Chapter 28: Corruption of One's Belief

  Whilst suffering in agony, Jastine repeated queries that he was trying to get the answer, “How?”, “How did this happen?”, “How can Aether be pierced through?”.

  Jastine: “How!? How can you get through Aether!? There's nothing that could go through space-time distortion!”

  I risked myself for this experiment by trying to use dark matter, which can influence space-time, to nullify his space distortion. Remembering back to the reminiscence from the old world, I once read an article on the [__] , the article basically mentioned what could go through space distortion when that happens. To be able to go through, the object needs to be weightless or the object must be a space-time distortion itself; as a matter of fact, dark matter can distort space-time, so I used dark matter to influence the space distortion to let the attack pierce through his barrier.

  “Aether is a magnificent element, but that could be nullified as everything has its own encounter. There’s nothing that could stay forever, there’s always a thing to let one come to a demise. I thought you must have known its weaknesses?”

  Jastine: “Bullshit! There’s nothing like that to even make sense! This must be wrong…it must be!”

  “Intuition you say? That could be my attribute and that had led you to this.”

  Jastine: “...”

  The reason for his suffering wasn’t me, it was Luisana, a person whom determined the outcome in this jeopardy circumstance. I wasn’t the person who implored her to do this, she did it on her own. I bursted into the battle ground, leaving her alone. I had no intention nor expectation that she would get in the fight somehow. However, she actually got in but coincidently at the climax of the fight, and now, she made Jastine to be in the state like that. She had a dark nature in her ability, and that ability granted her the right to control shadow and darkness; it befitted her appearance but contradicted her true personality, it’s cool still. Hence, could it be that she was…

  Luisana: “I lied to you, Kinter. I actually can read a person’s mind.”

  “Then, that was why…”

  Luisana: “...”

  If she could read my mind, then that explained the reason she was able to understand what could really hurt Jastine. Because when I discovered the solution inside my head, I came up with the plan of concealing Jastine’s vision to attack him. She was probably reading my mind henceforth, and that was why she could sneak herself up and pull an ambush attack on Jastine.

  Though, it worked.

  Jastine: “uh, uh…”

  “Take your time Jastine, because I won. Your abilities are debunked, there’s no card for you to play left.”

  Jastine: “Fuckass…”

  “If you admit your defeat, then I might use time reversal on you.”

  Drowning in agony, suffering from loss, having been defeated by a mere human, what was left of Jastine at that point was his existence and irrational sense of what happened carving on his face. Jastine couldn’t believe that there was such a thing to pierce through Aether, but it was already shown to work.

  If he allies with me then there must be something that could potentially get me out of this desperate situation in which the five gods return.

  “What I proclaimed earlier, you have to listen and consider what I said.”

  A glint of Jastine’s eyebrow flicked up and he gnashed his teeth, the shadowy area hid his face as he nodded down.

  Jastine: “How can I believe the words of a person when I couldn’t witness what happened to my beloved…”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  The distraught Jastine nodded his head down and tears came out of his handsome face; there were utter sounds repeatedly imitating his crying. He was probably recalling back to Julia from his memories, as that’s what could make one think and assume what Jastine was expressing.

  “...”

  As I was empathizing with him, Luisana from behind grasped my shoulder. She notched her head in the space where our cheeks were nearly in contact with each other, she spoke out her own suggestion.

  Luisana: “If I tell him that I could read your mind to him and recite what was your mind thinking, then would he be able to trust us?”

  “I don’t think it’s bad but I don’t think it’s going well simultaneously. There’s a high probability that he won’t trust you as well because he might think you’re my accomplice.”

  Accounting what happened earlier, how could he trust a person who ambushed him from behind? And who would stand out there to prove that if what she said was the truth? Then, with no words, I activated time reversal on Jastine. Jastine immediately realized the effect, a visionary clock image like a three dimensional image was showing in front of him. The light blue hue of the trails traveled to Jastine rapidly, the hour hand and the second hand were going at a fast pace in the counter-clockwise direction.

  His deep wound that pierced through his heart closed up whilst the effect was resuscitating the heart inside. The crimson blood trace was also disappearing from his white outfit. Consequently, he was brought back to the good vigor state as before.

  Jastine: “Why did you…you don’t think that I’ll take this an advantage…”

  While the hand was grasping on the wound that had been closed up, he was instead shattered inside due to the burst of emotions inside him. It must be he hadn’t had this type of interaction with anyone, the expression showing on his face was grimace but his eyes closed were drowning in tears owing to he probably didn't want to accept the flow of loving emotions within him.

