The Awakening

'Brother you really are hopeless.' A familiar voice laughed in Peter's mind.

Peter's eyes widened from hearing his deceased brother's voice in his head so suddenly. He sensed around with the last ounces of energy but he couldn't sense a single life form in the area apart from Evan's Gang that were still walking away.

Was he going crazy?

'No stupid brother. I'm in your head.' Noah's voice echoed, as if answering his exact thoughts.

'Come on Peter, fix up. you're going crazy. I'm going mental!' Peter tried to tell himself to focus.

'No you're not going mental. It's really me!' Noah replied.

'It must be brain damage.'

'You still haven't changed I see, you're as cautious and logical as ever. It's fine; we'll talk later. I'll be taking over for a bit so sit tight and watch… I need to take care of some things.' Noah's voice dropped an octave as he spoke the last few words.

Suddenly, dark smoke started appearing from Peter's body as the injuries stained on him were disappearing. His ribs popped back together and the blood all over his body dissipated. His whole body had been purified from his head to his toe. The only thing that could be seen was a Purplish dark Glow appearing around his body like some sort of aura.

'What's happening?! I can't feel anything. I can't move!' Peter panicked as he was surrounded by darkness and also being unable to move or feel anything.

'Relax. We switched control. I'll explain everything after, just sit tight and wait… Little Brother.' Noah said as he had finally achieved full control over Peter's body.

He stood up and removed the bandage around Peter's eyes.

Two Purple irises with hints of gray appeared brightly as he opened his eyes.

A burst of different objects all in a foggy gray color invaded the darkness that Peter was used to his whole life and he could see the blurry outlines of different objects around him.

'Wait. I CAN SEE!' Peter was confused about what was happening. He wasn't in control of his body, instead he was watching through his body's eyes as his brother was moving around in his body without his control.

'This is not how the world looks brother; it's not gray and dark. The world is much more beautiful and colorful.' Michael knew Peter was blind and this was his first time seeing something even if everything was in gray and black.

It was good that he could see things around him in a 10 meter radius. It seemed that his vision only spanned to 10 meters, after that there was only Darkness. His field of view was blurry and objects like dust bins came out gray without color with poor resolution.

The world looked extremely dull through these eyes but Noah still thanked that he could at least see a little, otherwise he didn't know how he was going to fight in this body.

'It feels good to be back. However, things have only begun…'

A burst of mana ruptured from Peter's body and dark smoke danced around Peter's feet waiting to jump at a prey. He closed his eyes momentarily, scanning around for the mana pressures of the 6 boys and when he had found them, he opened his eyes again like he had just found his prey.

Mana pressure is a force a cultivator releases subconsciously. It's proof that they're cultivators. Experienced cultivators can even tell how strong the others are by scanning their mana cores or just from their mana pressures.

Noah cracked his neck left and right before exploding into a sprint.

'This body is amazing!' He smiled, running as fast as an Olympic sprinter.

The gang of boys came into view; 6 dull and gray figures walked along giggling.

Noah appeared behind one of them, shrouding his fist with Darkness Magic and punching one in the back. The force sent the boy catapulting into a wall.

The others turned around in fear, feeling the sudden powerful presence.

"What the-"

They were all baffled and shook with fear as they couldn't figure out how that cripple had turned into this monster.

Noah's killing intent seeped out and he stared at them with his lifeless purple eyes. Adding, the darkness mana trickling around his body, he indeed looked like a monster.

"How dare you hurt my brother?" Noah's voice sounded domineering and filled with an oppressive pressure. They 6 boys could do nothing but freeze in fear.

In an instant Noah had already made it in front of the blonde haired leader and corkscrew punched him in the chest. The sounds of a rib cage shattering echoed as he was also sent flying back.

The other boys finally regained the will to fight back but for some reason they couldn't move.

'Darkness Entrapment'

Noah's incantation caused the shadows under the 4 boys' feet to turn completely black, restricting their movements.

"If you or anyone else ever dares to approach my brother ever again. I'll rip your hearts out." Noah glared at them still releasing his immense killing intent.

The frozen boys could do nothing but pee their pants and cry in fear at the peculiar being in front of them.

'That was amazing!' Peter commented feeling how it felt to be the one in power for the first time in his life.

Noah walked away from the site of the attack, unbeknownst to the fact that someone was watching this all unfold with wide eyes of surprise.

"Interesting."

**

Finally at home, Peter could, at last, have a talk with his brother. He was convinced that it was actually his brother after watching everything Noah had done with his body.

He had tried calling out his brother after the incident but it looked like Noah had left as abruptly as he arrived.

'Noah. Can you hear me?' Peter thought but there was no answer.

After a couple seconds of silence, a response finally resounded in his head.

'That was refreshing. I had to restore my mana reserve before talking to you. Yes I can hear you.' Noah finally replied.

'What do you mean mana reserve?'

'Why do you think you've been stuck at the First Novice Stage for so long. The stigma is also a mana reserve, there needed to be a certain amount of mana to awaken me.'

'So all that mana I absorbed, it was used to awaken you?'

'Yeah basically.'

'What about this stigma? Why did I even receive it and is there a way for you to come back to life?' Peter's eyes beamed with hope.

'No, it's unlikely. I honestly don't know everything about stigmas and why you received one, but I did learn a couple things about it. I am now going to tell you what happened after my death, so listen well…'

Peter nodded, listening attentively to Noah's explanation.

'After my death, I was surrounded by darkness in some sort of infinite void. However several different coloured lights popped into my view. I won't tell you the colors cause you won't recognize them but all you need to know is those lights transformed into people-'

'People?!' Peter frowned.

'Yeah. I had a brief conversation with them and it turns out they were the previous owners of the stigma that's been bestowed on you. They all had different elements: Lightning, Darkness, Fire, and some other elements. The stigma's power will allow you to use your predecessor's power. For you, this will be life-changing as you have the perfect vessel to support different elements - a body that harbors no element.'

'After the conversation, I received a small portion of all of their combat experiences as memories and fell into a deep slumber. This probably happened around the time you broke into the first stage of the Novice Rank. I believe every time you break into a new Rank, we will uncover more about the stigma you were bestowed.

'However, your desperate emotions slowly began to wake me up from my hibernation. That was when I fully woke up. I went through your memories brother, You're very strong. I look up to you a lot.' Noah said, in a solemn tone.

This made Peter smile and bursts of joy filled him. Not only was his brother back but he was no longer going to be a cripple.

'At the moment the stigma is at its weakest level and we can only use the Darkness Element. We should be able to use other elements as your cultivation reaches a higher stage and you unshackle the limiters placed on your body. One of them is your vision, it seems.' Noah explained.

Peter looked around with his glowing Purplish grey eyes, only seeing the dull and grey outline of objects closest to him.

'I should also warn you that every time my consciousness awakens, I will be tapping into the Stigma's mana reserves. Once that's depleted I will fade again till more mana accumulates in the stigma.

'However, don't worry about that too much. We should test the limits of your body, or rather I should see how much power your body can withstand. Your cultivation is very low right now. So finish off schoolwork and meditate. Then I can test your body's combat prowess. I can't wait…' Noah smiled.