Charles read the letter with bloodshot eyes.
{Your aunt was killed by Enigma. You know this already. But she did it to save Sia.}
“Sia…” Charles recalled a girl in the academy. She was his junior, so he didn’t know much about her.
But.
She was a genius who quickly reached the top of the first year. Even he knew that much.
There were rumors that her progress speed was insane and she advanced from level 3 to level 4 in a single day.
Charles shook his head. ‘What do you mean save Sia?’
‘Ah!’ Charles covered his face. He recalled his aunt revealing some things about her special experiment.
*** *** ***
“Charles, you will have the best talent in the history of humanity!” Roxanna said with a beaming smile.
“But how? My father is more talented than me.” The 19-year-old Charles tilted his head in confusion.
Back then, he wasn’t bitter yet. Nor did he turn so cold against people. He had only a few friends, but he cherished them well.
“There is a girl who is helping us,” Roxanna said with a cryptic smile.
“Can I meet her?” Charles asked with an eager expression.
“Oh dear, she doesn’t want to meet anyone.” Roxanna shook her head like it was a pity.
“It’s fine if it’s her wish.” Charles waved his hands. “She’s helping in your experiments, right?”
He meant that the girl was helping Roxanna in research as a fellow scientist.
“Oh yeah, she’s surely ‘helping’.” Roxanna nodded with a smile. Her eyes, however, showed a firm resolve.
It was a strange expression and Charles noticed it.
But back then, he only thought it was due to her firm resolve to succeed in this project.
Looking back now, he understood that it was much different from what he imagined.
*** *** ***
“Argh! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Charles knelt and kept punching the ground.
With each punch, a fist imprint formed on the ground and gravel shot out.
Charles’ heart burned in pain and anger. His aunt wasn’t the woman he thought she was.
She used Sia for experiments. That’s why Enigma killed his aunt.
“Why?” Charles roared.
His group was shocked at his reaction after reading the letter, but they didn’t intervene and let him vent.
But it still shocked them to watch their usually composed master behave like an enraged and wounded beast.
“Why did you hide this from me?” Charles growled and his punches never stopped.
Before he knew it, blood was dripping from his fists and sliding down his forearm.
“Why did you only show your good side?” Charles lowered his head and gritted his teeth.
Then, Roxanna’s expression when talking about Sia flashed in his mind.
The firm resolve in her mind.
It wasn’t about the project. It was a resolve to protect him from her own dark side.
She wanted Charles not to bear any of her sins. Charles, while desperate for approval from his father, would never stoop so low to torture an innocent girl to improve his talent.
That was the Charles she knew.
That was also the Charles she wanted to preserve.
Drip! Drip! Drip!
As his vision blurred, Charles wasn’t entirely sure what happened. Only when he felt the salty taste in his mouth did he realize tears were rolling down his cheeks.
“Aunt…you tried to keep me the same, but just one year after your death, I am someone who my past self can’t even recognize.” It was a really painful realization.
After his aunt’s death, Charles fell into a depression. It was only a few months after Varian’s mother died and Varian fell into depression.
Unlike Varian who bottled himself up and gave up on his Awakener dreams out of guilt, Charles did the opposite.
He went all-in on training. His rising talent gave him tremendous confidence, but it also made him lose his teammates.
As they couldn’t keep up with him any longer, Charles abandoned them.
He stopped talking to his friends and due to his increasingly colder outlook, they stopped visiting him as well.
Very soon, Charles found himself without his friends and teammates.
In his family, Charles started to gain more and more support from the elders. The number one genius until then, Princess Iris Xander, was sidelined as he took the limelight.
But even then, Charles didn’t notice that the loyal supporters who stood by him when he wasn’t that bright started leaving him.
Perhaps he did notice, but he didn’t have the stomach to ask them to stay.
No. It was his pride that didn’t let him.
Somewhere along the lines, “You have the best talent in the world. You will be the number one.”
These words of Roxanna stayed with him even after her death. Perhaps it was his way of honoring her, or perhaps it was his obsession with the only close family bond he ever had.
Charles didn’t know.
But he lost his cheerfulness, his naivety. He was cold, arrogant, and bitter.
It was a rabbit hole he shouldn’t have gone down. Now, he didn’t even know the way out.
He was trapped inside his own skull.
“Where did I lose myself?” Charles sniffed back and muttered. There was no answer, only more tears.
But no matter how much he cried, the old Charles wasn’t coming back.
So, he pushed back his tears and continued reading the letter.
{The one who killed your brother is Enigma.}
Bang!
Charles’ fist turned into a huge paw and he slapped the ground. The whole valley started to shake as the land cracked.
“Enigma, you took my brother and my aunt,” Charles muttered with a lowered head.
His aunt was in the wrong. He knew it. But he couldn’t accept her death.
And his brother too.
Charles felt the rage in him reach a new level.
He barely kept it under control and read the final piece of the letter.
{Varian and Sia grew up together.}
“This…” Charles thought back and remembered Varian. Didn’t he die long ago?
{Sia and Enigma are closely related. So are Enigma and Dreamer.}
“Bitches of the same feather flock together.”
{Dreamer is in Earth Ruins…and Dreamer is Varian himself.}
Ka! Ka! Kacha!
Charles clenched his bloodied fists and the sound of his knuckles cracking resounded in the chilling silence.
“Varian, you will be my revenge.”