14 The absolute forces of the dark

It was yet another highly potent aura but it was not like anything they had experienced before. Something was different. It felt like the aura was speaking to them, more like threatening them. The aura felt as if a venomous snake had crawled up to their neck. The only people who did not feel the pressure were Ivanna and John.

The rest were affected to the point they had trouble standing straight. Their hearts felt heavy and their minds unclear.

"You are experiencing the true potential of an awakened's powers. The aura can be used to express intent, it can be used to dominate the weak with fear." The man spoke wearing a malicious grin. He was against 5 awakened who had a large mana pool but he looked very confident in his own abilities.

"You must be the one behind all this, considering you know my real name," Ivanna said while she created shields around the three that immediately freed them from the grasps of the man's mysterious power.

"You have grown quite fond of your shields." said the man and let out a violent burst of aura that covered the entire area. The aura density was easily as large as Ivanna's own. Small cracks formed around the shields that Ivanna had put around the men. John looked in terror at the man who was overpowering Ivanna.

"You turned out to be useless, McCoy," said the man looking at McCoy as he shot aura at him which turned into mist midway and entered inside his nose forcefully. Mccoy writhed in pain as a large amount of mist entered his body. His eyes turned the same color as the mist and he started bleeding from everywhere.

He fell to the ground as blood gushed out from his lifeless body which soon turned grey in color as all the blood left it.

Marcellus and Yahiko watched in horror.

"Did you know? you can easily kill someone even through their fusion if you can make your aura reach their blood" The man laughed after stating that.

"Are you a god?" asked Davidson, he was more composed than the boys.

"Not really, no. I'm the same as her," he said as he looked at Ivanna with a very insidious look.

"The royal families are going to be quite relieved to know that the potential god candidate they feared the most did not even awaken as a god," He looked very pleased.

"Which family are you from?" Ivanna asked, she was not intimidated by him but she knew that the man was stronger than her.

"A pacifier who can easily kill a god, so you filthy people have the headstart because of the ancient scriptures," Ivanna said looking a bit annoyed.

"Do not be mistaken, none of the royal families have realized the methods of the scriptures yet, that will take some time. I killed that guy easily because the aura that my god possesses is superior. The unrivaled power of a high-ranking god, My god is quite a powerful one, you see. Gods enable their pacifiers and followers but fortunately for us just because a pacifier is strong does not necessarily mean the god is strong as well. Normally, strong gods have a large number of regular followers and according to what I have noticed, your clan does not even have a single regular follower. you four are extra-ordinary no doubt, but it all means that the god that enables you is weak." the man walked around Ivanna as he explained.

"Only a god can break limits and transcend the limits of the set mana pool. you do not have the liberty to grow stronger than this as a pacifier," He smiled impudently looking at Ivanna.

"That implies to you as well Davidson," He turned to Davidson. Davidson had never met this guy, but he was definitely an enemy who knew of him.

"How lucky for us to have two greatest forces who had the chance to stop us be delegated to the mere sub-category in the power hierarchy," after saying that he laughed like a madman, his laughter echoed through the cave.

"I knew something was off, John had hundreds of men. He should not have had the money to pay for their accommodations," Davidson confirmed his suspicion.

"At first we did not know if she really was the princess, to make sure we killed off the right one, we needed her to awaken first."

"What family are you from?" Ivanna asked the same question again, She wanted the answer, everyone could feel her aura rise.

"Don't dare to raise your aura against me little girl, you pose no threat to us anymore," He raised his own aura to answer that, the clash of aura started shaking the whole cave. the flashlight Davidson was holding was giving away, flickering for its dear life.

"Funny how this little girl made you live in nightmares for years. You people are just pathetic existences with a fragile ego."

That infuriated The man. His face did not look as calm as it had been until then. He released an aura from his hand that turned into the mist that looked just like the one he used against John.

"Be careful of that," Davidson shouted at Ivanna.

Ivanna was using half of her aura to shield the three from this man's aura. She did not have a proper defense for herself. She was unable to dodge the attack. The mist took the form of a hand and grabbed Ivanna by her throat and pushed her against the wall.

"Didn't I tell you? You pose no threat. Your aura is inferior to mine. Even If you manage to match my level, I'm only a Pacifier, my master is ten times stronger than me." He walked closer to her as she stared at him, she did not show hints of struggle but she did not have enough strength to free herself from his clutch.

"And there are still other heads of the family who are all as strong as that, they have all awakened as the top gods, you cannot even fathom the power they possess and they will continue to grow, to the level where they will look like the true gods that humans pray to."

He tightened his grasp on Ivanna, She was barely hanging on because of fusion.

Meanwhile, the rest could do nothing but watch. It was very frustrating to be irrelevant, particularly for the young ones.

"He does not even bother to be cautious when there are three enemies behind his back. He thinks we are no threat." Marcellus thought. He hated what was transpiring in front of his eyes. The clash between the two alpha energy had them unable to do anything.

"The predestined hierarchy of power? I'm rendered unable to move just because he was granted a power that was meant to be superior to mine? what a load of crap. When I thought we had finally broken free of the confinement of human society, there is yet another restriction upon us,"

Marcellus felt powerless and irrelevant. The intense aura had meddled up with his thoughts. It had disrupted his bodily functions, he could not even channel his own aura anymore. The same was happening to Yahiko and Davidson. The only defense they had against That man's aura was the shield that Ivanna had put on them. However, even those shields looked like they were at their limits. The malicious aura had crept through the small cracks on the shield and that amount was enough to affect them severely.

