Chapter 154: Chapter 153 : Lane

The Bloody Hill incident.

April 3rd, Year 322 of the Zenki Calendar; this date marked the now-infamous incident where the Black Mist, one of the three great assassin factions, attempted to assassinate Saures’ royal family.

To many, this was an unimportant date…but to Lane, it wasn’t. He bore no strong feelings for the royal family or the assassins…or anyone or anything really. Still, when asked if he was ‘glad’ that the assassination attempt happened, he, with his usual blank face would say ‘yes’ without missing a beat.

The reason for his answer could be found in the difference between his current life and the one he had before the incident.

There were many lives upended and thrown into chaos by the incident, with the Sauresian royal family being the most obvious one. Rumours of their discord and fracturing were well-known thanks to the numerous newspaper articles about them. Lane was the opposite though, instead of being thrust into hell, the incident had allowed him to escape it.

The Bloody Hill incident had been a spit in the face of Saures and the Pillar factions. Using their righteous anger as justification, they flexed their muscles in a way they hadn’t in decades - nay, centuries. While the Black Mist was their primary target, they ended up destroying many other diabolic and shadowy organisations and factions along the way.

The faction Lane ‘belonged’ to fell in this category. It wasn’t just any faction either, but Shadow Snake, regarded as the strongest of the three great assassin factions.

It had happened three weeks after the Blood Hill incident. Lane, having just returned from a successful assassination, entered the training hall. In the dark chamber, he sat, shifting his Psi about as practice as he let his mind drift off. Only minutes later would the building be doused with no less than a dozen powerful auras.

Lane didn’t react to it initially. He understood that the base was being raided but didn’t care. Death, be it his own or others, didn’t set off even a ripple in his void-like gaze. He had been raised as a tool of murder, leaving his emotions blunted to the point of nonexistence. The same could be said of his fellow junior assassins around him at the time. They kept to themselves, all silent as corpses, uninterested in whatever was going on - that was until they received a telepathic command ordering them to counter the raiders.

They moved at once, though their aid didn’t change the outcome in the slightest.

Given that the Pillar factions were attacking one of the three great assassin factions, they didn’t pull their punches, sending all five Golden Fang Hunters. Sigurd the Rampaging Gorian, Elise the Temptress, Victor the Great Collapse, Karam the Thunderclap and Dawn the Nightlight, along with a dozen other powerful Hunters, handily trounced the assassins.

Lane, as a Rank 4 Telekinetic was helpless before the Hunters’ might. However, unlike Trine, the Shadow Snake Head and the more powerful members, they weren’t immediately killed off.

He and the junior assassins did nothing substantial in the battle. After the Shadow Snake’s Mental Master was taken out, the former Pirate Queen, Elise unleashed her own Mental Master power. The subsequent telepathic wave ended up paralysing all but a few dozen high-ranked assassins.

Lane was made to freeze as well. Frozen, he watched with a detached gaze as the Hunters slaughtered his ‘brethren’ and then with that same gaze, watched as the Hunters deliberated on what to do next in the slaughter’s aftermath.

In the end, Lane and the other junior assassins had their minds’ examined by Elise. The telepathic arrays in their Mental Domains, implanted by the Shadow Snake to better control them, were swiftly dispelled by the Mental Master.

There was no big hurray in the aftermath. Lane and the other assassins maintained their blank expressions, as though distant observers of the reality they were undergoing. While a few shackles had been broken, several much more sturdy ones still bound their minds.

The Hunters knew this and had Lane and the others transported away. The group of assassins didn’t resist in the slightest. The destruction of the Shadow Snake left them lost. They weren’t trained to contemplate anything but combat situations - or rather, they were trained against it, so the Hunters giving them instructions were readily taken to.

The group of forty-seven was transported to orphanages. Not just any orphanages, but Warm Embrace Orphanage, an orphanage chain created and managed by Sigurd. The orphanage was a passion project of the Ascendant. Having been an orphan and had a rough upbringing himself, he used much of his power and funds gained from his Hunter status to establish the chain, in hopes that no orphan would have to endure the harshness he had experienced growing up.

