The Astral soul system-Chapter 158: unfavorable odds

(Author’s note: Warning!!! The following content might be.... offensive or uncomfortable to read. Please skip if you feel uncomfortable with what was going on in the last Chapter)

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Zyro looked at the girl and muttered

"Well you’ve been busy. Sorry to butt in on your fun"

Smiling, he spoke , leisurely looking around the place

"Nice place you got here. Seems a bit.... extravagant, don’t you think?

"Tch! You"

"Looks like i caught you at a bad time"

Keith doesn’t reply,

"Oh, relax. Is this how you treat all your guests? Besides,I’m not here to fight, just respond to a call"

Theia appeared, squinting her eyes at Keith.

"He looks way too hostile. I don’t think it’s him, he’d have been expecting you, wouldn’t he?" 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

Zyro gave her the mental equivalent of a shrug and replied

’It’s never that easy to tell . He could have sent it and be pretending not to know why I’m here.’

"Really? Why would anyone do that?"

’People are... strange, where i grew up. Besides, wouldn’t you be a bit miffed if someone walked in on you during your happy time’

"Well that explains you i guess"

Focusing back on Keith,he asked

"Got a minute to talk?"

"..."

"Oh, and, can you put something on? You’re uh...a little bit overexposed."

"..."

"Geez, what’s with the silent treatment? Is it about this afternoon? It’s about this afternoon isn’t it?. Well don’t blame me i was just being honest "

A snarl escaped Keith’s lips as he heard that

"I mean,who would ever have expected that such a pathetic waste of space and excuse of a player would have survived so long. Heh,i honestly just kept picturing your lifeless body in a ditch somew-"

Zyro suddenly shifted his head, narrowly avoiding a knife aimed at his head, lodging itself into the wall behind him.

"Hey,chill. Geez! Can’t a guy have an opinion anymore?"

"You disgust me" Keith said with indifference, seemingly expecting him to have dodged it.

"See? That’s what I’m talking about. Honesty. No need to fight, right?"

Zyro said, his gaze briefly moving to the girls he had chained up. He spent an unnaturally long time staring at them both.

The first, chained to the bed with ginger red hair that had gotten rough and dirty from going a long time without getting washed,her clothes were raggedy and ripped, obviously for the same reason as her hair. Her hands and feet were chained down in a way that left her on her knees with her hands behind her, leaving her completely defenseless, just like Keith liked. Her form was malnourished and pitiful but her brown eyes still had the blaze of rebellion, she glared at them both with a multitude of emotions ranging from fear to hatred, believing them to be accomplices. She could still feel fear, that’s good. But soon that light would die,it always did, Zyro thought before looking to the other.

Dark long hair that reached her back, and dark eyes, currently she might as well have been naked,all useful fabric having been stripped from her long ago, only a few bits remaining, perhaps from oversight or even a preference? She wasn’t chained but she didn’t seem to have any thoughts of defiance as she laid where Keith left her,her body limp on the bed as she stared blankly, she hadn’t said or done anything since he came in, contrary to the other girl who was fighting and screaming. Her eyes looked lost, lifeless as she stared blankly.

He looked at them a bit more,specifically their eyes before suddenly muttering

"Hmmm, interesting "

Keith noticed and with a strange expression, asked

"You like what you see?"

His hand suddenly gripped the face of the one who was resisting and chained

"This ones still new, haven’t had a chance to break her in yet"

"...i see that" he replied neutrally

The girl glared at him with disgust, trying desperately to escape his grip.

"Bitch!" Keith snarled, suddenly slapping here to the ground.

Zyro’s eyes followed the movement but he had no visible reaction. All you could see was that unsettlingly pure and gentle smile on his face.

"This one on the other hand..."

Keith said, pulling the naked one by her long black hair to show her face to Zyro. Her eyes were bleak and lifeless,she didn’t resist, didn’t pull away, just laid there,her blue eyes empty of anything but pain.

Keith chuckled, staring at his masterpiece

"Beautiful isn’t it? Almost reminds of you something, doesn’t it?"

He said, staring at Zyro knowingly

"Or maybe someone?"

Zyro ignored the patronizing tone as he looked into those eyes, confident he knew what Keith was trying to replicate.

"Yeah,i guess"

"I can almost see that stupid face of yours everytime i look at this bitch. Isn’t it wonderful" Keith said, his voice getting more upbeat.

Zyro chuckled, unfazed, leaning closer to the girl and gently brushing his hand on her bruised face.

"Hmmm...is that why you’re doing this?" He asked sounding genuinely curious

"Is that your goal. You want to be constantly reminded of what I....what HE went through, and laugh in our face"

The atmosphere had gotten odd. Keith now seemed almost happy, like he was showing off expensive trinkets to an old friend, but that disgust in his tone never left

"Or is it just your way of feeling better. Reveng? Gratification? Whatever you call it. Just to feel superior. I guess an ego as big as yours has an equally large appetite"

Keith raised a brow and suddenly asked

"What do you want?"

