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When You Give a Man Power
Chapter 41
We both rushed at one another at blistering speeds. My speed was vastly better than a week prior, the constant fighting and training with Selene had elevated me to a far higher level.
I would go so far as to say I was slightly faster than Moria right now as we charged at one another. Something she seemed to notice if the surprised expression she gave was any sign.
Several meters crossed in a fraction of a second before I abruptly stopped relaxing my muscles mid-motion. Moria's eyes widened, lashing out with a roundhouse kick aimed for my temple when she had believed I was going for a telegraphed jab for her throat.
Just when the kick missed I was already at her side throwing punches but instead of straight jabs they were more like whips. They passed through her arms which were desperately brought up in an attempt to block me.
Just like before she had been fed false information. Each punch got a grunt out of her and despite the force of each punch dispersing air around them she was still standing giving me the meanest glare I had ever seen.
“Were it so easy,” I stated. Having backed off, her expression darkened.
At least until she schooled her features which unnerved me. It went from hate so strong it could scar a soul, to a static almost robotic expression not unlike that of a doll. Then a small smile formed.
“You are right. I had made the same mistake my daughters had. Now I am going all out. The stain you have left on my family will be washed away with your life.”
My breath hitched. It felt lodged in my throat with the knowledge of what was coming. It was almost like a phobia for me by this point. Selene had managed to show just how powerful she was, so hearing the words that I dreaded so much that put the fear of god in me almost made me want to run away.
But I didn’t. I didn’t run when this job was dropped into my lap. I didn’t run when the criteria for completion had changed to something I didn’t want to do. I didn’t run when I got put through all of that hellish training.
I wouldn’t be shocked if I felt phantom pain from it for the rest of my life. After all of that like hell I am going to run away now just because this piece of crap was going to hurt me.
“Bring it on. Now I get to embarrass you in front of both your daughters and your people.” My smile was so sharp it could cut durasteel.
Her mouth snapped shut and her body language screamed murder. Her muscles bulged. They expanded almost like something out of Dragon Ball just not as drastic.
Her legs moved then the rest of her followed. Immediately I dropped to the ground a leg sweep zoomed out almost like a break dancer busting a move on the dance floor. Her blurred form stopped faster than the blink of an eye just out of reach.
My momentum continued not letting up while she simply stood there less than impressed. More and more momentum was generated, not letting it dissipate.
Moria after a second more of watching leapt over my attempt to shatter her ankle. She flipped gracefully through the air looking like a tornado. Instead of retreating or avoiding the strike my opportunity had come.
Mid-air she had nowhere to go. An arm broke off from her compact agile form. It almost looked like a shark's fin breaching the surface ready for the kill.
With a final spin, she shot down faster than I could have dodged. The punch would have been a kill shot had it not been for me preemptively pushing myself off the floor.
All that momentum generated now transferred into one leg. Her fist shattered the floor, the stone chipped, and fragmented a meter around her strike. Just when it impacted I made my move.
Never once have I stopped rotating, a spin kick aimed right for her head only to have it blocked at the last second when her other arm braced for the blow.
The blow landed followed by a rush of air that forced the two of us away with a booming crack like a whip had lashed out at the air. Blown back falling into a backwards backflip. Once, twice, thrice then my feet planted on the ground what momentum was left turned me into a top before reasserting my balance, the soles of my feet gripped the floor.
Moria managed to recover her balance mid-air faster than I had hoped, turning the bone-shattering force of the blow into an impressive acrobatic spin. She stuck the landing crouched down.
She lost some points on the landing with her arm hanging loosely brushing the floor. She glanced once at it then at me. Eyes narrowed, pupils almost like slits. Her rage was on full display.
She was embarrassed. She fell for the bait believing my leg sweep was a desperate gamble to keep her at a distance. Sure she might have been able to get passed it but she wanted to show her superiority over me and House Solorok.
So she went for the easier method that would have killed me if not crippled me from the blow had it landed. But that’s the beauty of an attack done from mid-air. Beyond spins or twists, you can’t exactly dodge in a traditional sense.
It’s what let me get the hit off that almost broke her arm. No snap or crack. It vibrated like a rope pulled taut deep inside of her. I could feel that much in the brief moment we touched.
Which is absolutely terrifying, her arm withstood that much force. One of my legs which may as well be a wrecking ball with the power I now could bring to bear.
