Chapter 195 Chapter 195:A Series Of Misfortune[2]
"What should I do?"
"Should I get myself involved in this madness?''Frederick squinted his eyes, staring at the black-robbed figures blocked by the four seniors.
These four people were able to block 20 6-Star by themselves. One has to acknowledge their strength but there is always a chance of a mishap.
Few students had already crossed the threshold barrier to the safe zone. Frederick, who stood there, had to act as doorman for them.
As Frederick fell into deep contemplation, he heard a shout of his name from afar.
"Frederick, those bastards are doing a ritual. We need to disrupt that."
Frederick raised his chin and saw Parth shouting while crawling out from a small rift pulled by Axel.
"Ritual....What Ritual...Where?"Frederick almost jumped on his feet and asked with a solemn voice.
The Dark Church by themselves are already a headache but they are feared more because of the forbidden rituals for calling Evil God and spirit by sacrificing lives.
Frederick panicked and turned his gaze.
Smoke and dust covered his vision, making it difficult for him to get a clear glimpse.
"It's there."Parth pointed his hand while coughing out the dust and smoke.
Frederick strolled forward and reached near Parth to stare around.
After a moment, his gaze landed on a group forming a circle.
"Fuck...These bastards."
"Lucas is already planning to do something," Axel exclaimed.
"Okay, I will try to help. Meanwhile, here take this token and help everyone to get inside.
Frederick muttered darting forward but he had hardly taken a few steps when a blinding green flash covered his vision which was followed by loud laughter and sneers aimed at him.
"Filthy blood."
"Son of a whore."
"His mother is a slut who seduced a Duke."
"Let me tell you, he will surely be a playboy cheating bastard when he grows up."
"What a disgusting creature. If I was Duke, I would have strangled him at his birth instead of letting him live and stain the name of my family."
"He will surely sink the name of Frost."
"Dirty...Dirty....Totally dirty and vile creature."
Frederick, who stood there stiffly, after hearing those words, the memories that were buried deep inside his mind, exploded piercing through the dark veil with a grunted angry voice.
"These bastards!"
...
"You are weak."
"You can't defeat me."
"Your petty tricks won't work on me."
"A loser will forever be a loser."
"No matter how much you try, you can never defeat me."
A hoarse cold yet familiar voice echoed in his ear.
"Fr...Frederick.."
Charles' feet which were running towards the safe zone suddenly came to stand still, becoming petrified all of sudden.
The last thing he remembered was a green smoke covering his vision.
His body froze and his pupils contracted.
The world around him became blurred and pitch-dark.
Gentle steps resounded and from the pitch black darkness, several images appeared in his sight.
Charles frowned seeing many Fredericks walking around him and started whispering loudly.
"What happens to your pride?"
"Weren't you being too haughty before? Now you are not much different from a licking dog."
"A mere dog."
"Your parents should be ashamed of giving birth to someone like you."
"You are a big stain on Warren's family."
"You are a stain that destroys the honour of nobility."
"In the end, you are the same as me. Just filthy blood that stains the very essence of nobility."
Mocking sounds rang one after another in his ear.
'Am I really a stain?'
'Yes, what happened to me?'
'How did I fell so low?'
'These disgusting ants dare to bark by staring into my eyes.'
'I should kill these insects.'
Charles's mind started clouding and his lips curled up with a sinister smile similar to his old villainous days.
Charles looked down and saw a female Frederick in his arms who was sneering at him.
"You are nothing in front of me."
His first reaction was to throw away Frederick in his arms who kept taunting but his action froze in the middle.
The cloudiness in his eyes started to disappear as the figure of the purple-haired girl flashed in his vision.
With his breathing hastening, his chest rose up and down with a bizarre uncomfortable feeling.
'Wasn't I carrying Tiffany?'
Gaining back his sanity, Charles roared with anger, being fed up with this bullshit.
"Shut up!"
"Do you think you can trick me with a few words?"
As if stirred by something, the blurry space disappears and Charles, due to his clear-headedness, manages to overcome the illusion.
Seeing everything returning to normal, Charles heaved in relief and looked down at Tiffany in his arms only to be bewildered out of his wits.
The stoic-looking Tiffany in his arms was nowhere to be seen.
"Please....don't tell everyone about this...Please keep it a secret."
"People will laugh at my bloodline powers."
Seeing the frail and shivering girls with teary eyes, Charles's heart stirred and melted for a moment but hearing her words and guessing the illusion she was going through, Charles's lips twitched.
"Isn't this girl mentality too weak?"
"What's the problem if others know your bloodline ability? Many don't even have that."
Charles decided to leave her for now and wake her up inside the safe zone so that he can have a pleasant talk with her.
Charles upon glancing around was stupefied seeing someone jumping like monkeys, some crying and some shivering in fear while rolling on the floor.
Meanwhile, a group of ghouls were slowly approaching them, seeing which his eyes were almost popping out of their sockets.
"Shit!"
Charles screamed and just as he took a step, another illusion hit him leaving him speechless.
"Now what the fuck is this?"
Charles shouted seeing his parents' faces this time.
...
Far away from the group performing a ritual, emerging behind a big rock, Lucas slid his head to observe them.