  “Jastine, you’re not a bad person, you just don’t have anyone to embrace on and share your feelings with except your sister. Now she’s gone, I was really empathizing with how you feel, I hope you understand that I’m not the one who killed your sister directly, it was the curse of the gods put upon your younger sister. If you don’t mind, then you could join me, we could be good friends.”

  Jastine: “Again, those words without any evidence.”

  I even halted myself from further actions and healed him. At that rate, he still kept his stubbornness and maliciousness toward me. Of course, I didn’t have evidence, how can I depict Julia's demise to you? If I can, I already did so. What I conveyed to you was very genuine from the depth of my heart. Suddenly, Luisana hopped in the conversation.

  Luisana: “Please! Trust this guy, I was reading his mind the whole time, and yet, there weren’t any words that were plastered out untruthfully.”

  Luisana reinforced my claim despite it being also vague, she wanted to make Jastine concur to our truthfulness and put a little bit trustworthy in us. However, Jastine found out a clue to test her ability.

  Jastine: “To make me trust you, either you tell me what I am thinking right now then I would consider later.”

  Hearing that, I was hitting my head about why I didn't come up with that solution earlier as I made an awkward sound of realization, “ah!”. It was such a basic and common solution anyone could think of, how did I fumble in that? I think I was underestimating myself again. But it was good to bring up that solution as soon as possible.

  Luisana acted in a detective way by putting her fingers to her chin and her eyes looked down to the rough ground. She closed her dark black eyes and grimaced because of concentrating on telepathiness I assumed. Only she could grasp on what was the person thinking in their mind without any tackles from the person being read.

  After a while, she inhaled a big chunk of air into her lungs as she exhaled for the next moment, she opened her eyes. She placed her right index finger onto the bottom right corner of her lips, her eyes furrowed and she let out an ironic smile, she was being fussy. Nevermind, Could that be that she already grasped what was Jastine thinking?

  Luisana: “You’re…thinking about what to do when you got your vigor all good, you planned to give a shot about putting all might into one strike. However, it was a condition when I couldn’t read your mind, wasn't it? Besides, there were a myriad of heartwarming moments between you and your sister, you and your younger sister look identical to each other and both of you were having a lot of fun moments together such as talking, playing board games and practicing magic attacks. They were traveling like the hall of memories like images floating in that specific area when you want to enter and take a look. More importantly, there is a memory when your sister was taken by the five gods, she was being told something. You tried to eavesdrop them but something caused you deaf for a temporary time, as you watched them negotiating something. Your sister, Julia, was given authority abided to herself.”

  Jastine: “...”

  Luisana: “Comprehensively, that was the moment where everything began. They had implanted the curse on your sister.”

  From the posture of kneeling down, Jastine gradually stood up as the sounds of bones stretching reverberated. He gave a casual look, tears were wiped by his hand. The collar of the cloak was amended to be in place. The crystalized rhombus shape was attached in the middle of the chest, glowing white. Jastine said,

  Jastine: “That moment, when I thought my ears weren’t robust. I couldn’t hear what they were exchanging, my sister gave a look of concern at first then she happily got the seemingly gift from the five gods. Henceforth, she always gets her favorite out of nowhere, she then explained her authority and the reason why she was gifted. I thought the five gods were generous and they had good eyes in looking for candidates to become their royal guard. Whoever got chosen would become a royal guard and no longer a Poin.”

  Jastine halted to take a breath and continued.

  Jastine: “You guessed what was in my head correctly, I shall reconsider what Kinter said earlier. Your mind reading doesn’t stop at just reading what the person was thinking, you also tackle the memories and the depth of those memories. Kinter, I shall believe in you.”

  Finally, Jastine concurred with me at last. With Luisana’s support, he became my ally and stayed on guard with the five gods who he absolutely trusted initially. At that moment, he halted his obedience and his servant to the five gods as he put his concentration and vigor into helping me avoid the five gods coming for the next two days.

  Jastine: “Now, I shall be reborn and live up my life with clearer observation. I won’t get deceived again.”

  Then, Jastine told me about the afterlife where only royal guards and the five gods could enter to see the souls that were demised. As he marked his journey with me, he shall visit her to ask for once; he would give himself the time to visit his younger sister and ask for once, but what was more crucial was to support what he thought could be the factor that had brought him up and helped him free from the blindness of the imperial five gods.

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