Chapter 609 - 608- Shaken up
Allen looked utterly spent.
His lips were dry, his eyes bloodshot, and all colour had drained from his face. Every breath came out shallow and uneven while a faint tremor ran through his exhausted body.
Without a second thought, Adrian led him into his workshop and eased him onto a chair.
He poured a glass of water and placed it in Allen’s hands.
"Tell me what happened?"
He had already heard about the incident involving Aries from the instructors who had attended the wedding. During a spar, Allen had somehow injured Aries badly. Whether this had anything to do with that or something entirely different, Adrian couldn’t tell.
"Professor... I need help."
Allen’s voice was hoarse, and the glass trembled violently in his grip.
"I will help you. But first, drink some water so I can give you a potion. You’re in no condition to talk."
As he spoke, Adrian had already retrieved a small vial from his Inventory, ready to hand it over.
Allen obeyed, forcing himself to drink.
Only then did Adrian notice something.
The shaking in Allen’s hands wasn’t born from fear or lack of sleep.
It was exhaustion.
The kind that came from pushing the body far beyond its limits.
"Show me your hand."
Adrian gently took Allen’s free hand and turned it over.
Just as he had suspected.
The palm was covered in raw, burnt calluses. Several had split open, fresh blood still seeping through the torn skin. It looked less like the hand of a student and more like that of someone who had refused to stop training, no matter how much pain it demanded.
"Allen?" Adrian asked, his brows knitting together. "Is this your way of punishing yourself?"
It was an understandable assumption.
Allen had severely injured someone he considered a friend. Anyone in his position would be consumed by guilt.
But to train until he was moments away from collapsing?
That was beyond reason.
"No, Professor. That’s exactly why I came to you." Allen lowered his gaze, his voice carrying a quiet dread. "I’m not forcing myself because of guilt or regret. If anything..." He swallowed hard. "If I had the choice, I would never touch my sword again."
The horror in his voice was unmistakable.
Adrian fell silent.
For a swordsman to utter those words was almost unthinkable.
Allen had always burned with passion for the blade. The battlefield wasn’t merely where he fought. It was where he felt most alive.
Yet now he spoke of abandoning his sword as though it had become something to fear.
The situation was proving far more complicated than Adrian had expected.
"Alright." Adrian steadied his tone, refusing to let Allen’s panic dictate the conversation. "We’ll start from the beginning. But first, drink this potion."
Allen accepted the vial without hesitation and emptied it in a single gulp.
A long breath escaped his lips.
Colour slowly returned to his pale face, and the tightness in his breathing eased. The trembling in his body lessened with each passing second.
He was still far from fully recovered, but compared to the ghost of a young man who had stumbled into the workshop minutes earlier, he finally looked alive again.
"Alright. Now tell me everything from the beginning."
Adrian pulled over a stool and sat across from him, giving Allen his full attention.
Allen drew a slow, steady breath, gathering his scattered thoughts before speaking.
"It started yesterday morning... during a spar with..."
He recounted everything.
From the opening moments of the spar to the strange sensation that overtook him. Every decision, every emotion, every fragment he could remember was laid bare without omission.
He described how events had spiralled beyond his control and how, before he realised what was happening, his blade had come within a hair’s breadth of taking Aries’s life.
If not for the healers’ swift treatment, Allen might have truly taken the life of someone he deeply cared about.
As Adrian listened, a vague possibility began to form in his mind.
It was nothing more than a hunch, too fragile to draw conclusions from.
For now, he needed to hear the rest.
"What happened after that?"
From Allen’s account, the strange dreams had only begun the previous day. Yet in less than twenty-four hours, they had left the young man visibly traumatised.
"I... I kept seeing those visions." Allen lowered his eyes, his voice barely above a whisper. "At first, I didn’t mind them. They were helping me learn techniques I had never seen before." He paused, his fingers curling tightly around the empty vial. "But the destruction I caused in those visions... it wasn’t normal. I could tell those techniques weren’t meant to defeat opponents."
"They were meant to kill."
Adrian slowly chewed on his lower lip, his expression growing thoughtful.
"So you were afraid you’d hurt someone else."
Allen nodded.
"That was part of it." His voice trembled. "But what frightened me even more... was that sometimes..."
He hesitated, as though the words themselves disgusted him.
"...sometimes the thought didn’t seem to bother me at all."
Understanding dawned on Adrian, and his brows rose slightly.
So that was what had shaken Allen to his core.
The visions weren’t merely showing him another person’s memories.
They were making him experience them.
Making him think like someone else.
Making him feel emotions that weren’t his own.
If Allen was telling the truth, then the owner of those memories possessed terrifying skill and viewed killing with unsettling indifference. Every vision left behind more than techniques. It left behind fragments of that person’s mindset.
And those fragments were beginning to seep into Allen’s own.
No wonder he looked so terrified.
He wasn’t just afraid of hurting someone again.
He was afraid that, little by little, he was becoming someone he no longer recognised.
Adrian remained silent for another moment before asking Allen, "Mind if I reach into your mind and see those memories? That way-"
"Yes, yes. Please do so." Allen instantly agreed, offering his both hands, desperation lacing his voice.
Someone agreed to get their memories read...yes, Adrian could see how shaken up the man was.
Without wasting time, he held his hand and dove into his memories.