[Present]
After the Lord Rift closed, Michael was teleported back to the Untamed Jungle. He emerged from his Summoning Gate alongside Tiara.
She staggered forward, while Michael could only stare ahead, his eyes void of their earlier vigor and luster. His clothes were burned, his Armor Set molten, and his skin and the flesh beneath charred. It was already a miracle that Michael was still alive. However, he couldn’t be happy. Michael couldn’t feel anything.
A loud metallic sound rang through his ears, pulling Michael’s attention to the piece of molten metal that had landed next to him. It had once been a saber, the saber belonging to Masked Saber… It was all there was left of Masked Saber… No.
It was all Michael was left with of his brother…
“Danny…” He mumbled quietly, pressing his trembling lips together thereafter.
He clenched his fists through the pain as two tears trickled down the corner of his eyes.
The next moment, everything around Michael turned dark. He didn’t have a single trace of origin energy left in his body, his energy veins were injured, and he felt that the mythical flames of the dragon’s breath had shattered something deep inside him. Michael’s War Rune glowed brightly, manifesting the Runic Gate in response to his state, pulling him out of the Origin Expanse.
He didn’t know what happened after that.
Once Michael regained his consciousness once again, all he could tell was that every inch of his body hurt, and that he was lying in a comfortable bed.
He spent nearly half an hour trying to move before he could open his eyelids, which felt like they weighed several tons. After he opened them once, Michael was fine. His eyes moved from left to right, analyzing the small room.
‘Infirmary?’ Michael concluded after a few seconds. He tried to turn his neck to see if there was someone else in the room, but every little movement made a fresh wave of pain course through him.
However, physical pain was not something Michael was afraid of at this moment. His heart was broken, and physical pain was the only stimulation that distracted him – even if it was just a little bit.
He pushed the blanket that covered his body away, just to see that his entire body was bandaged. The bandages were infused with altered origin energy that possessed healing properties. It channeled a calming sensation inside his searing hot body to slowly regulate his body temperature and bring down the fever.
“If you don’t want to keep the injuries forever, you should stop moving. Your injuries are no joking matter,” A familiar voice reached his ears.
Michael slowly turned to the voice, just to see Alice Zenovia, Kaleb, and two middle-aged women wearing doctor’s coats.
While Alice lectured Michael, Kaleb walked over to him, trying to retain his calm. He stared at Michael’s bandaged body, and swallowed the words he intended to say.
Instead he tried to force a smile on his face before he said, “It was about time that you woke up. You were asleep for an entire week, Michael!”
A full week had passed since he had been thrown out of the Lord Rift.
Michael just nodded, not really caring how long he had been asleep. His expression was cold and distant, and a pang of sorrow was triggered in his heart at the mention of the Lord Rift.
“I shouldn’t have entered the Lord Rift…” Michael mumbled to himself, clenching his fists even tighter than before.
He clenched his fist too tightly, causing the freshly scabbed skin on the back of his hand to burst while his fingernails dug deep into his palm. Neither was painless, but Michael could only hope that the physical pain would take away the pain he felt in his heart. Only when he felt his fingers grow wet did he look down to stare blankly at his fists.
The two healers walked over to Michael’s bed with hurried steps. Before they could heal Michael, they had to open his clenched fist. His fingernails were still digging into his palm, making him bleed. Kaleb tried to help them, only to realize that Michael’s fingers didn’t move an inch. Alice had to come over to loosen his fist, allowing the healers to tend to his injuries.
The healers were talking to him, but Michael didn’t hear them. His ears had shut off as the memories of his brother’s death resurfaced.
His body began to tremble, and tears welled up in his eyes once again.
‘I shouldn’t have entered the Lord Rift…’
“We found you unconscious in your room after the health sensors in your room went haywire. They sent a signal to me and the infirmary. Luckily, we found you just in time. A second or two later and you would have died,” Alice Zenovia said, informing Michael about his condition and how lucky he had been. “The healers treated you, but your condition had been extremely bad. Your skin and flesh were burned, and even your energy veins sustained considerable damage. However, the worst was that your reckless usage of your Soultrait caused damage to your War Rune’s Essence.”
Alice intended to pull Michael back to his senses, but Michael could only scoff.
“Lucky? You should have left me to di–….” Michael responded quietly, only to shut his mouth before he could finish his sentence.
He wanted to say that they should have left him to die so that he could stay by his brother’s side, but he couldn’t. Michael knew that he was only alive because of Danny’s sacrifice and that his death would have been for naught if he died as well.
Michael could only grit his teeth and lower his head, trying to hide the tears streaming down his cheeks.
Even if Kaleb and Alice didn’t know everything about Michael, they could tell that he wasn’t crying because of his great fortune to be alive. In fact, Alice Zenovia was certain that Michael saw the AI’s notification on his crystal watch.