Don’t get me started on the momentum and force generated either. All of that together should have turned her not into minced meat but paste. No bone, muscle, or organ should have survived much less withstood that blow.
Moria circled me like a wolf probing for any weakness. An opening she could exploit. Her arm dangled around her before she adjusted it so it wasn’t an easy target.
Everything told me it was broken. A part of me wanted to believe it. But another part of me knew deep down it was bait.
One that she seemed to believe would be taken with me confidently watching her. She strode around inching closer. The confidence I felt wasn’t an act either. I managed to clip her wing and fooled her.
To borrow a quote-- if they can be fooled then they could be killed.
What at one time filled me with dread now was something to scoff at ever being afraid of it. Not that I wasn’t wary. My body relaxed then tensed up multiple times within the time frame a few blinks had happened.
Each tension and relaxation of my muscles gave off wrong signals. Moria backed several meters away in a hurry when it seemed like I was going for an axe kick to cave her skull in.
She looked more and more annoyed by the second not helped by the cocky smirk I gave her. Step by step she grew closer. Then it happened.
Like a cord with too much tension, it snapped. My form rushed, moving along a curved angle aimed for her side with the injured arm. Moria for her part turned with me trying to keep the limb out of my reach.
Nearly all my muscles moved with such efficiency that it made me realize how much I had wasted by simply coasting by on my strength being good enough.
She backed up, her body turtled up more defensive looking and vulnerable each second that passed. Her eyes never left my body with signals that made no sense to her.
They did slow my speed and movements down but not as much compared to when I had started developing this when trained under Selene.
But for a Matriarch like Moria who was like a coiled rattlesnake ready for that one strike, she would need to bring me down. I may as well be walking to her compared to if I simply quit tricking her. Which isn’t in the cards. The mixed signals she read off of me were what was keeping me in this fight and my best shot at taking her down.
A regular person wouldn’t even see me coming at this speed. But to her, it was a leisurely stroll. I ran low to the ground before falsely telegraphing a two-fingered hand spear that would shatter a rib and puncture a lung.
Just as my hand shot forward intent to end this her body spun in place. The same motion her injured arm snapped out in a palm strike for my chest to disrupt my heartbeat and breathing.
My other hand came up and blocked hers only for her other hand to grab mine. Moria looked pleased. Then it hit me. There were more layers to this than I had realized. She planned around me seeing through her bluff.
Like a spider's web had multiple layers to it. The first is the most obvious. The second was dangerous since you barely see it or know it was there beyond a few things to show it existed. The third was the most dangerous.
One would think the first two were the only things to concern oneself over only to learn of the invisible noose wrapped around your neck.
She swiftly transitioned into a grapple, legs and arms wrapped around me like an anaconda. Her momentum nearly brought me to the floor.
She wasted no time when her hands, despite appearing small and delicate, grabbed my throat. Any attempt made was futile; her body wrapped around mine enough so any strike wouldn’t have much power to it.
Didn’t stop me from needling her with my elbow or a fist into any part of her that could be hit and would hurt. Moria merely smiled. Like a wolf licking its chops savoring the coming meal.
With both arms pinned down incapable of removing her from my back it was time to flip the script. Gritting my teeth, legs dipping low, her smile dimmed with the sudden movement. A silent question at the tip of her tongue.
An answer shall be given. Launched from the ground like a rocket ship we go higher and higher. Half a dozen meters in the air before gravity reminded us that none shall escape its grasp. We may defy it, but it will always be there to remind us we are forever earthbound.
Moria’s grip hadn’t slackened at all, if anything it got stronger when she bore witness to my plan. It was only when we started falling back down with her positioned to hit first did she try to get off of me.
Only to instead have two hands that may as well be iron vice grips latched onto her ankles. She looked back, her posture furious before it shifted into one of concern at the look I gave her.
I liked to think it was one of malice, revenge, promises of pain to come. For her, it might as well have been madness.
One of the reasons I looked back on why I was able to fend off her daughters so well was that I improvised. Whatever plans that existed beforehand burned to ash and forced me to adapt right then and there.
I didn’t necessarily have a plan and used whatever was at my disposal while it was used in ways that they didn’t think of. I pulled the rug out from under them, flipped the table with the game we were playing then told them the rules had changed.
Now it was up to Moria much like her daughters to figure out the new rules. But that’s the best part. Currently, there are none.