"I am almost 200 metres away from them."
Murmuring faintly, Lucas pulled out the ring given by Luna and wore the locket given to him by the Vice President.
With extra life and a locket to save him from the attacks, Lucas was quite confident of his survival.
If he can't get out of here alive, then no one could because he might be one of the countable few people in this world who has extra life in his hands.
"I can put my hopes on Frederick. I need to do something. Julian is enough to halt Calvin. If that old man tries to kill her the safety magic and protector golems would activate. So the biggest risk is this magical circle. Only God knows who they are going to summon. Even if an evil spirit clone descends then except me everyone is done for."
Just because he had an extra life, it didn't mean he could just throw it away.
If possible he wanted to try to hit first instead of waiting for the situation to become dire.
Lucas was waiting for them to start the ritual and in the middle of the chant just when they would offer a sacrifice, he would throw the bombs in his arsenal to disrupt the magical circle.
That would also cause them to suffer a backlash and the magic circle may explode, killing them, and preventing a worse-case scenario.
The next thing he needed to do was to take that Blood Chalice that was floating in the middle near that man named Calvin.
"The blacksmith who made must be a suicidal psychopath with a weird fetish."
It was an evil artifact that kills the owner itself so he wasn't an idiot to touch it. As it is in its activated state.
So, to transfer the ownership and free this restricted space, you just need to beat someone until half dead and make that guy touch it.
After that, kill the person and the artifact will enter into a deactivated state and lose its blood colour, becoming safe for normal touch.
"Okay, I will hide here and find a suitable opportunity. I will throw the bombs and smoke screen from afar and then run away."
"Once that geezer's attention is drawn, I will think of a way to communicate with Julian about Chalice or relay this information to someone."
Lucas who formulated the plan and watched to and fro before the act, suddenly closed his eyes due to the influx of bright light.
"What the hell happened now?"
On opening his eyes again, he found himself in the dark empty space.
'An illusion.'
'Has the illusion already started?'
Darkness.
It's the only thing Lucas could think of seeing the dark space.
His first thought was to step out by using the ring gifted to him by Luna but on a second note he remembered that ring would directly pull him out once the illusion started affecting him.
Until then, he needs to keep calm.
Illusion often targets the weakness of mentality and the inner fear you have.
Once it resurfaces a person might find it hard to suppress that fear.
As Lucas walked further into the dark, the space slowly started disrupting and turning bloody.
It was then everything became hazy and crimson.
He slowly found himself sinking into a pool of blood.
His body, which was stranded in blood, suddenly heard a loud sob that made his hair stand up.
"You are not my son.''
"Mom!"
A scream full of panic erupted from his lips subconsciously.
Then as if a haze had been lifted, a figure of crimson-haired woman holding onto a bloodied disfigured person appeared in his vision.
"You killed him."
"What?"
A drowning sense of uneasiness weighed upon Lucas clutching his heart tightly.
It was then, that the woman who looked like his mother lifted her chin with a face soaked in blood tears that burst out from her eyes.
"You killed my precious son."
"You are a sinner."
"You deceived me, them and everyone in the world. Wearing the mask of my son, you played with us without feeling a single regret!"
Following her voice, a wrinkled man with a similar face to his father appears.
"Why did you kill my son?"
"No, I didn't."
Lucas's words struck his chest as everything his mother said stabbed his heart like an arrow.
"You did. You killed my precious child and took over his face pretending to be him. You took advantage of our love for him."
"Not only snatch his place, you took everything that belonged to my son."
"His power, his friends, his glory and his love."
"All of this you have now belonged to my son.''
The woman's roar sends tremors inside Lucas's body making his mind and vision blur.
"You are not the Lucas I know. You are an imposter!!"
It was then Julian's icy cold voice resounded who stared at him coldly giving him a disgusted look.
"You are not my friend. You are someone else. Where is Lucas?"
Following that voice, Roan, Parth, Frederick and many other familiar faces started cornering him and pointing fingers at him.
That heart-tearing-wrenching sound of the woman who not only had a similar face to the mother of his past life but also had the same voice and demeanor made him feel guilty.
........
My mind was almost blown away by the countless blames and swears pouring inside my ears.
At that moment, I could feel my sinking deeper into my guilt.
The questions that I had never asked myself or that I have suppressed deep inside my heart started to resurface.
What happened to the original Lucas?
Did I really kill him?
So, what happened to his soul?
Did I steal his face?
What if this whole thing is fake?
As I looked down, I was surprised to see the face reflected in the blood pool.
The face had an expression of shock, pain, guilt, anger, and loneliness with tears oozing out from its eyes.
I..I never knew that I could make such an expression that looked as if I had lost everything.
There is an emptiness that makes me feel that I don't belong to this world no matter how much I deceive myself.
At the end of the day, I am an otherworldly individual and one day all the things I have might disappear and this identity of Lucas that I have worked hard to accept may be taken away.
Everything that I hold dear in my heart might be snatched away from me forcefully, leaving behind the powerless and helpless ordinary boy named Roy who could neither resist the impending death nor avert the cruel fate that might lay ahead.