked, happy to do whatever.

"Exploring, like I said. I’m guessing you’re not exactly eager to have to go out and fight again"

Jade nodded in agreement and Zyro replied

"Great, neither am I,at least right now. I’ve got a huge quota to meet if I want to evolve before we leave, the exp required alone is making me dizzy. I’ll take it slow today,at least until evening "

"Uh...what?"

Jade asked

"Oh, nothing, just thinking out loud "

’This is a good chance to practice my read skill. Maybe I’ll find something useful like herbs and stuff. There should be a herbology department in the school... Hmm,by the way, I wonder what everyone’s doing. My heads been strangely quiet for a while ’

He suddenly noticed something in the corner of his eyes

"Hey, Jade,over here"

He said, heading towards it under the system’s guidance.

********

In a deep pitch black void,a strage figure suddenly appeared out of nowhere,all it’s features were obscured by darkness making it impossible to see what was underneath.

Almost immediately, the figure stretched its hand out into the void. A few minutes passed and nothing happened but the figure didn’t give up. After a while,the void seemed to respond and a familiar system screen appeared out of nowhere in front of the figure’s outstretched hand.

Soon enough, multiple began to appear all around it and lines of code starting to appear and disappear at a speed impossible to process for a human eye. The figure’s hand would pass through a screen and the darkness surrounding it would seep into the screen itself, seemingly taking it over and significantly speeding up the process at which the data was flowing.

The figure repeated this over and over again, and although it had no physical features,it was clear that it was in a hurry as it scanned through as much information as quickly as possible, immediately discarding the screens it had scanned and replacing them with new ones.

An immeasurable amount of time passed before the figure suddenly stopped,all the screens began to disappear one by one until there was only one left, one that was cracked, foggy and just looked like it was broken. The figure slowly scanned it and a strange light ran through it’s body.

A sigh was released into the void as what sounded like a thousand voices overlapping with each other followed

"AH I kNeW TheRE hAd tO bE A rEaSon"

An image of Zyro,or at least the body he shared with the other two appeared in front of the figure

"ThAt Is WhO tHe BoY iS...fAsCiNaTiNg. He Is-"

"YOU-"

A burst of light suddenly tore through the void from above, crashing directly in front of the shadowed figure as a rage filled feminine voice echoed

"I knew you couldn’t be trusted"

Theia exclaimed, standing tall,her eyes gleamed with a silver light and her white hair flowed ethereally in a non existent wind,a suffocating yet liberating pale white aura encasing her similar to the figure’s shadow aura.

She was dressed in a pure white silk garment that looked somehow both futuristic and traditional at the same time.

"I’ve been onto you for a long time Zephyr,if that even is your real name. Your lies end here"

A chuckle echoed through the void as part of the shadow covering his face disappeared, revealing the face of a middle aged man with pitch black eyes and hair. His voice stopped overlapping and returned to the one she was familiar with

"Oh please. Lies? You should know all about that, considering how much you’ve been hiding from the boy. He doesn’t even know what you truly are. I’m the one who is uncovering your lies here, and i have already gotten what it is i need"

"Oh, shut up. Everything i do is for his benefit. You claim to want our trust and help but here you are, hacking MY system without thinking about the consequences "

Zephyr turned his back to her with a snort

"You’ll thank me later. So don’t be so dramatic "

A vein bulged all the way from Theia’s face to her neck as she clenched her fists and grit her teeth

"Dramatic? Dramatic?! THIS IS PRACTICALLY MIND RAPE YOU DUMB FUCK!"

The screen in Zephyr’s hand suddenly vanished and a pale white aura started to seep into the void itself,infecting it as the pitch black space slowly started getting replaced with white.

"Prepare to be erased"

Theia said,her voice sounding more robotic than usual.

Zephyr seemed to be actually shook as Theia did... whatever it was that was going on.

"What are you doing?!"

"What i should have done a long time ago, getting rid of you"

Zephyr snarled, taking a step back and looking at the void that was slowly getting consumed by Theia’s pale white aura

"You need me. If you get rid of me then no one can stop him,no one will be able to-"

"My loyalty is to my host. Nothing else matters "

"He will come after your host"

"Then "He" will die"

Zephyr seemed to have given up on talking. He sighed and looked like he was about to fight back when.

[Error,all actions halted]

They both suddenly froze in place.

Zephyr’s face paled as he realized he couldn’t move a muscle

"How?"

[System administrator, codename : G/Kale,has intervened]

A massive screen appeared in the sky with those words.

"Now what in the world are you two doing?"

Zephyr’s eyes became the size of pins as he looked around trying to find the origin of the voice.

"It’s not... possible. You..."