Darkness' Touch

Chapter 41: Chaos avoided

Magic manifestation. It was the so-called awakening of the people in that world where they would be able to use magic for the first time. It usually happens around the ages of eight to thirteen years old although it mostly appears at age ten, the first decade of a human's life. A rampant manifestation isn't rare at all, but only royals and nobles are bound to experience such a thing because of the amount of mana they have. 

A rampant manifestation was one of the reasons why Zach, the male lead bottled up a lot of inferiority complex thinking it was another flaw that made him more unwanted and unloved. Instead of socializing and interacting with people, he chose to cure and improve himself so that it wouldn't be an imperfection that would make him seem weak in the eyes of the crowd. But before that, he had to suffer a lot to achieve his goal.

"The kid is oozing natural riches. That lots of mana is not something you would encounter every day."

Avy heard Ares again, but this time, the cat was looking at her dead in the eye, as if telling her to do something. She frowned and glared at him knowing exactly what he wanted.

'I'm not doing it.' she stayed still. 

"If that's what you want. But be ready to witness that butler's insides scattered all over the place." the sly cat laughed.

Imagining the poor butler's intestines blowing up in front of her, Avy grimaced and inwardly gagged, but still hesitated. A sudden burst of mana could cause a lot of damage to the surroundings and even though she knows that she can take mana with her body, she still has lingering doubts and concerns that she might also die in the process. 

"Also, it's your ability's power-hungry nature that caused that child's early manifestation."

"It's."

"Your."

"Fault."

Hearing that statement from her curse servant, Avy groaned in annoyance and broke away from her knight's hold. That explains why she felt relaxed around the child, it was because he is a noble whose core is already preparing for a manifestation, she was able to force out all the saved-up mana he had inside of him. Children are the most vulnerable when they are about to undergo manifestation because their cores open up and only close once they are already stable. Being exposed to a walking mana sucker like her was probably one of the few ways to make their power go rampant, or even worse get blocked. 

Right, she's now a walking black hole, a mana glutton that leeches off other people's life forces, what else could make it worse?

"My Lady!" she heard Clerivan and Mariel shout and try to run after their dashing lady. 

"MOVE!!" she yelled at the butler who was hugging Clion, glancing at Ares who quickly understood what her look meant, and before the butler knew it, a sudden force made him fly out of the way harshly, slamming him to the wall of tall bushes a couple of meters away from Clion. 

 "NO! LADY AVY!" 

Avy ignored all the shouts of protest and proceeded to hug the small child tightly as if hugging a bomb that was about to blow up. No one dared to breathe as if something bad would happen if they did. Avy's eyes were closed, bracing for the expected impact. 

One.

Two.

Three. 

More than enough time had passed but nothing happened. Avy slowly opened her eyes and loosened her grip on the child that she was holding. She did not feel anything hurting on her body, not even the internal pain that she felt when she was in the forest about to get killed by a feral bear. She was fine.