The Astral soul system-Chapter 160: A long night

The rain fell heavily on the cool autumn night. The skies although barely cloudy, were completely wild.as faint lightning and loud claps of thunder filled the atmosphere of the silent town,or at least it would be silent if it wasn’t for a riot. Somewhere along the edges an unnaturally large group had gathered and it seemed to be quite the commotion.

As one got closer to the center,the screams got louder and wilder but also more clear.

"Kill it!"

"Monster!"

"It’s going to kill us all if we let it live"

"Demon! Don’t let it’s face deceive you. It’s here to destroy us all"

At the center of all the commotion was, surprisingly,a young boy, nowhere near old enough to be an adult. His body was covered in bruises and bumps as the people closest to him in the crowd kicked and stepped on him, specifically his hand which had a certain mark on it that the people seemed to detest.

The boy coughed blood, looking like he’d given up on resisting and just took the hits, strangely enough although blood filled his eyes,tears wouldn’t.

One man suddenly grabbed him by his collar, pulling him up to face him. The boy staggered to his feet, seemingly unable to even stand on his own.

"You...You...THING!"

The man said after some deliberation, unable to find a more fitting word to describe the abhorrent abomination in front of him.

"What was your plan huh? Come here,rob us blind, burn our town down,and kill our kids while you force us to watch,or maybe even the other way around, that sounds like the thing you monsters would do"

The boy groaned, his eyes vacant . It was uncertain whether he could even hear any of them. His lips parted as he tried to speak, but his throat had been stomped on and kicked a few times and he could only wheeze while blood dripped helplessly from his mouth.

The man snarled,the crowd around him growing rowdier.

"Don’t talk to it"

"Just kill the accursed thing already"

"KILL IT!"

"KILL IT!"

"KILL IT"

The man’s fingers suddenly grew into metallic claw like protrusions.

He pointed them towards the boy’s right hand, specifically the mark on the back of it.

"First, I’ll cut off the root of your evil and then the rest of your body , before we burn it and throw the ashes into a pond somewhere"

Hearing that seemed to bring some more life into the boy as he coughed, wheezing out.

"I..."

"Hmm? Last words? Don’t bother begging for mercy"

The boy seemed to still have some difficulty but still forced out.

"I... I’m just a kid too"

"..."

"I’m... just a kid... right?"

He asked, looking at the man with a pitiful look, his eyes bloody and looking like he could only keep them open for a few more seconds.

The man looked like he’d just been insulted to his face as he yelled.

"DO WE LOOK STUPID TO YOU?!"

In a blind rage, he thrust his razor sharp fingers into the boy’s throat.

Seeing the incoming threat, the boy couldn’t even react, his eyes blurry as he could only forcefully mutter

"Mom-"

Squelch

"AAAAHHHH!!!!"

The man suddenly screamed as a silver light flashed for barely a second, and both his hand suddenly fell lifelessly to the ground , offering up no resistance despite their metallic state and dropping the boy back onto the ground.

"H-how?!"

The man angrily looked at the boy on the floor but he suddenly noticed something else,a pair of white metal shoes.

Looking up he was stunned to see a figure in blinding full plated silver armor standing there silently, looking at him.

At that very moment, the clouds above seemed to disperse to reveal the silver moon, the light shining directly on the silver armour , making it seem even more majestic as it’s pure white cape billowed in a wind that seemed to come out of nowhere.

"W-who are you? You’re protecting that thing?"

The figure didn’t reply, simply stepping forward, between the boy and the crowd.

"S-sil-"

The boy called out,too injured to even finish speaking

Turning to face the boy, the figure suddenly bent on one knee, allowing the crowd to see the same mark on the cape.

The figure extended a hand onto the boys hair before pulling away. Suddenly ripping off it’s cape,the figure draped it over the boy before turning to face the crowd, unsheathing it’s sword.

"You see that boy?"

A familiar but distant male voice spoke from behind the boy.

"This is all these things that call themselves human are. This is the extent of their sympathy, and to a child nonetheless"

By this point, the boy could hear screams of terror and helplessness as well as the thud of a body every second but he couldn’t even react, his eyes were barely open.

The male voice chuckled and spoke

"Whenever you feel the disgusting urge to show mercy, remember, this is the mercy you were shown, and will always be shown"

The boy at this point couldn’t hear anything, but he still saw the faint blur of a silver silhouette lean down to pick him up, still completely spotless. The voices of the villagers where now gone,in fact, there was no sound at all.

*********

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"Mur...der....er!"

His eyes suddenly burst open and he dropped out of his bed, panting like he’d just ran a marathon.

Theia suddenly appeared in front of him with a clock in her hand

"Five minutes and twenty three seconds. That’s a new record " 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

He sighed, getting up and making his way towards the bathroom.

"Um...are you okay?"

Theia asked following him.

He didn’t react, walking up to the mirror, looking at his body. He suddenly took off his shirt and just stared at his toned and firm body, looking like he was analysing everything about it.

