Endless Vertex 29 Chapter 28: Coincidence

"Calm down kid, take it easy! I won't leave or anything!" Nam scolded in his old, and now ghostly voice. "And please don't shout randomly or shake the pendant! It feels like an insane rollercoaster in here! Next time, just speak in your mind, or else I might as well go deaf!"

Atlas shook the pendant once more for extra confirmation, pausing immediately after receiving more complaints from Nam. "Copy that sir. Right now, I've got so many questions to ask! Like how do you eat? What do you eat? Do you even eat? Do you breathe?" Atlas rapped out.

"Why are you asking such unimportant stuff?! I do eat and breathe though. In fact, i just had a great meal from that leaf you ate."

"Oh nice. Wait a minute, how did you know I ate a leaf? Were you watching all along?!" Atlas crossed his arms over his chest as if he's just been violated. "Dude! I use the toilet man!"

"Just let me finish explaining everything that happened after your pendant shallowed my soul! Your pendant consumes Spiritual Energy, which explains why it ate me, and that why you did not have Spiritual Energy. It ate yours. If I'm not wrong, you had already begun developing Spiritual Energy when you were a mere Tier 1 Aura User. The pendant suppressed your Spiritual Energy for your whole life, but couldn't contain it as well when you reached to the rank of Tier 10 Zenith. That's why you could activate Spiritual Projection."

Atlas tapped his feet, questioning. "How would you know all that?"

"It's complicated." He imagined Nam sighing. "When I got sucked into your pendant, I entered a whole new realm, a desolated world, and it somehow tolerated my existence. I think it's got something to do with you, Atlas. It was like it recognized me as a friend, and it gave me little information about you and this pendant. I heard you anxious for a vessel when I was in spirit form. The next thing I knew, was that I was in a foreign s.p.a.ce, isolated from the outside world. Atlas, I think that you have the ability to allow the people whom you're close with to enter your pendant. However, I cannot a.s.sure that physical beings can migrate here, because I was in spirit form when I did. From the limited information I received, this pendant is basically a gift from your parents. This pendant, can help you achieve a very high rank of cultivation!"

Atlas remained silent. The joy of reuniting with Nam was drowned with an emotion he can't explain. Bitterness? Disappointment? Frustration? Such irony. The clues to his parents he's been searching for is right before his eyes, yet... He was experiencing an emotion opposite of what he should be feeling. He should be merry! Enthusiastic! Or at least Anxious! Frankly, he was anxious. Just not as tremendous as he imagined himself to be.

[So my parents are, or were, extremely powerful Warriors?] Atlas spoke in his head, awaiting Nam's response. [So what if they created this pendant as a goodbye gift? So what if this pendant can make me strong? Why would they abandon their child? Their child! Am I a burden to them? What situation were they in to desert their child at an orphanage!? Sorry Nam, I don't mean to offend you... It's just...]

Nam observed Atlas through the s.p.a.ce in the pendant, who was now staring solemnly into the empty night sky, and it was exactly like the day baby Qin arrived at his doorstep. Baby Qin was also staring into the stars with his deep, s.p.a.ce black eyes that day. Maybe he wasn't looking at something, but instead searching for someone!

Atlas lay on the gra.s.s groggily. [When did we first meet?]

{17 years ago.}

[More specifically please.]

{I think it was January 17.}

[So you made the day of our first encounter my birthday?]

{Yup.}

Pondering, Atlas remembered something. The calendar he kicked aside back at home. The most recent date on it was 2002 January 17, the day he met Nam. What a coincidence!

[I'm actually really exhausted from that lightning strike. It drained out all my energy. By the way, what was that? Was that like electric superpowers?]

{Lightning Aura is the correct phrasing. The pendant bequeathed you with it. Actually, it's more like returning the ability to you, like how it did with your Spiritual Energy, according to what it's vaguely telling me.}

[I'm a gifted too.] Atlas clenched his fist. [Thanks Nam, I'm really glad you're back.]

{No problem. Let's go pick up that diarrhea colored flower and head home.}

[Sigh. Long time no see and you are still so incompetent at cracking jokes.]

{...}

Atlas glanced towards the auction house, where there were fireworks exploding in the sky to probably entertain the guests. [Guess Vanellope is waiting.]

The pendant lit up one more time before slowly dimming and Atlas suddenly started humming a lovely tune.

{What's the song you're humming? It actually sounds really soothing and nice.}

"Not so sure," Atlas continued humming softly. "It just came about and I really like it."

"I'm so happy you're unscathed." Kristine who was waiting at the entrance hugged Atlas before her face turned tomato red. The journey home was cozy.

A Byzantium-colored Ferrari screeched to a stop before a mansion, backing up into the garage. Kristine and Atlas alighted the vehicle.

The old light bulb in the garage flickered and died out.

"Vanellope, you can go in first. I'll fix the light." Kristine nodded.

[Let me try something.] Atlas concentrated a string of Aura on his finger tip, shooting it at the light bulb. The light bulb lit up the whole room in a second, but shattered with sparks in the next second.

[d.a.m.n, that's an add on to this month's expense. At least I found a way to save electricity bills. Speaking of money, why don't I go check the electric meter?]

Atlas flipped open a closet in the garage to check the electric meter. Dust poured out, so did a sheet of paper.

Atlas picked it up and read. "Year 2001 and 2002. $0 charge? Did no one live here? But there's no way, the calendar I saw proved human activity. It's unlikely for a couple to be bored enough to buy an electric generator. Unless Lightning Aura... But what are the odds?"

While Atlas was lost in his sea of thoughts, Nova was in his room, sleeping peacefully. His Lobaev sniper lay by the desk beside his bed, the ammunition and components stacked orderly.

Across the room was a longer desk, music playing out from an old-fashioned boom box that was right above it. A ca.s.sette tape was inserted into the radio player.

Nova selected a room meant for infants. There were baby toys in the drawers; Teeny tiny clothes in the closet; The walls were painted sky blue; A lone boom box with a ca.s.sette tape on a table with protection stickers on the edges.

The melody playing is instrumental, composed by a flute. Occasionally swift and soothing with a higher tune; Sometimes sedate and thick with lower pitch. Many notes are unexpected, yet they go so well together like bees and honey, sweetening it into the loveliest and most magical musical composure in human history.

For the first time in forever, Nova slumbered through a melody of wonder he unintentionally wandered into that became his auditory remedy.

Constant fighting kept him alert all his bloodshed life, and he could finally drift into sleep in tranquility with the help of this mysterious flute song.

Coincidentally, this flute song, this magical melody, matched the lovely humming of Atlas that suddenly came about from the influence of his pendant.