As Leon's awakening started, the gods watching those guards found something very interesting to watch and bet upon. To see if he would survive or not on his own. If he'd be successful or not.
With the growing heat and the fiery mana surrounding Leon, the shadow guards could see he'd awaken something related to the fire element. A dangerous element indeed if he lost control. But still nothing that they couldn't handle.
Once they were backed away from the growing heat, some new notifications popped up on their system panel non stop.
Some gods asking them to help the boy awaken, to dare not disturb him. While some asked for the opposite. Telling them to stop his awakening this instant and cripple him for forever.
The guards both looked at each other confused about what to do next, since they didn't have much time. Any second now, those higher nobles inside, would sense it and come bursting here in a flash.
"What do you think we should do? Should we let him be or..? Miriam, the first guard asked his partner, who was equally confused as him.
"We can't let him be." Harald, the second guard replied in a straight tone.
"But the Gods _"
"Gods don't feed us, Sinclair's does." Harald said, shutting down his partner and continued
"And do you think, young master would spare us if we let someone who's hateful towards him awaken successfully. When our young master hasn't even awakened yet."
"But we're at the royal event and maybe this boy is someone _"
Miriam wanted to voice his doubts, but Harald had already made his decision.
"No buts. Since the young master told us to beat him so badly, or how he didn't have any guards or shadows with him, this guy doesn't seem like someone important either. We can't kill him here anyways, let's just stop his awakening and leave before anyone comes."
"But he can die _"
"That's his luck. You have the higher rank and speed between us, so just blast him away or knock him out, to stop his awakening or something. We need to leave fast." Harald said in a hurry, while glancing at the notifications from his Gods who were praising him constantly for a good job.
A little conflicted, Miriam still dashed forward, knowing they didn't have much time. His speed left a mirage behind him, the next second he appeared just in front of Leon, who was lying down on the ground.
Miriam met Leon's pain stricken gaze, and to Leon's horror, he saw a kick coming towards his stomach in slow motion.
In the next second, he felt a gut wrenching kick that blasted his body in the air for a few seconds, before hitting a tree and sliding down.
He watched as both guards disappeared from the place, leaving him alone there.
Leon felt like someone had crushed every bone in his body, as he lay there motionless. The heat that was surrounding him for so long, was gone now and soon he felt his consciousness leaving him too, as he finally gave up in front of the pain.
After Leon passed out, the next second several people arrived at that location, hoping to see who's going through their awakening like this.
Some came with the intention to maybe help that person and build some relationship with their parents, since everyone invited today was an influential person.
Some came with the opposite intention, since everyone gathered today were basically competitors to each other, in order to hoard those resources, or enemies. So they just wanted to interfere slightly if possible and turn these future heirs of their competition into cripples.
Some were just popcorn eaters who came to see the drama. Some went to follow the king inside, to curry favor with him if possible somehow, or maybe keep an eye on some royals talent. But not everyone was allowed entry inside the royal palace to see who was awakening there. So they just came here.
"Who's that?" Someone asked, looking at Leon's battered form.
"From his burned out clothes and skin, it looks like he failed his awakening."
"Tsk another failure. These duds are really dirtying the name of nobility." A middle aged man said.
"You know who he is, Baron Meismat?" One man curiously asked looking at the middle aged man, who spoke.
"He's Daren's son. Next heir too hehe" Wilhelm said.
<if you forgot, Wilhelm Otto Meismat is the Baron ranked noble, and head of the Meismat family. His son, Hermaan was introduced in the chapter where Leon first got into an argument with Edward and Lincoln.>
"Heir huh, well that'll be hard when he's a cripple now. Look at his body, it's definitely burned to the crisp. No way he can survive another awakening next time."
"Well, Baron still has a son, and a daughter. So I suppose he'll be fine." Baron Misha spoke, looking at Leon's figure with the same contempt Wilhelm showed.
'It's good I didn't hurry and had my daughter's engagement with this useless dud. Or I would've really lost everything.' He thought in his heart.
Just few weeks ago he was considering marrying his daughter with the heir of Heartwell family. Hoping to tie both families together and eventually control them completely. And rise to count rank.