Her hands slammed into my fingers, nearly breaking them but it went ignored. Instead, my legs shot up and wrapped around her torso. The wind rushed past both of us. She hasn’t let up once in her attempt to escape my grasp. Legs, lower back, even my knees.
She snarled up at me hating every moment of this. That was of course until the ground had come to greet us. The floor shattered from the impact, sending pebbles and flakes around us.
Moria wheezed the air driven out of her lungs. Yet despite this, she was still capable enough to pry my grip off of her. Like my early days in Dark Souls, I got too greedy when I tried to get some extra hits in.
Her arms snapped up with each punch blocked far more easily than she had before. With a preternatural flexibility that bordered on the line of impossibility. She maneuvered with deft twists around my punches as if she were a snake dancing to an unknown tune.
She managed to get back up despite my best efforts to stop her. So much for this being finished.
In complete defiance of the absurd noble like grace and skill that would make professional contortionists weep tears of jealousy everything in her body screamed rage and indignation.
When I looked at the veins along her neck and face it showed the molten inferno coursing through them. One eye twitched, breathing unevenly showed her irritation and annoyance at an insect like me having managed to embarrass her.
A casual knowing smirk is all she got. The message was a simple one. I don’t care. You’re beneath me.
Something in her snapped. Her posture goes rigid. Yet I dared not approach her. I was confident before but what I felt made me question if fighting her was ever a good idea. It was like a young deer found itself face-to-face with a wolf. Every hair on my arms and legs felt like it was standing on end.
Drawn out of whatever had taken hold of me when my eye caught movement. Her shoulders sagged. Her breathing was hot and heavy. But her face. That would be ingrained in my subconscious until the day I die.
A shadow had formed over it before she looked up at me. The light of the room revealed the purest form of hate I had ever seen in my life. Her stormy gray eyes looked like a perilous storm with bolts of lightning crashing down.
One moment she was standing there and the next she was right in front of me mid-air. She shared her frustrations with me by slamming her knee right under my chin.
Cracks and chips rattled around in my skull before I was sent flying back. I whirled around and ignored the blood and cuts along my gums and the roof of my mouth, the fragments of my teeth spat out.
My eyes widened in horror when she was below me parallel to my body. A spin kick too fast for me to block hit my right side with a sickening crunch heard loud and clear to both of us.
Her expression turned from absolute cold fury to blissful bloodthirsty joy.
“That’s more like it. Just die for me so that I may save my people.” She said it breathily, like she was in ecstasy enjoying every moment of the look of pain on both my face and the torture my body was subjected to.
White hot pain like getting stabbed with a heated fire poker into my side. If I had endured this before I had trained then it would have incapacitated me. I would be so distracted by the pain I couldn’t even think of defending myself beyond keeping whatever was doing it away.
Right now I have no means to keep her away. Merely grunting with blood flowing out of my mouth, tasting the iron yet no satisfaction could be had when it was my own.
Knocked to the side with her not far behind tucked into a roll with the burning growing but I ignored it. Unless it will kill me it must be ignored. Braced for impact, the ground greeted me.
A wince when my side flared up when my feet met the ground. Faster than a blink of the eye she was upon me. My body was forced to relax to hide my intent. Both hands shot out like missiles, fingers splayed out like forked tongues of lightning.
My fingers aimed for any vital spot to end this fight here and now. Yet to both my horror and surprise she didn’t back away. Instead, she let some of my fingers pierce into her body and warm blood rushed out to greet me.
Yet for the few fingers that managed to pierce her body, none of them were lethal. She had angled her body along with using her forearms to force my hands off course. Arms out of position she goes all in on offense her arms became gatling guns mixed with cannons.
Each punch was like a cannonball slamming into me. Each hit made me want to wince and curl up into a ball. The pain was excruciating. She had to have done at least a dozen punches into my gut.
One punch almost hit my side where the broken rib was. Pivoting on the spot the punch instead became a glancing blow yet it made me hiss as the fire inside grew even more. My entire body felt like one massive bruise. But it didn’t stop me from fighting back.
A kick was intercepted by her leg with what quickly became a series of kicks exchanged with punches mixed in. Merely a few of the many attacks managed to land and those don’t do more than annoy her.
She was a blur but her movements when she could be seen were almost dance-like. Where Solorok's way of fighting was fluid yet rigid, hers was agile yet incredibly flexible.
