NOTE: Due to the contract being rejected, I am dropping this novel. I will be posting the rest of the chapters I had written, but they will not be refined, or polished/fixed. If I find enough motivation, or the story gains some attention, I will come back to it. Otherwise, I'll be writing something else.
His head turned over to Jason, who lay idly on his bed, arm under his head as he stared at the ceiling.
"What's the point of living if I can't feel emotion? To be truly alive like everyone else?"
Jason raised his eyebrows as he turned his gaze to Agnus, who sat in the bed to his side, his blue eyes staring into Jason.
Jason used his hands to push himself up, resting his back against the headboard. He sat in his thoughts for a second, but he couldn't draw up much.
"You are alive, Agnus. Just physically. I'm sorry this happened to you. I can't imagine living without emotion as much as you imagine living with emotion, so I can't say anything to change how you think. In some cases, it's better. You aren't swayed by fear or worry. You'll run headfirst into any battle without any qualms of dying. Nervousness won't make you mess up; you'll be fighting how exactly you always do."
Agnus stared back as he replied instantly, "I think everything I do is to fight. It's the truth of the world. The weak die, and the strong survive. But the people we saw today, they weren't training or fighting. They were having the time of their lives walking around the streets. I think I'd want to feel that."
Jason clicked his tongue and rolled his head over with a smile, "There you go. That's something."
Agnus re-enacted the curious eyebrow lift that Jason regularly does, although... Much more unsettling.
He chuckled in response before speaking again, "Wanting is a brain's way of telling you what you like, normally at least. For you, it is a necessity, or something that will be useful to you in the future. Even if you can't feel the emotions we do, your mind has a way of re-enacting them.
Remember that time you finally mastered Mana Enhancement, and you said, 'That's nice.'?
Saying something nice is an expression of joy. Wielding my sword feels nice in my hand. I'd be happy using it. Your mind forms the thought for you, even if you don't feel it. Your brain can feel them, but you, as a soul, can't.
Think of it like this, Agnus. The Runes of Emotions on your soul doesn't completely stop emotions; It's a suppressor.
It makes it so that you cannot feel or express them, but nothing can stop the brain unless it is destroyed. They're merely waiting inside of your brain until something great enough happens to finally break that threshold, and it'll all impact you at once.
Now let me ask you something. What do you feel when you think of the Pillars responsible for the situation your father is in?"
Agnus thought about it instantly and came up with his answer.
"I feel like they're evil."
"There. Right there, Agnus. You feel that they're evil.
Your brain is feeling it, but it's not letting you sense it. It's as if your brain is cutting off the solution and all of the tactics you used to solve the problem, and giving you only the answer.
You feel that they're evil, you know it's evil. Do you understand?" Jason finished speaking, a soft, genuine smile curving his lips.
Agnus stared, in his mind were thoughts that he never considered before.
'The emotions are in me, I just can't sense them?'
His thoughts ran on endlessly before he naturally succumbed to the whispers of sleep, letting his mind rest.
Jason lay there awake; he did not need to sleep as an Emperor. He only had to rest once a month, and other times he appears asleep; His mind is in a half-state of sleep and wakefulness.
He can still hear everything and register it in his mind.
Jason only does it to pass the time, but it was a perk Emperors gained. It allowed them to be alert while giving their mind some rest.
—
Three hours later, Jason still lay in his state of half-consciousness, his mana sense coating the entire room and the hallway throughout.
An action that finally elicited him to fully wake up arrived as three men walked down the hall quietly, their footsteps not making a single sound. He sprang up and tapped Agnus three times on the shoulder quickly, only moving away after Agnus opened his eyes and understood.
Agnus quickly lowered himself to the ground and pulled out a pair of swords and a dagger. His flexibility was too much of a boon not use two weapons, and he became fully ambidexterous in just two weeks of training.
Jason grimaced as another mana signature entered his range, outside his window, attached to the wall. 'Pincer attack, Agnus will have to fight him.' His mana sense was attached to the bodies, but he couldn't discern an aura from them.
If they were truly attackers and were able to hide their aura from an Emperor-tiered warrior, they were at minimum a King-tier.
Unless they were utilizing aura-suppressing pills, but Jason never excluded the possibility.
Jason caught Agnus's attention and pointed his index finger to the window, then raised his hand upward and lifted up one finger, signalling that there was only one.
Agnus nodded and hid on the same side as the attacker, concealing himself.
'If they're King-tier, I won't be able to beat them if they're trained. I'd have to switch.'
Jason remained at the peak ascendant tier, just so he didn't catch too much attention. The only downside to permitting yourself to lower-tier power was the fact that for a small quarter of a second, their full power would be unleashed, and an Emperor's aura was far more dreading than that of a King.
If he had to go to that length, he would need to kill every single one. If word got out he was an Emperor, mere assassinations were the least of their problems. It would be twisted into full-blown assaults.
Emperors weren't just under the Heretic rule; each Pillar had their own that were loyal to them.
He could kill two, maybe three Emperors by himself, but anything past that was a wild gamble that did not favor him.
The room they were in was spacious, but not enough to contain a fight consisting of 6 people. Things were going to get hectic, whether confined inside the room or the corridors outside. The latter was the last thing Jason wanted to happen.
The men made their way to the door, standing just outside.
Two stood on each side of the door, one directly in the middle.
He calmly waited, patient and unmoving.
*Knock Knock*
Silence came after, and no action was taken.
That was until Jason felt a slight prickle in his mind, an obvious sign of someones mana overlapping his body.
"They know." He called out.
The man stationed on the wall closest to Jason stepped back, recoiling his sword before jabbing it straight through the wall where Jason's head once was.
The door busted open, flying straight off the hinges as two men quickly rushed through, the other retracting his sword from the wall.
Two blades pierced forward immediately, one at his ribs and the other at his upper shoulder.
Jason twisted his body around, narrowly evading both by bringing his blade parallel with his shoulder and swinging outward, the tip of his blade scratching the wall before it reached the two.
"THE WALL!" Jason roared out, and Agnus heard it immediately.
Watching the events, he understood the callout and quickly stepped forward, just in time to dodge a sword that cleaved through.