"Kaelen, come upstairs." Caeran shouted from the top of the stairs.
"Maybe another day, then." Aurelion stole the file from Kaelen's hands.
Kaelen looked at Aurelion, then at Caeran. "I felt a bit disrespected there." Kaelen said to Aurelion as he left.
Kaelen followed Caeran to the room. A new pair of chains were hanged onto the wall. "What's new in them?"
"Just sit here." Caeran pulled a chair.
Caeran took the chains off the wall, "Presenting to you, the greatest blacksmith that's ever lived."
Kaelen took his shirt off.
The old chains fell off and new ones were attached.
"But what—"
"Shh," said Caeran. His hands caressed the chains.
A spark of fire came out of them. Heat spread across his body. He jumped off the chair and bent his forward to keep the chains away. Then the fire appeared around the chains.
Caeran touched them. "They won't hurt you and those you trust."
Kaelen fixed his posture. Still only a bit of heat. "So they inflict fire now?"
"Noo," Caeran took a step back, pulling down the cloth covering his big monitor screen. "Why limit yourself to one thing when you have the greatest blacksmith ever in front of you?"
Kaelen stared at the monitor. The chains weren't just chains anymore. Another question caught Kaelen's interest even more. Caeran had never gone to the void, yet he knew that place better than Kaelen. The chains took energy from Kaelen and his allies' void directly.
Kaelen stood up. "This is."
"Amazing."
"I know, right?" A big smile covered his face. "You don't need to appreciate it. I do this daily now."
Kaelen stood up. Empty. "So what now. I have nothing to do."
"Well, rest is important too."
"No, that's not it. My entire identity is killing a man in this new life. And this isn't who I am."
"That's not really a problem. You're the only person who can ever know yourself. Your works are just what's in front of everyone else. If you want to do something, do it."
"Go ahead. What will you do?"
Kaelen nodded. "I know. I know what I will do. I have to meet the Miracle Sect members. I have to"
It was the only lead he had other than Ravus. The answer to everything surrounding that man. The glass. He needed them.
Caeran took a step back. "The... What?"
He took a step forward and grabbed Kaelen's shoulders. "You possibly cannot think that you will leave unscathed."
Kaelen shrugged and said, "There's only one guy who can tell us that."
They went downstairs. Aurelion was still there, the same cup. With the two girls this time. His expressions were non-existent. His face never moved, even when he spoke it felt the same.
Caeran took the seat next to Aurelion, and Kaelen took the one next to Caeran.
"Weren't you done?" Nyx spoke with each word stretching out just enough to make you question if she was joking or serious.
"Shut up." Said Caeran, his tone had changed to something Kaelen never expected out of him.
Aurelion lifted his eyebrows towards Caeran.
"He wants to do it."
Aurelion thought for a moment.
Had they thought of this before? If they had, why had Aurelion waited?
"You can't stop a man once he has decided his place."
Caeran stood up. "I think that's it."
It wasn't long before Kaelen was in the middle of crowded streets, people entered his empty pockets with the hope of money. And as they did, Kaelen smiled, tapped them on the shoulder and said the same thing to everyone of them. "Praise the Lord Kaelen, and he will bless you." Their reactions were as expected: scared for a second, then smiling it away the next.
It was a drill Kaelen had made up to overcome the anxiety. Embarrassing himself until the normal became great. And he knew it wasn't working.
But there was an elephant in the room. The assassins that were chasing him ever since he left the house.
He glanced at it. The mirror was a few meters away from him. Only if he had truly conquered his anxiety, then he could have jumped from roof to roof.
Minutes later, he was there. It looked unreal. The glass was completely broken. It looked abyssal. No idea where it led. It turned into more of a portal as Kaelen came near it. The hint of orange mixed in with the purple burnt everywhere.
Kaelen traversed through it. A lab stood in front of him, destroyed. There were cells and a tab showing the experiment it belonged, but they were empty. Even more unseen technology. Empty all of it, working on making mutants of kinds. Kaelen looked around. Something caught his attention. Something was being made to kill him. Their fight was being simulated. . But he was still no threat. Only a 0.01 success rate against Kaelen.
