44 The promise to be kept, the fate to be broken(3)

/Bam/

Suddenly sitting up straight on the ground, Alaukik tried to get a sense for where he was. Feeling that his sight was gone again and that his domain was back, he realised that he was back in the real world. As he was sensing around to check whether anything had happened in the 16 hours he was unconscious, he suddenly picked up a row of ants walking along the ground. Suddenly, a curiosity towards those ants aroused in him, and he focused his attention on them, giving all of his attention to what those ants were going. However, just a few seconds later, he violently shook his head while thinking,

'What the hell? What was that? Why was I feeling a curiosity towards ants? It's like I had never seen them in my life! Even right now, I feel an innate curiosity towards everything! No…no, no, no, no, no! The Original* must have done something to me. It must be whatever he did inside our consciousness** space! The last thing I remember was his consciousness expanding like crazy before crashing into mine, but what happened after that?! I need to know what happened… As far as I remember, Original said that I was able to enter that space because I now had better control over his powers, so then I should be able to enter again right? But, can I really risk going back there? The very reason I lost the last time was because I didn't have any clue about how the consciousness space works, and it's not like I suddenly know more about it! But wait… why do I feel like I suddenly know more about it? Like, how to enter it, or how to control it? No, no, there's no other choice, I have to enter and check it out for myself. /chuckle/ No other choice," said Alaukik, chuckling and shaking his head slightly before concentrating on his mind for a few seconds before suddenly,

/whoosh..?/

Opening his eyes, Alaukik realised that he had successfully entered his consciousness area, and that he now had his vision back. However, when he looked around the area, the colour drained from his face, as he realised what Original had done.

Because right now, the colour of the entire space was dark grey, a mix of white and black.

'A mix of both white and black,' thought Alaukik as he looked around. Realising what it meant, he said,

"He fused our souls together… He was talking about how his soul was cracked, and that he only had one option left… So this was what he was talking about? To fuse his soul into mine and live on in me? So like, am I a me or a we? A he or a they? No,no" shaking his head violently, he continued,

"Let's not fall into that hole. Right now, I need to figure out what exactly are the effects of what he did, and if they are really bad. If it's just curiosity towards everything in the world, it isn't that bad, but if there is more… I could be in deep trouble," he finished, as a troubled expression took over his face.

Leaving the consciousness space, Alaukik stood up in the real world. Looking behind him, he saw the bodies of the trio still there, and he immediately returned their bodies to how they were originally. Once again, he expanded his domain, this time holding back his curiosity for the world. Sensing what was going on outside, Alaukik realised that reinforcements from the army had come a while ago, and that they had started cleaning up the battlefield. Nearly 50,000 soldiers were sent as reinforcements, and now all of them were cleaning the battlefield.

'So many dead bodies, yuck,' thought Alaukik, with disgust apparent on his face before he realised that Original's personality had affected him again.

Stopping time for the trio to prevent their bodies from decaying, Alaukik teleported to the closest soldier who was cleaning the battlefield, and then ignored his surprise and went on to ask where their leader was. The soldier, seeing the badge of representing major on Alaukik, immediately answered. And so, Alaukik immediately went to the leader. However,

'What are these people doing..? Why would they collect the bodies? Why don't they just let them be?' thought Alaukik, before violently shaking his head and correcting himself,

'These are all men who died doing their duty. They deserve the best send off.'

He then asked the leader where the bodies of the rest of the soldiers were, and even though the leader was surprised and had many questions about what had happened, since his rank was lower, he just told Alaukik that they brought back every body that they could find and are now sending them to the nearest air base where they will be immediately brought to their family. Hearing this, Alaukik immediately teleported to where the bodies (which were in body bags) were being loaded into trucks to be transported to the air base. Without informing anyone, he immediately did to the rest of the soldiers what he did to the previous trio, and brought Vishal, Usman and Ameen's bodies here too. Bringing his palms together, he bowed towards the soldiers and prayed for their well being in the afterlife, and for their soul to find peace. Because he now knew that the soul and afterlife do exist.

Immediately after this though, he turned around and immediately went back to the leader's tent, where he asked the leader to give him a phone through which he can contact Hriday. However, the leader said he didn't have anything like that, and instead told him that Hriday is probably in Kabul, having to deal with the press and calm the agitated masses. And so, Alaukik immediately went towards Kabul, wanting to inform Hriday of what happened, and tell him to inform Vinay about this too. And while it would have been best for him to go and inform Vinay about this himself, a part of him didn't want to face Vinay, knowing that he might have been able to save them if he had been a bit faster, or if he had synced with his powers earlier.

'But everyone has to die, what is the difference between dying early or later? And they were just some magicians and normal humans. Why would I feel sad about their deaths? They don't matter in the long run.'

'NO!'

"I need to find a cure for this. There must be some way to get rid of his influence, or at least reduce it. I know! He said that he saved the information of people that might be useful to us later right? Maybe if I go through that, I might find someone? It's a long shot, but why not try it? And once I get my eyes, I might be able to do something else too!" said Alaukik, as he decided to immediately get back his eyes after he was done meeting with Hriday.

And so, right after he met with Hriday and told him what had happened without going too much into the details, Alaukik started to teleport towards the south, towards the islands in the Indian Ocean, where his eyes are.

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* = the Alaukik before our Alaukik will now be referred to as Original

**= The consciousness/mind/soul. They mean the same in this context. It is basically a representation of Alaukik's mind, where his soul's core dwells. While the soul itself occupies the entire body, just like the brain is the core of the body, the soul also has a core that controls what your soul does, and in essence, what you do. Well, that's a whole new topic, and I won't dive into that.

More updates will be coming today.

Big thanks to Pha and Shinigami for the comments! They really do keep me going. And of course to the readers who vote for the novel, thank you :)

And as always, thank you for reading and have a great day ahead!