Chapter 156: Furious Ranting
Chapter 154
"Oh. So that’s what happened." Kai and Van nodded in unison, their expressions shifting as the pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place.
Ray had just finished recounting the bizarre sequence of events detailing how he and Felix had first crossed paths.
He laid out the entire ordeal: the sudden fight that had ensued, the chaotic misunderstanding, the absurd questions the werewolf had peppered him with, and finally, the strange conclusion of the skirmish that resulted in Felix dubbing Ray his new ’brother’.
"You forgot the part where I kicked your ass around," Felix added with a light, mischievous chuckle, leaning back against the wall.
Ray scowled at the werewolf, a flicker of annoyance crossing his face before he pointedly turned his gaze away.
"By the way," Kai interjected, shifting his focus to Ray with a calculating look.
"I was unaware that werewolves possessed the ability to heal others. Is that a common trait among your kind?"
’Neither did I,’ Felix mused inwardly, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinized Ray’s profile.
’What exactly are you hiding from me, brother?’
Ray simply shrugged, his posture radiating a forced nonchalance.
"I guess I’m just built differently."
Noticing the lingering stares of disbelief and suspicion radiating from the others in the room, Ray realized he needed to divert the spotlight away from his own mysterious abilities before Felix started digging too deep.
"Van, do you want to tell us what the hell actually transpired today?" he asked, his voice firm.
Suddenly, the attention of the entire room pivoted back toward the tech guru.
’Phew. Much better,’ Ray thought, feeling a wave of relief.
Currently, Ray had no intention of discussing the intricacies of his system in front of Felix.
Even though the werewolf had fought at their side today, it wasn’t enough to justify divulging his deepest secrets just yet.
He had already trusted Kai and Van with the truth, but they were different cases entirely.
Van was his childhood best friend, making him the most logical confidant.
As for Kai, aside from his consistent support, they had forged a bond in the fires of a life-and-death struggle within the Tier One Gate.
Even today, the fact that Kai had come running to their aid without even being asked further validated and cemented the trust between them.
Felix, however, remained an enigma.
Despite his help, something about the werewolf’s presence still felt slightly off to Ray.
For all he knew, Felix could be a werewolf spy dispatched to the human realm to gather strategic intel.
Feeling the weight of the collective stares fixed on him, Van scratched the back of his head nervously.
He took a deep breath to steady himself, but the action cost him; a sharp jab from his broken rib poked him from the inside, causing him to wince in mild agony before he began his explanation.
He started from the beginning—the complex assignment Elysa had handed out to the class.
That project had been the catalyst that earned him his private workshop and the burgeoning reputation as a ’genius among geniuses.’
From there, he described how the instructor had approached him under the guise of needing assistance with a troublesome tech engine.
While working on the machinery, Van explained how his instincts had begun to tingle, alerting him that something was fundamentally wrong with the situation.
Driven by that nagging suspicion, he had decided to bug the room, where he eventually overheard Bryce Jackson divulging his horrific plans to detonate a nuke in a major city.
Van detailed Bryce’s twisted endgame: the man intended to step in as a Messiah to the survivors after the tragedy he had orchestrated.
As Van spoke, a mask of pure disgust settled over Felix’s features, his stomach churning with a mixture of anger and revulsion.
How cruel could a human truly be?
To contemplate sacrificing thousands of innocent lives just to be hailed as a ’savior’ on par with world leaders was beyond sick.
It was a level of depravity that even the werewolf found difficult to process.
Van concluded his story by explaining his desperate decision to confront them while simultaneously signaling Ray for help.
"... And that’s how it all went down. So you see; I felt forced to do what I did. I truly felt I had no other option."
"You always had an option, you just didn’t want to take it," Ray uttered, his gaze turning icy and cold.
Van lifted an eyebrow, looking confused.
"An option? What other options could I possibly have had in that moment?"
Ray’s frown deepened as he stared at his friend.
"You should have just let them do what they wanted without interfering."
****
"...."
Everyone remained rooted in a heavy, stifling silence for several long moments as they processed Ray’s frigid words.
The air in the room felt thick, charged with a sudden, sharp tension that made breathing feel like a chore.
The first to snap, naturally, was Van.
"Are you insane? You’re saying I should have just stood by and let them do whatever they wanted? Thousands of people would have perished, Ray!"