Lane was sent to one of these orphanages. At first, he didn’t think much of the different environment. Life at the Shadow Snake was hell no doubt, but it was a hell that he had long acclimated to. Even the torturous training didn’t affect him. He didn’t know if it was the inheritance potion or if his nervous system had become dauntless but he could easily endure the intense pain.

Still, these feelings didn’t last. Very soon, he came to appreciate and even greatly appreciate the change in environment.

The orphanages the assassins were sent to weren’t the regular kind. They were staffed to recondition the assassins and adjust them to be able to function in normal society. The psychologists had a tough time though, the junior assassins were essentially humans who had their humanity purposely and surgically scooped out of them. Most cases were too far gone, but some had a few scraps of humanity still squirming at their depths.

Lane was one such individual. The first and most important step in recovery was for the individual to develop a desire; any desire would do. The staffers experimented on which desire each teenager reacted to, focused on that, and then used it as a rope to pull the rest of their humanity out of them - well, that was the thought process.

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For Lane, two desires were noted, competition and consuming media.

The former included all sorts, from board games to battle. Even without the need to do well, he seemed to retain his desire to compete and win. This desire seemed to be the most common one, leading the staffers to host small tournaments very regularly; unsurprisingly Lane won them all.

As for the latter, Lane would connect to Enviso every day without fail and spend hours engrossing himself in movies and series. He was enamoured by them. The empty husk he started out as seemed to fill bit by bit as he allowed this information to pass through his Mental Domain.

The process was slow, very slow. Even three years later, he was far from a well-rounded person. Though, compared to his fellow assassins, he practically was one.

During this time, Sigurd showed up fairly regularly. He took a very hands-on approach with his orphanages, always performing checkups to make sure everything was kept to an acceptable standard. While doing so, he enjoyed interacting with the orphans and even bringing gifts.

Lane received a gift as well, a red scarf. The youth didn’t think much of it when he got it, nor the smile that the other wore when he accepted it, but over time, this became his most prized possession.

As he was developing as a person, the staffers had him undergo a basic education. Lane was introduced to society’s fundamental workings and, after a while, was given the task of searching for what he wanted to do next - what he envisioned himself doing in the future.

This was a tough task for the former assassin, especially tough when he was informed that being a ‘couch potato’ wasn’t a real career.

Lane thought it over hard, but not long. In truth, the idea had been present in his mind for a long time, well before the staffers brought it up.

“You…want to be a Hunter?” Sigurd was surprised by Lane’s sudden admission - no, request.

“I don’t want to be a Hunter specifically,” the former assassin corrected. “I want to be what you were to me…to others.”

Sigurd’s heart practically melted. He smiled as he saw the other avert his gaze to look at the grass while voicing these words. There was no ripple to be found in Lane’s mask-like expression, but the action was enough for Sigurd to know where the youth’s head was at.

Lane continued. “I can’t say my feelings are strong… but they certainly do point toward this direction. And, I believe my skills and previous training will allow me to slip into the role of Hunter better than most.”

Sigurd ‘s smile turned wry. The youth’s words were a gross underestimation of his abilities. Your average Shadow Snake assassin was of a higher quality than your average Hunter, and Lane was well above average. His Rank 4 Telekinetic was hardly powerhouse tier, but his skills, knowledge and talent were absurd, enough that he was given the title ‘Viper’ despite being a junior assassin. Had enough years passed, Sigurd was sure that Lane would be the faction’s Head.

“What do you think? Is there a possibility to enrol?”

Sigurd’s answer couldn’t come faster. The Psionic Association was always looking to welcome talented new blood so Lane’s application was accepted without issue.

Now, three months after that exchange, Lane walked towards the stationary train.

Red scarf flapping with the wind, he boarded the empty carriage. He took a seat in the middle and shut his eyes. The train was set for the Grey Wolf Academy and would leave in ten minutes. He didn’t mind the wait, he had plenty of things to think about after all.

Finally, the time arrived. The train doors shut and the mechanical snake slid forward.

‘To the Academy, we go.’

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