The Astral soul system-Chapter 181: A secret

"You still didn’t say anything"

Zen ignored Theia, dashing through the forest at inhuman speeds.

"Not to be your only functional moral compass or anything, but she’s going to find out eventually, and i don’t think she’ll be happy with what you’re hiding "

"..."

"Of course there’s no reason for you to do anything,after all,you don’t really care about her"

"..."

Hearing that Zen didn’t disagree with her or show any reaction whatsoever, almost like he agreed,Theia smiled mysteriously .

"However, that’s not true for someone else"

"She doesn’t care about this"

"Why did you think i was talking about Freya...well i guess she’s there too"

Freya sighed.

"Do whatever you want. I died a long time ago "

Zyro suddenly spoke up.

"Hey, don’t i get a say in this? I’m the one who found out "

Zaine snarled and barked out a reply.

"What are we supposed to say? Hey bitch, you remember your dead mom? The one you looked up to since you were a kid, yeah. She’s actually a member of the evil cult secret organization of mass murdering genocidal psychopaths that raised us as a human weapon, and it’s actually possible that she’s not dead but just abandoned you for a mission. Yeah I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to hear that "

Freya sighed, speaking up ,a hint of melancholy in her tone.

"I still can’t believe i didn’t guess sooner. Green hair, green eyes,uses a bow...I can’t believe I didn’t recognize Jynx’s daughter. I guess dying really dulls your senses"

Zen thought back to that photo in Jade’s house. He hadn’t had much contact with her before she disappeared, but he could clearly identify her. Zyro himself had only needed one look to realize what was going on.

"So what now?"

"we-"

"Now,we focus on our quest. Dispose of Keith. Jade is irrelevant, expendable. Unless it’s a necessity, the truth about her mother is an useless detail. With any luck Jynx is truly dead, and won’t bring us any trouble "

Zen said coldly, halting all other conversations at once.

"Irrelevant and expendable. Is that why you put a soul brand on her?"

"..."

"You have a rather one track mindset. And I was thinking you might be starting to warm up to them. I guess i was just imagining things"

Zen didn’t waste his breath explaining and simply increased his speed, his steps cracking the ground beneath him.

"Seems i still need to get accustomed to this body,both in and out of my transformed state"

"We could fly there"

Zen didn’t want to risk it. He was a horrible flyer without wings, and now that he had them, he’d rather take time to practice getting use to them.

**********

"Where is it? Where is it?"

Sable mused, looking around the woods. She looked at the tree with cracks spreading from a point of impact.

"Yep, that’s the one. It should be around here somewhere. Where’s that dang bow?"

"Grrrrr"

"Hm?"

Sable turned around and looked at a seemingly normal area a decent distance away from her.

"What’s the point of camouflage if you don’t keep your damn growling down. Besides,i know your scent"

A familiar lizard crawled out of the trees, eyeing Sable hungrily.

"Thought I’d never get my revenge. Come on you damn lizard"

Sable said,her blue orbs immediately becoming vertical crimson slits.

Her thumb pressed against her scabbard flicked upward, revealing a bit of the blade.

A stream of acid fired towards her and expectorant it Sable lazily jumped out of the way.

"Pretty slo-"

She suddenly looked up and saw the beast was already upon her, it’s claws outstretched.

A smirk suddenly appeared on her lips,her sharp fangs catching the light of the sun.

*Whoosh*

The beast suddenly landed on the ground, completely dazed.

Behind it a few meters away, Sable landed, sheathing her katana.

"Damn, almost got me that time"

The beast roared and was about to attack again when it suddenly looked down to see a thin slash that stretched all the way from under it’s neck to it’s tail. The attack had just barely made it past it’s tough shell, but hadn’t made it enough to hurt it.

"Shit,those stupid scales"

Sable turned around,a playful smile on her face.

"Say what? You actually look kinda handy despite being annoying.I’ll show mercy. How about...you roll over and be my pet. I heard from my grandpa that vampires sometimes use animals as familiars. What do you say? Zen has his bird,i guess having a lizard isn’t too bad, though you’ll probably need some glitter"

Although the lizard couldn’t understand her, the condescending tone and gaze combined with her gesturing for it to roll over seemed to carry the message across just fine.

"GRAAAAA"

Sable snickered inwardly, drawing her katana.

"No? Oh well "

’Damn,I really sound like one of those arrogant young master types. Though i guess that isn’t really far off,huh?’

Sable found herself having to remind herself that outside of her interactions with her blood brother, and perhaps now Jade,she was the cold, arrogant, silent and unapproachable ice queen from the Vladimir family. Though perhaps the arrogant part wasn’t just a facade, and cold too, but that was more literally.

Still,it wasn’t in her to be so condescending. Was it because she had a personal grudge against this thing or was it a vampire thing? It couldn’t even speak and here she was mocking it, well...half mocking. The familiar thing was a genuine curiosity of hers.

