Late at night, a light icy breeze passed over Ryan and Aron as they went down the university stairs.
As expected, the physical and mental test were simply too easy for Ryan. Finally forcing Cyntia to take him seriously. Ryan would come back the next day to face two Grand-Masters of unknown identity.
But that wasn’t what Ryan was thinking about at that moment.
"I did my part of the deal." Ryan said just loud enough for Aron to hear and no one else. "I hope you keep your word."
Ryan hadn’t forgotten the poison running through his veins, much less the death threats against all his loved ones, he was still going to get his revenge with fire and blood.
"Don’t worry about that..." Aron grabbed a candy that he soon handed to Ryan. "I don’t think I need to tell you, but don’t try stepping on my tail."
Aron stared deep into Ryan’s eyes. "John and the others will remain under my supervision and won’t know anything about this from you. Understood?"
Ryan simply nodded while swallowing the candy.
Within a few minutes he already felt much better.
"That said." Aron picked the subject back up. "Good work, tomorrow things shouldn’t be any easier than today. But I’m sure you’ll find a way." He patted Ryan’s shoulder gently, trying to lighten the mood.
However, Ryan just nodded coldly.
A short while later Aron dropped him off in front of Manhattan and soon left without saying anything else while Ryan kept chewing on a candy. He soon opened the door and the bell rang out, drawing attention.
The regular customers all turned to welcome him.
"Look who’s back!"
"How’d the meeting go, big guy?!"
"What a silly question! Of course it went well! We’re talking about him! He’s the future of our country!"
They all started laughing innocently as Ryan smiled gently. A false mask, while his true expression was cold and violent.
His mind soon started working again.
He needed to ask himself one very important thing:
How much of what Aron said was true? Ryan wasn’t a fool, he knew that the best liars mixed truth and lies until it was impossible to tell one from the other.
But the poison? Was it real? Could a simple candy contain such a lethal poison? Was Overclock even really a poison? Or just an enhancement drug?
Even if Overclock was real, were the death threats real? Could Aron mobilize so many people so quickly to execute an entire Anarchist Faction? Had Aron really managed to infiltrate that easily?
There was a version of this that said Aron lied about everything, that he only wanted to put Ryan under pressure to extract the best from him during the trials. After all, with so many people’s lives on his shoulders, he would certainly give his best.
Maybe Overclock was a placebo effect and Ryan had simply eaten an ordinary candy.
Just as well, there was a chance all of it was real.
Ryan sighed.
"I’ve thought enough for today."
Suddenly, his eyes began devouring all the light around him.
"Let’s try solving this in a non-orthodox and more practical way."
John got startled as a beast roared ferociously inside Manhattan, the effect leaving most of the customers paralyzed. The strength of Ryan’s Voice was something out of the ordinary, forcibly shutting down unawakened minds for a blink of an eye.
In that brief instant, all the ordinary people in the café froze completely. However, surprisingly, some of them kept acting normally.
These were startled by the beast’s howl first.
"How terrifying! What was that?! A dog?"
"Wasn’t that more like a wolf? I’m saying that because I go camping a lot and it’s usually like that."
"Yeah, it was a wolf and it sounded hurt... how strange. An injured wolf in the middle of the big city."
They went back to talking as usual despite having resisted a mind attack.
That was strange.
Soon the rest of the ordinary people went back to normal.
They had delayed and confused reactions, but soon returned to normal.
None of this escaped Ryan.
Ryan’s eyes scanned everyone who showed anomalous behavior and he soon crossed Manhattan and whispered a list of names into John’s ear.
John immediately felt an intense chill and nodded.
"Put them to sleep and take them to a private room each." Ryan said, "Prepare the torture tools."
John gulped, his aura changing completely.
"As you wish, master."
Ryan went up to his apartment while John, on the floor below, suddenly shouted loudly.
"Good news! My dear Junior had a great day, and so, we’ve decided to share this joy with everyone!"
John raised a few mugs of hot chocolate, having slipped a suspicious white powder into each of them a few seconds earlier.
"Drink up! It’s on the house!"
"Yay! That’s why I love this place!"
"Hahaha, every time a young person is happy, that’s reason for us older folks to celebrate."
"Too bad I didn’t bring a gift!"
"Don’t worry about that!" John handed out the mugs with a smile on his face.
That was the last thing they saw.
Some time later the first of them woke up.
"What? Where am I?" He tried to get up, but soon heard the rattle of chains binding him to a chair. "What the hell is this! Is this a prank?! If it is, I find it to be in very bad taste!"
He looked around, but everything was dark. Only a single beam of light was pointed directly at his face.
"Don’t try to hide it." John said, stepping into the lit area, while pushing the tools toward the man. "We already know you aren’t who you say you are."
The man’s eyes widened, recognizing the torture tools.
He gulped.
"I don’t know what you’re talking about." He shot back.
But Ryan soon laughed from far away, in the darkness.
Terrifying him.
"First question: Do you remember hearing a howl?"
The man looked from side to side and shrugged before saying:
"Yeah, some animal got hurt. Maybe it got hit by a car." He said without thinking, at which Ryan laughed.
"I attacked you with my Voice, how did it feel?" The man shuddered.
"I don’t know what you’re-"
Suddenly Ryan’s eyes glowed again, at which this time the man screamed in terror.
Blood pouring from every orifice of his like a fountain.
His eyes turned bloodshot as he was left gasping for air.
The Voice of Wrath wasn’t so gentle.
But the interesting part was that a mind that wasn’t awakened would simply lose consciousness.
That man stayed awake, therefore his mental defenses were strong. He couldn’t possibly be an ordinary person.
"I’ve already given my verdict. You have two choices." Ryan taunted. "The first is to die here and now. The second is to confess."
The man looked around in panic once more, tears of blood streaming down his face as he gulped.
"Alright, alright! I’m an assassin sent to Manhattan café at the request of the Amber Faction’s boss. I-I don’t know who he is! The orders came from above and I just did what I was told."
Ryan laughed, amused. "Great. Better that way."
Ryan then turned to John and said. "This one knows almost nothing, let’s see which of them is more useful. And then we’ll choose who to kill and who to let live."
"Wait, what?!" The man screamed. "But I told the truth!"
"Yes, you admitted you were going to kill us." Ryan said from the darkness. "That doesn’t deserve forgiveness, but one of you might still be useful. So I’ll let one survive and as for the rest..."
Ryan’s eyes glowed once more and soon the man found himself amid an apocalyptic scene once again.
"AHHHH!!!!" He screamed, writhing in the chair. "WHY?!"
"You’re my enemy, you don’t deserve my mercy."
Ryan approached the light and said one last time.
"And it just so happens, that I need to train my Voice of Wrath quite a bit. So it’s better that you don’t die quickly. Who knows, maybe I’ll feel sorry for you and let you go in the end."
Ryan laughed.
"You have people you love, don’t you? Hold on to them. Think that if I end up unsatisfied, maybe I’ll go meet them."
The man’s face contorted in terror.
"Yes, that’s what I want you to feel!"
Ryan grabbed the man’s face.
"Terror, Absolute Terror." He then laughed in his face. "Push your memory a little, who knows, maybe you’ll remember something important, or else accept your fate as a training dummy."
The demonic wolf kept on laughing.
***
"Ryan did it? Great, as expected! I wouldn’t have done anything differently than him." Aron said on the phone. "Ah he’s not my son, but I get excited every time I see him grow up."
Aron laughed in relief, watching his informants die one after another.
The Voice of Wrath grew more powerful.