22 Fearless

Ayoro stared at the weird scene before him. So this was the person fighting his soul armos? He had felt Manamo's restlessness and had known from the energy he was slowly losing that his soul armos was engaged in a battle with someone. He quickly came here to see what was going on, worried that whoever it was might harm his soul armos thereby damaging his soul. That would be devastating for his mission. At first, Ayoro thought that the intruder who pushed him was the same person fighting Manamo. Instead, here was that brat who had questioned him about his motives.

Looking at the blood on her face, Ayoro was sure she was the one fighting with Manamo. Suddenly, it dawned on him that this child must have been the one to push him. It was impossible for her to have that kind of strength, unless…

"You have manifested, haven't you? How pleasantly surprising." Ayoro's eyes were fixed on the child like a hawk. This would make things easier for him. He would not have to feed her. That would be a waste of resources. He would simply get on with the extraction, and once he was done, Manamo could play as much as he wanted. "You are making things difficult. Do you think you have anywhere to go? There's no where you can go and I am the only one here. Your mother and your father can not save you. No one can save you. Your stupid mayor cannot save you. And that old dumb principal cannot save you. Get that through your thick stupid head, you foolish child."

Ayoro grabbed Savyrran by her arm and the latter winced in pain at the touch. The man was not being gentle at all.

Savyrran did not resist. She was too exhausted and broken to fight back. She hoped her brother and the others were faring a lot better. Had it been any of the children who had been thrown off the giant cat in that manner, they would have died immediately. Luckily her training had toughened her body and thus was able to take most of the impact from the fall. But still, the pain was almost unbearable.

"Manamo, find the rest of the children. And this time, try not to threaten to burn them."

Manamo growled apologetically and then stormed off. Ayoro dragged the child behind him. He would begin the extraction immediately.

Soon, Savyrran was dragged to another room she did not recognised. This room was probably ten times larger than the first one they had been locked in. There were rows of large transparent vessels that she had never seen before, neatly arranged in rows. The arrangement of these vessels was such that there was plenty of space between each of the glass-like vessels.

Savyrran's curious eyes observed the artifacts all around her and her eyes nearly bulged with shock when she saw that some of these huge transparent vessels had people in them. Upon a closer look, she could tell that they were children. Each child was enclosed in that glass box and they seemed to be floating in some kind of fluid with a strange colour Savyrran had never seen before. It looked quite like black, but felt too strange to be actually described as black. The children had their eyes open, but their entire eyes had been covered by red or orange light, making it even impossible to see their pupils. It was clear they had no idea of what was happening to them.

Savyrran weakly balled her small fists beside her. What was going on here? Was this perhaps, the reason this evil man had kidnapped them? What exactly was he doing to the children? Savyrran could feel a hot burning sensation within her. She had come to learn that this emotion was anger. She did not know any of these children and yet, she could not stop herself from being angry at having to see them treated like this.

Ayoro turned to look at the child beside him hoping to see her shaking with fear. Since the first time she had caused trouble back in their room, he could not wait to teach her a lesson and this seemed to be the perfect time. He reveled in the fear he put in the children since it made it a lot easier to extract their essence without any resistance. It was harder to extract the essence from more strong-willed children, and even when they were unconscious, their minds still tried to resist. If the resistance continued for three days, there would be no extraction and everything would be a waste.

Thus, he had thought it wise to break the wills and spirit of the children he abducted so that the extraction could go on without any obstacles. He could have easily made the child unconscious before bringing her here. But seeing how she had bravely defied him and even fought against Manamo, forcefully putting her in one of the extraction capsules would be unsuccessful. He had strategically brought her here to instil the fear of him into her to make it easier.

But now, looking at the young girl, who he had once thought was a boy, the cruel smirk on his face was quickly wiped out. Instead of her shaking and crying hysterically out of fear, the child was glaring at him like he was her most hated foe. Where there should be fear, there was rather ire, and her bottomless black orbs were almost too cold to look at. The child had stopped walking, and her eyes would not stop boring into his eyes.

Ayoro felt a slight chill up his spine. Or perhaps he had imagined it, for there was no way a five year old child could intimidate him like that.

"You are an evil man." Savyrran shouted. She was not the type to lose her temper, but then again, she had never met a person as despicable as this man. Her anger had far surpassed what she had previously felt when she first learned that someone was abducting children in her town. "What? Is this what you plan on doing to me? To my brother? Everyone else?" She pointed towards the transparent vessels. "Dream on."

By now, Ayoro's patience had completely run dry. What did he have to do to shut this little brat up and make her submit? How was this child so fearless? It seemed he would have to do things the hard way to put that fear into her. There was not a single person who did not have any fears no matter how brave or strong they were. That much he knew. "Shut up, you little twerp. How dare you talk back at me? I will teach you a lesson."

With that, he released his deep yellow essence. It flashed around him and burned within the pupils of his eyes, heightening the anger he was already feeling. With his powerful yellow essence exposed with a slight aura of oppression, Ayoro was expecting the child to cower from not only fear, but also pain. People could turn their essence oppressive so as to put extreme pressure on the weaker ones. Depending on the power difference between the parties involved and how much oppressiveness was released, the pressure could range from causing severe migraines and exhaustion to simply exploding a person into nonexistence.

If the girl had manifested, then Ayoro had only expected her to be a red or an orange user and nothing too strong. Therefore, imagine the look of shock on his face when the girl was still standing with that same enraged expression, her glare becoming even more terrifying. Why was she not writhing in pain on the ground? Suddenly a frightening thought popped into Ayoro's head. What if the child had manifested a yellow essence or even higher? That could be the only explanation why his oppressive soul energy was having no effect on the child.

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