The former was like a mountain with a winding river moving to and fro. The latter was more like a sandstorm with a tree within it that bends along with the wind.
The gap had become more obvious the longer this fight lasted. My uniform was in tatters. Rips and tears all across it with numerous cuts and bruises all on display.
Yet Moria in comparison had far fewer. But despite that, I felt a bit of pride at managing to harm a notable noble family's Matriarch when they are supposed to be the best their family had to offer. It’s why they are the Matriarch.
Moria didn’t fail to notice the pride I had or where it was coming from. Her eyes narrowed. What had been a satisfied smile believing she had put me in my place turned into a frown.
You honestly believe you are saving your people? I ask through my body.
My stance shifted into the same one used plenty of times against Selene and her family.
She tilted her head at the question, hands raised ready to end this.
My people have stagnated being so isolated. We need to regain who we once were if we are to survive. The Republic has shown that it too has grown weak from this peace that has lasted for so long. We must become powerful again if we are to thrive. We need the Republic to support us so we can use that time to reclaim what we once were.
We must be a part of the greater galaxy. I will herald an age where we will reclaim what our people have lost and move even further beyond them.
She said all of this despite not saying a single word. I could feel the conviction bleed off of her. She fervently believed this. She was even willing to die for it.
I scoffed. That rage in her eyes just grew and grew the longer we stayed in one another’s presence.
We walked around one another like wild animals sizing each other up. Her desire to help her people while noble was ultimately foolish. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together could have told her that war was inevitable with the current state of the galaxy and Republic.
Her best option was to stick with what Selene wanted. To remain isolated and do their own thing while the rest of the galaxy goes on. Her way would at least let their people build up while not getting involved in conflicts that have nothing to do with them.
Have a standing army ready for any visitors. Anyone who comes along with ill intentions speak softly and carry a big painful stick.
We both stopped. Both stared the other down unwavering. You are a fool just like Selene and if we follow your ways we will suffer immensely. We can have an army but what is the point of such a thing when they have no experience in a war?
Seeking a conflict like that would only end horribly. Just look at what became of your daughters when they faced me.
She fell into a stance no longer discussing this. Guess it was a bad idea to remind her of her family getting embarrassed by some nobody like me.
Her eyes turned into slits, her mouth pulled back into a scowl. She seamlessly went from casually standing to a full-on sprint. She ran faster than any car could back in my old life.
She still moved too fast for me to properly keep up with but there was an advantage to be had in her going all in on offense. She had given up trying to read my body when we fought because of me fooling her.
She now relied on her own martial prowess with far more experience than I but it would be incomplete without her ability to read my body. Meaning even if I couldn’t read her when she moved too fast I could still predict where she would be. All I needed to do was something she wouldn’t expect.
A knife hand nearly slammed into my throat but instead of killing me it was blocked in the nick of time. Hand braced against hers with the two of us pushing one another trying to end the fight here and now. I started to push back against her if only slowly with her losing ground.
If she can build up momentum or have enough range of motion in her body she could beat me and hit far harder than I currently can. Like a professional boxer pulling their arm back before attacking. Take that away and they only have a few inches to work with then the punch would not have near enough force or power behind it.
She realized what I was doing and swept a leg out clipping the back of my knee. Brought to a single leg to hold me up she smiled with glee. She brought each leg up into a series of kicks and knee strikes into my face.
One. My nose had blood freely running down it. Two. A crunch was heard when she hit my nose a second time. The pain was so much that it nearly blinded me to the life and death fight I was in. Three. Right into my already shattered teeth further breaking down what was left in my mouth with blood and spit knocked loose into the air and surroundings.
More and more strikes impacted my face and chest incapable of freeing my hands with my brain short-circuiting at what had to have been several concussions. Any thought felt fuzzy like cotton was stuffed into my head.
She wound her leg up with more force than the other times. Both eyes watched with no emotion as the wind whistled past the knee and slammed home right into my forehead.
Then darkness. No thoughts. No pain. Just blissful emptiness in a dark void. Just as quickly as the darkness had come to replace everything a bright light overwhelmed it followed by color then pain.
“Moria of House Atrix has… it would seem the match may not be over.” Aileen’s voice said, sounding amused.
My face felt like it had kerosene poured onto it then set on fire. Blood had hardened onto my upper lip and mouth. My mouth opened with a groan escaping it. The hardened blood chipped and cracked with new rivers freely flowing down once more.
