"I'm ready for the judgment of the elders," Morgan said with a firm tone.
Only a few hours had passed,yet she was summoned by the elders of her family.
A woman's voice echoed in the room:"Are you aware of your sin?"
"I caused harm to the name of the family by being defeated."Morgan admitted.
She looked at the five thrones infront of her,they were made of vanta metal,a material so expensive that the whole city together couldn't design One singular room with it.
Another voice chimed in,"You don't seem to be ashamed of your act."
Morgan's eyes shone with killing intent:"I made a mistake; I am fully aware of that. Yet,I shall paint the walls of my room with the blood of that creature and use that girl's head from Lighthouse Family to remind them of their place."
The woman replied,"As expected of our great daughter, however, you have to face punishment for your wrongdoings."
"I take full responsibility for my actions; may your punishment increase my iron will and prevent me from mistaking." Morgan didn't believe such crap, despite wanting to make her punishment as low as she could.
Another voice filled the room. It belonged to elder Salvador, Morgan's biological father. "Michael, you were present at the event. We heard that people stopped Morgan and that boy called Ray. In your opinion, what would have happened if no one stopped them?"
"Both of them would have died, your grace." Mickel's head was low, and his voice shaking. He had a fear of Morgan in his heart from many years ago. He had tried many times to get her favor, none with a chance of success. Now he had a chance to get a favor from the clan elders themselves.
"Lies... ,"Morgan yelled in anger.
"Silence!" All the elders' voices mixed, and Mickel's hands started to tremble. Morgan stood there and looked at Mickeal like she wanted to kill him on the spot.
"Explain," Elder Salvador said with a calm tone.
"Your Grace, the biggest problem I think with this matter are two things: first, Lady Morgan underestimated her opponent. I don't know about that person; however, just the fact that 'the kind heart' chose him meant there was more to him than eye could see." Mickel's voice was shaking with each moment he spoke. It is a hard task to stay calm when you can sense someone's killing gaze toward you.
"What is the second problem?" The woman asked, ignoring his previous explanation.
"The second problem stands with family trainings," Mickel used all his spirit to talk.
Elder Salvador replied in a dangerously low voice,"Careful now, young man, you are walking on thin ice."
Michael cleared his throat and continued, "My grace, there is no questioning the family teachings. Still, all that teaches us is to fight against humans; that person was not a human."
Another man asked,"What makes you say that?"
"That person used his own arm as bait, and when it was over, he laughed like he was enjoying it. We were never ready for such an insane animal." The sound and the scene remained in Mickel's eyes.
"Morgan, what is your opinion?" Her father wanted to get her out of this mess. Due to family rules, the biological relationships didn't matter; however, he had only one child and he was ready to do anything for her.
"Dear elder, when you kill an insect, does it matter how it reacts? An insect might bite me, and if it's poisonous, it might kill me. Is the mistake in family teachings or my own shortcomings?" Morgan tried to be as sincere as possible:"Excuse my rudeness, but I can't take insult to our family in any circumstances."
She took a look of pity at the boy in front of her; already thorns were starting to create under his legs.
Salvador could only watch as another member moved his hand to execute the young boy. In the blink of an eye, his eyes had turned into metal thorns, with life leaving his body.
He looked at his daughter:"When did she become so...demonic?" He cursed himself for letting her be like this.
Morgan was satisfied with the result for now. She waited for her trial to continue.
Some servants came and cleaned the room. "Thorn scaena is good at showing authority; its fighting abilities are not bad too. Hmm…even if I get Thorn scaena, it won't be that bad." Morgan thought to herself while waiting for the servants to finish their job.
"Words kill sooner than swords," a famous word from the dark emperor. Morgan was young, although she respected the dark emperor above all else.
Morgan's country name was Leo. With a history of around thirty thousand years, they were one of the three remaining counties in the whole planet. One of them was Morgan's favorite.
Mors' country was ruled by the hands of the dark emperor. He conquered marks after another, and with his violent attitude, he reached the peak of humanity. The one and only rank five of humanity to ever exist.
Morgan heard rumors that if he wanted, he could kill all the great families, conquering the whole planet. Yet such wealth and fame were insignificant to him; his true desire was to pass the next mark.
"Investigator Dave, tell us about the origins of that boy," Elder Salvador resumed the trial.
Morgan came back to the world."Now, this is something worthy of my time."
"Mr. Salvador, the target's name is Ray. He had spent the past three years in prison as a number one. That can explain him being numb to pain. Although I didn't find any connection between him and the Lighthouse family beforehand, there might be a chance," Investigator Dave didn't own a body, so the words came from the shadows.
Curiosity got the best of Morgan:"What is a numbered one?"
"May I explain, great elders?"
"No, our time is short," the woman replied.
"You whore!" Morgan didn't dare to show any sign of anger.
One of the other men asked,"What makes you say there is a chance?"
"Three years ago, he was arrested in a fight between two gangster groups. Everyone in his gang had died already when the police had reached there. And before that, pure covered by mysteries. It's like he is born at that day." The more he spoke, his voice got lower. With his condition, he had to spend way more energy than a normal person for talking.
No one doubted his words; the chances of Ray being a spy were low too. After all, receiving the mark was an unknown process.
"You are dismissed."The elders said.
Morgan only sensed that he was gone; no other change in the room happened.
The woman spoke, "And for your punishment, Morgan, from the Void family. You are already aware of your sins. Your eyes are as beautiful as your mother's, despite that you didn't use them like your mother in service of the family."
Another man continued her words as they were one:"We will take one of your eyes. Bring us the head of Bella from the Lighthouse Family, and we will bring it back to you."
