Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 106: Many Emotions

Stanley was all alone in the dark tunnel as the words in his head got louder by the second. Now that the adrenaline from anger had disappeared, a single sense of hopelessness filled him entirely.

His mother had died 6 months ago to the Crawlers and he had only just recently gotten over her death. He had fought the Crawlers for her and killed so many of them just less than an hour ago.

And now... all the happiness he had felt at the time had vanished, overshadowed by the deep sense of loss he felt right now over his brother’s death.

At least when his mother had died, he had fallen unconscious mere moments later. But now, he had to stay awake and alert as he consumed every single feeling that he felt.

And all the feelings he felt consumed him as well.

He felt the walls of emotion that he had a cave in on him and collapse around him as he was buried in it. Burdened by the many emotions, He chose to focus on the only one that stood out to him the most.

Sadness.

Sadness at the death of his brother. Sadness at the loss of his last living relative. Sadness at the fact that he was all alone now.

Sadness at the fact that he wanted to meet them all again and he was willing to do anything to do, even if it meant dying to do so.

What else could he really do but that? Overwhelmed by the sadness, the only thing that could get stop it all for him right now was if there was nothing to stop.

There was no way he would feel sad if he wasn’t here, right?

He started sniffling again as the tears started pouring out of his sockets again. The sadness only got bigger when he realized that he did not want to live in this world where both his mother and brother were no longer living.

Death was the only way out for him right now, to get out of this landslide of emotion he was caught under.

He reached for the sword on his back, but it wasn’t there. He was confused for a second before remembering where it was.

"Oh," he thought. He had dropped it outside the room where his brother had been stabbed by the mayor.

He was so useless right now that he couldn’t even take his own life.

His hand balled into a fist as he punched himself. One punch to the face, another to the other side of the face. He punched himself multiple times and soon started hearing the voices in his head that he couldn’t prove was not a hallucination.

"Host cannot be healed. Varinox is running low. Please restock your supply of Varinox at the nearest Varinox facility."

Stanley paused at the voice. "What are you?" he couldn’t help but shout at the voice, but he got no answer. He slumped back on the wall and started crying once again as he came to the understanding that this was not it.

This was not the way to kill himself at all. All he was doing right now was causing himself pain, which for some reason felt good at the moment.

He huffed a bit and tried to calm down. Doing so only brought back the pain of his brother’s loss. He clutched his chest in pain as it hurt so very much.

He had felt this level of sadness for his mother’s death as well, but the sadness at that time stemmed from his guilt over not being able to save her.

This time, his brother was wounded from the very start. There was no saving him from the wounds on his own, so Stanley had done the best he had. But... he had still lost his brother to the mayor.

He clutched his chest even hard, his fingers tearing into the leather, scratching the skin underneath. He felt a sudden jolt of pain, a pain that reminded him of the time that he thought he had hallucinated.

In the mansion, in the darkness when he was still in a coma, he had heard a girl’s voice. A girl who had been ready to relieve him from the pain he had felt at the time of losing that girl.

He had been ready to die at that time too, hadn’t he? Even if was just in his mind as they had said, he had been ready to die, and yet... he hadn’t died. He had not wanted to die at the time.

At that time, he had wanted what he knew deep in his heart he wanted right now as well.

He wanted revenge. He wanted to get revenge against the person that had wounded his brother. Since he didn’t know who that was just yet, he wanted the next best thing.

He wanted revenge against the mayor that had killed his brother. The same mayor that had said that he was going to make his brother the next mayor.

Why had he killed him? What was the purpose?

’I should be able to save you, but honestly, that’s a lot of work.’

Stanley remembered the old man’s words as he had stabbed his brother in the chest.

"He... he could’ve saved my brother," Stanley thought for a moment, his emotion not shackling him at the moment. "But he didn’t... why?"

"Why?" he couldn’t help but try to find an answer, but he couldn’t think of any.

Confusion turned into anger slowly as his emotions all slowly switched sides. He ignored the pain he felt in his face from punching himself, but it became hard to ignore the constant sounds that stupid thing made in his mind.

"Shut the fuck up about Varinox!" he shouted at the noise in his head. At the same time, he saw a pair of feet step next to him.

He looked up to see a slightly surprised-looking Sheila staring with a confused expression on her face. She opened her mouth slowly and asked a single question.

"How... do you know about Varinox?"