Path to Transcendence

Chapter 75: Dwindling Hope

Lily had a confused expression. “House Hyperius? The Marquis house?”

“Yeah, that same one. What do you guys know about it?” Julius asked them.

Derek was the one who answered. “My father told me that House Hyperius lost many of its powerful members in the last monster flood. Unfortunately, that led many other houses to take advantage of it and start poaching many of their assets over the last decade. They retained most of their core holdings because of their Patriarch the Golden Sun, who is regarded as one of the most dangerous Tier 5s in the empire and has a really good chance of reaching Tier 6 in the next several years.”

“I heard the same thing. My father had some deals with House Hyperius over the years but they have slowly dwindled,” Lily added.

“What does House Hyperius have to do with your secrets?” Aubrey asked him.

Julius took a deep breath. “My real name is Julius Von Hyperius,” Julius revealed to them.

Julius expected surprise, but instead, he was met with confusion.

“You’re a son of House Hyperius?” Derek asked.

Julius nodded.

Derek turned to Kyle and Lily, “Did you guys know about House Hyperius having a boy around Julius’s age with his features?”

Kyle spoke up, “There is a boy named Tristan, he is the son of Frederick Von Hyperius, but he goes to Goldencrest. There are also a few other boys and girls but I don’t recall anyone of them having black hair, or being named Julius for that matter.”

Lily asked Julius, “You mentioned that you didn’t have a father anymore, was that true?”

“Yeah, both parents are dead,” Julius assured her.

“Then who was your father if you don’t me asking?”

Julius had to think about it for a little bit. It wasn’t like he had ever known the guy, so his name kind of slipped out of his memory.

“Gregor, the brother of the Patriarch,” Julius finally remembered.

“Gregor Von Hyperius was your father?” Aubrey asked in a disgusted tone.

“Technically yes, but I can’t recall a single conversation I ever had with him. So I don’t really consider him family. Why, do you know him?” Julius asked. Aubrey sounded like she knew of his father if her disgusted tone was any indicator.

“I know of him, I met him with my mother at a fancy get-together with a bunch of other nobles. He was not someone who I expected to be your father. You have my sympathy,” Aubrey said.

Julius was not surprised that his father had quite a negative reputation in the noble circles. From what he could find out his father was a no-good drunk who slept with anyone who had two legs and could breathe.

“So that would mean you are Lukas Hyperius’s nephew and a part of the main line. How did we not know about you?” Derek was perplexed.

Julius told them all about his weird circumstances. About his birth to his commoner mother who died when he was born. To his isolated upbringing and not even meeting his family for most of his life, until he was twelve.

They were all saddened to hear his story. “That is deplorable. Nobles can be awful, greedy people, I freely admit that. But this is totally different. If you were the nephew of the Patriarch why would you be treated like that?” Lily asked.

“Apparently it was all because of my father. When he brought me back to the family the elders were very upset with him and wanted to kill or banish both of us. However, my uncle was able to convince them to let me stay. However, they had a stipulation that included no contact with me until my awakening and seeing if I had any talent,” Julius explained to them.

“And your uncle just went along with it? He allowed them to alienate you for years?” Lily sounded offended on his behalf.

“To be fair, it wasn’t like I was living in squalor. I was living very luxuriously and had anything I wanted other than family. Also, I was an independent kid so it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.”

Lily and the others weren’t convinced. They still thought that it was an awful thing to do to a child.

Julius continued on with his story. Telling them about the night of the attack and what had happened. He tried to include everything he thought was important. He mentioned how it was a plan concocted by some of the elders, Duke Greyson, and Clan Genshen. He was confident that most of them would know who he was talking about.

He finished his story with the incident with the teleportation circle. For a while, they didn’t say anything. They were thinking about what he told them. They knew if what he was saying was true then that would have enormous repercussions.

Julius didn’t quite understand the full consequences himself, but he expected Derek, Lily, and Kyle to understand more than he did.

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“And they don’t know you’re alive?” Edgar wanted to make sure Julius wasn’t being targeted.

“No, I don’t think they would have any reasons to think I would have survived the accident, but I don’t know. I’m in the dark. You guys haven’t heard any recent developments about House Hyperius?”

Lily and Derek both said they hadn’t. However, Kyle had something to say. “There have been some weird movements regarding Duke Greyson and his allies. My family has many contacts and they all said that Duke Greyson was making a lot of moves in the Valorbury Region where House Hyperius has holdings. I haven’t heard anything from the Hyperius family specifically, but if Patriarch Lukas hasn’t come out and said anything or done anything about Duke Greyson’s movements after the attack, then I don’t think itʼs a good sign.”

Whack!

Lily smacked Kyle hard. “Don’t say something like that. Have some empathy for Julius.”

Kyle held his head where he was hit. “I wanted to be honest with him. There’s nothing worse than false hope,” Kyle defended himself.

Lily was about to continue arguing with him, but Julius stopped her, putting a hand on her arm.

