No... It was him. It was just him.
He didn't understand it, not in this life and not in his previous one.
Everyone had a part of themself they didn't want to show anyone else, and in this situation, the part of himself Silas didn't want to show was the thing he had become when he almost died against Arlos.
Sighing, Silas tried to throw the thought to the back of his head, but at that moment, he remembered something.
'Volition flame...' A particular memory replayed in his mind, allowing him to slowly realize something that was standing right before him the entire time.
'I got into life-threatening situations loads of times before this. That thing won't come out... I think... I hope. If it does, at least I'm far enough from my family that it won't affect them. For now, I should focus on what's important...' Silas thought before jumping from wall to wall until he reached one of the rooftops.
His eyes wandered for a few moments, searching the streets until they finally fell upon a certain section of the city.
Darkless City was split into different sections. Some sections of the city were only allowed to be visited by members of certain factions, while other parts of the city were allowed for everyone.
And right now, his eyes had landed upon the Judgement faction section of the city.
***
-Archie's Office-
"You should have told him." Life looked at Archie and spoke in a tone of disappointment.
"There's no point in telling him. It'll just ruin everything I've built. I need him to trust me." Archie replied while spinning his chair around to look at the wall behind him.
"If you don't tell him, he won't trust you when he finds out that you've been keeping this away from him." She argued.
"He won't trust me at all if I tell him right now. I need him to trust me. The entire plan depends on him still being here instead of going to the Skylarks and getting himself killed.
"And when he finds out?" She asked again.
"He won't..." Archie paused before turning around and looking life in the eyes.
His eyes were dead... No, they were simply empty, but to her eyes, they looked dead. Suddenly he began to release a terrifying pressure that made her feel like she was sinking into the ground.
"You're not going to tell him anything... Is that understood?" He asked in a threatening tone while tilting his head a few degrees.
"...Yes." The words came out of her mouth almost instinctually, as if her entire being knew that she had to say them to survive.
"Good." The pressure instantly disappeared while a smile blossomed across Archie's face.
Her heart quickly soothed, yet in the next moment, Archie did something shocking.
Taking his mask off, he walked over to the other side of the desk and leaned toward her.
It was the very first time she had seen him without his mask, and right now, she was blushing up to her ears while struggling to come up with a coherent sentence.
Archie's hands fell softly open her face, allowing him to slowly stroke it before smiling again.
"I can trust you... right?" He asked.
"Yes... I would never betray you." She almost sounded like a robot as she said those words.
"Good. Becuase, I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to my favorite general." He smiled again before standing up and moving away from her.
She quickly snapped out of the trance she had fallen into, yet the effect he had on her didn't change.
"Now, how about you go back to your lab and relax for the day. I have a feeling tomorrow will be a very interesting yet tiring day." he smiled at her one more time before dawning his mask and taking her to the door.
When Life finally left the room, he sat down on his seat again and tapped on a gem with multiple runes on it.
Suddenly a holographic display appeared before him, displaying a board filled with information about every important person in the city.
The board had everything from people's real names to power levels, strengths, weaknesses, personality traits, eye color, hair color, skin color, and much more.
However, despite most of the boards being completely filled to the brim with information, there was one name with many question marks under them.
From an outsider's perspective, it would seem like the board had enough information about him, from the date of his birth to his predicted strength, however, in Archie's eyes, this was not the case.
From Archie's perspective, it was almost like looking at a mask of a person. A run away with a fake identity. Or maybe even a fake person altogether. The information might have made sense to the normal person, yet with even a little digging, the whole thing begins to unravel.
"Silas Skylark..." Archie muttered while stroking his beard. His eyes fell upon a certain set of words as he did so.
"Who really are you?"
Those words were
"Blessings: more than three
Toki Stage: No toki sensed
Race: Human?"
***
Whispers were flying around, left right, and center.
It felt like everyone was talking about him, and Silas wouldn't have been wrong about the assessment.
He wasn't wearing a hood so everyone could see his face and eyes without any problems.
Some looked at him with hostility for coming to their area of the city without being a part of the Judgement faction, while others looked at him in awe and curiosity.
Though, there was one thing Silas realized about everyone in this part of the city. The area itself was quite small, yet everyone in it seemed to be quite strong.
Everyone was in the pristine topaz stage or higher, and all their armors were quite strong.
However, despite their armor being of high quality, Silas could tell that they were all made by the same person since they all had a signature at the end.
At the same time, the runic pattern throughout all of them was quite similar. Not even that, they were almost identical, if not for the few runes that had been placed for a reason Silas could not yet understand.
His leading theory was that they had been placed there due to the different sizes and strengths of the people wearing them, but for now, it was just a theory.
"Can we help you, little man?" One of the men stepped forward and looked down at Silas while releasing his toki in order to induce pressure around Silas.
In response, Silas simply absorbed the toki coming out of the man and began to use it to cultivate, something he could do since toki users didn't use a mana signature to control the mana around them.
"Oi. Stop." A blue-haired figure appeared out of one of the bars and quickly pushed the man away from Silas.
"Seraphina?" Silas asked with a raise of the brow.
"What, surprised I'm part of the judgement faction?" She asked while puffing her chest out and smiling with pride.
She was dawning her full armor for some reason. Everyone was, yet some tried to hide it, while others like Seraphina showed it in full display.
'So this is the strength of armor...' Silas thought, feeling an actual sense of danger as she stood before him. Of course, he didn't deem her a threat, but she felt much more threatening now than she did before when she wasn't wearing her armor.
'She was on a mission. Why did she wear it?' Silas couldn't help but ask himself that question, but a few seconds later, he shrugged it off and looked her in the eyes.
"Who's your leader?"
"What? Are you going to war with us or something?" She chuckled while others laughed.
Silas could tell that she was quite popular in the community, but he chose to not react to her attempt at a joke.
"No, I just want to meet him." Silas crossed his arm before looking at everyone around him.
"Will that be a problem?"
"Yes... Yes it will." Another man came forward, this one dawning an armor that had significantly more runes than the others.
"Judgement will not see you." The man narrowed his eyes.
He had long black hair that reached his waist. He wore a pair of spectacles that rested upon his long and narrow nose, as well as two gauntlets that no other person seemed to be wearing.
"You're his right hand man, I assume?" Silas asked.
"Perceptive, I see. However, I am not his right-hand man. I am his blade, and he is our king. You will not see him, not because you are weak, but because you do not deserve to. Because he is Judgement, and the only one who can judge him is the lord himself!" The man roared while the crowd roared with him.
"Praise Judgement! Praise Judgement!"
"Oh crap... An actual cult this time.
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