Whispers and murmurs could be heard among the recruits. The tension still hung heavy in the air.
How can we go on after this? the unspoken question echoes in the air.
Jaxon, along with Lena, were escorted back by a medic and a priestess to the back of the facility. Anyone who had already received the serum will and still Alive will passed the phase and will have to go the back of the facility to continue, their expressions display mixture of exhaustion and dumfounded to this almost unsettling calmness attitude, displayed by the military. The first batch of recruits, those who had undergone the procedure before the interruption, were also present, some looking dazed, others strangely invigorated, all of them were also escorted to the back of the facility.
She raised her voice, speaking to all the recruits present, in a calm, reassuring tone. “My children,” she began, her voice gentle yet powerful,
“I know that you have witnessed a disturbing event. Fear and doubt may cloud your hearts, you may afraid to push forward, but you must remember why you are here. You are here to help humanity, to face the unknown, to become heroes”
“Do not let the fear consume you. May the courage filled your heart, embrace it, and let it embrace you, as we all are will be blessed by Our Lord Aztoim”.
Jin, who had moved to the front of the line because of the incident, clenched his fist, his eyes filled with admiration for the priestess. Her words resonated with him, reinforcing his own sense of purpose.
The priestess’s voice traveled throughout the room, bringing a soothing calmness to all the recruits present. The tense atmosphere began to dissipate, replaced by the calm and serenity she exuded. The recruits’ resolve began to reappear. She clasped her hands together and began to pray, her voice soft and melodic.
Eric, who had been focusing his attention on the newly arrived priestess, paused in his thoughts, noticing something above her head. A faint, golden halo-like ring seemed to hover there. He wondered what it was, but the priestess’s prayer quickly drew his attention instead.
“O Our Lord, Aztoim, guide these souls who seek to conquer the unknown, your strength. Grant them courage in the face of fear, resilience in the face of adversity, and faith in the face of the unknown”
As the priestess prayed, a feeling of bliss washed over Eric. He closed his eyes slowly, responding to the feeling, his body relaxing. The image of the horrific event, or anything else that had been on his mind, faded away. He felt a profound sense of peace, a calmness he hadn’t experienced in years. The prayer seemed to guide him to a place where fear and doubt no longer existed. It was beautiful, like being in a calm savanna filled with flowers, where the breeze felt gentle against him. Then, as he still had his eyes closed, he heard a rustling sound. Instinctively, he opened his eyes again and looked toward the sound. There, he saw someone—a red-haired woman wearing a brown shirt under a lab coat, her hair tied back. Her face held a worried expression mixed with sadness. Her hand was placed on her chest as she said,
“Please, I’m sorry, Eric.”
“Please forgive me,” she said, starting to cry and tilting her face down. Eric just stood there, looking at her as the wind breezed past him.
The effect was similar for the other recruits. The priestess’s words and the serenity of her prayer had a profound impact. Whispers began to circulate, but now they were different.
“She’s right. We can do this.”
“We have to be strong.”
“For humanity.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“I will accept the serum.”
“I will become a hero.”
Despite the horrific scene they had just witnessed, the recruits, having their courage back up again by the priestess’s words, they shared the sense of peace, the resolve sparks again in their heart. Now many of them believed that if they accepted the serum, they too could overcome any challenge, any fear. They would prevail.
Eric opened his eyes again, bowing his head down for a second, then look up at the front again, noticing that the priestess that he saw before was missing, but he pays no mind to it and probably that just what the priestess supposed to do and after her role was done she just excuse herself out. On the screen Negi-chan smiled brightly and then proceed to announce the continuation of the injection phase.
“Okay!!! Everyone!! Have you keep up your spirit? Now we will continue to batch 2!!” she shouted, performing a cheerful pose.
The injection process resumed, proceeding smoothly this time. Almost everyone was successfully injected with the serum. Some recruits experienced minor side effects like headaches or nausea, but none were serious.
Jin’s batch was also completed. He thanked the medic and the priestess with high-spirited enthusiasm. “Thank you both! I’m ready to face whatever comes next!”
The medic, unfazed by Jin’s exuberance, simply said, “Move on.”
The priestess, however, appreciated Jin’s enthusiasm. “May Aztoim guide you”
Negi-chan’s avatar then popped up on the screen, addressing Jin directly. “Jin! You were amazing back there! Such bravery! Nyaa~!”
“It was nothing,” Jin replied, scratching his head sheepishly. “Just a reflex.”