Ivanna was desperately investing aura to keep the shield around them intact while resisting the man with what was left for herself. She was trying to channel more aura but she felt like she had reached the limit.

"Can you feel it? The feeling of not being adequate. This is your future. you will always be inadequate in the face of absolute power." The man said as he grabbed Ivanna by her hair.

The look on Ivanna's face changed as soon as he laid hands on her.

"Such insolence," He said as he used all his aura to tighten his grasp on her throat as she stared at him with cold eyes.

Yahiko and Marcellus force their body to move, but to no avail. They still could not make their aura channel out.

"You know what? A few of the families suggested that we should offer you to work under us, Personally, I would love to see you as a slave. Sounds like a good idea right? I could kill you right here. But I will give you a chance, come to us as your uncle did."

Ivanna's eyes widened as she heard him say that, "Oh, he says hi by the way." He said as he watched Ivanna's expression change.

"I don't like it, why should I let you kill me?"

Ivanna disregarded the voice she heard as some auditory hallucinations. She was too absorbed in what the man said to her.

"Th-That man. He is still alive?" Her voice shook, It was someone she did not want to be reminded of. The wounds of her past were opened up at the mention of that man.

"What kind of logic is that? Who gave you the right to think that you are above me?"

Her mind rang again as she felt helpless being crushed by her own emotions on top of that man's overwhelming aura.

"He is fine, he is having the best time of his life," He said smiling, as he slowly moved his fingers to caress her lips. Tears rolled down he eyes as her past flashed before her eyes. The shield around the three was still intact but the fusion she put around her neck as the defense against the man's mist was weakening. she was losing focus.

"What reason justifies that I should just die?"

She finally became aware of the male voice that she had been hearing as she looked like she was about to lose consciousness. The malicious aura of that man was creeping up into her body through the weakened defense of her aura.

"Isn't the ways of the world unfair?"

"Who are you?" She whispered to herself amidst her fading consciousness.

It did not reply but the voice kept repeating the same thing over and over again, in an infinite loop.

"Why should I just die?"

The voice got louder and louder in her head. She became more aware of the voice. It was tremulous, it shook at parts like her own when she was shocked at the mention of her uncle.

Slowly The strong emotion emanated by the voice started creeping into her heart, Her consciousness was being invaded by the emotion she had not felt for a long time, Rage. The voice that seemed to be born from extreme rage took over her and It became her own.

"What," Her voice trembled. The man looked at her as she stared back with eyes that did not seem like her own." what gives you the right?"

A burst of aura twice the amount of what she had been releasing exploded out of her body as it completely disintegrated the mist the man had created. The aura was so intense that the cave finally gave in and crumbled but the debris did not fall into them. They were deflected away by the force that her aura was creating.

The aura was darker than before. it slowly covered her body, it even reached her eyes until she was a humanoid figure completely engulfed in darkness. The aura of the man was wiped away from the cave. Marcellus and the rest were finally freed. They could channel their aura and it felt stronger than ever.

The man retreated a few steps back trying to gain his composure. But the more he looked at the eyes that had now turned red the more he seemed to lose his grip of reality. What was happening to Marcellus earlier and the rest was happening to him now.

"Weak? you don't get to decide that, we do." Ivanna said in a voice that seemed to have unusual power that reverberated through the cliffs and sounded louder than usual. It was enough to instill fear in minds of the weak. It was like roar of the beasts but much subtle and feminine. It was unexplainable.

"Of course, we will also let our god decide himself if he is weak or strong," She walked towards the man. The surface beneath her feet slightly corroding at each of her steps to leave a trail of her footsteps. Each advance of her step was matched by a retreat of the very terrorized man in front of her.

Her aura had crept into him, it had changed in quality. It felt heavy in his heart as if he was going to have a stroke soon. every ounce of arrogance he had a minute ago had been severely crushed. As he took a few steps back, he felt a hand on his shoulders. It was Yahiko.

Something had changed about the three followers as well. They seemed much stronger now, maybe it was his fear but he felt like he was being cornered by death with no escape.

"I won't kill you, go back and tell those heinous fools with superficial ego," Ivanna could tell that something was odd. Her rage was being intensified, She was being more hostile than she was intending to be. And what she was going to say next did not originate from her own consciousness, maybe it did but she would not say something like this out loud, She did not even know what it was supposed to mean "tell them that the darkness, is not their territory anymore."

Everyone watched in awe, her sudden outburst was bewildering but the three were also too busy basking in the unusual feeling of being empowered as well to complain, It was like the frustration they were feeling earlier had been answered to. They wanted more power and they got it. Ivanna signaled Yahiko to let the man go. He hurriedly channeled his aura and fumbled a few times before he was finally able to do it. Then without a word, he disappeared into the mist he created.

"Man this was the third bad guy I saw completely being destroyed after trying something against our clan," Marcellus said as things finally seemed to have settled.

The aura that had enveloped Ivanna retreated revealing her slightly confused face.

Everybody was staring at her waiting to hear a word from her. After contemplating for a long time she finally looked at them looking a bit more excited than how she had been till now,

"I think I just heard the voice of our God,".