But then he was attacked and he's been busy with investigation and other things. He also couldn't talk about marriage and other happy things, when his son just died, Or his image might take some damage.
That's why he put the engagement on hold. And talks never progressed.
'If Baron Heartwell still acts shameless and wants my daughter's hand. I'll simply have to deny everything.'
As Rio thought, now he was glad that Noah died, since it saved him the trouble of breaking an engagement.
"Where is he anyway?" One of the dwarven association employee asked, as he watched some royal guards taking Leon away.
"Humph he probably went to follow the king. Hoping he'd get some favors from him to save his wife. Man has no idea his son will be joining her soon enough." Wilhelm said with a scoff, and turned around to leave.
He had already seen and inspected the body of that boy, it was burned from the outside and his meridians crushed from the inside. It was enough to ensure him that this kid was as good as a cripple his whole life. Even if with some miracle, this guy awakened someday, he'd still only be a low ranking one, as his body's foundation was ruined.
'I guess Hermaan did a good job, putting those nobles against this fool.' He thought as he came inside and drank his wine again.
He had received the message from his son that Leon got into a fight with Count Korbil's son. And was beaten by everyone together.
He could guess it was probably due to that beating, Leon started his awakening, but failed midway.
'If I can't defeat you, my son will.' He thought as a smile of victory finally came to his face.
He could see it bright and plain as day, the future of house Heartwell was doomed. He just has to take care of that other son and then it'll all be over. And he'd be the sole ruler of Eisjer Domain.
The man dreamed a lot, unaware that the guy he called a failure was the hero, chosen by fate as its champion. And the domain he wanted to control, was something the villain was eyeing for.
But that's a tale told for another time.
-
On the other hand inside the Royal Palace, away from all the noise and crowd were some people standing by, looking at a girl lying motionless on the ground across the window.
The 2 girls whom Amelia saw, were standing beside king Maximus bowing their heads, not daring to look up and meet his angry gaze.
They were currently standing outside a big room, which was temporarily made into an awakening chamber.
"What happened?" Agnus asked.
"Why's she not moving? Did she fall unconscious _?" Artemis, who came behind him, asked too.
"She's fine. She's going through the merging." King replied, glancing at the silver necklace on her chest, which was shining brightly.
"But the.. " Artemis was about to ask, why she wasn't in pain or screaming like crazy, when the whole world knows that merging with the world system is supposed to be the most painful part of the awakening process.
But she stopped her doubts as she followed the King's gaze and looked at the necklace she was wearing.
It didn't take anything more for her to realize what was happening.
Just like how the Blake family had the artifact Dress of Ishwar to help the awakening by smoothing out the mana everywhere. It wasn't wrong to assume the Schott family had something similar too.
And she was right, the silver chain-like necklace Rebecca wore around her neck was a mythical grade artifact called, 'Soul spectral amulet'.
This artifact had only one simple function, that was to protect the soul of the wearer and act as a shroud to any external damage or attack. It stores the damage its wearer receives in the round amulet at center.
It could've been the perfect choice for one to defend against the soul magic or soul attacks.
But it wasn't, because it came with a simple limitation.
The limit was, that the damage it stored within the amulet, must be dispersed immediately or it'll be doubled and sent back to its wearer.
So if one isn't careful with this artifact, instead of getting protection, he'd receive double the damage.
But that's what made this artifact perfectly suitable for the royal family. As they had the most knowledgeable person with them, when it comes to matters related to soul magic.
Athena was currently constantly taking away all the pain Rebecca would've felt in the merging, and simply suppressing it in herself.
As the avatar of goddess of soul, and being the soul seer, this amount of stress was nothing to her.
Thus the most difficult part of the process for the whole world, was practically a cake walk for the princess.
But how can everything be so easy and simple when it comes to hero's and heroine's - one had already failed, and according to destiny, one was about to.
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A/N - Waiting for guys reading it on other sites instead of wn- to drop by and give me a nice review. [You guys can do that for showing me support right.] You lot have no idea how happy an author feels when he sees someone appreciating his hard work.
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