Magus Supremacy-Chapter 870: A Long Slumber?

Chapter 870

"Grey, Grey, Grey? GREY!"

’Ugh... just let me sleep some more, damn it. I—I—I think I truly deserve it.’

"Grey, I—I—I just want to say one thing..."

’Ugh... what is it? Hurry up and let me sleep some more.’

"... I’m proud of you, son. Proud of everything you have accomplished and all that you will still achieve. Now, I feel like it’s finally time you return back home, son. So wake the FUCK UP!"

Gasp—!

Grey immediately sat upright in a flash, his head ringing with a tremendous, pulsing pain that caused him to grab his temples tightly. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

It felt as if his skull were about to explode from the internal pressure.

The voice that had been speaking to him had been so booming that it felt like a massive speaker had been shoved into his mind, screaming at him from the inside.

"Shoot... where the hell am I?" Grey uttered, a deeply confused expression crossing his features.

He kept blinking, trying desperately to focus on his immediate surroundings.

Shuffle—!

Staring down at his body, he could see that he was wrapped in a soft, thick blanket.

The bed he lay upon was incredibly plush... and wide.

It was spacious enough to perhaps allow three people to lie on it comfortably without touching.

Looking up, he could see pristine white walls surrounding him, making it seem as if he were resting in a sanctuary of some sort.

The whole place looked quite sparse, save for a few paintings that lined the walls depicting various scenes ranging from ancient wars to strange, mythical creatures and whatnot.

To the side stood a mahogany shelf filled with different types of leather-bound books.

Rustle—!

A gentle breeze blew in from the side where a square window sat slightly ajar, the curtains drawn back just enough to let warm sunlight filter into the room.

"Where you are? Well, you are currently in Orion’s personal quarters within the Aetherian faction."

A voice suddenly replied, causing him to quickly spin around to stare at a fellow sitting on a wooden chair in the corner.

One arm was missing from the man’s body, and several unhealed, jagged cuts could be seen on the side of his neck.

A warm, tired smile sat on his face as his remaining hand rested on his lap.

"Oh. Leo," Grey uttered, heaving a massive sigh of relief until the words truly processed.

"... Wait! Did you just say that I’m in Orion’s personal quarters?!"

Leo chuckled, nodding along in genuine amusement.

"Yes, that’s exactly right."

Grey looked like he was about to explode with indignation.

"Then why the hell would you people put me in that bastard’s room and make me sleep on his bed?!"

Leo was taken aback, lifting a brow in curiosity.

"Eh? It’s just a room and a piece of furniture. There is no use attaching sentiments to it; they did you no harm. Besides, there’s a specific reason for this arrangement."

Grey frowned deeply.

"It’s not just a room; it’s my enemy’s inner sanctum. Who knows? He could have bugged the place in order to easily assassinate anyone that enters here."

Leo burst into a loud, boisterous laughter at the mage’s paranoid words.

"Haha! If that were true, then in the past three weeks of your slumber, you would have been dead ten times over."

"...."

There was a profound moment of silence as Grey blinked confusedly at the man’s statement.

"Er... I think I have a hearing problem."

"Hm?" Leo raised a brow.

"Yeah, because I could swear I heard you say that I slept for three weeks?"

It was Leo’s turn to blink in confusion for a second before he laughed aloud again.

"I mean, yeah. You slept for three whole weeks."

Grey threw the blanket away from his body in a panic.

"Three whole weeks?! And nobody thought it was right to wake me up on time? Anything could have happened in that time frame! My friends, where are they? What has been going on in this world since then? Wait... why didn’t anybody actually wake me up? Orion could have come back in that time fr—"

"Oh, will you relax! Stop yapping repeatedly; it’s making my ears bleed."

A snarky, familiar voice shouted directly into Grey’s mind, dripping with its usual brand of impatience.

’Huh? Noir?’

"What? Did you have someone else bound to your soul that I didn’t know about?" Noir replied with a mental huff, sounding perfectly unimpressed.

’Y... you are still alive?’

Grey was genuinely shocked, his eyes widening in pure, unadulterated surprise.

He had seen Orion deliver that devastating punch to the familiar’s head with his own eyes; he had watched the hybrid drive a fist of pure destruction into his companion.

So how?

How was Noir still alive and making snarky comments in the sanctuary of his mind?

"Well, of course, you fool. I’m a familiar. We don’t simply die, silly. Do you have any idea how many thousands of years I have lived for? We are basically immortal in the truest sense of the word.

Any attacks dealt to our physical forms will only destroy our temporary bodies. As long as we are bound to a capable mage, we can just return back to our own world in order to heal ourselves—which, admittedly, can take quite the time."

Noir paused for a fleeting moment before continuing his explanation:

"... That’s why we always look for powerful mages to link ourselves to; their essence helps our regeneration occur much faster.

And in my case, I got linked with the absolute best, so something that was supposed to take me three months of recovery only took three weeks.

Although I’m fully healed now, it will still take about a week or so more before I can be summoned outside into your world again."

Grey listened attentively, seemingly fascinated by the ancient knowledge the familiar was spouting.

Throughout the years they had spent together, Grey hadn’t even thought to ask about the mechanics of familiar immortality before.

How could he? He was always being occupied by tons of pressing issues.

He had spent his life jumping from one catastrophe to the next, so the biology of his companion hadn’t seemed important at the time.

Knowing finally that his familiar couldn’t truly die, Grey breathed a massive sigh of relief and slipped back into the plush bed, his posture finally relaxing.

Leo had been silently staring at the mage’s strange behavior without any interruption.

He watched the transition from the continuous yapping about why Grey hadn’t been woken up, to the sudden, frozen pause, and then the dramatic widening of his eyes before the boy grew deathly silent.

Leo was visibly confused but assumed it was merely a lingering after-effect of the trauma the mage had endured.

After all, the battle Grey had just survived was his hardest one yet, and he had been almost destroyed from the inside due to pushing past his absolute physical limits.

To the vice principal of the Aetherian Academy, this erratic behavior just seemed... normal for a survivor of such carnage.

Sighing, Grey rested his back against the bed’s ornate headboard, his eyes fixed on the middle distance as he demanded:

"Kindly fill me in on whatever I might have missed in those three weeks."