"Is that an actual question or is this another game?"

"You tell me? You’re Q’s pet"

Zyro shrugged

"Maybe so, you wouldn’t know though, would you? Unless..."

"Unless what?" Keith asked, getting annoyed again

"hmmm it seems you really DON’T know. That could be useful"

"You-"

A knock was suddenly heard at the door, interrupting them.

"Yours?" Zyro asked

"Find out"

Zyro walked towards the door and held the knob

"Are you seriously going to?" Theia asked

He shrugged and opened it anyway, looking out to see four students who he could recognize as some of Keith’s goons, although he wasn’t sure what year they were in.

"Hmm. Hi"

Without changing his expression, he closed the door on them , locking it for good measure before turning to look at Keith who’s brow was raised as high as it would go

"Well that was expected "

*Bang!*

The students on the other side seem to have finally realized what was going on as the door was firmly kicked down, although Zyro didn’t have much faith in it holding in the first place

"And so was that"

Zyro said , turning to face them.

"Seriously? We were just having a talk"

Keith didn’t reply, watching the whole thing without getting up.

Zyro giggled , facing them . He had come here, fully expecting this so he wasn’t really mad.

’Hmm,no quest huh? I guess since these guys are under Keith,the system sees them as like mobs in a boss fight. The main quest is to defeat him, and since i can’t currently do that without going through them,it still counts as the same quest. So no extra quest huh? Ah well,Exp is exp i guess’

He wasn’t exactly sure of this theory, but it couldn’t be too far off, right?

"Well, guess I’ll just have to-"

Zyro suddenly moved his neck again, feeling the wind brush past his face. With a sigh, he faces them

"The head, it’s always the head with you guys. Can’t you try something new? Well,at least that’s one ability down. Level two wind ability,a bit low for you to be a senior but I guess that would explain how you ended up working for this guy"

They didn’t let him speak anymore, attacking immediately.

Zyro smiled, he’d used the time before to scan their abilities and luckily none of them were as high level as the ones he saw before.

[Wind sphere (level 2)]

[Telekinesis (level 2)]

[Transformation (level2)

[Strength (level 1)]

Judging by their levels they were probably first years, however he couldn’t recognize them so they were probably from different classes. Made sense that Keith wouldn’t use his own people to capture him

Zyro was about to go on the attack when he suddenly felt something holding him in place. He quickly recovered and tried to move but still couldn’t move in time to dodge another sphere of wind shot at him, landing squarely on his chest

[-5HP]

"Tch, telekinesis"

He clicked his tongue and wanted to try again but the same thing repeated with the wind and telekinesis user suppressing him while the other two slowly creeped closer.

’Huh. They actually have a strategy? That’s worrying ’

Zyro quickly started to think. Sure he could easily fry these guys from a distance but officially, he didn’t have a lightning ability, or anything other than the darkness, and he wasn’t planning on killing here, even if he could. He couldn’t use soul skills for the same reason since they were easily distinguishable from his shadow tendrils. Even worse,he hadn’t brought a weapon with him, his shield had been left in his room so he was unarmed.

Every analysis pointed to this battle going badly for him if he didn’t use one of his system skills but for some reason as he watched his HP getting chipped down while he was suppressed, he couldn’t help but smile.

It might have seemed insane, but it was VERY genuine. Their whole life had been built around unfavorable odds,so after all that, finding himself in this situation was... light? Nostalgic? He wasn’t sure what the word was, but it reminded him of another time, when things were both better and worse.

Zyro suddenly noticed something next to him in the wall after he’d backed all the way up.

"That’ll work"

He suddenly grabbed the knife out of the wall, throwing it with all his might towards a specific person.

He immediately felt the strange force disappear as the knife buried itself completely into the abdomen of the telekinesis user with the squelch of steel cutting into flesh.

Zyro dashed towards the still shocked students, his fist driving up into the jaw of the strength user, briefly lifting him off his feet for less than a second as his body dropped lifelessly to the ground.

One of the remaining two was about to attack with a wind sphere when multiple shadow tendrils popped out of the ground, pulling both his arms away and the wind spheres just a little off course directly into his ally.

Dazed, the transformation user easily fell to Zyro’s fist, leaving the wind user who had no method of close range combat, and his only method of long range combat was rendered ineffective as Zyro’s shadow tendrils kept harassing him when he tried to attack. It only took a few seconds before he was also on the ground.

(Note from author: sorry about the not so breif break in Chapters for the past month. Some personal stuff happened . Updates will resume as scheduled from now on 🥳🥳🥳)