He opened the only door in that room. It could have only been an entrance if it was really the only one.
And it wasn't.
A staircase leading to a lower floor. Kaelen took one step. And it all came rushing at him. The voices of people screaming, and among them a loud voice. A loud voice that wasn't trying to be loud.
He jumped below. The steep decline of the stairs allowed him to fly with his chains becoming a parachute.
The floor below was empty, no walls as far as his eyes could see.
The answers were simple. Scientists screamed for help. And their experiment was the reason.
The experiment was big. A giant green creature made of jelly-like organs.
Kaelen swung his chains, fire running alongside them. The creature burned. He should have been weakened by it. It wasn't.
The creature split into two conscious bodies. "Fuck.". The new ability did nothing. The creature would never die. He looked at the scientist in hopes of help. They couldn't open their mouths.
Kaelen turned it into a flamethrower. The being burnt, but it only became stronger. Its two bodies were barely visible in their current state.
Kaelen looked at them again. Nothing.
Kaelen realized it while he stood in the middle of the battlefield. Barely visible didn't mean they couldn't reach him. Something pierced his body, leaving a small hole behind. Then another. Small holes stretched across his body as blood slowly dripped out of them.
The chains vanished, and a black square came into Kaelen's hand. He opened a hole in it. The square consumed them and sent them to Kaelen's void.
Kaelen tried to find it inside himself. It committed suicide and left its energy to be used freely. "Unfortunate." Kaelen mumbled. He would have helped a lot, but he didn't want to be a slave. Kaelen felt a sharp pain in his chest near his anchor looking at people who did that.
He turned back to the scientist. "Are you all that remains of miracle sect?"
Blood scattered out of the scientist's neck. The knife was still there. Kaelen gazed at the others. They were terrified but none reached for a knife. "Why did he do that?" Kaelen asked the scientists.
The lab leader stepped out of the crowd. "You killed his child. Everyone loves their Frankenstein before it kills them." The leader climbed the stairs. Everyone followed him in a line. Obeying the words he had never said.
Looking at it, Kaelen sat there. His eyes wide open. He gazed at the scientist. More dead than anyone else. But less dead than what he was before committing suicide.
He sat with it for a moment. Nothing in his mind. Waiting to understand it. Or something clicking like it always does. Nothing did. He stood up, still dazed.
Inside the lab. Scientists were already at their work. Lab experiments were back in their places.
Kaelen snapped his fingers and pointed towards the closest scientists. His body working on it's own. "You remove the curse that guy put on me."
"And I know you can. Just use the opposing energy."
They stared at him, preparing something. Kaelen shouldn't have known that.
The scientist rushed with a glass fragment in his hand. He gripped it with both his hands. He thrusted it inside but stopped before it reached the core of the anchor. Kaelen grabbed the scientist's hands and pushed them.
Terrified, the scientist ran back to his computer.
The assassins came into the lab.
"No." Kaelen realized they weren't just assassins who came at the perfect time.
They were members of the sect. They knew he would come, when and how too. Nothing else could explain what happened between the time when Kaelen killed the monster and the assassin's just sitting outside for no reason and coming at the perfect time.
They looked at Kaelen, then at the scientists doing their work. They stopped. Their leader, wearing red cloths he said. "What do you want?"
"We want the same thing. Protection. None of us is safe." Kaelen turned around gazed at the scientists. "Don't you agree?" All of them gave a slight nod. He turned back to their leader. "I will help you in danger, and you help my team."
"I don't get anything from this deal. When in the history of this sect have we gotten attacked." He said, showing Kaelen the way outside. He looked at his people again. The destruction the monster caused. His expressions changed.
Kaelen pulled his chains out. The floor cracked and everyone found themselves being pulled towards them, the leader's eyes widened. "Well, you get to keep your life."