The Deaths Of Daren

"Finally…." sighed Celina. She sat on a finely crafted wooden chair while placing her elbows on the table and covering her entire face.

Daren could not see what emotions Celina was displaying on her face but he knew that tears were flowing down her face. Her cries of joy may be silent to others but they could not be hidden from Daren's senses.

He did not even need his senses as the bond that was forged between them conveyed the emotions of one person to the other. They had a strange understanding of how the other person thought and felt.

Daren stood up and walked across the room. He stopped next to Celina and patted her head lightly.

"Get those tears out before your sister wakes up. I wouldn't want you to embarrass yourself after not seeing her for so long," said Daren with a soft, loving tone.

Celina no longer cried silently as she started wailing like a small child. Daren picked her up and took Celina into his arms. He continued to pat her head until he felt like it would cause discomfort if he did it for too long.

As tears full of longing and loneliness fell from Celina's rosy cheeks, Daren could not help but feel sharp pains from his heart. Rather than emotional pain, he could feel as if something physical was grasping onto his heart and trying to pull it out from his chest.

Daren's face started to show signs of immense pain as his facial muscles twisted. Daren closed his eyes forcefully as he tried to suppress the pain. He could not fall into this pain as he had to accompany Celina.

He could not dare leave her in a vulnerable state and no one to rely on. Daren gritted his teeth as the deadly pain started to send shocks towards his brain. He could feel the pain flowing out of his heart. It moved through his blood vessels and up to his brain.

It was as if the pain could tell that with a strong mind, Daren could withstand long-term pain without fainting. Once the feeling entered his brain, Daren's knees started to buckle but he kept himself standing by sheer willpower.

This was the willpower that was built over thousands of years of living in an unending cycle of death. It was the willpower that pushed Daren to keep on living in each life for as long as he could.

Daren had died 69 times and each death was a painful experience that no being would want to feel. No one wants to feel death even once but Daren had felt it over and over again. This unrelenting will of not wanting to die is what reinforced his survival instincts over and over again.

This willpower is what kept Daren motivated to cause endless death in his world. He thought if humans ceased to exist, he would no longer have to live through the hellish cycle ever again. He did not know if the transmigration would stop if he led the world to a gruesome end but that was his final choice.

Even if his plans did not work out, Daren had pushed himself to adjust to his new world and try to live his life a little bit differently. He had made friends and he had gotten a companion that could understand him better than he could understand himself.

Daren's survival instincts told him that he could not succumb to these pains there was no telling what would happen if he fell here. He could push through this abrupt hurdle and keep Celina company.

Celina slowly stopped her soft cries once she felt the emotions that were being emitted from her bond with Daren. It had slipped from Daren's mind that Celina could feel what he felt.

Celina was too engrossed in her own emotions until now to notice that Daren's emotions were constantly fluctuating.

The emotions she could feel were those of pain, resilience, and blood lust.

Celina was shocked for a second and she pushed herself out of Daren's embrace with ease as due to the pain, his grip was nonexistent. Celina latched her arm to Daren's waist as she took his arm and wrapped it around her shoulder.

She took him towards the bed in small steps and laid him down. Celina's face started to tremble as she saw that Daren had gotten completely pale. His face had lost all color while his mouth was bleeding from gritting his teeth too hard. This bleeding spread as his nose and ears were now dripping with the crimson fluid. His eyes also started to blank as they stared straight into the ceiling.

'What is happening to him?!!!' yelled Celina as she directed these words towards the system. She waited a couple of seconds but no response was heard.

Even though Celina knew everything that had to do with the abilities granted to her, she had no control or knowledge of how the system worked. One thing she did know was that the system always kept its word. The system never lies.

Unfortunately, keeping its promise meant that it would truly be shut down for the next 3 days. Celina was lost and helpless as there was nothing within her set of knowledge that could explain what was happening.

'Think Celina! Think!.' Celina had to think of something. She could lose Daren when she was finally about to be reunited with her sister. Not only did she care deeply for him, but she also did not know what would happen if he were to die here.

'Would I disappear? Would my sister disappear? Will we get sent back to the void?' were her thoughts. When despair was starting to form, Celina was able to break out an idea.

She ran downstairs, opened the doors of the store, and stood on the rainy pavement. In the darkness of the gloomy night, she yelled at the top of her lungs.

"HEEEEEEEEEEELP" she said.

The figure of a skinny man appeared from the shadows of the alleys. No features except the tall, lanky figure of the man could be seen as he was fully clad in black. The man floated towards Celina within the blink of an eye.

"What happened?" the man asked. His voice had a hint of sternness and sounded quite eerie.

"No time to explain. Come inside," said Celina trying to rush the man to help her. Before she could turn around, the scene around Celina turned black in an instant and then switched to the scene of the second floor.

The man in the black cloak had teleported her in with him. He did need to walk or run ever since he had reached adulthood. Celina and the man stood next to the bed and observed Daren.

The bleeding showed no signs of stopping while his eyes had turned completely white. From under the man's hood, two balls of glowing, blue light can be seen on the area that was to be his eyes.

