Lord of Annihilation

Making it back to the academy, Lucius first dropped Olivia at her room. He took care to not expose their tracks and evaded the main path. The route shown by Escker proved to be useful, as Lucius evaded most of the cameras and sentries on his way here.

During the entire journey neither of them spoke, each due to their various reason. Lucius, because he simply found it to bothersome to talk and Olivia, because she could not understand her own feelings.

Olivia's heart kept beating unnaturally fast and her face was completely flushed. While, Lucius did notice these things, he simply chalked it to overdrafting her soul power and completely ignored it's actual implications.

Dropping off Olivia at her room, Lucius gave her certain instruction.

"Follow these instructions to cultivate your soul power, do not slack. Apart from that also prepare carefully for the expedition, by the academy. Great changes are expected to take place. Your life will depend on these preparations you make." instructing so, Lucius wrote down a certain method to cultivate her soul.

Olivia obediently nodded and accepted his instructions.

Immediately upon this, Lucius departed turning into a dark flash of light and disappearing into the night.

Watching him go, Olivia had finally calmed down to a certain extent. Her face was still flushed, but her heart had calmed down to a certain extent.

'Is this love?' she inwardly thought to herself, before hurriedly shaking her head and banishing this thought.

'Nonsense. Lucius is my little brother. How can I have such embarrassing thoughts.' slapping her cheeks. she continued, 'It must be because of all the events today.'

She then retreated into the room, carefully reading the paper Lucius had left behind. She had learnt the meaning of weakness, and never wanted to feel that way ever again.

'I must become stronger and protect everyone!' she punched the air to show her resolve and sat down to cultivate.

Sniff, sniff

'Before that.' she immediately got up and rushed into the bathroom.

'I STINK SO BAD' Olivia screamed within her mind. After finally loosening her nerves, she finally had the time to inspect her own body, only to see it caked with black filth covering her body.

'Ahhh! Why did he not tell me about this!' Olivia felt like digging a hole and hiding underneath it. The red blush, which had receded, came back to show her embarrassment.

How she was going to show her face to Lucius, was another battle for Olivia tonight.

----------------------

Two weeks passed, with nothing significant happening.

The incident at the warehouse district had been publicized in the news, two days after the actual incident.

The press had described the scene as a terrorist attempt to harm the Alliance and also tied in the deaths at 'The Pit' to be part of a greater purpose. No mention of Keith, Luther or even Alex had been made.

'Seems like he made it out, before the authorities arrived.' Lucius calmly thought to himself while watching the news on the hologram.

Currently it was 7 AM in the morning. Lucius was sitting in the cafeteria, eating the academy issued breakfast. He was sitting inside the cafeteria itself, with no other person sharing his table.

A cacophony of excited voices sounded all around him. Each student were eagerly waiting for the expedition, that was about to happen. They were already forming their own groups in hopes of being deployed in the same planet.

Alas Lucius knew, such actions were meaningless. While Erik had said that the distribution was going to be random, he knew it was not so.

'In order to keep the race for points as competitive as possible, the AI will distribute the students of families which are in a competitive relation with each other, in the same planet.'

Lucius being a commoner and no one of importance was naturally excluded from such talks, leaving him to have breakfast all alone. Still, Lucius was in no manner dissatisfied by this arrangement and eagerly welcomed such an outcome.

Being left alone, meant conserving his precious energy on other important stuff.

They would be boarding their respective spaceships and leaving for their training today. According to the schedule sent to the students by the Academy, they students were to assemble at the Transportation dock at 9 AM.

'I wonder if I'll be sent to the same planet this time.' Lucius inwardly wondered.

Him being sent to the same planet, where he had survived last time would be a pleasant surprise for Lucius. Even if he was sent to another planet, it really did not matter to Lucius.

'Do you think Olivia would survive?' Ka'lor'ah worriedly asked within Lucius' mind.

'Who knows?' he blandly replied.

'Can you at least act a little worried.' she spoke in an exasperated tone.

'If she somehow ends up dying even after having access to soul power, then she's better off dead. I can't keep protecting her every single second. Same goes for Reyna too, at least in her case she's bound to have some people protecting her from the shadows, courtesy of her father.' Lucius coldly spoke the truth.

With the passage of two weeks, the initial astonishment upon seeing Olivia's brand new soul, had all but died out. Lucius had reverted back to his original state, not really caring about the life and death of other beings.

Lucius did not mind training Olivia, but only if she showed some talent in the field. If she did not have the talent to fight, then no matter her innate gifts and endowments then there was no use training at all. He might as well use that time on something else, which has a guaranteed chance of being useful.

'So this is a test? To see if she's worthy?' Ka'lor'ah asked him curiously

'Test, challenge, call it whatever you want. It's just a way of seeing if she's worth my time, that's all.' Lucius flatly answered.

Just as Lucius was about to place a piece of bread into his mouth, he suddenly heard a voice call out to him.

"LUCIUSSSS!"

'Not again.' he inwardly sighed before turning around.

A few feet away stood a bespectacled young woman. She had golden hair, which swayed like silk and emerald eyes. Wearing a beige colored shirt and white pants, with brown boots covering her feet, she fit the picture of a perfect stereotypical explorer to a tee.

Lucius did not bother to put on act of a normal student and stared at her with his expressionless face. Reyna of course did not mind this, and rushed towards his table hold a briefcase in one hand and the arm of another person in another.

Dragging the said other person, she sat down at Lucius' table. That other person was obviously Olivia.

Ignoring Reyna for a second, he scanned Olivia for a second, just to notice that she was avoiding his gaze.

'Her soul energy has improved by a ton! She is just as monstrous as you.' an astonished Ka'lor'ah sounded in his mind.

Lucius heard her analysis, while ignoring all the envious gazes directed at him. Considering Reyna's loud and clear voice, it was no wonder every other student heard her call out to him. The male gazes were filled with envy and jealousy, whilst the female gazes were filled with loathe and disappointment.

"Lucius! Stop ignoring me!" Reyna leaned into the table and stared right into Lucius' face.

"What do you want?", Lucius blankly said.

"I completed that thing you asked me!" she said proudly while opening the briefcase in her hand.

Putting her hands into the briefcase, Reyna retrieved a slim metallic rod that was 50 cm in length and 5 cm in diameter. It looked unassuming and plain.

"I had it made exactly as you requested, according to your design. In fact, I went the extra mile and improved it a bit!" she spoke in a excited voice, while bobbing her head.

Her image resembled a cute little puppy waiting to be petted by its owner or that of a child wanting to be praised by her parent.

Of course, none of this entered Lucius' eyes. His usually cold and indifferent eyes were shining with a rarely seen excitement and somberness. His eyes seemed to say -Nice to meet you again, old friend.

That long cylindrical rod. was Lucius most trusted partner in his entire 300 years of living. Sure the design, material and looks had changed with the passage of time. This rod, wasn't the same as the other ones he had held in his hands.

But in their core and purpose they were all the same.

A weapon that he could trust his life on.

A weapon that could kill.