Ralph's awakening
"Get away from me!"
Boom!!
The ground trembled right after Ralph's outburst as the grave behind him exploded, sending dirt and grass into the air. A black shadow flashed from inside the now open grave and began to flash all over the place at a breakneck speed, moving from one monster to another in quick succession.
Whenever it flashed past a monster, a huge gaping wound would appear on either its head or chest before dropping dead. In less than a minute, all the monsters around Ralph had been effortlessly killed off by this shadow which after finally killing every monster that had tried to attack Ralph now stood in one place, letting Ralph get a closer look at what had come out of the grave and had saved him.
The black shadow turned out to be an old man who was in his seventies but displayed the vigor of someone in his prime as he stood straight like an arrow. His head was completely covered in white hair and a line of mustache connected his dirty long beard that must have been white once upon a time. The skin of this old man was gray which was different from that of normal humans and cracks covered the parts of his body that weren't covered by his black robe, his face included.
This old man showed no expression as he stood silently beside Ralph, his eyes were blood red that it was difficult to tell where he was looking unless he moved his head; slightly transparent red smoke flowed from his red eyes constantly, giving him a dangerous vibe all together with his appearance.
Ralph did not allow himself to be shocked by the sudden appearance of this strange old man who had suddenly surfaced from a grave, he was completely blinded by rage and hate towards these monsters and did not have time to care about anything else.
The only things that his clouded mind was able to register were that this old man was strong, he somehow knew that the old man would not harm him and that he could feel a faint connection with the old man.
With those points registered in mind, Ralph stood up from the ground, a dangerous look on his face as he looked at the other monsters that were still attacking people who were trying to escape.
"You all…should just DIE!!!" Shouted at the top of his lungs and began to run toward every monster in sight, the gray-skinned old man following closely behind him.
Whenever Ralph got close to a monster, it would immediately sense him and turn to attack him but before their limbs could even reach a meter close to Ralph, the old man would disappear into a black shadow and the next scene was that of the monster getting shredded into pieces in a matter of seconds.
This kept on for a good one hour until Ralph was finally able to kill the last monster with the help of the old man whose expression had not changed in the slightest even after engaging in battle with more than a hundred monsters.
Seeing that every monster in sight had been reduced to lifeless bodies or chunks of meat and the people who had managed to survive until now were now safe, Ralph fell on his butt and began to breathe heavily.
He turned to look at the old man who was still standing next to him like a trained bodyguard, despite all the fights the old man had fought, he still managed to keep his back robe clean and his breathing was steady.
"I don't know who you are or why you decided to help…but thank you, thank you for helping me save all these people, " Ralph said to the old man in honest gratitude, his thanks were replied with silence from the old man which Ralph had expected but what the old man did next shocked him.
After not responding to Ralph's words of gratitude, the old man suddenly spread his arms and opened his black robe to reveal what was underneath its cover. Shocking as it may be, Ralph did not see the body of the old man as he had expected, what he saw instead was a mass of darkness so dark that Ralph felt himself being pulled into it, and before he could react he found himself in a boundless black space without a shred of light.
Similarly to Glen's experience, words soon began to appear in this space which Ralph could see and understand even without looking at the words; it was as if the words were being imprinted directly into his mind.
CONGRATULATION, NEXULYTE!
YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY AWAKENED YOUR TALENT AND CAN NOW TREAD ON THE PATH OF YOUR ANCESTORS!
NAME: RALPH LUCIAN TALENT GROUP: NECROMANCER
TALENT TYPE: COMBAT TALENT TALENT: UNDEAD GENERAL
TALENT LEVEL: S A/P: 0% RANK: NULL
(A/P=assimilation progress)
Ralph stared at the words in front of him with a calm expression while his hands were tightly clenched into fists. No matter how calm he usually was, Ralph could barely contain the emotions swelling inside of him upon reading the words that had appeared in front of him.
His mother had explained about level of talents to him once while he was still a kid before her injury so he was very aware of what his talent level meant, he could join whichever tower he desired and receive VIP treatment as a Nexulyte with such a high talent!
But before he could get too emotional about his awakening, Ralph felt a wave of dizziness which he was not able to resist, and slowly fell asleep. When he opened his eyes again, he was inside the sleeping pod.
Ralph saw the lid of the pod slide open, giving him a chance to sit up. The first thing that he did was to look at Glen's and Ivan's pod to see if they had woken up too.
He saw that Glen had already woken and it seemed like it had been a while as there were a lot of people standing around him and trying to talk to him but they all stopped after Ralph woke up and were now staring at him; to be specific, they were staring at the round screen above his pod on which the content of his awakening was being displayed.
On the screen were the same words that Ralph had seen after he found himself in the dark space, details including his talent and the rest.
They were all about to rush over to Ralph's position when all of them suddenly stopped and stared at a different screen, the expressions of everyone present aside from Glen who really didn't know what level of talent meant, were of deep shock. The entire place fell into deep silence that was pierced by the sound of a lid being opened over a pod and a boy with white hair slowly sat up with a face of determination.
But what had attracted the attention of all these people was not the appearance of this young man but the words on the screen above his pod as even Ralph who had thought that he had done well couldn't help but widen his eyes in disbelief.
A particular line was what had sent everyone into a state of deep shock.
TALENT LEVEL: SS
...….
The man who had entered a brief bargaining war with Ralph stood in place like a statue, his expression was a mixture of disbelief and terror.
"All of them…All of them are monsters!" The man muttered in a quivering voice as his mind fell into chaos for a few seconds.
"I argued with them, what if they take it out on me in the future? No, I have to inform the headquarters about this!" Said the man to himself the moment he managed to recover and without answering any of his colleagues, he left the hall.
Similarly, a lot of people were also taking out their phones and making phone calls; their voices were filled with urgency.
...…..
A few minutes before Ivan caused the present commotion.
After entering the sleeping pod and succumbing to the drowsiness, Ivan found himself in an unfamiliar room when he woke up.
The room was one he had not seen before but at the same time recognized it as his room. He was lying on his bed in sleeping pajamas while staring at the familiar yet unfamiliar ceiling of 'his' room.
Without giving him time to form thoughts in his head, Ivan heard a knock on his door before a voice came from outside.
"Big brother, are you up? Hurry, everyone's waiting for you outside!" The voice called out from outside the room before sounds of footsteps leaving were heard from outside.
Ivan, still in bed, widened his eyes in surprise; he had recognized that voice.
It was the voice of the little girl he had met after getting swallowed by that yellow mist!
(Note: image of old man in comment section)