"Um...hello? Are you okay?" Theia asked again

"Did i say somethi-"

"It’s pretty jarring isn’t it?"

"Huh?"

He suddenly put his hand on his chest

"I never get any scars, even before the system,my wounds all just seemed to... disappear after a while"

"I guess"

A slight smile suddenly formed on Z....Z.... wait a minute? Who was this?

His eyes suddenly widened as he realized,he didn’t know.

"W...which one....who am...aaargh!!!"

He suddenly grabbed his head with both hands like he was in pain, almost falling to the floor.

Theia immediately panicked, yelling, asking what was wrong and trying to get a reaction out of him since that was unfortunately all she could do.

.....

.....

.....

"Ugh!"

"A-are you okay?"

"Yeah. Sorry about that. Just had a headache i guess"

Zyro replied with his signature smile.

"Guys,did you feel that?" He asked the other two and although he was only half joking, he was suprised when

"Yeah"

"..."

Zyro blinked, looking confused

"Ugh, how did i get in the bathroom? I guess i must have zoned out"

"Zyro, how do you feel?"

Theia suddenly asked

"Huh? What kind of question is that?"

Zyro opened his status page

[HP: 200/200]

"Yeah,i feel fine"

He said after looking at his stats

"I guess I was just a bit tired from all the mental gymnastics i had to pull off yesterday.

Zyro said, remembering how their latest blood heist started.

Everything had just gone wrong. First of all, he’d messed up the timing and Elaine was already in the infirmary when he got there despite how late it was. Plus,so were a lot of other people because of the disaster he’d ended up causing in Keith’s place, unwittingly mobilizing the medical unit of the school. The disturbance had also gotten security on edge since a student got stabbed and was for some reason found in some bushes (Keith’s work), making things more difficult for him.

Plus, Lilith’s disappointed yelling and scolding the whole time didn’t make it any easier for him . He’d still managed though, somehow.

"Okay then. How about we go back to running the sin heart flame"

"Alright,let me just freshen up first. I could use a shower "

He took off the rest of his clothes and was about to start running the water when the door suddenly opened and Max walked in.

The two locked eyes and just stared for a few seconds before Maximilian suddenly turned away, embarrassed,covering his eyes

"Geez,man. You could have just locked the door. What the hell?!"

"Yeah, sorry. I forgot. Wait, shouldn’t you have noticed, don’t you have like super senses or something?"

Zyro asked, not as affected by this as Maximilian

"I don’t keep my ability active all the time, and i thought you’d already gone out for a run or something "

Max answered, his hands still on his eyes

"Ugh, forget it. I’ll use it when you’re done "

Maximilian was about to leave when Zyro stopped him

"Well i don’t mind. Besides, I’m gonna be in for a long time,so if it’s urgent you can just go,i won’t bother you."

Maximilian looked like he was considering it for a while before he sighed defeatedly and walked in, trying his best to look away from Zyro, which was pointless since he’d already seen him completely.

"I don’t know why you’re so shy about this. Aren’t we roommates?"

Maximilian rolled his eyes and didn’t reply, just finishing as quick as possible and leaving in less than a second

"Wait, you didn’t wash your hands"

Maximilian paused and almost facepalmed before remembering and just did it defeatedly before leaving.

Zyro was still a bit confused but didn’t think too long about it and started running the water for his shower.

"You know,you can’t keep doing this"

Theia suddenly said.

"Huh?"

"Why don’t you sleep. You still haven’t told me. You’ve been going night owl for the past two weeks and it looks like it’s finally catching up to you. You actually dozed off today"

"Oh... it’s nothing serious "

Theia didn’t press further but warned

"Look,as an Astral, your body naturally doesn’t need many basic things as much as humans do. Like food, water,sleep or even healing. But, you’re still relative weak. You’ll hit your limit eventually "

"..."

"How did you manage before?"

Zyro sighed

"Zen. He could... handle it "

"Oh..."

Hearing that, Theia didn’t continue the conversation, knowing it would lead nowhere. Her clothes just disappeared ,replaced with a simple towel and she sat down on Zyro’s head, directly under the streaming water

Fifteen minutes later he was out, putting on his old casual clothes, he came out and was suprised to see Maximilian sitting on his bed.

"Hmmm?"

"It’s still a few hours till dawn, I’m guessing you’re not sleeping, and I’m honestly not feeling too tired. Thought you might like some company"

Zyro was a bit surprised but he didn’t really mind. He was originally going to run the sin heart flame technique a few times but he didn’t mind some company instead.

He sat down next to Maximilian and the two just started talking about random things, mostly their experiences in the academy.

A few minutes passed when Zen suddenly felt more pressure on his bed. He looked to his left and saw Xavier sitting.

"Xavier? Weren’t you..."

"How can anyone sleep with all your yapping?

At least let me in on this.

A half hour later, Xavier convinced them to play one of his online games and about thirty minutes later

"What’s going on?"

Neo’s head peeked down from his bunk.

"Just shut up and get in here"

Neo shrugged, leaning down lower to see what they were doing .

This was going to be a long night