Shadows of My Past

"Okay, I get it. Now explain what this have to do with you forcing me to join this...school?" Neo asked Elana.

"Well..." Elana scratched the back of her head. "From what I can see, you are special and-"

"I would be a powerful addition for the Equalists' little army, right?" Neo wasn't certain before, but after he heard everything that Elana said, he was now certain of her objective.

"You realized it?" She was slightly surprised. She knew he would understand her intentions, sooner or later, but she never thought it would be this fast.

"I'm not stupid you know." Neo looked down at Elana. "Even a person with a half brain would had understood by now."

Elana angrily stared at Neo when she saw he was looking at her like she was stupid. "If already knew the question, what's your answer then?" She asked.

"I needed to confirm my suspicions, simple as that." Neo yawned and casually leaned by the back of the chair. "I won't give my definitive answer without fully knowing what the Equalist faction really want to achieve and how they plan to achieve it."

"What? Haven't you heard what I said? We wish to-"

"Yeah, yeah..." Neo rudely interrupted her once again. "I got that. It's a very beautiful and poetic objective and all, but..." Neo threw a side glance at Elana. "How do you guys plan to make this a reality? I won't join an organization that doesn't even know how to achieve their goals...in fact, I wouldn't join any organization without fully understanding their intentions and how they operate."

"But-" Elana looked flustered for a moment.

Neo played around around with with a coin that he got from his pocket. "Your dream, and the organization's goal, is beautiful, I admit that, but to make a skeptical person such as myself to join, you must first tell me....what do I gain by joining? What are the benefits? How do you plan to make your goal a reality?"

Neo's emotionless eyes gazed at the flustered Elana. "No one in their sane mind would jump into a sinking ship. The demons are hunting the Equalists. The ancardians are also hunting the Equalists. Now tell me, how do you guys plan to achieve anything at all when you are surrounded by enemies?" He placed the coin down on the table with a thud sound.

Elana lifted her eyes and angrily stared at Neo, "So you heard about the Equalists before."

If Neo knew about the situation that the Equalists were at, then he surely had previous knowledge about the organization before she mentioned. So by now it was clear to Elana that Neo had lied to her before.

"Yes." Neo shrugged his shoulders. "I understand more than enough to know that you aren't telling me the whole truth." Neo playfully smiled. "You might be able to trick hot-headed youths into joining the organization with your beautiful and righteous speech, but... I'm not buying it. If you want me to join your group, you better give me concrete information so that I can analyze the pros and cons of taking part in this endeavor."

"In other words." Neo stood up from the chair and started to walk away while he spoke, "Bring me someone with a higher position than yours to talk with me, and maybe he might convince me to join your....little organization."

Neo walked away while leaving the deflated Elana alone at the table.

"Don't worry about my promise, I won't break it. Tomorrow I'll be there." Elana was only shook awaken from her dazed state when she heard Neo's voice once again.

She cast a complicated gaze at the direction that he left and exited from the apartment.

[Petty tricks...] Neo glanced at Elana's back and shook his head. [Too young and inexperienced in the ways of the world. Trying to use this type of tricks to make join the organization. I had lived for thousands of years and tricked an innumerable quantity of people. Well...I think she tried to do it since she thought I was an easy person after I so readily agreed with her conditions, a few days ago.]

Neo closed his eyes and calmed his mind. "They should be really desperate..." He muttered in a low voice. "Tricking hot-headed youths into jumping in a sinking ship."

"And that woman..." He flashed a chilling smile. "She really think I'm unable to see through her acting. Well...let her think that I still haven't realized yet."

He entered into his room and began cultivating his magical powers once again.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breathe.

Once his he opened his eyes once again, he wasn't in his room anymore.

In fact, he was standing in a island made bones that was floating in a ocean of blood.

[So....here I am, again...] Neo helplessly sighed.

Soon enough the ocean of blood became agitated and started to form waves that came down crashing onto Neo's body.

He stood ramrod in the place, unmoving.

His eyes were dim as he stared at the bones that started to twist and crackle in the ground beneath him.

The bones moved against each other and soon they formed into skeletons that glared at Neo with their lifeless eyes.

The skeletons moved forward, grabbed Neo by his arms and immobilized him in that very stance.

"Is this really necessary?" Neo gazed at each of the four skeletons that were holding him in the place.