“He’s right and I appreciate your honesty, Kyle. I admit I have been thinking the same thing for a while now. If my uncle had been able to survive all of the Tier 5s then there would be more noise, or at least Duke Greyson would be more wary of making moves on House Hyperius.”

Julius had known in his mind that it was unlikely that they survived, but Kyle’s words hit home. They were blunt, but something he needed to hear from someone else. He still didn’t know if his uncle and Edwin for sure died that night, but he felt the remaining vestiges of his hope begin to die away.

He had been trying to keep a hold of the possibility that they were alive but it might be time for him to accept the reality. It hurt to think about it. He didn’t have much time with either of them, in the grand scheme of things. Only a few years really. But those years were pretty amazing.

He remembered everything, even all the times when Edwin would force him to practice his manners, beat him up in the training yard, or when Julius would make dinner for the three of them to enjoy. You didn’t really appreciate something until it was gone.

The group must have felt his mood plummet because they quickly gave him some space. They let him know that they would be waiting at the cafeteria for him and to take his time. They would be there to talk about whatever he needed to talk about.

When they all left, Julius slowly released [Savage Dance]. It had been cranked up high in order for him to keep his composure around the others. But now that he was alone he was dialing back.

He thought about keeping it active until the brunt of the pain went away. But he understood from his previous experiences of losing the family that bottling it up would only hurt him later down the road. If he didn’t confront it now then it would continue to haunt him like a ghost, constantly lurking in the back of his mind, growing and just waiting for the worst moment to burst open.

Julius realized as [Savage Dance] was lowering down, that sadness wasn’t his main emotion. He felt something rise in him that he thought he had gotten rid of when his parents and sister died in his last life. A dark ugly piece of him. Rage. Uncontrollable rage.

He stopped lowering [Savage Dance] for a second, making sure that he maintained a grip over his emotions. It was hard because he didn’t want to keep them locked up and controlled. He wanted to unleash them onto the world. Onto the people who attacked him and his family.

Julius walked over to the control panel where the controls for the barrier were and activated them. The barrier was supposed to handle even some Tier 5 attacks.

Once he knew it was safe, then he dropped [Savage Dance] and his emotions roared from the depths.

Julius didn’t even think of his next actions, his anger tried to take over and he gladly let it. He created a small orb of fire mana. It was less mana than even his usual spikes, but he carefully created dense layers of fire mana, intertwining with one another, just like the scales he practiced with.

He used [Arcane Construct], [Pure Compression], and [Mana Layering]. He didn’t even use [Savage Dance] to aid his focus. His rage was doing a better job than the skill could ever hope to manage.

Once he created a perfectly round sphere the size of a golf ball he used [Empowerment of Will]. He still hadn’t tried empowering another skill yet, but he was attempting it now. It might be a stupid idea that could kill him but for some inexplicable reason, he was confident he could make it work.

At first [Empowerment of Will] didn’t seem to want to interact with his other skills or the orb. But he wasn’t going to be denied.

Slowly, Julius felt [Empowerment of Will] latch onto the sphere and combine with it. The secret was his emotions. When he fed his anger and rage into the sphere, it swallowed it up like a droplet of water getting absorbed into the desert sand. His aura became one with the orb and he could feel each layer and the little imperfections on its surface.

He felt the orb change on a qualitative level. If it was a crumbling stone before it was a sphere of solid ruby now.

As he stared at it, he started to feed kinetic energy into it. He increased the movement of the molecules, fueling the fire to get hotter and brighter. It was no longer red, it was turning blue as it intensified.

It was still only the size of a golf ball, but Julius could feel the energy building up in it and start to press against its container. Then it began to violently thrash, trying to break free. However, Julius’s anger and [Empowerment of Will] worked together and kept it in.

Once he felt like it could handle no more, he shot it at the barrier. It wasn’t that fast but somehow that made it look a lot more menacing. It slowly hit the side of the barrier and detonated.

The flash of light blinded him, and the explosion rocked the entire room even through the barrier. The barrier held, but everything inside of the barrier was affected by the orbʼs explosion and shockwave. Julius was slammed off of his feet and face-first into the barrier. He hadn’t worn the bracelet, so he got injured pretty badly. Large third-degree burns all across his chest and arms, and shattered bones throughout his whole body from the impact.

They might have left someone else in critical condition, but Julius had a really good healing skill. However, he didn’t use it for a moment, just allowing himself to feel the pain of his injuries without [Savage Dance] taking the brunt of it. He wanted to punish himself, he knew it was stupid but he was emotional so he gave himself an excuse. Oddly enough, he didn’t even feel the pain in his body.

Finally, he let [Pseudo-Phoenix Renewal] heal him up completely and re-activated [Savage Dance] bringing himself back under control. His emotions felt less raw and he wrestled his control back. He felt a lot more empty after his outburst, he released as much anger as he could, and most of what remained was just sadness.

However, he didn’t let himself mope around. That would be the worst thing he could possibly do now and he slapped both of his cheeks with his hands, wiping the wet spots on his face. Then he got up and headed to the cafeteria.

He could really use a good meal to get his spirits up.