My head snapped at a step not far from me. Moria. Her expression wasn’t one of anger. It looked more like disappointment. My gaze moved past her and I saw Selene and her family.
Selene watched us from afar. Both of her hands balled into fists but there was hope in her eyes. I could see that even from where I lay.
“Corvo Attano, do you yield?” Aileen asked me her voice like a super-heated ice pick in my head. The terrible headache that I had didn’t help. It made each thought slow and sluggish.
It was like watching an old dial-up computer try to do what modern-day computers could.
My head craned to look up at the hologram and I swear I heard a few snaps and pops come from my neck. Couldn’t tell if something was wrong or broken because when everything is in unimaginable pain you can’t tell what is what anymore.
My mouth opened and closed several times. Just doing that made me want to cry from the white hot agony of my jaw and mouth. My jaw was begging me not to open it again. Letting the cool air enter it just reignited the fire inside my mouth from the brief moment I made an impression of a goldfish.
Muscles flexed, sending shivers across my body. Tears threatened to spill out but they were held back. Veins bulged out of my neck from the strain. Moria stared at me with an intense inscrutable gaze.
For a brief moment, I thought of throwing in the towel. But that look she gave me made me pause. I loathed the idea of just giving up. Not when she stood there with a few scrapes when compared to what I endured.
“…no. I…” I paused, turned my head, and spat on the floor. A massive glob of blood hits it with a wet splat. “Refuse. No surrender.” I grit out with a scowl.
Both of the women don’t hide the surprise in their bodies expressions. Aileen even had a bit of respect for me… along with her openly thinking I was insane.
Can’t blame her. With the state my body is in, my odds of winning have all but gone down the drain. But I can’t run. Between my pride and the consequences that will come of it. Moria's family would hunt me down alongside Jabba.
Above all else after everything Moria and her family had done to me, running was never an option. Whatever dread had remained in me evaporated in the fires of my rage. My body tried to get up but I merely fell back with a grunt.
I have one last plan. A plan born of desperation. But it’s the only thing I have by this point. I had hoped my body trick would have gotten me farther than it had but no plan survived first contact with the enemy and all that.
“Very well. This will be your only chance to yield. Since you refuse it will be to the death. Finish it.” She commanded.
Moria wasted no time. She ran forward and went into a front flip. Halfway through her leg extended into an axe kick aimed right for my legs. My breath hitched when the kick connected shattering bone and the floor beneath me.
She takes her time looking at my broken and battered body before gaining a look of satisfaction. Probably the only positive emotion I had seen from her this entire time.
She sashayed over straddling me. A hiss escaped me as she ignited the pain even further. She cooed at me like I was a child she was consoling.
A bloodthirsty smile was all she gave me before a fist hit my head like a sniper round. My head bounced off the concrete ringing before I realized something. One eye only saw darkness.
I hope she just gave me a swollen eye and not the alternative…
Whatever I was about to think of next got scrambled by what had to have been several dozen punches within a matter of seconds. I blacked out multiple times to only be forcefully awoken by my head getting rung like it was a bell.
Black spots began to form at the edges of my only eye. Nearly all of it became darkness before I saw the smile she had. The kind I hated so much all my life. The kind that someone has thinking they have all but won even before the game has ended.
I don’t know what it was but some clarity managed to take root in my mind even with her treating my head like it was a punching bag. Whether it was survival instinct or my rage and hatred of things dealt with in my past it didn’t matter.
What I did was how I was going to win.
After what felt like an eternity she let up on me with my head fallen to the side. One good eye looked up at her with both fists clasped together like she was going to swing a hammer down at me.
An arrogant smile on her face. I grunted and groaned my body fighting me. She paused looking at me confused.
“What was that?” She said to me enjoying the moment. Toying with me before she goes for the kill.
“You… should… use…” Each word was like fighting pushing back against a tsunami just to get it out. My breath came out labored and erratic where each one burned and felt like it may be my last.
“Use what? Maybe crush your throat with my heel? Or maybe gouge out your other eye?” She said playing along, enjoying the moment of her triumph.
In her dreams.
“Your head,” I growled at her.
Before she could voice a question or finish me like she realized she needed to, it was too late. Both hands begged me not but I had to. They reached up, grabbed her by the shoulders, and pulled me with them to Moria's shock and horror to give her the mother of all headbutts.