And it came as no surprise to Neo that they didn't even flinch or move when they heard Neo's question. They completely ignored his existence and changed their sights from Neo to the ghastly red figures that were forming in the blood ocean.

[Just how many of them I'll have endure today?] Neo watched as more and more figures were formed.

The figures looked nothing much than a humanoid red person, but as more time passed they slowly began to have distinct countenances from one figure to the other.

The figures opened their eyes and the first thing they did was to start speaking while glaring at Neo was being held in the place.

"Killer..."

"Murderer..."

"Assassin..."

"Scourge..."

From each one of them, came one different word. Their eyes burned with intense anger as they stared Neo.

They slowly started to walk toward Neo while leaving a trail of blood that was dripping from their bodies.

"Monster..."

"Abomination..."

"Demon..."

Neo coldly watched as those red humanoid things approached his body.

They went pass through the skeletons and stood before Neo.

"Just get it over with..." Neo let loose a soft chuckle.

Just he spoke, one figure sent his hand toward Neo.

*Puchi*

The hand easily pierced Neo's heart.

Neo's eyes slightly twitched.

The figure gave one last wrathful glance at Neo before it disappeared.

As the figure disappeared, Neo felt the memories from that person going through his mind.

Every single thing the person had experienced throughout his life, be it happy, sad, or painful, Neo went through it all in a flash.

He closed his eyes and took deep breathes to calm his mind and waiting from the excruciating pain to fade.

Yes, those figures were people that Neo had killed and absorbed their souls.

Once in a while, Neo would have to face against the same people that he had absorbed.

Their pain, their happiness and their entire lives. Neo would be forced to go through it all.

It was like living the other person's entire life, but in reality it go through in a flash. Unfortunately for Neo, he had the sensation that it takes years.

He has to go through their entire lives and feel everything they felt first-hand.

It was a torture for him. Having to live other's lives once in a while.

In the first times he experienced such events, he had almost forgotten his true identity after living the lives of the people he absorbed.

The reason why he wasn't driven insane while he had been locked up in the Void for thousands of years was exactly because he had already experienced more than that by counting all the years of the people he had already killed.

It was more than enough to drive a person insane and make him have an identity crises after experiencing such event, one time after another.

After the first figure disappeared another one stepped forward and did the same.

The process repeated for a few more times.

Once all the red figures had completely disappeared, the skeletons let go of Neo and returned to the ground that was still filled with bones.

Neo's eyes flared open as he fell on the ground gasping for air.

His entire back was covered in cold sweat and his entire face was completely pale.

He struggled to stand up, and walked toward the bathroom.

Looking at himself at the mirror, Neo bitterly smiled.

His eyes were red, and his face was covered in dried tears.

[Shadows of my past...] Neo cleaned his eyes and fixed his hair. [They will forever hunt me.... wherever I go, whatever i do, they always come back to haunt me.]

In the short span of 5 minutes that he had been meditating, he had gone through the lives of more than 100 people.

He basically lived more than 100 thousand years in that small amount of time.

If one could count his mental age, it would be more than a million years old because of the side effect of absorbing souls.

Even though there were advantages of living a person's life, for Neo, the pain was not worth it.

When he go through the life of one of them, he is able to learn from that person's experiences, he is able to uncover secrets, and he will know everything that person had seen, heard, thought, and felt.

Using this correctly, no information was able to be withheld from him, if he want.

It was through this memories that Neo was able to grow stronger so quickly in past. He learned from the people that he killed about their personal experiences when they were training and cultivating.

Neo looked at his haggard self on the mirror and asked, "Who are you?"

"I'm Daemon." He answered back at his own question.

"What's your ultimate goal?"

"Find and kill Ajax." His eyes glinted with a malicious and cruel light as he spat that name through his gritted teeth.

"Never forget the pain, the anger, the desire for revenge. Never forget who truly are you and what you really want."

"Don't worry, I know fully well who I am. As for my goal...." Neo's mouth cracked into a chilling and eerie smile. "I'll do whatever is possible, and impossible, to achieve it and no one will be able stop me....after all, not even death was able to stop me at the end."

"I carry the burdens of millions of people in my body. Every single day they clamor for my death, for finally being released from my own soul, for their revenge against me. I won't die....not before I kill that fucker who did this to me..." Neo let loose a mad laughter that echoed throughout the whole apartment and calmly left the bathroom.