Chapter 15: Atlas’s Answers(2)

Nam stirred his jasmine tea with the tea bag, cautiously observing the surroundings for suspicious items.

Atlas had his eyes shut, his earphones still playing music. He has migrated into the memory chip, entering the dream world once again. He was experiencing shards of Nam's memory, continuation of Qin's stories.

"Ow! Stupid bug!" Two year old Qin, who was already speaking fluently, lifted up his tiny feet to step on the weird-shaped white frog that bumped into him while chasing a mosquito.

"Do not hurt it Atlas. It hit you, but it didn't hurt right? See, he is helping you catch that mosquito. Isn't that great?" Applying bug repellent onto Qin's rosy skin, Nam rubbed the bites on his arm, "Everyone deserves a second chance. After all, they perfect life, even that frog. It helped you prevent more itchy bites."

Qin flashed his untarnished, deep space black eyes. "I don't recall you knowing such deep sayings. Where did you learn that from?"

Nam smiled languishingly. "It's a... A long story. A very, very good friend of mine said it..." He slipped over the word 'friend', but young Qin was too distracted to notice. The shard of memory hazed as it started to synchronise where Atlas's last dream ended.

After evacuating the orphans, Nam crouched by the side to observe, trembling intensely in fear. The coldness of the iron bar clenched firmly in his hand kept him from losing his mind. Despite wanting to escape while he could, he couldn't stand the sight of the two kids being in this position. He needed to rescue them. Somehow.

"Cling!" The screech of two metallic objects colliding spread across the room, sound waves pushing most furnitures backwards. Before everyone's eyes, an ice barrier appeared out of no where, shattering the icicle due to the impact.

"Oh my god! They gave you the Frost Ring!" The man gasped exaggeratedly, licking his lips," That's even better. More for me..." Ending his sentence, he jolted left.

"How are you not dead!? Never mind, I'll kill you this time." He snickered, grinding his fangs as he threw another punch at Qin who weakly rolled a pebble at him. A huge blood red fist formed mid air, crashing into Qin's tiny, bleeding body.

"Ahh!" Pain consumed Qin. An abnormal amount of blood gushed out of Qin's mouth, one of his arms bending oddly. Weirdly, while the more he bled, the more he felt his blood boil. His eyes were glowing malignantly. His pupils transforming from deep space black into an eerie shade of crimson and crackling sparks of purple.

Nearly on the edge of unconsciousness, Qin let out a soft, grim laugh, " Is that all you got?" He eyeballed Eira.

Run. Please. Just run.

Madness and bewilderment danced before the man's eyes. "Aarrghhh! This is pure embarrassment! I have to kill you!" An powerful, murderous intention filled the whole orphanage. It felt like the structure was moving slightly, trembling under the pressure of a mere intention.

Under this immense pressure, Qin half kneeled, barely managing to keep his head up. He spat out a puddle of blood.

"Why? Why can't I even protect whom I care about?!"

All of a sudden, cold gale swept over the whole orphanage, balancing out the immense pressure exerted onto everyone.

"Auiak! What have you done!" Icy presence veiled the air. A woman with very fair skin of about 30 years old floated down from 50 meters above the ground, her light blue dress fluttering in the wind. "Warriors like us aren't meant to use our abilities in urban areas, needless to say hurting civilians."

"Hahaha! Your so funny Cora! God damn Hilarious." Auiak snorted loudly, pointing at her , "I know surely that I'm not the only one who does things like this. Why target me? Acting as if you people are any better than us. You don't kill, but you don't save either. You're just here because of your talented little princess, am I wrong?"

Not waiting for a response, he has already begun attacking ," bloodcicle!" Hundreds of gigantic razor-sharp blood-red icicles formed mid air, targeting Cora. "You have really improved a lot, but still a lot weaker than me! Today will be your...!" With absolutely no warning, all hundreds of Auiak's bloodcicles burst into snowflakes, landing softly upon his head.

"There there, don't be so violent. There are little kids here." A feeble yet canorous voice projected from far away.

Meanwhile.

Noticing that the danger has passed. Qin collapsed into Eira's arm, resting his head on her shoulder. Atlas examined Eira through Qin's eyes.

[She's cute. This kid's got good taste.] Having this thought, Atlas temporarily labeled himself as a pedophile. [Luckily this is a dream, or else my house would have been crawling with FBI agents.]

Qin half opened one of his eye, the other one swollen purple. His body wasn't nowhere close to being intact.

"Are you leaving... After this?" Qin croaked, the half opened eye glittering. He wasn't valiant anymore. He was just kid who was about to cry. Eira studied Qin face, her lips quivering as small streams of tears slid down her face. Qin grinned painfully.

"Waahh!" They both broke into torrent of tears. Despite both of them being so brave and whatsoever, it was impossible to hide the fact that they were still three year old children.

Taking one slow step at a time, a very ordinary grandma sauntered into the battle field. Thick frost imprinted onto the earth with every step she took.

"9th Elder Esther." Cora gestured a fist palm salute sincerely.

Auiak growled with disbelief," An elder! No way!" He glared at her with frustration, " It's true that I am no match for both of you. However!" Destroying the ground with a charged up kick, Auiak vaulted himself towards the kids, like a battering cannon.

Cora panicked, attempting to give chase. In a blink of an eye, the children were barely in an arms reach from Auiak's sharpened nails.

"No grudges, but I just don't really like you, kid." Auiak thought to himself, smiling malevolently," it would be the greatest honor for a mortal like you to die in the hands of an..." His body crashed into the floor head first, nosebleed flying across the air, a fang breaking into half. A throbbing hand print stuck onto his face. Before even having enough time to analyze the situation, Auiak tensed his shoulder, rolling to the side without hesitation as he narrowly dodged the slipper that was about to crush his skull.

Just in a split a second, Cora has arrived at the scene. Auiak sprawled on the floor, hands pressed over his face, moaning in pain while a newcomer knelt on the ground, attending to Qin's wound. Taking a glance at the sudden intruder and the suffering of Auiak, she raised her brows," There has been quite some rumors lately. I'm guessing that you are the one whom others call, the masked hero?" The Kim Jong-il mask, the oversized patched robe and that brownish yellow messy hair, there is no doubt that he is the masked hero. Scouts have reported news about a mysterious warrior, who has been saving many innocent mortal lives from people like Auiak. But she has never anticipated that a random hero who just appeared out of nowhere, would have the ability to defeat someone as strong as Auiak with such ease.

The masked man spoke no word. He bent down, placing his middle and index finger on Qin's wrist pulse. Strong pulse. He looked up, contemplating Qin's blood-drenched body.

Qin inspected the man in front of him with caution, but his body disabled him from reacting at all.

"Calm down kid. No need to throw a tantrum." Pulling out a tiny glass bottle, he poured out a tic-tac sized, blackish object, grassy scent emitting out. With a hesitant look, as if thinking whether he was making a right decision, he placed it in Qin's mouth as it dissolved in a matter of seconds.

"What did you give me?" Qin felt a warm tingling sensation running down his throat and through his veins. He could feel his wounds closing up, his fractured bones correcting back to normal, becoming firmer than before, hidden with destructive power.