The glowing eyes dashed around furiously as they were moving on their own and examining every inch of Daren's body. The glow in the eyes faded with every moment until 2 minutes later, they had stopped emitting light and ceased their movements.

"This is quite unexpected. It seems his soul is fighting itself and trying to end its own consciousness." said the man. You could not see any of his faces but his voice had a slight hint of confusion.

"What does that mean? Can we help him?" asked the confused and flustered Celina.

"Hmm. What I mean is that his own soul has formed into many fragments and is now holding a massive brawl to see which one wipes out the rest. The winner takes control of both the mind and body.

There is nothing I can do except stopping the bleeding. This fight is his to fight. There is not much to worry about though. If he can overcome this I believe he can become a mage." said the man. He sounded somewhat curious as to what was going to happen. This is the first time he has seen something like this in person.

"I don't care if he becomes a mage or not! I just want to be alive! If you can't reassure me that he will, you can leave!" Celina was both frustrated and angered at the man. How could he try to think of something like this in this situation? She needed reassurance, not positive side effects.

"My bad. That was very inconsiderate of me but I said that because I am confident that he can survive. I see that the largest soul fragment seems to be holding on pretty well and snuffing out the rest of the fragments.

Of course, the main fragment belongs to your husband's original consciousness. He seems to have ungodly willpower towards survival." replied the man.

Celina went silent. She remembered that Daren had gone through a horrendous amount of deaths and none of them were peaceful. Every single one of his lives had some sort of miserable aspect to it while he always died in a somewhat gruesome death.

Even the most recent death was him spontaneously imploding. No way didn't hurt but somehow Daren was not very fazed when he woke up in Alex's body, This went to show just how resilient he is.

Seeing Celina's silence and her expression that indicated that she was deep in thought, the man decided to stay standing there like a stone statue until she was ready to talk. There were things he still needed to inform her of.

Before he did that though, the man placed his right hand on Daren's forehead. The man's hand was much larger than that of most people mostly due to how long his fingers were. It was as if all the bones in his body were forcefully elongated.

The hand then started to glow a blue light. This light then seeped into Daren's skull and started closing up the tears in the blood vessels that had popped. Since the bleeding had stopped, the man sighed in relief. It was now all up to Daren to make it through this ordeal.

After 3 minutes, Celina had managed to gather all her thoughts, and her focused expression loosened. She relaxed and took a deep breath in and then let it out.

"I stopped the bleeding. I will be heading back to the marquess and report this. I'll be leaving my assistant here. I know that this time was an emergency but if you ever need something again, please call us by our names. I am Hyun-seok and my assistant is Yeon-seok." says the man after noticing that Celina was no longer in a panicked state.

Celina nods in confirmation as the man takes that as his cue to leave. He turns into a dark blur that resembles oil. This blur rushes into a shadow that was in the corner of the room.

After the man was gone, Celina brought over a chair and sat down next to the bed. She held onto Daren's hand while waiting for the moment in which he regained his senses. Even though Daren had not lost consciousness, his blank eyes made it seem like he had fainted.

Daren just did not have any control over his body at the moment as he was fully concentrating on defeating the pain. This made his body look limp and gave the impression of being asleep.

Celina could not feel any thoughts from Daren's mind except the pain he was resisting so she also assumed he had lost consciousness due to the pain. Celina did not want to look at his blank eyes anymore and moved to close his eyelids.

> At The Marquess' Mansion <

"So you're saying that he's probably going through a mage awakening?" asked Andrew Hendrix, the marquess.

"Yes. All the symptoms of a mage awakening are present inside his soul. The only issue is the Cellebus Corus (Cellebus Corus is the extra organ needed to be a mage. Explained in chapter 34) that I could not find." said Hyun-seok.

"That is fine. For mages, that organ is formed after the awakening. If they have had it since birth, we could just find them and train them specifically to become mages from when they are young. That is exactly why it's hard to find skilled mages as they awaken after their 20's. Most of the time that is." Andrew was speaking like usual, in his lecturer tone and loud voice.

"Doesn't that mean that young man is even more talented than we imagined?" asked Grandpa Kuro who was quietly drinking tea.

"That really seems to be the case. He should be top 10 ten in terms of within the empire. Grandpa Kuro, can you prepare to send another message to the emperor?" asked Andrew.

"As you wish." replied grandpa Kuro as he put down his teacup and stood up with vigor.

"Oh, also write a letter to the Branch Manager Kratos. Ask him if I could meet him at the Sorcerer Council's office as soon as possible. As for Hyun-seok, you can return to your watch." ordered.

"Yes my lord." says the man in the black cloak as he disappears into his shadow form once again.

After the marquess was left alone in his room, he took in a couple of deep breaths and then took out a green crystal from his pocket. The crystal then formed a green message using light. It looked like a hologram of some kind but was solid to the touch since it was made from a special kind of energy.

It read: The war will be starting in 2 months. Ready the 15th regiment of the shadow guards, Missions will be assigned after the war starts.

After reading the message, the marquess placed it back into the inner pocket of his robe.