Darian's eyes locked onto the center of it all...
"Lucy... Lucius..."
There were his younger siblings—scarily thin, dirty—but to his shock, both were floating a few inches above the floor, their hands tightly clasped together.
Their bodies were radiating a blinding blue light, like two miniature suns. That same glowing force, the one capable of bending reality and triggering the impossible… it was swirling around them, slowly sinking into their bodies.
"It was... both of them who awakened..." he muttered, his voice shaky as he tried to process the scene.
All around them, four figures lay on the ground. Rhea's blessing was wrapping around their bodies, which trembled nonstop, like something invisible and crushing was pressing down on them.
Darian narrowed his eyes.
Rhea hadn't known who exactly awakened, so she told him to go in and grab his siblings fast. But now that it was them causing all this, there was no point in trying to move them.
He clenched his fists. Seeing all that power surrounding his siblings made him remember why that energy had felt familiar.
His gaze shifted to the people on the floor.
"Great... nothing's changed. Just made me more motivated." A bloody light flickered in his red eyes.
Darian rushed deeper into the room and saw blades, chains, and torture tools scattered all over. It was obvious this wasn't a place where his siblings were being taken care of.
"Sons of bitches!" he roared, grabbing two blades. Then he turned toward the people on the ground, not a shred of mercy in his face.
Sadly, there was no time to waste. He struck one of them in the chest, stabbing through the heart without hesitation.
That one was a woman—the only one there—and the one with the heaviest karma. He'd attacked her from behind while she was down, and a muffled scream of pain echoed… but it didn't last long.
Darian took a deep breath, feeling a dense, nasty energy flowing into him from her. His power was finally back.
He moved his hand, and one of the blades became coated in a dark aura.
*Slash!*
With a clean motion, one of the enemies was sliced in half with a blade just a bit bigger than a kitchen knife.
In seconds, he finished off everyone in the room and absorbed each of their karmas.
"Twenty-eight left," he muttered, turning around and walking out.
With his power, he could sense exactly where everyone else was. Darian practically leapt down the stairs without a second thought. His enhanced body could take the hits without his bones breaking.
*Slash!*
In one room, he found five people.
*Slash!*
In another, eight.
Three minutes passed, and Rhea's blessing started to slowly fade. At the same time...
*Slash!*
*Slash!*
*Slash!*
A bloodbath unfolded, fueled by rage and hate.
That building had been abandoned long ago. Five floors, used as temporary housing, and only two rooms per floor had been fixed up—each one crammed with people.
With everyone down and paralyzed, and his enhanced body, Darian cleared each floor in under a minute.
By the time it was all over, Rhea was exhausted—completely drained—and tense, not understanding why Darian hadn't come out yet.
Right then, Darian stepped back into the room where the twins were.
They were still floating, one holding the other's hand.
*Crash!*
The whole building started to shake with a terrifying sound. The twins had fully resumed their ancestral awakening. The power surrounding them was spinning, creating physical cracks not just in the building, but in space itself—thin web-like fractures spreading all around them.
Darian took a deep breath, then jumped toward the twins.
Right then, Rhea burst through the window, spotting the true source of everything. She jumped in shock when she saw Darian charging in.
"NO!" she screamed, panicking.
That energy surrounding the two was the purest and most terrifying kind—capable of distorting and destroying everything. What a Spiritual Guardian used was just a tiny leftover trace of that force, one that fused into their body. Throwing yourself into something like that was straight-up suicide.
Darian snorted in midair. With a thought, the two rings on his wrists lit up to their max, surging with power. He reached out his hand toward the twins.
Now that he had evolved so much and recovered his full power, seeing Rhea use her blessing was the first time he actually recognized the power of the world's laws. But when he looked at his siblings, he remembered...
That bluish energy surrounding them—it was the same power he used when he connected to Niara's soul in the dungeon, after she was already dead. That moment, he realized, had triggered everything afterward. (Chapter 4)
His rings... they could actually manipulate, and maybe even create a bit of that energy.
His hands touched the energy around the twins.
From the window, Rhea's eyes went wide.
But...
Nothing happened.
Darian stayed still in the air, like he was synced up with that energy.
"What... the hell..." Rhea couldn't even think straight. She could barely believe what she was seeing.
Darian, meanwhile, had his eyes closed, fully focused. He could feel that power. He tried to control it—but couldn't.
Still, he noticed something: the energy wasn't wild or chaotic. It had a clear purpose, like it had a will… or a mission. To fuse with those two.
Darian changed his approach. He gently tried to guide that force into his siblings.
Success.
That power had a goal, and nothing could change it—but if he did something that helped it, it would move exactly how he wanted.
A few minutes later, Rhea noticed everything had calmed down.
All the phenomena vanished. That massive power was gone.
She let out a breath, like she'd finally understood what just happened.
At the same time...
*Crack*
A muffled sound echoed. It came from Darian's fists.
'My rings... they broke?!' His eyes widened.
But...
Then he felt it. The broken pieces of the rings started to rearrange themselves around his wrists. And just after, a portion of the world-law energy drifted from the twins and flowed into the rings.
Within seconds, the two rings reformed. But they were different now.
'They look... bigger... did I evolve them?'
Darian thought, stunned. By using that power, he'd pushed the rings to their absolute limit, dumping everything he had into them. He'd never done that before. And now, he'd just discovered something new.
As for the twins...
Their bodies were glowing with a light of their own. Everything had disappeared. Darian landed gently and held them in his arms.
'I think I did it right... fused everything into them the softest way I could...'
"You... got so damn lucky, you little bastard," Rhea's irritated voice rang out. She still looked half in disbelief as she walked in. "A small fraction of the world's power fuses with the awakened one, then vanishes. So they'd already absorbed it all and it dispersed without causing damage… you almost killed yourself..."
Darian held his breath hearing that.
'Wait... it was supposed to be just a bit? But I pushed everything into them... eh, whatever.'
That's when she saw the floor covered in blood and guts.
She stared him in the eyes. That red glare still radiated a cold, bloodthirsty feeling.
Rhea sighed. He was reckless... but when it came to protecting someone, he'd go all in, no matter the cost. Good people existed—but the ones willing to die for someone else? Those were rare as hell.
She stepped closer to them.
The twins were deeply asleep, still holding each other's hands. Darian gently supported them, his face finally relaxed.
Their eyelids trembled, like they could feel he was there, and wanted to wake up just to see him.
"I'm back... sleep, it's gonna be okay," he murmured softly.
And with that, they both completely relaxed.
Rhea swallowed hard. Just moments ago, he looked like a full-on maniac. Now, he radiated this overwhelming calm and warmth...
Which one of those was the real him?