Batch after batch was processed, and finally, it was Eric’s turn – Batch 7. He clenched his fists, trying to calm his nerves. He walked to the front of the stage, the medic asking him the standard questions.
“Name?”
“Eric Rossvolt.”
“Where are you from?”
“Roznia City.”
The medic recorded his answers on their tablet. Before the injection began, the priestess approached Eric, her expression gentle and reassuring.
“Mr. Rossvolt,” she said softly.
“Is there anything you would like me to pray for? I would gladly offer my help to ease your tension.”
Eric hesitated for a moment, then shook his head.
“Nothing,” he replied.
“I have nothing in particular. Thank you, ma’am.”
“Very well, Mr. Rossvolt” the priestess responded, and smiles for him.
She then clasped her hands together and began to pray in a low, melodic voice. “Aztoim, watch over this recruit as they embark on this journey. Grant them strength and courage, and guide them through the trials that lie ahead. May they find peace and purpose in your divine light.”
As the priestess prayed, Eric closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He focused on the sound of her voice, the rhythmic cadence of the prayer calming his nerves. He felt a momentary sense of peace, a brief respite from the anxiety that had been building inside him.
Then, the serum injection began. Eric’s heart pounded in his chest, his pupils dilated, his muscles tightened. He felt a wave of nausea, and his breath hitched. Seconds stretched into an eternity. His vision blurred, and his eyelids felt heavy. Slowly, he closed his eyes, feeling himself drifting away.
Suddenly, he found himself standing on a vast sea. He was standing on the water, an impossible feat. The scene surrounding him was immense, the sky above a star-studded, cloudless night. Not far from him, he saw a creature. It was humanoid in shape, but its skin was a deep, unsettling blue, and crystals grew from its body. It was humming, a low, mournful sound, like a cry. Eric was frozen, unable to move or speak, trapped in this surreal vision.
The blue-skinned creature, screeching, shaking, the creature face its head down, trembling in fear, and uttering unrecognizable sounds,
“Plrasr… Plrasr… Hrlp… Plrasr…”
Eric was still observing the creature, he did nothing, neither approaching it nor making a movement, his eyes fixated on the scene. Suddenly the creature lifts its head up to Eric’s direction, and then he saw it—its face. Surprisingly it was like a… Human, they exchange glance, the creature’s eyes are filled with deep blue dark color, the pupils covering almost all of the eye’s surface. Eric moved his head forward slightly narrowed his eyes for a second, and then returned to his original position. The creature moved its hand and mouth. Its left hand, shaking, with all the crystals embedded in its body, moved slowly and it felt heavy from Eric’s perspective. Its hand opened and seemed to be reaching out to Eric, and then it uttered something once again.
“Plrasr… Plrasr… Hrlp… Plrasr…”
Eric was surprised for a moment by this gesture. His hands tried to move forward to respond to the creature’s outstretched hand, but then he stopped and slowly retracted them. All of a sudden, the sea in which they were both standing began to shake. The water moved violently in every direction, causing large waves to appear. Eric nearly lost his balance. The creature continued to reach out its hand to Eric. Eric opened his hand again and began to move forward toward the creature, but then a roar came from below the water. Eric instinctively looked down. From the depths, a large shadow approached the surface. As Eric lifted his head again to face the creature, a wave separated them. The creature screeched again, this time louder.
“Plrasr… Plrasr… Hrlp… Plrasr…”
Then, from the depths, something enormous and blazingly fast approached the surface. The creature cried out, a sound of pure anguish. From below, something lunged upward, erupting tidal waves that sent the creature soaring into the sky. For a split second, before the wave hinder Eric’s view, he saw enormous jaws with colossal teeth. The creature screamed even louder; this time, he could clearly hear its plea—a plea for anything but help. But Eric was washed away by the wave, and a second later, something that had come from the depths was now visible.
It was an impossibly large body stretching from the sea to the soaring, starry skies. It was like a serpent; its scales were a deep, jade-like blue, reflecting the light from the scene. Its head was massive, and its eyes shined bright red, radiating an aura of immense power, a primal force that seemed to warp and tense the very air around it. The creature clearly is going to get devour by this serpent, Eric still standing from far from them, the creature still reaching out to him. This is it, the creature is going to get devoured by the serpent, this is it this is the
“Acceptance”
You must accept the fate, the voices echoes in Eric’s mind, as the time moves slowly, while he’s looking at the scene, then his old life, his past flashed before his eyes.