Ray’s face contorted into a dark scowl, his eyes flashing with a cynical light.
"So? What exactly did those ’thousands’ ever do for you... or for us? Should I remind you of the thousands who were slaughtered when the Aberrants invaded Wall Rose?
Should I remind you of everything we lost in that hell? Should I also remind you how we were treated in the aftermath, like we were nothing but a burden?"
He took a step forward, his voice dropping to a dangerous, low hiss.
"Should I remind you how absolutely no one came to our aid when we were screaming for help?"
Van’s aggressive stance softened slightly as he stared at Ray, his expression shifting from anger to a pained sort of pity.
"But these people are innocent, Ray. They haven’t done anything wrong to us, so why should we be the ones to punish them by doing nothing?"
Ray crossed his arms over his chest, his posture rigid.
"How are they innocent? Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not someone who actively desires to eliminate humanity or see it destroyed. It is useful to me for society to still exist.
But if someone else wants to tear it down, why is it my responsibility to interfere? I’m not some goddamn hero destined to jump headfirst into every single problem thrown at humanity, and neither should you be."
Standing upright with a callous, unwavering expression, Ray glared toward the wall.
"I’m not hustling every single day to grow stronger just to protect the world. I’m growing stronger to eliminate the Aberrants and, most importantly, to protect the few people I actually care about—including you!"
Van wasn’t about to back down.
Despite the sharp, protesting stabs of pain from his torso, he sprang to his feet to meet Ray’s gaze.
Felix and Kai remained in the periphery, quietly observing the heated exchange without uttering a single word.
"Should I remind you that I helped create that nuke?!" Van shouted, his voice cracking with emotion.
"If anything happens to those people, how do you expect me to live with myself? How can I wake up every morning knowing that I’m the cause of countless deaths?"
"Were you even aware that you were creating something so disastrous? You were manipulated, Van; that’s not a strong enough point to justify a suicide mission," Ray refuted coldly.
Van swung his hands through the air, his movements frantic and frustrated.
"That doesn’t matter! I still provided the expertise to build it, so in the eyes of the law and my own conscience, I’m an accomplice. I needed to stop them right then and there—"
"Yet you failed," Ray uttered with a cold, sharp breath that seemed to sap the warmth from the room.
Van froze, his entire body going still.
"Wha—?"
Ray uncrossed his arms and leveled a finger directly at Van’s chest.
"I said you fucking failed! What was the point of putting yourself in mortal danger when the outcome of your actions was unsuccessful, huh?
You could have been a corpse on that floor if I had been even a single minute late! You threw your life away to secure that nuke, yet I don’t see it anywhere in this room. They freaking got away with it, and they will still carry out their plans exactly as they intended."
Ray paused, his chest heaving as he glared deep into Van’s eyes, searching for something.
"... What now, huh? What will you do now? You need to get this through your damn thick skull.
If you had died—let’s say you even secured the nuke but died in the process—who would have known? Tell me, which of these people you are so desperate to save would ever know of your sacrifice?"
"...."
"No one," Ray replied to his own question, the silence that followed being even more deafening.
"They will all continue living their lives happily, completely ignorant of your sacrifice, while I will be left living with the crushing burden of your death.
I will be sad and shattered while the people you saved are out partying like there’s no tomorrow. Then what will be my condition, Van? What becomes of me?"
The Tribrid’s eyes grew moist, his voice cracking as he vented the raw, angry energy he had been suppressed.
"Whether you realize this or not, you are my last anchor in this gloomy, miserable world. And if something happens to you, I promise you this: I will burn the entire universe down, and those people you want to protect so badly will be the first to go."
Ray’s eyes shined with an intense, predatory light for a moment as he spat that out.
The whole room became deathly silent, resembling a graveyard as no one dared to interrupt Ray’s visceral rant.
Seeing that nobody had anything left to say, the boy turned around and began walking toward the exit with heavy, echoing footsteps.
"Get some rest. All of you. Tomorrow, I will give you both your healing dosage to get you through the day’s training sessions so you can eventually visit the clinic for proper care without raising suspicion."
He reached for the handle and pulled the door open when Kai’s voice finally called out to him.
"And where exactly are you headed at this hour?"
"To clear my head."
With that final, clipped response, he walked out, and the door shut behind him with a resonant, final click.