"Well if you won’t become my familiar,I’m gonna make you into some nice boots"

The lizard cautiously approached. Something about Sable felt different for some reason, dangerous. Her smell had changed the moment her eyes were had changed and they were still like that,constantly slits, like something in her body was active.

’Come on,get in the Zone. Dig deep,as deep as this rabbit hole goes. That feeling i got last night, when I was just seconds away from becoming something...else.’

A cold breath escaped her lips. She didn’t realize at the time but those few seconds after Jade showed up were different. Calm, unnaturally so, but also...

A stream of acid fired towards her and instead of running away she dashed towards it, and at the last second leaned backward and slid underneath it, letting it pass just above her without a single drop spilling on her.

Veins appeared from her fingers all the way to her shoulders as she swung forward, not noticing a faint sheen around her blade.

The beast had been prepared, swinging its tail before she got there so she’d run into it, but as her sword struck the blunt force of the tail,it was clear who the victor was as the tail was split in two right across the middle.

The beast let out a painful sound but she wasn’t done yet. Jumping over the beast and landing right in front it, she swung downward, mangling it’s face but the effect was clearly less than the first.

It immediately charged trying to snap her in two .

It’s claws caught onto something and it immediately tried to slam her deeper into the ground but for some reason it couldn’t move

"What an annoying handbag! Now you really can’t be my familiar "

Sable said,her transformed hands gripping onto it’s teeth and keep it’s mouth open.

"I’ve been itching to use my hands anyway. Something about my change just makes me want to use my fists more.

She immediately let go jumping over its head before slamming her fists directly into it.

She felt something cave underneath her fists and it spurred her on as she delivered punch after punch despite the beasts attempts to get her off.

It suddenly flipped on its back trying to crush her but she wasn’t going to wait for that. Immediately rolling away, she picked up her katana.

She looked at the beast that was probably heavily injured already, thinking of the best way to finish this.

She suddenly held the blade in a way that the hilt was facing the beast.

The veins from her fingers to her shoulders reappeared as she focused on the target.

The beast growled painfully, and tried to fire acid again, but between the giant gash in its mouth and it’s skull that had bashed for ten seconds straight,,it only harmed itself and wasn’t even able to aim.

It growled fiercely, charging towards her and she did the same,her blade still held strangely.

Their clash wasn’t the climactic end you’d expect. Instead it was silent. At the last second, Sable had slid under the beast during her dash, ending up behind it.

Sable looked at her katana, still not turning to the beast. The blade was covered with blood.

She finally turned around to see the lizard struggling to walk. She looked towards it’s abdomen in sync with the lizard itself and saw it. The same place,the exact same place. Somehow her blade had found the exact same cut she’d previously made into its skin.

Immediately turning around the beast tried to run into the forest. Sable didn’t chase it,she didn’t have to. It collapsed after three steps. Not dead, but pretty close. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

Sable smirked but suddenly fell to one knee,her breathing slightly strained.

"Damn it. Whatever that was. It tires me out"

She noticed the veins disappearing,her fangs retracting and her eyes returning to normal as she calmed herself.

"Still not a scratch. Didn’t need to use my healing, but I still wouldn’t mind a drink. I wonder if Zen would mind"

She looked at the alive but immobile beast and approached it.

"First things first. Payment"

She raised her sword above it’s head and was about to swing it down when the beast suddenly huffed.

"Hm? What’s that?"

"Grrrr"

"Begging for your life? Or do you want to be my pet after all?"

The beast suddenly flipped onto it’s side with great effort before pointing to it’s stomach.

Sable’s eyes widened as she realized what this thing was trying to do.

"You son of a bitch!"

It was threatening her. Either she let it go,or it blows itself up and kills them both.

There was no way she’d let this thing go. She was no moron, transforming a core took time, and If push came to shove, she’d transform her hand and rip out the core before it could try anything funny. It was basically an empty threat.

Something on the inside of the creature suddenly started glowing with an ominous light, but Sable didn’t even look amused, just rolling her eyes.

"This stupid thing. You think i don’t know the difference between you detonating and just flashing your core. "

She pointed at her eye, exasperated with the bad threat.

"I can make my eyes glow but does that mean I’m going to blow up my eyes?"

Sable couldn’t believe this. The lizard was a fucking coward. It immediately began resorting to tricks and was too scared to actually sacrifice it’s life.

Before the overly intelligent beast could try any more nonsense, she slashed at it’s neck, killing it immediately.

With a sigh she stuck her hands into its open abdomen and suddenly ripped out the core.

"Thanks for showing me where it is"

Before she could do anything else her ears suddenly twitched

’Danger’

She suddenly crouched down, using the reptiles body as cover and a loud boom was heard as an attack struck the head of the beast, almost completely crushing it.

"The hell?"

Her eyes immediately became red again as she entered a battle ready stance.

She carefully looked over the corpse of the beast and was surprised at what she saw.

"A... robot?"