‘He must have seen the update of his brother’s Lord ID. To see something like that after barely escaping death in the Origin Expanse must be awful…’ She thought, oblivious to the truth that Michael’s situation was even worse than she imagined.
Michael had yet to see the AI’s notification on starnet messenger, but he knew that Daniel had died as a Lord. If he didn’t die in the Origin Expanse, he couldn’t have been resurrected as Masked Saber…his summon.
Thinking about Daniel when he had been summoned as Masked Saber, Michael felt miserable.
He clearly recalled Danny’s unique way of speaking whenever Masked Saber spoke and the way he moved. Michael couldn’t understand how he didn’t realize that Danny had been Masked Saber all along. They were exactly the same.
There had been so many clues. Masked Saber’s silver energy had been one of the biggest clues. The silver energy had been Daniel’s Reinforced Sword Qi Soultrait. Now that Michael knew about this, the similarities were glaringly evident. This was even more true for the True Link of Loyalty that appeared between Michael and Masked Saber the moment Masked Saber had been summoned.
No matter how Michael looked at the situation from his current point of view, Masked Saber had always been Danny.
They fought side by side for months, trained with each other, and talked endlessly, yet Michael never even considered that Masked Saber could have been his brother.
It was only obvious to think like that because Danny had been alive and thriving in his territory according to the information the AI forwarded about his brother’s Lord ID.
Michael believed in the information forwarded by the AI; so he never even considered the possibility of Masked Saber being his brother. The thought that his brother had already died and resurrected as his summon never crossed his mind.
With a heavy sigh, Michael opened starnet messenger on his crystal watch, just to see the top-most message from the AI, informing him with a warning signal that Daniel Fang’s Lord ID had malfunctioned and that he lost his Lord power several weeks ago.
There were no additional pieces of information or explanations why the Lord ID had been malfunctioning. All Michael found out was that his brother died a few days before Masked Saber appeared in his territory.
At some point over the course of the day, Alice and Kaleb left.𝑛𝑶𝚟𝓮𝓵𝐍𝖊xt.𝗇𝓔t
His injuries were tended to for two more weeks to fix his damaged energy veins, heal his other physical wounds, and carefully repair the crack in his War Rune’s Essence.
Frederik Kolbenheim, Jaqueline Orlando, Silverian Schild, Annabelle Claire, Lincoln Piedra, Zeke Lavita, and the triplets of the Barscht family came to visit him a few times in the following week, but Michael didn’t even take note of them.
Michael didn’t really care about anything anymore, and it grew increasingly difficult for the healers to determine if Michael was only an empty shell, or if he still desired to stay alive. It was as if he had shut himself down from the outside world. He didn’t drink, or eat, and he didn’t move in his bed either. All he did was stare blankly at the wall ahead of him.
Michael recalled every memory he had with his brother. Memories of the past resurfaced – a past he thought to have been forgotten a long time ago.
The memories before he turned 9 years old had never been clear before. Michael had shoved them deep in his heart because they showed an illusion of a time in which everyone in the Fang family was together, living happily. But that was not real. His sister had disappeared and their parents had abandoned them.
They might have left enough money to take care of their basic needs, but was that really comparable to being raised by loving and caring parents? Despite their family abandoning him and his brother, Michael never complained. He knew that Danny had a hard time as the older brother.
Daniel always felt that he was obliged to pave a way for Michael to walk upon easily in their parents’ stead. He thought that it was his duty to do everything for Michael and to become strong enough to protect his younger brother from all kinds of trouble.
Daniel Fang gave his utmost to grow stronger without increasing his living expenses. He attended public school and didn’t bother about entering an Academy, or University to further increase his knowledge after graduation either. All of this would require funds, and time and he would have to leave Michael alone. Leaving Michael on his own was out of options, and he didn’t have much time to spend studying either. The trouble he had to face in the Origin Expanse used up most of his time – oftentimes too much, preventing him from staying by Michael’s side and aiding him.
Danny didn’t want to use their funds for his personal benefit either. Instead, he wanted to give them to Michael so that he could attend the best private school in the Golden Sun province.
Michael was grateful for Daniel’s help, but he didn’t need any of that.
All Michael had ever wished for was to walk alongside his brother and conquer the Origin Expanse with him. That was why he gave his best in the Origin Expanse to become stronger. As long as he could take a step closer to his brother, everything would have been great.
But now that Daniel Fang was no more, Michael’s goal seemed meaningless. He couldn’t walk alongside his brother now that Danny was dead.
He was alone now.
[A/N: The devilish author has returned! Welcome to the 6th Volume. I hope you ‘enjoyed’ the last five volumes even though the last one ‘might’ not have the ending you desired. How devastated will Michael be on a scale between 1 to 10? Will he overcome this ordeal, or will he crumble? Is Michael at fault for his brother’s death, or was Daniel fated to die?]