Note: Don't Forget to join my Pãtreon/flokixy to get access to +40 Advance Chapters or unlock the full story from the shop support so I can bring more Chapters for you
Illumi's palm slowly rose, the sphere in his hand falling into the dish, bouncing lightly like a small rubber ball.
"Is there something wrong with my aura?"
Illumi looked at the aura sphere placed in the dish, then raised his head to look at his grandfather, Zeno Zoldyck. The latter was frowning, his left hand pinching the whiskers on his lip, silent.
Suddenly, Zeno Zoldyck also raised his hand, palm open. A large amount of purple aura surged from his body, instantly converging into a purple sphere.
"See for yourself."
Zeno Zoldyck stood up, gave a light toss, and sent the aura sphere in his palm towards the one in the dish. The purple aura sphere floated through the air at an extremely slow speed towards Illumi's aura sphere.
The moment the two aura spheres touched, Illumi's eyes narrowed.
Hiss!
The white aura sphere in the dish abruptly turned black. The sphere then directly transformed into a giant mouth filled with sharp teeth, instantly swallowing Zeno Zoldyck's purple aura sphere. After swallowing the purple sphere, it instantly reverted to its original appearance, as if nothing had happened.
"See it?" Zeno Zoldyck sat back down on the stone stool, looking at the motionless aura sphere in the dish, and spoke.
"Your aura has very strong aggression. Not only that,"
"I suspect... it has consciousness."
Zeno Zoldyck's words made Illumi's eyes go blank. "Aura... having consciousness."
"Is that possible?"
Illumi also looked at the aura sphere in the dish, but something bizarre had indeed just happened. His aura had actually taken the initiative to devour someone else's aura.
"Didn't you see it?"
"That mouth."
Zeno Zoldyck once again condensed a thin, needle-like serpent of aura from his fingertip, which slowly slithered through the air towards the aura sphere in the dish.
Swish!
The aura sphere suddenly transformed into a black orb. An eye opened on it, an eye that covered almost the entire surface of the sphere. And the most peculiar thing was, its eye was crimson.
It glanced at the serpent condensed from Zeno's fingertip, its eye curving upwards into a crescent moon, giving off an extremely malicious, mocking expression.
"It's looking down on me?" Zeno Zoldyck's frown deepened. With his temper, how could he allow an aura sphere to look down on him? He immediately intensified the aura gathering at his fingertip. The small serpent instantly transformed into a giant purple python, opening its "bloody maw" to swallow the black orb.
Sensing that powerful aura, Illumi's pupils instantly constricted. Swish! He vanished from his spot.
Hiss!
The giant python hissed, crashing towards the stone table at extreme speed. With a loud boom, the stone table instantly shattered into pieces, kicking up a large cloud of dust. Chunks of broken stone flew out from the pavilion.
One stone shot out from the dust cloud, heading straight for Illumi.
Clap!
Just as Illumi was about to shatter it, an arm reached out in front of him and caught the stone. It was King Bradley.
Thud. Zeno Zoldyck performed a backflip in the air, landing beside Illumi, and glanced at King Bradley next to him.
"Watch carefully."
Zeno Zoldyck spoke, his eyes still fixed on the pavilion. The dust cloud inside slowly dissipated, revealing the wrecked pavilion and the black aura, which had been annihilated down to a piece no longer than a finger.
Hiss hiss~
The finger-length piece of black aura struggled on the ground like a snake, then, like a cobra, it raised its "head." Swish! It suddenly lunged towards Zeno, but dissipated abruptly in mid-air as it rushed towards him.
"Your aura is just that kind of strange and dangerous thing." Zeno seemed to let out a sigh of relief, patted the dust off his clothes, and looked at Illumi without joy or sorrow, saying, "Figure it out yourself. Don't just casually leave your aura in other people's cups anymore."
After speaking, he turned to leave. After a few steps, he paused, turned back, and said, "Right, that stone table was worth one hundred thousand Jenny. Remember to buy me a new one of equivalent value."
A bunch of black lines appeared on Illumi's head. You clearly broke it yourself! But he didn't dare say it out loud.
After Zeno Zoldyck left, Illumi stood in place. After a moment of silence, he raised his right hand again, palm open, and an aura sphere converged in his palm.
"No reaction?" Illumi looked at the aura sphere in his hand. He had seen it just now – the crimson eye and the giant toothed mouth that appeared on the black orb. He knew very well what that was.
"Does it only appear when there's other aura?" Illumi condensed an aura sphere no smaller than the one in his right hand from the fingertips of his left hand and tossed it into his right palm.
"Still no reaction." The two aura spheres lay closely together in his right palm. Neither sphere reacted; neither transformed into a black orb.
"Bradley, you try." Illumi looked at King Bradley standing beside him and instructed.
King Bradley glanced at Illumi, frowned, and extended his own left hand towards the aura sphere in Illumi's palm.
Swish!
Just as King Bradley's left fingertips were about to touch the aura sphere, it abruptly transformed into a black orb, opening its giant, fanged mouth to bite his left hand.
Pfft!
With a soft sound, the giant mouth formed by the black orb bit down on King Bradley's five left fingers and suddenly stopped its devouring motion. An eye suddenly appeared on the black orb's surface, eyelid opening to reveal a crimson eyeball, looking at King Bradley with a sickening emotion. The giant mouth opened, spat out King Bradley's left hand, and reverted to its white aura sphere appearance.
"It doesn't react to me, but it reacts to you." Illumi looked at the aura sphere in his hand, then at King Bradley, his brow slightly furrowed.
"Logically speaking, you are both formed from the aura within my body; there's no fundamental difference."
"Perhaps it doesn't react to me because I am the master."
"But it stopped its action the moment it bit you."
Bradley looked at his own left hand. There were no injuries, not even a trace of having been bitten. After a moment of silence, he said gravely, "It's not because of the aura. It's because he and I share the same origin."
"What?" Illumi frowned and asked.
"We are brothers." King Bradley clenched his fist, feeling the realness of the touch. A red gleam lit up in his crimson left eye as he said, "I understand now."
Illumi retracted the aura sphere from his palm. Brothers. It seems that black orb truly is Pride. I just don't know why he can manifest directly through Illumi's aura.
"Eager to be born?"
"Actively devouring others' aura, is it trying to strengthen itself prematurely?"
"I didn't allow him to be born, how exactly was he formed? Could it be my own doing?"
Thinking this, Illumi realized he had never actually looked at the emotional smoke surrounding his own body. This piqued his curiosity. He wanted to see what kind of evil deeds enveloped him.