A loud bang like the sound of a miniature thunderbolt crackled across the massive chamber.
Forehead to forehead we see one another face to face. Close enough that if it wasn’t for the deathmatch we were in it would look like two lovers embracing. Yet all I wanted to do to her was bite down on her face and rip it off.
Her eyes were unfocused and glazed over from the hit with me being not much better yet I somehow managed to keep enough wherewithal to be aware enough to continue. Just when her eyes snapped back to mine, awareness reclaimed her and my head smashed into hers once more.
Her arms fell to her side, and blood trickled down where our foreheads met. I pulled back and hit her again. Inch by inch her body falls back. More and more room is granted to me to continue despite my body and whatever self-preservation instincts I had left begging me to stop.
Inch by inch. Foot by foot. Our positions had reversed with her on the ground and me continuously slamming my head into hers. I didn’t see anything but red and her smiling face. That arrogant smile that my parents had like I was a fool and they knew better.
I don’t know how long this went on. Eventually, it came to a stop when I snapped out of whatever had taken over me. Her body lay on the cold ground with her face bloodied and the skin torn revealing parts of her skull beneath it. Her eyes stared up at the ceiling cold and unmoving.
“Ha.” A bark of laughter escaped me. “Ha ha ha.” It sounded more like the dying wheezes of an old man nearing his end before I fell. The last of my energy spent taking one less asshole out of the world… or galaxy in this case.
Darkness started to take over what was left of what I could see. Everything was blurry besides a few legs hurriedly rushing towards me. Just when they got to me everything went dark. Sweet oblivion had come to take me away from all the pain.
…
Selene watched on in both admiration of Corvo’s dedication and was caught off guard by what she had just witnessed.
He had somehow against all odds managed to beat Moria. Maybe even killed her. She could only hope since it would further ensure her family didn’t rise to power again anytime soon if ever after this.
Moria got arrogant believing she had won. Selene herself even believed it. Her heart sank once she managed to overcome Corvo’s original strategy he had painstakingly worked on when training with her.
Moria was to her own grudging admittance a talent rarely seen among her people. Much like herself and Aileen. It was not enough sometimes for a family to have a long and prosperous history among their people to lay claim to one of the Six Sisters.
One needed capable individuals amongst their family to be capable of holding onto such things and ensuring future generations could at least have a fraction of the power of the greater members of their family's history.
Selene casually looked over towards House Atrix's members. Before they were content enjoying the sight of their mother beating Corvo and making her look weak. Now they couldn’t even hide it even from young children who had just begun training in their arts to see language and emotion through others’ bodies.
Embarrassment. Anger. Above all else sorrow and loss. Selene would bet her entire family’s fortune and future that Moria would be a cripple after this. Like a Pantoran Moon Hawk she flew too close to the great mother star and she was burned.
“Go get Corvo and check on his health and ensure he lives.” She said calmly to the medics on standby who rushed over to the fallen fighters.
They got to work administering first aid to both of them with several of Selene's people staying nearby to ensure no one got any ideas about attempting to have Corvo killed.
“The match is finished. Victory goes to House Solorok with Corvo Attano as their house’s champion victorious over Matriarch Moria of House Atrix.” Aileen’s voice said dramatically.
The many gathered nobles and those who wield power amongst their people clap and applaud the fight. Many of them showed respect to Corvo.
She didn’t blame them. It was one thing to learn what he did in the short time he had stayed with them learning all that he had. He had achieved something no Echani ever had in their history.
He had learned their arts and ways to be capable of holding his own against a talented Matriarch that would have taken others years to achieve. That’s if they had the spark in them to reach such heights. Not all Echani can rise to such levels eventually plateauing sometime in their life.
A limit they had reached. More often one they had imposed on themselves. Some throughout their people's long history believed it was tied to their ancestors and genetics. Selene never trusted such a thing.
Many cases existed with Echani with no notable heritage rising far higher than others amongst their people for thousands of years. They had established families of their own that have stood the test of time. Her family was one such family after all.
In some cases genetics can play a part but it was negligible. It was the will to push beyond one’s limits to climb the mountain before them. Some would even call it madness. But Corvo had the potential and the spark to do just that.
Selene could only sigh at one such as him having such potential but squandering it because he believed there were better ways. That it was beneath him. She could only shake her head at the waste before she turned to Aileen and House Atrix ready to lay claim to what was agreed upon and see this finished.
