Chapter 103

From the professor's perspective, Toren was almost like a ghost.

He is existing, lingering everywhere, silently observing with some physical eyes peering through his soul. And there truly were times when Toren felt like he was a ghost; it was during the times they would talk and laugh and just plainly interact.

They would jest about things from the modern era to be integrated with their supernatural context. And like a reversed clock, Toren would oftentimes feel like a crappy invisible lump of perceptions. He was just there, with no one else to notice him. Not his own brother, not the only one who could recognize his existence, and not even the kid who had some premature ability to somehow reach him.

Ross is a very passionate man.

He had wrongful and illegal ways, but he was a dreamer too.

Like any other artists or men that reached for the top, he had the same kind of perseverance and painstaking dedication.

If it was sinful, he would have dipped his fingers into darkness and gone on with it. If it was illegal, he would even break his own bones to battle with the steel cuffs of laws. If it was supposed to be in some other way, he would smash the asphalt ground and draw his own avenue, even create the crossroads he preferred.

Ross was that kind of man.

He outlived his parents' post tragedy and survived the harsh world on his own.

He absorbed the lurking shadows of reality and of society and breathed with such tinted beliefs his own dreams. And Toren was always reminded of his ways whenever he would see that side of the professor.

Toren felt like he did such things, no matter how wrong or stupid it gets, he would do it.

Airen's hints said it all to him.

It was just a soft whisper, but it reverberated through his ears against his whole soul. It exuded out of his system. His very own being attacked simultaneously with the lost memories and the identity he ought to have.

And Toren knew well what that kind of passion brings.

Sometimes, it lifts you to the limelight.

Above the stage where only the greatest are allowed to stand on and beneath the spotlight before the sea of crowds that looked up and watched.

Whatever spiky road one's feet had gone through or some cold recesses one's heart had outlived in, the stage was sometimes for those people.

That kind of passion splits out the worst and lifts the best of all.

And afterwards, they bring accomplishment, luxury, wealth, recognition, and tinges of doubts and bittersweet loneliness. Because they were at the top.

And whether they bow down to it or go crazy about it, everything depends on that 'great' person already. However, that same kind of passion can bring one to the worst places.

The cost of limelight relinquished does not always guarantee the reward, after all.

Because that same kind of passion forms a barrier that murders the people around them.

They can be destructive.

They could go berserk and they could go insane over it. There are those kinds of passion that become molded into a serial killer. Against those who were supposed to be falling in love.

Like the world for Ross or the children's future.

They have collapsed apart because of that same power of passion.