Chapter 159: The Burden's we Carry
After dying there was only darkness, but nearly immediately a burning sensation appeared right in her heart. It gradually spread all over her body, then it finally burst out of her consuming everything nearby.
Or at least that's what should've happened. Instead all the pent up power and energy within her soul got syphoned away by a strange tube-like machine, where she currently resided.
As her eyes opened, they focused on the white flames encompassing her little tube. From above and below her she heard a loud sucking noise. Slowly everything cleared around her and she could finally look through the tube's wall.
Outside she saw two large pipes leading away from her. They held the large amount of white flames. Her eyes followed them along, but they soon turned and headed through the floor.
It also didn't help that her eyes were really tired. She was fully exhausted from the torture, dying and reviving. Eventually her legs fully gave out and she just sat inside the little tube. She didn't fight the fatigue as her eyes finally closed and she fell into a deep slumber.
...
After who knows how long Sera woke up in her room within New Athens. She was a bit disoriented at first, but soon she sighed in relief, and closed her eyes trying to go back to sleep.
She spent the next hour or so turning from one side to the other, but the sweet unconsciousness evaded her. A bit dejectedly she climbed out of her bed and went to take an ice cold shower.
Soon she got out of it and put on some clothes similar to the ones she wore yesterday. With a quick look she determined that she was running low on clothes again. For some reason Harold never gave her back the clothes she wore before the tests, which meant that she constantly had to buy new ones.
The only item he ever gave back was her watch, which was currently on her night stand. Sera quickly put it back on and looked at the time. It was 5 pm, sunday.
She also had a few messages from Bran. Most of them were asking if she was okay. All of the captains knew where she went for nearly an entire day, so it was obvious why Bran was worried.
As a reply she just sent a message that a meeting will be held at 9 pm. Everyone sent back their acknowledgement nearly immediately.
This meant she had four hours to do whatever she wanted. Gradually she sat down on the bed and just stared at her trembling hands for a while. She didn't seem to be doing anything, but every now and then her facial expression changed, like she was having a conversation inside her head.
After nearly an hour her hands stopped trembling and she stood up with a near invisible smile. While walking away she whispered to herself... "You're right..."
Since she still had a few hours to do nothing, she went out her house and flew up on top of her mansion's roof. From there she watched the soldiers and civilians in the encampment move about.
It was strange how all those tiny people each had their own lives and own worries. Probably non of them had the same amount of stress to deal with as Sera, but that didn't discredit their own hardships.
There was one big difference between those people and her, they each had someone else helping them. Yeah, Sera had Melinda and more importantly Bran to rely on, but she had nobody to connect emotionally since that wasn't a possibility for her.
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Seeing the people walking on the streets as they laughed, argued, flirted or just simply had a comfortable smile on their faces. It caused a small pain to appear in Sera's heart. At this point she figured out that the pain was caused by the missing pieces within her broken soul.
On her face a sad smile appeared. The feeling of emptiness and brokenness was near overwhelming, but her eyes gradually focused and her self pity disappeared.
This pain she carried was just another burden, which she has to find a way to live with.
Instead of watching the people her vision turned towards the darkening sky. The sun has already set a while ago and now the first stars came out of their hiding. Sera stared at them for hours, finding a strange sense of comfort while watching the small shining celestial bodies millions of lightyears away.
Eventually she looked at her watch and saw that 9 pm was approaching. With a quick move she jumped down from her roof and landed on the street with ease. The area around her mansion was empty of people, so nobody saw her as she began walking towards the headquarters.
...
Inside the conference room the five captains were already waiting for Sera to arrive. She was getting late again, but this time there was no grumbling. All of them had some idea of what she went through in the past day.
It pained Bran's heart just to think about the suffering she went through, but he was also angry. If he had the power or got the chance, Harold would be dead already, but that wasn't the only angering part.
He was also furious that Hector and Percy didn't really seem to care for Sera and what she goes through on those sessions. He had to hide his hands under the table, so the others wouldn't see them shaking from anger.
It took all his will power not to kill those two right here and now, not like he could do it easily, but it also wouldn't be too hard.
Suddenly the room's entrance opened and a beautiful golden haired woman walked inside. Her eyes seemed to be a lot more hollow than usual, they were about to stand and greet her but she just motioned for them to stay seated.
She looked at each of them for a bit, then spoke in a terrible monotone... "I got a new order from Harold. He gave me a month to fully saturate my core."
The team's eyes collectively widened. They had an idea how far away Sera's soul was from being fully saturated and they also heard the stories about people who disobeyed Harold.
The room was deathly silent as they stared at their leader who seemed to be deep in thought.
"H-how much do you need?" Asked Melinda with a small tremble in her voice. She didn't even care how she spoke to Sera, who didn't notice it or just simply didn't care either.
She moved her hand on the watch's interface and after a few seconds all of the captains got a new message. It read – 'Life Essence Absorbed: 8453/10000'
Bran read the message dozens, maybe even hundreds of times before he finally regained his wit.
1547 life essence...
It wouldn't have been so bad, if Sera was still an evolved, but getting essence increased in difficulty by a lot as one's rank increased. Ascended couldn't absorb the life essence from tainted since they were too weak. It also meant that they had to fight harder creatures to keep increasing their strength.
Another gigantic issue was Sera's own potential. She needed 10000 life essence for her next evolution, just for perspective a regular ascended needed 2000. Her current life essence count was close to a transcended's, which gave her the ability to fight them after resurrection, but it also nearly crippled her growth.
Without the war, where she could kill humans and absorb part of their life essences', she would probably still be below four thousand.
To gather this much life essence within a month was nearly impossible, except if there would be a major offensive, but that was unknown even to Sera.
*Sigh* "So, what are we going to do?" Asked Bran, while looking into Sera's heavenly eyes. In answer she tilted her head a bit seemingly confused, it was always funny to Bran how bad she was at understanding underlying messages. It took her a while every time.
"Well... There isn't much to do... I will go hunting with you, since his soul isn't fully saturated either. I just have to hope that a new directive will come really soon!" While her voice was hollow, her eyes had a small hidden meaning for only Bran to interpret.
The others didn't know, but his soul was actually fully saturated, which meant this hunting trip had another purpose. Something that Sera didn't want the others to know about.
"When do we leave?" He asked with a small smile, it was always nice to be alone with Sera. Just like every time she didn't understand why he was smiling, or at least she pretended to not understand.
"We could go now." She said, then turned towards the rest of the captains. "We will be back two or three days from now. If a new directive comes immediately message me! Understood?"
All of them nodded with grim expressions. Non of them wanted for Sera to be replaced by some other leader from the Federal Alliance. She gave everyone enough freedom and had low expectations from them, which gave Hector and Percy a reason to not want her to leave.
Melinda and Bran were of course fully devoted to her, and even loved her either like a family member or romantically.
The only outlier was Kathy. Sera still didn't fully understand why she was so happy to follow her, but she had a few ideas, non of them good.
With that, the meeting ended. Both Bran and Sera went their ways to pack a bag full of supplies, then after half an hour they left New Athens.
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