It was back when I was working as a research assistant at the academy. There was this girl, Ilsa. She had beautiful red hair tied back, and she liked to wear her lab coat—she thought we scholars were supposed to show our identity upfront. She was cheerful, too. Her work on campus was also as an assistant, but she worked under a professor rather than for the campus itself. We often talked and had conversations because we shared the same break time. She often told me interesting things about dreams and the inner mind. She said that on Earth-2, scientists had discovered that you could alter the outcome of mind-bending or mind-affecting phenomena by changing your mindset with your own suggestions and beliefs—that you could literally change everything that happened to you mentally. I argued with her about it.
“Well even if we could alter it, what would it be useful for?” I was trying to be skeptical about the idea.
“It could theoretically, protect us from, you know mind eater or mind-altering substance or to cope the pain… From something we want to forget” Ilsa replied with her enthusiasm.
“Hahaha, well I don’t know about which one is more wilder, your theory or your imagination” I had chuckles when she utter her respond.
“Well, better be prepared right? Is not like this planet is safe anyway! So this research may prove useful”
“True, true, well, you could teach me the trick if you were so inclined”
“Sure, meet me after you‘ve done with your work, we will try experimenting with the method to increase your mental fortitude, so you would actually see it in action rather than just take my words for it” said her in confidence.
“Alright” said me to her with no expectation whatsoever.
We would conduct experiments to enhance my mental fortitude almost everyday by having me control my dreams. According to her research and a paper she’d gotten from Earth-2 (published by the scientists there), this would be the first step toward controlling one’s mental state. At first, I thought it was a bunch of nonsense, but after a month, I started to feel something different about how I perceived my dreams. I could control them just as she’d described; I could make anything happen that I wanted and desired. Now, I started taking this experiment seriously.
“I couldn’t believe this is actually working, did you already test it to yourself before?” I asked Ilsa.
“Of course, fufufu, I was league ahead of you!” said her smirking while making this show off smiles.
“Alright what’s next then?”
“Well next would be bypassing the hypnosis phase, i would be able to hypnotize you by planting seeds of belief first tho”
“Alright sure, let’s go”
For the next two months, she would try to hypnotize me, and I would succumb and then break free from within. This proved difficult for me, as I had mastered it, but it took more time than before. However, after I mastered this aspect, I would break free from the hypnosis easily, even if I was initially caught.
“Well, Well, Well, I have to say you got me on this, you proved me wrong, I’d say you have my thanks for that” I said to her to admit my defeat and scepticism toward her research.
“Fufufu, you should be grateful ahahaha!” she laugh.
“So what’s next?” asked be curiously to her.
“Well, next is that you just have to applied this two when you being controlled with something that messing your brain, basically you have to hypnotized yourself and then control your own inner thought just like you control dream and then break apart anything that want to control you, tho i don’t exactly have anything in hand right now to test it out, but if we followed the research paper, by doing that you should be good, you even could hypnotized yourself to do something unbelievable in reality, if you could project your inner thought and make your inner domain be your own body. Well at least that’s what it says on the paper”
“Sounds interesting, I’ll keep in mind, let me treat you for a meal, after all you’ve done, as my thanks”
“Now that’s some gratitude you showing! Hehehe I’ll take your offer”
After that, we’d chat here and there again if we met during our break time at the academy. She was in the research department focused on the mind, and I was in the department of philosophy and metaphysics—a field many at the time argued was a waste of money. But hey, I got free money and free knowledge, so I wasn’t complaining. Ilsa was usually with her professor, the famous Hugo Kaelion. And yeah, he was a noble. I don’t know why a noble would come to Earth-1 just to teach at this planet’s university. Ilsa was particularly close with Hugo; she would praise him often when we talked and discuss his research, mentioning how she’d get the Earth-2 papers from him. Now that made sense of how she could obtain those papers in the first place.
Months after the experiments we did together, I still saw her around, but the frequency was a bit less than usual. Soon after, it started to become rarer. I would only see her passing my department like once a week, her face drawn and tired, like she’d overworked herself. I would try to catch up with her and ask if we could discuss things sometime again, but to no avail; she kept avoiding me. After a while, I finally met her in the campus corridor. It seemed she hadn’t expected this encounter either; she seemed surprised to see me, kind of weird, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time. So, I approached her and asked…
“Uh hey? You’ve been avoiding me all this time? What’s happening? Are you doing well? You seems to overworked yourself? Wanna talk?”