--
TJ stared at the ceiling of a foreign room. He didn't move, didn't make a sound, nothing. He breathed and tried to recall what happened before he lost consciousness.
'Ah, that's right. I'm at the Heartveils.' He finally remembered before letting out a sigh of relief.
His hands then subconsciously touched his chest through his shirt. He didn't feel pain, just the touch of his hand. He placed a hand underneath his shirt and ran his hand through his chest again.
Nothing.
Not a wound or a scar. He also assumed that his chest looked just like the way it used to. It's like the attack didn't happen at all. As if he was never injured in the first place.
TJ withdrew his hand. Then he continued staring at the ceiling, immersed in his own thoughts and memories.
'That man should be in prison by now. I don't believe that Dean Skywind would be so careless as to let him go.'
The idea that the man was behind bars comforted TJ's subconscious mind. At the very least, his injuries weren't for nothing. With that man imprisoned, he shouldn't be able to hurt anybody again. More importantly, there is hope for the government to discover more about the cult through him.
'I can't believe I survived a fight against an Adept. That's a straight-up miracle right there. Fortunately, that man's weakened. Had we been fighting a full-powered Adept, we would've died without knowing what happened to us.'
The Adept rank is what follows the Apprentice rank, meaning that TJ and friends fought and survived against someone who's two whole ranks stronger than them.
Well, the man was weakened by the side effect of his bloodline, sure, but that's still an achievement.
That said, TJ wasn't counting this as a win, just mere dumb luck and survival. Like he said, it would've been impossible for novices like them to survive against a hostile Adept-ranked professional. They would die ignorant of how they died.
Then, all of a sudden, TJ's thoughts turned darker...
'I forced them to confront the enemy.'
'Did I do the right thing? '
'I didn't get the chance to think clearly in that moment. Staying and stalling was the only option we had left, and it's the only thing I could think of during that moment.'
'It was through pure luck that it worked. But that doesn't change the fact that I put us in danger.'
TJ's jaw tightened and his fists clenched beneath the blankets.
His rational mind told him that his conscience was clear. There was truly no better option during that moment other than to stall and wait for someone to rescue them. They were outmatched and outskilled. The enemy was way stronger and faster than them, and that's with him being weakened severely.
It all worked out in the end, anyway. They were safe, and they got to see another day.
But a tiny part of him still felt guilty for putting them in danger.
Maybe it would've been better if he told them to run instead, leaving him behind to stall the man while they call for help.
Because at the very least, he could react to the speed of the man. He could barely catch up, but he could still react to it.
In fact, TJ was completely convinced that it was his karma to be the only one who got injured in that fight because it was he who put them in that position in the first place.
Being left with a scar might've comforted him better, because at least he'd have a permanent reminder of this incident. The scar might help him remember this painful and terrifying lesson.
'My thoughts are so quiet...' He finally noticed this.
The voices that usually raged in his mind strangely went silent right now. Maybe this was why he felt so light and comfortable right now. His thoughts were as clear as they could be; he was well rested and at peace.
'It should've been Uncle who did something about them,' TJ thought, referring to the voices in his head.
There's nobody else who would do something like this for him aside from Anthony. He might've thought that it'd be better for TJ's well-being if the voices were silenced for now so that his mind could focus on recovery.
Speaking of those voices...
**
"It's not infectious."
"You've been infected with a heart-racing agent. He's got it in his claws. It causes your blood pressure to spike and your wounds to heal slower so that you'll bleed more. So long as your friends don't touch your wound or your blood, they'll be fine."
"He's a low-class vampire; the scent of your blood probably activated one of his passive skills."
"He's an Adept. He's weak because he'sblood-starved. It happens to vampires who don't drink blood for more than 24 hours. But he's still strong enough to whoop your ass."
"Don't worry about him drinking your blood. At most, it just makes him more deranged; he didn't get enough to actually recover from theblood-starvedstate."
"You have to apprehend him fast, boy. Night is almost upon you; he'll only get stronger by then."
**
'Were those ever real? '
'Did those voices, for once, decide to be helpful? '
TJ still wasn't convinced, and nobody could blame him really. He spent so many years suffering from those voices constantly. They were so bad that even the Medical Saint was rendered helpless against them.
These voices could never be silenced for long. The longest they've gone silent was 24 hours and no more than that. Eventually, they will return, and eventually, they will be loud again.
It's always been like that. TJ was used to it. And he didn't hope that this time would be any different.
And this is exactly why he's not convinced that the voices he heard during that fight were real. It must've been his imagination, or maybe he went delirious for a bit because of the Blood Racing agent.
But whether it's real or not, it did help him during that battle. The information that he wouldn't have been aware of otherwise, such as the accurate detail of how strong the opponent was, the reason why he's weakened, the information about the Blood Racing agent, and the overall advice, all of this helped.
'Oh yeah, that man got resurrected from death. What the hell was that about? Nobody told me that cultists must be killed twice.'
The memory of the man levitating off the ground with the wound on his chest closing up and him laughing creepily and angrily just as he was about to charge again, only to be stopped by the dean landing next to him, remained fresh in his mind.
'Isn't that bad news then? No wonder it's so difficult to eradicate them.'
'Lily and Sieg should've already given their statements while I'm unconscious. They too saw how that man was resurrected; there's no way they'd forget about that. So the authorities should already know what to do.'
TJ never heard anything about skills that could revive someone from death. The closest he knew was that one skill of [Necromancers], which allows them to reanimate the dead to fight for their cause.
But reanimation was way different from resurrection. The reanimation skill of necromancers, especially in low levels, causes their undead to be somewhat stupid and goofy. Plus, they can only use it on skeletal remains. The flesh, squishy parts, and higher intelligence come when the skill is upgraded some more.
What he saw from the man certainly wasn't reanimation. It's straight-up resurrection.
TJ shot that man's heart off, and within that range, Hotshot's penetrating force was high. It literally blew a gaping hole in the man's chest; his heart exploded, quite literally. He should've died after that.
But the revival negated Hotshot's efforts. TJ saw how the man's wounds closed up and how his flesh stitched itself back together, regenerating even his beating heart.
That was simply unfair.
He could even remember how his heart sank to his stomach after hearing the man talking after that. In that moment, he was quite convinced that he was going to die.
But Valerie came to their rescue. Her arrival caused TJ to feel so relieved that he promptly lost consciousness.
'There's gotta be a limit for that, right? There's no way he could simply just revive himself at will. Atlanta wouldn't permit a skill like that to spread to the public, especially not when considering that it could fall into the hands of evil people.'
'Yeah, there's no way.'
'And why am I so concerned about this? It doesn't have anything to do with me. It's not like I could control the supply of skill books in the market.'
'Instead of that, I should be worried about my gun being confiscated.'
TJ pursed his lips for a bit.
'No, they wouldn't, right? I mean, it's for self-defense.'
'Besides, I have a gun license, and Hotshot was registered in the system. They shouldn't confiscate her from me.'
'...'
'If they do, I guess I'll argue by saying that 'boys must know how to protect themselves when going out at night'. Hopefully, that works.'
'If it doesn't...well, shit.'