"Wh... Before Morgan could talk, she felt hands on her head. She blinked, and she sensed it but before she could react it was gone.
Blood flowed from the place her left eye was supposed to be. She touched her face; her fingers sensed something warm on her fingers.
"Its blood? Wait...why can't I see like before?" She looked at the elders at the end of the room; an eye floated in the air. "That's ... mine?"
"You can't hide your wound, and you can't use a healing soul for it too. Now leave. Behind the door; servants will guide you to the doctors." Salvador's heart hurt with words he spoke.
The pain sharpened her mind about her task "They want me to kill a rank three mark? Until I reach that level, it will take years!" Surpassing her killing intent toward elders, Morgan said with an emotionless voice,"I may take my leave."
She didn't wait for their answer, turning around and leaving the room. A sentence from the dark emperor echoed in her mind:
"The higher you fly, the more you will fall."
___________
Bella observed her surroundings; the sky above her head was made from different words with white color, and under her was a red sea as vast as she could imagine.
When she heard about the earlier events in the school her guilt grow immensely.
She disagreed about many matters with her family and one of them was the soul contracts,in her hundred years of living she never saw someone break free from any of them.
And now this boy already got in trouble from their family. He was a killer the type she hated the most and that made her even more curious.
How a eighteen year boy fell to such a abyss?
Two pairs of wings with golden feathers had grown from her back, with shining white armor covering her body. She increased her speed."I'm getting closer."
As a person in the mind domain, she was very familiar with mental illness. In her first encounter with Ray, she had sensed some problems with him. After she heard he had defeated Morgan, her first thought was that it was pure luck; he had no advantages over someone like Morgan. However, knowing the details of what had happened, she was determined to act herself.
Now, here she was, inside of Ray's mind, looking after something she didn't know "Why am I even doing this? Guilt? Curiosity?"
If she destroyed the source of the corruption, the illness would be cured. It was not her first time doing something like this, despite the fact that her whole body under the armor was covered in cold sweat.
The way she saw the mind is a metaphor created by her exousia. The sea is the symbol of unconsciousness, and the sky is consciousness. Under normal circumstances, it would rain upside down from the sea to the sky, connecting both of them, but now Ray was in a coma state, so it was calm as a real sea.
What made Bella wary was the color of the sea. The healthier a person is, their sea of unconsciousness would be like water, without any color. Each illness made it become darker.
Bella sensed she had reached it; looking under her, she whispered to herself,"Calm down, it can't hurt you." She took a deep breath and dived into the sea.
Unlike her previous experiences, the sea didn't defect her."No! Why does it seem like it's welcoming me?" The more she went down, her wings lost more feathers. A person's mind is not made to host two souls at the same time; even her exousia couldn't change the rules of the human body.
"At most, I have 20 more minutes." She increased her speed again, and in the far distance, she located something.
The closer she got, it became more clear. "What is this? A temple? A person in the mind domain did this?"
The temple was not big; made from red stones, it was the size of a house at most. Nothing about it stood out like Ray himself.
When Bella stood in front of the door, she recognized it. "A church! They belong to the first era; I only saw the pictures and descriptions of it in history books!"
She pushed the door open; instead of opening, it disappeared. Bella dismissed her wings and slowly walked into the church; it was completely empty.
"W e l c o m e" Words started to get written in the air.
Two swords summoned in both hands of Bella:"Show yourself." No matter how much she tried, her voice shook a little.
"I d o n t w a n t t o s c a r e."
"I'm not scared of you. I just want to see you." Bella became prepared to attack as soon as it appeared.
"o k"
The sight that appeared in front of Bella was something that she hadn't seen in her worst nightmares. A big iron cross and a girl chained to it with ten rods in different parts of her body. The girl exactly looked like a Ray, except the color of her eyes was vermilion. She didn't have human flesh; it looked like she was made out of rings. The places that rods entered her body, blood flowed out of them, constantly falling to the ground.
The girl gazed upon Bella. Bella felt an abyss stare at her soul.
"What... What are you?"
"I d o n t k n o w I j u s t e x i s t."
"Did a marked one do this to him? No, that's impossible. I know everyone in my mind domain; none can create this." Bella thought to herself, she had second thoughts about attacking it blindly.
"r a y c r e a t e d m e"
"You can read my mind? Ray created you?" Bella got more confused, and one thing made her hold her swords tighter: it knew she wanted to kill her, yet it showed itself.
"Y e s i a m r a y"
Bella felt more confused. How on earth is this possible?
"W i l l y o u f r e e m e?"
"Do you want to be free?" Bella said with a surprised tone. What would happen if she became free?
The lips of the girl started to move; no sound came out, only words started to get written in the air:
"F r e e m e"
"F r e e m e"
"F r e e m e"
"F r e e m e"
"F r e e m e"
"F r e e m e"
Bella saw her whole surrounding filled with words. Not wasting a second, she started to return to her body.
The way she had reached the temple crossed her mind in a second; when she opened her eyes, she was back in her body.
A scream filled her room. Followed by another and another.
The door of her room was pushed open with force, and her sister ran toward her. Sofia hugged her. She didn't know what was going on, yet she could feel horror and pain in her sister.
Bella felt many emotions at the same time. Her bones broke one after another, she was being skinned alive, she saw all her loved ones dead, and she stood among their corpses. She was so hungry that she wanted her own flesh. She saw herself chained to a chair, and flames started to burn her.
All she could do was scream from pain. She felt Sofia's body around herself; her warmth made her pain decrease.
Her screams stopped, but tears started to flow from her eyes. Not from pain itself but from empathy toward the owner of it.
Bella understood how the temple was created and who the girl was.